As he spun and backtracked toward the front of the stall, Laila dragged in a deep but silent breath. The next ten seconds might determine if she lived or died.
The thought had barely buzzed through her brain when he grabbed her fingers, still clutching the top of the stall, then latched onto her arm and gave it a vicious yank. She fell off the toilet and stumbled face first into the metal wall. Trees’s hat fell to the tile as Victor dangled her off the floor by her arm. She struggled to get her feet under her, fearing he would pull her shoulder from its socket.
Then abruptly, he let go. Her backside landed on the hard tile floor.
As she scrambled to stand, he appeared in the door of her stall, his dark expression straight from hell. She tried to retreat but had nowhere to go. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and used it to tug her against him, wrapping an arm around her body and pressing her close.
He was hard.
Victor sucked in a hissing breath as he rolled his erection against her. “You know I love it when you fight. Keep it up. It will only make your punishment sweeter.”
He meant more painful. In the past, she would have lowered her head, promised to be good, and endured whatever he dished out, hoping she would live another day. Hector hadn’t been quite as sadistic and had sometimes curbed his brother’s darker impulses. But last year, Hector had moved to the States and taken an American wife. Laila felt sorry for the woman. Marriage to Hector must be like something out of a horror movie.
And what was being captive to Victor?
A terrifying level of hell—one she hated to endure again.
She hadn’t fought back in years, not since that first awful time. She’d buried the horrifying night in the back of her brain and tried to forget…but she never had. She refused to let him take her again. She would rather die here than endure more of his torture.
He rubbed against her. “I missed you, chiquita.”
No, he missed his morning blow jobs. He missed the demeaning way he’d fucked her in front of his friends just to prove he could. He missed being able to roll over in the middle of the night and use her at his whim. He cared nothing about her.
She stared back, stone-faced.
“Cat got your tongue? It doesn’t matter. It’s not your tongue I want now.” Still gripping her hair, he spun her around to face the bathroom sink and forced her to bend over until her forehead smacked the counter. Then he shoved her shorts around her thighs and lowered his zipper.
Her fight instinct surged.
Laila kicked back blindly, ramming her foot into his knee. He cursed and released her, but his body still blocked the exit. She grabbed a palm full of liquid hand sanitizer from the nearby dispenser. The sterile stench of rubbing alcohol made her queasy.
When she turned back to Victor, he prowled toward her again, his glare promising retribution.
She flicked the clear liquid gel from her fingertips—right into his eyes.
He backed away with a curse. “Bitch!”
Laila sidestepped him, pulling up her shorts with one hand and reaching for the door with the other.
Before she could grab on, Victor seized her arm cruelly and flung her against the nearest bathroom stall, his eyes red like a demon as he curled his fist threateningly above her face.
She braced. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d used her for a punching bag, but she swore it would be the last.
Then she realized she had a self-defense mechanism she’d never had in her brother-in-law’s compound of horrors. And she smiled.
Right before she screamed.
Victor cursed and slapped a hand over her mouth, but she bit him and jerked away. He went for her throat then, gleefully squeezing tight to strangle her cry and cut off her air.
Her eyes bulged. Her lungs burned. Had she made a huge mistake in trying to enlist the hotel’s guests or employees? Maybe no one had heard her. Or maybe no one cared that Victor might strangle her and leave her body here to rot. If that happened, would her sister ever know how she had died? Would Valeria ever be safe?
Laila kicked and scratched, but Victor dodged her, his face telling her that he was enjoying snuffing out her life one agonizing, suffocating second at a time.
Suddenly, the bathroom door slammed against the wall, and Victor was ripped away from her with an inhuman snarl.
Laila gasped in a burning draft of air as the sound of knuckles impacting bone filled her ears. A fist ramming into a face? Someone grunted. She blinked until her vision focused again.
And she saw Trees, holding Victor by the throat, against the bathroom wall, about five inches off the ground.
“Are you all right?” he barked her way.
Already the monster who had terrorized her for years had a swelling eye and wore a half-dazed expression.
Laila couldn’t speak. Trees had come for her?
“Yes or no?” He looked her up and down as if trying to answer the question himself.
While she struggled to find her voice, Victor reached into his pocket and drew out a sharp, serrated blade.
She didn’t stop to think about who she could trust, just pushed aside cold fear and screamed. “Trees!”
He jerked his gaze back to Victor just in time to leap away from the blade headed right for his ribs.
Trees banged her nemesis against the tiled wall again. On impact, his skull cracked in a horrifying thud. While he reeled, Trees plowed his fist into Victor’s nose. Her assailant’s eyes rolled to the back of his head.
When Trees let go and reached for her, Victor fell to the floor in an unconscious heap.
She looked up at her rescuer incredulously. “What are you doing here?”
“Did he hurt you?”
Laila stood mute. She’d never, ever seen anyone get the best of Victor. Not once. Not even Emilo. But this giant man who claimed to be her savior—albeit temporarily—had squashed him like a bug.
“Not much.”
“Is that Victor?”
“Yes.” Her voice sounded terrified, even to her own ears.
He scooped up the fallen knife and pocketed it, then settled Victor’s unconscious form on the nearest toilet, cuffing his wrist to the flushing mechanism and shutting the stall door. “I’d love to kill the son of a bitch, but dead bodies raise too many questions. We need to go.”
Now? Without calling the police? Then again, he probably wanted to avoid them. She certainly didn’t want to stay in this city another minute. Nor did she want to answer an officer’s probing questions. Maybe Trees didn’t, either.
She just wanted as many miles between her and the Ramos brothers as she could get.
“C’mon. I’ll get you out of here safely.”
She hated to put her trust in this operative she barely knew, who had been at least partially responsible for the violation of their safe houses, who had taken her without her consent…but she had exhausted her options—and herself—tonight. If she wanted to avoid Victor and his wrath, she had to rely on Trees.
“Can you?” She wasn’t sure. Trees had committed violence, so the hotel might have called the police. Or what if Victor’s right hand was lying in wait to end them with a couple of bullets? Did they have any chance at all of leaving here?
“We’re going to try.” Trees took her hand. “Let’s go.”
Laila looked shaken and terrified, like she was holding herself together through sheer will. “All right.”