cut, and stared mockingly at her breast.
The prick from the knife stung. She ground her teeth together. What had she been thinking? He wasn’t going to free her. He was going to torture her! She felt sick unto death with fear as she looked up into his eyes and realized that he was enjoying both her shame and her fear.
In fact, he laughed. He went back and locked the door. “We don’t need to be disturbed, do we?” he purred as he walked back toward her, brandishing the sharp knife. “I have looked forward to this all the way from Texas…”
Her eyes closed. She said a last, silent prayer. She thought of Micah, and of Jack. Her chin lifted as she waited bravely for the impact of the blade.
There was a commotion downstairs and a commotion outside. She’d hoped it might divert the man standing over her with that knife, but he was too intent on her vulnerable state to care what was going on elsewhere. He put one hand on the back of the chair, beside her head, and placed the point of the knife right against her breast.
“Beg me not to do it,” he chuckled. “Come on. Beg me.”
Her terrified eyes met his and she knew that he was going to violate her. It was in his face. He was almost drooling with pleasure. She was cold all over, sick, resigned. She would die, eventually. But in the meantime, she was going to suffer a fate that would make death welcome.
“Beg me!” he demanded, his eyes flashing angrily, and the blade pushed harder.
There was a sudden burst of gunfire from somewhere toward the front of the house. Simultaneously, there was shattering glass behind the man threatening her, and the sudden audible sound of bullets hitting flesh. The man with the knife groaned once and fell into a silent, red-stained heap at her feet.
Wide-eyed, terrified, shaking, Callie cried out as she looked up into a face completely covered with a black mask, except for slits that bared a little of his eyes and mouth. He was dressed all in black with a wicked looking little machine gun in one hand and a huge knife suddenly in the other. His eyes went to her nicked breast. He made a rough sound and kicked the man on the floor aside as he pulled Callie up out of the chair and cut the bonds at her ankles and wrists.
Her hands and feet were asleep. She almost fell. He didn’t even stop to unfasten the gag. Without a word, he bent and lifted her over his shoulder in the classic fireman’s carry, and walked straight toward the window. Apparently, he was going out it, with her.
He finished clearing away the broken glass around the window frame and pulled a long black cord toward him. It seemed to be hanging from the roof.
He was huge and very strong. Callie, still in shock from her most recent ordeal, her feet and hands almost numb, didn’t try to talk. She didn’t even protest. If this was a turf war, and she was being stolen by another drug lord, perhaps he’d just hold her for ransom and not let his men torture her. She had little to say about her own fate. She closed her eyes and noticed that there was a familiar smell about the man who was abducting her. Odd. He must be wearing some cologne that reminded her of Jack, or even Mr. Kemp. At least he’d saved her from the knife.
Her wounded breast hurt, where it was pressed against the ribbed fabric of his long-sleeved shirt, and the small cut was bleeding slightly, but that didn’t seem to matter. As long as he got her out of Lopez’s clutches, she didn’t really care what happened to her anymore. She was exhausted.
With her still over his shoulder, he stepped out onto the ledge, grasped a thick black cord in a gloved hand and, with his rifle leveled and facing forward, he rappelled right out the second-story window and down to the ground with Callie on his shoulder. She gasped as she felt the first seconds of free fall, and her hands clung to his shirt, but he didn’t drop her. He seemed quite adept at rappelling.
She’d read about the Australian rappel, where men went down the rope face-front with a weapon in one hand. She’d never seen it done, except on television and in adventure movies. She’d never seen anyone doing it with a hostage over one shoulder. This man was very skillful. She wondered if he really was a rival drug lord, or if perhaps he was one of Eb Scott’s mercenaries. Was it possible that Micah would have cared enough to ask Eb to mount her rescue? Her heart leaped at the possibility.
As they reached the ground, she realized that her rescuer wasn’t alone. As soon as they were on the ground, he made some sort of signal with one hand, and men dressed in black, barely visible in the security lights dotted along the dark estate, scattered to the winds. Men in suits, still firing after them, began to run toward the jungle.
A four-wheel-drive vehicle was sitting in the driveway with its engine running and the backseat door open, waiting.
Her rescuer threw her inside, climbed in beside her and slammed the door. She pulled the gag off.
“Hit it!” he bit off.
The vehicle spun dirt and gravel as it took off toward the gate. The windows were open. Gunfire hit the side of the door, and was returned by the man sitting beside Callie and the man in the front passenger seat. The other armed man had a slight, neatly trimmed beard and mustache and he looked as formidable as his comrade. The man who was driving handled the vehicle expertly, dodging bullets even as his companions returned fire at the pursuing vehicle. Callie had seen other armed men in black running for the jungle. She revised her opinion that these were rival drug dealers. From the look of these men, they were commandos. She assumed that these three men were part of some sort of covert group sent in to rescue her. Only one person would have the money to mount such an expedition, and she’d have bet money that Eb Scott was behind it somehow. Micah must have paid him to hire these men to come after her.
If he had, she was grateful for his intervention, although she wondered what had prompted it. Perhaps his father had persuaded him. God knew, he’d never have spent that sort of money on her rescue for his own sake. Her sudden disappearance out of his life would have delighted him.
She was chilled and embarrassed, sitting in her underwear with three strange men, but her clothing had been ripped beyond repair. In fact, her rescuer hadn’t even stopped to grab it up on his way out of the room where she was being held. She made herself as inconspicuous as possible, grateful that there was no light inside the vehicle, and closed her eyes while the sound of gunfire ricocheted around her. She didn’t say a word. Her companions seemed quite capable of handling this new emergency. She wasn’t going to distract them. If she caught a stray bullet, that was all right, too. Anything, even death, would be preferable to what she would endure if Lopez regained custody of her.
Half a mile down the road, there was a deep curve. The big man who’d rescued Callie told the man in front to stop the vehicle. He grabbed a backpack on the floorboard, jumped out, pulled Callie out, and motioned the driver and the man with the beard and mustache to keep going. The big man carried Callie out of sight of the road and dashed her down in the dark jungle undergrowth, his powerful body lying alongside hers in dead leaves and debris while they waited for the Jeep that had been chasing them to appear. Thorns dug into her bare arms and legs, but she was so afraid that she hardly noticed.
Suddenly, the pursuing Jeep came into sight. It braked for the curve, but it barely slowed down as it shot along after the other vehicle. Its taillights vanished around the bend. So far, so good, Callie thought, feeling oddly safe with the warmth and strength of the man lying so close beside her. But she hoped the man who was driving their vehicle and his bearded companion made a clean getaway. She wouldn’t want them shot, even to save herself.
“That went well,” her companion murmured curtly, rising. He pulled out some sort of electronic gadget and pushed buttons. He turned, sighting along it. “Can you walk?”
