Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 141281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 706(@200wpm)___ 565(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 706(@200wpm)___ 565(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
She, who still makes my heart race only for her, entirely.
There’s no fear left for the maniac who may well kill me tonight.
And when Eladio Joaquin winds up to hit me in a rage—this time with the heavy glass clenched in his hand—I fucking laugh.
Because Delia, sweet Delia, saved my heart even if she can’t help my body.
She made me live more in one summer than every other miserable minute of the shadow existence I lived before.
She made me fall so hard I’m still reeling—and I’ll still be falling if this asshole makes me breathe my last.
“You’re laughing?” he rumbles distantly, the same way thunder echoes before hell descends.
His jaw clenches.
His crazy eyes widen.
His hand lifts that glass over my skull, thick and punishing, more than enough to make sure I never wake up again if he strikes with all his might.
Then he starts muttering something furious in Spanish, his arm swinging down to end me, and—
The world explodes with sound as he twists, missing me, the glass shattering somewhere past my head.
There’s more light spilling in, the door opening wider, one of his minions panicked and yelling.
Another second and I hear footsteps pounding outside, further down the hall, men yelling and—are those gunshots?
Yes.
Fuck, yes.
I wait for Eladio to start barking orders, to forget I’m even there.
Only when he moves do I lunge.
Honestly, it’s more of a frantic roll, the only thing I can manage with my hands and legs bound, throwing myself against the backs of his legs over broken bones and a skin of bruises.
It’s enough.
He doesn’t have time to scream to his chickenshit guards—if they aren’t all erupting from their holes to engage the extraction team—before he goes crashing down, banging his head against the narrow cell wall.
He falls against me, dazed and confused and swearing.
I like these odds.
I’m so far past pain I don’t even feel it when I use the only weapon I have, ramming my head into his throat, shoving him over those glass fragments until he sputters.
I’m sure if anyone else saw us, it would look like some fucked up performance art.
Joaquin mimes his agony in gasping silence.
His strength fades fast.
It doesn’t take more than sixty seconds to put him down when I’m on top, pushing down with all my might, growling like a wounded animal determined to survive.
Thank God I’m so much more than that now.
Thank Delia.
And I know I’ll spend the rest of my life doing that a few minutes later, listening breathlessly at the footsteps pounding toward me.
A huge man emerges in full tactical body armor and instantly starts grinning when the blinding light from his gun sweeps over us.
“Triton? Holy shitfire.” I recognize his thick Louisiana accent. Gabe, one of the senior security workhorses close to Strauss. “Is that—”
“Yeah. He’s still breathing. Just keeping him warm for you,” I say slowly, coughing several times. The blood tastes like coppery syrup in my mouth. “I’d have him tied up nice and tidy but my hands are a little occupied.”
“Shit,” he whispers, shaking his head as he steps toward me. “Hang on, we’re gonna get you the hell outta here.”
* * *
I wake up being pawed at by the medics crawling over me.
Hands and instruments poke me, disconnected voices flying around, and then the steady whirr of jet engines fades to the muted silence of a hospital.
More nurses. More doctors. More bleeting machines.
More hours—days?—flat on my back as they fuss over fixing fractured bones and rehydrating my desiccated husk of a body.
When I can sit up long enough to choke down food without passing out again instantly, some wiry guy who sounds like a military shrink comes in.
I tell him to give the commander more attention. Sexton is a fuck of a lot more screwed up than I am and missing a couple fingers. Not that the hard old goat is likely to care about anything besides the fact that he kept his granddaughter safe.
For the first time since I slept with Delia, I pass out without any nightmares gnawing at my brain. Sleep comes in sporadic fits but it returns like an ebbing wave.
I need to rest. I need to get ready for her.
And I only have one dream.
Every time, it’s the same, the one that sustained me for all the weeks I was rotting away in that dank fucking tomb.
Delia.
Sweet, naked, strawberry-mouthed Delia.
The only cure I’ll ever need for body, mind, and spirit.
As soon as I get my lips back on hers, I will fucking drink her up like a man who’s been wandering the desert for twenty years.
I just don’t want her to see me like this.
Not fucking yet.
Not when I’m welded back together with screws and surgeries, bandages on every limb. I’ve probably had at least thirty or forty pounds melt off under the stress, and sad to say some of that is muscle.