He gave me nothing. I pulled down the gag and he gulped in air.
“Well?” I prodded.
When he caught his breath, his eyes sliced into mine. “Fuck you,” he said, spittle flying.
I raised my brow. “They’ve trained you well.” I sighed and straightened up, looking down at the battery pack. “I think I’ll keep you ungagged. Screaming gets me off.” I shot him a smile. “And you will scream. They can’t train that out of you.”
I looked over my shoulder at my security team. “Any of you bothered by screaming?” I asked them, knowing they didn’t mind it at all. Morales grinned eerily.
Within minutes, Borrero and Morales stripped Evaristo naked, threw more water on him, and I had attached the picana prod to the battery pack. Diego held the pack, in charge of the voltage, and I waved the prod at Evaristo’s neck. It was a good, sensitive place to start. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
What Evaristo had was a huge capacity for pain and screaming. Can’t say it didn’t turn me on.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Luisa
“This is where you will be staying with Mr. Bernal,” the kindly Evelyn Aguilar told me, opening a door to a very spacious master bedroom that seemed to take up the whole end of the house. I stepped in gingerly and looked at the rustic furniture and terracotta tile floors. It was simple, yet I knew that the furniture only looked shabby and probably had cost a fortune. The view was of the south and the crooked mountains rising from the desert floor. The windows were small and deep-set into the adobe walls, so the view was partially obscured. I knew it was that way for our protection, from intruders and from the desert sun.
I gave Evelyn a small smile. “It’s lovely. But I’m afraid I require a room of my own.”
Thankfully she just nodded and said, “Oh yes, come with me,” and didn’t question why I wouldn’t be sleeping with my husband. Perhaps this was normal to her. Perhaps when Javier had stayed here before, he hadn’t quite been alone.
My stomach clenched at the thought. Even though I had known about his callous infidelity before I confronted him, the fact that he fessed up to it so easily, and without any remorse, continued to make me sick. He knew he’d hurt me and he just didn’t care.
Or perhaps he did. After all, he decided to allow me on the trip to the ranch in the end. But it had been Esteban who told me that this morning, not him, and I was starting to think it had been Esteban’s idea as well.
I couldn’t pretend that I hadn’t noticed his roving eyes on me, either. Just this morning as I sat outside on the front bench and sipped my coffee, wearing just a camisole and shorts, he couldn’t keep his eyes off me as he told me the news. Same with on the helicopter. Esteban had been ballsy to do it in front of my husband as well. Not that I felt bad about it — Javier deserved that and then some — but it made me a little uneasy about being around Esteban now. He’d been my closest companion over these last horrible months, but the sexually charged looks threatened to push our relationship in another direction.
It scared me. It also made my heart flip and my thighs clench, just a little bit. Enough that I noticed. Enough that I liked it. And that scared me even more. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to handle any sort of temptation like that.
I wasn’t really in the right frame of mind to handle anything. And now I was in the middle of Mexico, in a hot, unyielding desert, wondering if it had been the right decision to come here, even though it’s what I had wanted. I had felt trapped and isolated at home, but at least it was still my home. This place was a stranger to me and I felt like I was at its mercy.
“Here we go,” Evelyn said, pushing open another door further down one of the halls. It was much smaller, but it had an en suite bathroom, and the heavily locked French door looked like it opened to the wraparound porch. I could already see myself having my morning coffee here and watching the horses run in the distance. At least there was that.
“Thank you, it’s perfect,” I said and her face lit right up. Minutes later she returned with my bags — I didn’t know how to pack light but she was surprisingly strong — and I shut the door behind her, collapsing onto the bed. The mattress was on the firm side but I found myself drifting off within minutes.
I’m not sure how long I was out but the screaming woke me up. I knew it had been coming — I’d learned to accept the screams as progress — but they still rattled me. I lay there, breathing hard, having a hard time seeing the progress in any of this. I felt like I was just spinning my wheels.
And the screaming didn’t stop, no matter how long I tried to wait it out. I’d been filled in by Esteban about the man in the tunnel, federale agent Evaristo Sanchez, and I still thought the risk we were taking was too great. I didn’t take any pleasure in this, because whatever horrible things Javier and his men were doing to the young agent, I knew that it would be used against us one day.
Finally, I’d had enough. I couldn’t fall asleep, and my heart would not stop racing. I got up, slipping on a pair of suede, low-heeled boots and hat, and headed out into the hallway. I passed by the spacious kitchen with white-washed walls and exposed wood beams on the ceiling.
Evelyn was busy chopping vegetables and cheerfully humming a corrida tune to herself. I told her I was going for a walk, and she warned me to be careful about rattlesnakes. I merely pointed at my boots. The desert hills around San Jose del Cabo where I grew up were equally as dangerous and I knew how to handle myself.