Читать книгу Shannon McKenna Bundle: Ultimate Weapon, Extreme Danger, Behind Closed Doors, Hot Night, & Return to Me - Shannon McKenna - Страница 34

“You’ve removed every last bit of jewelry from her body, András?”

The cool, dragging voice sliced through the hideous dreams and the ever-present consciousness of pain, echoing strangely in her throbbing skull, volume cutting in and out. She ran the words back, trying to dredge some meaning out of them. It sank in slowly.

Hungarian. Not her best language, but she managed in it.

“Of course, Boss. I’m tying her hand and foot. Nothing to worry about. Besides, I inspected every centimeter of her body. Repeatedly. Nothing on it but what God gave her.”

“Do not underestimate this woman.” She tried not to shudder at the sound of that voice, like the cool, dry scales of a venomous snake sliding over her skin. “She is extremely dangerous.”

“I know.” András’s voice was long-suffering. “My balls are still sore. But I promise she won’t give us any trouble. Not when I do this.”

A rope jerked tight around her wrists, the right one of which was swollen and hot, and the blur of pain suddenly became horribly specific. She kept her eyes shut, feigning unconsciousness while she tried to remember how her arm had come to be broken.

Then it slammed into her mind, full force. András. Novak. Rachel.

Her eyes popped open just in time to see András take in the slack of a rope he’d tossed over a huge, menacing iron hook that was set high into the wall.

He looked down, smiled to find her eyes open, and yanked.

She shrieked. The rope wrenched her up until she dangled by her wrists, the tips of her toes barely touching the ground. Agony. Her ankles were tied, making it impossible to widen her stance, keep her balance, and take weight off her broken arm. She keened between gritted teeth, jerking until she managed to grip the rope with her left hand. Her vision was going dark. The maw of unconsciousness yawned, and she was tempted to tip herself into it.

But no way could it be that easy. They would have a way to revive her. András was a professional, after all, and besides—Rachel.

Where the fuck was Rachel? She had to know.

The two men swam into view. Her eyes streamed. She blinked, sniffed, tasted blood. Her face was swollen from a blow she did not remember receiving. Her heart forced blood through inflamed tissue, slamming painfully with each throb.

There was that prick András, dressed in executioner’s black, holding the rope, his cobra face expressionless, his eyes strangely dead and empty. And Daddy Novak’s hideous, grinning face.

His son Kurt, four years dead, was rotting in his coffin, and his corpse probably looked much like the skeletal man who stood before her now. The zombie king. His pale, bright eyes were identical to those of his dead son. The same strange, poisonous green color.

She glanced around the lavish baroque salon. The windows looked out on a vast, terraced garden, and beyond it, the winding curves of a river, fading into the twilight. Candelabra were lit on several tables, and the opulent gilded molding and trim gleamed in the flickering candlelight. Subtle track lights installed in the vaulted ceilings lit up the frescoes. Chubby, smiling cupids flanked gruesome depictions of martyred saints. There was one being pierced with a multitude of arrows, one being flayed alive, another holding her chopped-off breasts on a plate as if serving them up. One unlucky saint held both of her gouged-out eyes in her hands, mouth wide and screaming, eye sockets bleeding. The eyes in her clutching hands looked bloodshot, shocked and terrified. As if they still could see.

Tam looked away before she had to take in the images on the other panels. Novak followed the direction of her gaze and chuckled.

“Pretty, aren’t they?” he asked, switching to heavily accented English. “I’m so fond of my frescoes. Seventeenth century. The artist was anonymous but very gifted, in my opinion.”

Very fucked up in hers, Tam thought. She noticed two huge flat-screen TVs, set on tables to either side of her. Their blank fifty-inch screens were dark and empty. They were incongruous in the dim room, otherwise full of priceless baroque era art and furniture. Then the air moved on her shivering body, and a huge, gold-framed standing mirror right in front of her brought her attention to another unpleasant fact.

She was naked.

She was not surprised. She had learned young how vulnerable nakedness made a person feel, how easily controlled. It was a quick and dirty instant weapon for sadists and bullies, and she’d met too many of those in her lifetime. But she was tough as an old boot. Nakedness was not a problem. No, that fucking broken arm was the problem.

Novak clapped his clawlike hands together. “I was beginning to wonder if you would ever wake up. I’ve been so impatient to meet you, Tamara Steele. What a pleasure.”

He paused. Did he expect her to say that the pleasure was all hers? But even if she was disposed to play word games with him, she was shaking too hard to breathe enough to speak. All she could manage were shallow, squeaking drags for air.

Novak studied her thoughtfully, eyes hooded. “Let her down, András,” he said. “Onto her feet.”

András scowled and gave the rope an agonizing jerk. “But she—”

“She will faint,” the old man said harshly. “I want her conscious. I want this to last.”

András let up so abruptly she thudded down, legs buckling. She sagged to the side and was brought up short by her tortured wrists.

The two men watched impassively as she struggled to get her feet beneath her body again.

“Is that better, my dear?” The fake solicitude in Novak’s voice oozed over her like slime. Her mouth was so dry, she was choking.

She tried to swallow. Tried to cough. Regretted it. Coughing jarred everything, and everything hurt like pure, flaming hell.

“What do you want from me?” she whispered.

Novak’s smile curled thinly upward. “Something special. Something intimate. Something only you can give me.”

Her body clenched at the implications of those words. “Be more specific,” she croaked.

He leaned forward, close enough so that his fetid breath almost made her gag. “Pain,” he hissed.

Ah, yes. Great. Why was she not surprised. She almost rolled her eyes, but that sort of flip defiance could make her fate worse.

Or rather, Rachel’s. It was all about Rachel now.

“I never used to have such a passion for torture,” Novak confided. “It was just a means to an end. I am not like András, who is a true aficionado. An artist of pain. Then I discovered I had a disease the doctors were pleased to call terminal, and one day, while punishing a man who had wronged me, I noticed something odd. I felt restored by the experience. It literally gave me energy. I tried it a second time. The phenomenon repeated itself. It was therapeutic. Amazing, no?”

She was speechless. Not surprised, though, at the total self-absorption. The mark of a true psychopath.

“Really,” he said earnestly, as if she had argued with him. “I absorb the life force of the person I am punishing. Particularly if they have robbed or insulted me, as you have, my dear. It is so perfect, so appropriate. You were responsible for the death of my son. And now I have your daughter. Symmetrical, no?”

Her heart raced, her stomach rolled. Her ears rang, with some deafening inner noise. Rifle shots crackling from a distance. Screams from the tortured prisoners in the basement cells. Death all around her.

He looked hurt, at her failure to respond. “It’s true,” he protested. “Every time I indulge my test values show a marked improvement. My doctors want to know my secret, but they wouldn’t understand if I told them. I’m intrigued to see what effect playing my games on a three-year-old should have on my health. I suspect it will be a potent tonic.”

He stared into her eyes as he said it, avid for her reaction. She was too raw with pain and fear to hide it. His face creased with delight.

“Ah, yes,” he muttered between wheezing chuckles. “This will be good. This will give me months. A year, maybe. Delicious.”

She vibrated with pure fear. Her fuck-you-in-your-face bravado was torn away completely. He had her, and they both knew it. Even the tongue stud was pointless now. He would never get close enough to her for her to use it, not until after he had finished with Rachel. At which point, whether she lived or died would be no longer relevant.

Perhaps breaking the capsule and dying first would take the fun out of hurting Rachel for them, but then probably not. And she could not abandon her baby here while Rachel was still alive.

He might still come close enough to her before he started in on her baby. Close enough to gloat. She could hope for that.

“Where is she?” Tam forced the question out through shaking lips.

“Near, very near,” Novak assured her. “We’ve been waiting for her to wake up. The idiot who brought her overdid the sedative dosage for the airplane flight. Not used to dealing with small children, evidently. The child was practically comatose when she finally arrived, but my people tell me she’s come around nicely in the past couple of hours. In fact, she never stops screaming. I shall send András to fetch her in a few minutes, and we can begin.”

The pressure increased in Tam’s chest. An iron claw of fear gripped her lungs, her heart. Squeezing, crushing. She had always thought that she had seen the worst, felt the worst there was to feel.

How innocent of her. How naive. How lacking in imagination.

“We kept you under for the duration,” Novak went on. “Mostly because of your reputation for clever escapes and non-linear thinking. You should be flattered.”

He sounded like he was conferring a compliment. The fragment of her mind still capable of rational thought marveled at the kinky weirdness of it. Flattering a woman who was dangling from a hook by her wrists. What, was she supposed to simper? Thank him?

She had to lure him close enough to spit. It would be better to kiss him and get the stuff inside his mouth, but even spraying it onto his face might be enough to carry him off, sick as he was.

Tam dragged in air, gathering her energy. Her lips were trembling. She had to steady them. She had to work up some spit. He had to move closer. Just a little bit. Please.

“Thank God I don’t have to worry about fucking you, at least,” she taunted him. “Your breath is so foul, it smells like something crawled down your throat and died there. Please don’t breathe on me, for the love of God. Step back. It makes me gag.”

Novak’s eyes were wide, weirdly empty. “Ah, yes,” he whispered. “You are strong. You’ll last a long time. Strong ones are the best. Who knows? Maybe what I do to your daughter will actually revive me to the point of sexual arousal. We shall see, hmm?”

But he did not step closer, no matter how desperately she willed him to. He was too alert to fall for it, even though he considered her defenseless. His resistance to being manipulated was automatic.

And he had no sexual energy at all. She should have made her play on a different level. Shit. She’d gone with sex by sheer force of habit, it being what worked for most men, but not him. She’d fucked up, and her sweet baby would pay for her mistake.

He was speaking again.

Pay attention. Stay sharp. For as long as you can. Stay sharp for Rachel.

“…wait for Janos to bring you to me,” Novak was saying. “He was taking too long, so I sent András to speed things up. But I thought you might enjoy this video memento of your mad love affair.”

That confused her for a minute. Was he talking about Val? Yes. Val had been sent to collect her. Imre was the hostage. And Imre was dead, so they had changed tactics. Yes. That tracked.

Memento of her mad love affair? What the hell? Images began to flicker on the TV screens. She could not make them out with the tears and sweat in her eyes. The light in both screens were dim, and it seemed like—those frantic, rhythmic movements—oh, for the love of God, was this possible? Porn, to accompany her torture? The sheer, banal stupidity of it was insulting. Even in the face of this much pain, this much fear.

Fuck it. Her arm hurt too much to bother contemplating the sewer of the man’s mind. She was far too busy calculating the best possible second for a murder-suicide. Focus.

“…no, look at it!” Novak was insisting. “Don’t you recognize yourself? Pay attention, Tamara.”

Herself? She squeezed the hot, stinging moisture out of her eyes, and looked again.

And looked and looked. It was…oh, hell, no. It was not possible.

It was their room in San Vito. The graceful triple loggia that looked out over the sea, the dim light of dawn, the tender glow of pink.

And on the bed, behind the fronds of some blurry plant in the foreground, herself and Val. Her, mounted and moving over him, head thrown back, making soft moans of pleasure.

How? How had they been found so soon after they arrived? When could the cameras have been planted? When they were out to dinner?

She looked at the other one, but it took over a half minute of horrified squinting to force that dim, writhing snarl of erotic images to resolve into something comprehensible. Mostly because she didn’t want to take the information in. Her mind resisted it desperately.

Herself, pinned against the door of the tiny staff kitchen of the Huxley. Moaning like a cat in heat as she let herself get good and nailed by Val Janos. The camera looked down at them, godlike from on high, judging her for being so stupid. It focused on her face, flushed with pleasure and excitement. And drugs, she remembered. She’d been as high as a kite, on the mystery drug, plus chianti.

The thought was a nasty icicle stab. She cringed, shuddered, and steeled herself. Forced herself to reason it through. Step by step.

There was no way they could have anticipated Janos and planted a camera to watch him without his knowledge. No way they could have connected her to Nick and Becca’s wedding before she actually went there. The only one who could have planted that camera was Val himself.

He’d chosen the place, prepared it, drugged her into a sexed-up daze, dragged her to it, and fucked her there. To entertain the beast. That was the truth. There was no other explanation.

Novak followed her train of thought step for step, his eyes hot and avid. “Yes, I see you understand now. Shocked, are you? He did what I paid him for. He got you to fall in love with him. It’s his professional specialty. I’m acquainted with PSS, you see. I’ve used them in the past. I’ve been told that Val Janos is always the operative of choice when it is necessary to fuck one’s way into the target’s confidence. What a coup for his CV. He can persuade any woman of his undying passion. Even an ice-hearted bitch like you.”

“No,” she whispered.

“Oh, yes. And they said you were so suspicious, so intelligent. But you fell. Legs wide open. Like magic.” He cackled and wheezed. Blood spattered over his lips and chin.

She had not thought it possible to feel worse than she did, but it was. One more thing wrenched from her, one more bleeding wound. And she felt so alone, more than ever before. Abandoned in hell.

Imre. The foolish, girlish part of her mind latched onto the vain hope that maybe, just maybe, that video footage was all about keeping Imre in one piece, something Val had been forced to do. Maybe…

But Novak was shaking his head, waving an admonitory finger. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said, from behind his blood-spotted handkerchief. “Forget your romantic notions. He told you the heart-wrenching tale of how I held his old patron hostage and threatened to cut him to pieces if he did not deliver you?”

She did not rreply.

“We concocted that scenario together. And yesterday, he did as I commanded and told you of Imre’s valiant sacrifice? Did he beg you to run away with him to live in romantic bliss on some green island on the Aegean? I see that he did. That bad boy. He’ll definitely get that fat bonus that I promised him. He’s earned every penny of it.” He took a step closer, staring at her as if he wanted to eat her alive. “Let me show you how much Vajda loves you, Tamara.” He glanced at András. “Pull the rope,” he commanded. “Off her feet. Ten seconds.”

András complied eagerly. The rope wrenched her up off her feet.

She hated herself for the shriek that scorched her throat. And for being so vulnerable. For having loved Val for even an instant, for having believed him. For getting caught. For everything. All of it. Rachel. Oh, Rachel.

She struggled to get a better grip on the rope with her left hand. Ten seconds. Ten centuries of lightning stabbing through her nerves.

She sobbed in air and hung on, delirious with pain—

Thud, down she went onto her floppy tied ankles. She clung to consciousness, and attempted the agonizing task of trying to stand again.

“Enough chatter.” The old man suddenly sounded irritable and exhausted. “András, go get the child. I want to begin.”

András wound the rope around a hook set into the wall at waist level, knotting it with a jerk. She gasped at a blaze of fresh agony. He strode purposefully out of the room, leaving her alone with Novak.

“The stupidity of women is always a fresh surprise,” Novak mused. “You are very beautiful, it is true, but even so, it is obvious to what you are, what you exist for. You are a disposable toy, Tamara. How could a man declare love for a thing like yourself? Men don’t love women like you. They use them and discard them like the trash that they are.” He took a step closer. “But still, I’m surprised you were taken in so easily.”

Part of her was on her knees, no, on the ground, writhing and wailing yes, it’s true, yes, just kill me please and have done with it.

The other part whispered, come a little closer, you sick filthy fuck.

She moved the tongue studs in her mouth, positioning the poison capsule between her molars and trying to work up enough spit to deliver it. Difficult, with such a parched mouth. She would have to be spot-on accurate. She tried to sniff down her useless tears of terror and agony and make them good for something.

Come on, old man. Two more steps. Just two, and I’ll melt the organs inside your body into slop.

Faster. She snorted, sniffed. Novak’s weight shifted. Time slowed. She was so tuned in, she sensed his every tiny movement as if her own body was making it.

Finally. The mix of tears and saliva in her mouth was ready to spit as he moved closer…jaws ready to chomp, lungs ready to provide air to propel her liquid projectile…closer—

Ding, ding. A soft, musical chiming sound shattered the moment. Novak broke eye contact, turned to look at the intercom on the table.

She almost screamed her disappointment. So fucking close!

Novak punched the button. “I told you I was not to be disturbed!”

“They’ve brought in Luksch,” a male voice on the intercom informed him.

Novak’s face changed. “Oh. Excellent. Bring him in, then.”

He turned back to Tam, rubbing his hands together. Too far away from her. The moment had slipped away. She wanted to wail, shriek.

“Georg has been bad,” Novak confided. “Wanting you for himself, even knowing how you had wronged me. Then I discovered that he was planning to murder me and take over my business! Can you imagine it? Millions spent grooming him to take over Kurt’s place! Ingrate! He will watch his toy smashed. That’s what happens to little boys who grab, grab, grab. I taught my Kurt that lesson, too. He learned it early. That’s what made him so strong, so unusual. Do you remember how strong he was, Tamara? Ah, Georg, my dear. There you are.”

Two large men hustled Georg into the room. The man’s face was battered, his lip split. Older bruises decorated him as well, relics from his fight with Val in the hotel blooming under both his eyes, purple and blue. His teeth were clenched, except for the gaps where two of them had been knocked out by Val in the hotel. His eyes were wild with rage.

There had to be some way that Tam could turn this new wrinkle to her advantage, but if there was, she could not see it. She was too scared, too crazed with pain to crunch the data.

“There she is, Georg,” the old man crooned. “Your heart’s desire. The woman who plotted your best friend’s murder. But perhaps he was not quite such a friend as we all thought, eh?”

Georg’s thin, scabbed lips drew back like a snarling dog’s.

No. This could not possibly help, she concluded bleakly. Georg was bound hand and foot, a gun to his head. As badly off as she was herself. No, she needed a miracle. On the scale of an earthquake, a volcano, a tornado, a bomb, a meteor—

“Ey!” Georg shouted. He sagged to the ground between the two men who clutched his arms—and the room exploded.

Windows shattered with an enormous crash and glass flew, peppering her face and body with stinging shards. The mirror exploded and toppled backward. One of the men who had been holding Georg was hurled down onto his back. His jaw was torn away, a red, raw mess of torn meat, white glints from shattered bone and teeth showing through. He pawed at himself, eyes white-rimmed, rolling with panic.

Bam. The other man holding Georg clapped his hand to his throat. Blood jetted, black in the candlelight. It gushed through his fingers. His gun thudded to the carpet. He toppled, bounced, lay still.

The sudden silence was deafening. Georg sat up in a leisurely, unhurried way. He reached for the nearest gun, scanning the room through narrowed eyes. Cold air swirled through the empty window frames. The flames in the candelabra flared hellishly high. Tam watched the tableau, soul shaking with shock…and astonished hope.

Novak was curled on the ground, shaking. Blood spread quickly beneath his wasted body. His hand was pressed to his midriff. Gut shot.

Good, she thought viciously. Die in agony, scum.

Georg aimed the gun at the man whose jaw had been shot off.

“So you are the one,” he said. “Traitor and spy. I had to let all of my men be killed in order to identify you, Ferenc. This grieves me.”

The man gurgled, eyes bugging over his shattered lower face.

“I told the sniper to aim for your mouth,” Georg told him. “I thought it appropriate. Don’t you?”

Blood sprayed as the man shook his head. He clutched at Georg’s leg. Georg kicked him away. “The real punishment would be to leave you alive with that face,” Georg said. “But alas, it is not practical.”

He pulled the trigger. Bam. The contents of the man’s skull exploded from the back in a pink, splattering fan, over the carpet, wall.

Black-clad men bulked up with Kevlar, masked with helmets and bristling with equipment and weaponry were sliding into the room like shadows. One through the door and two through the space where the windows had been. Broken glass glittered everywhere.

Georg bent over to Novak’s shriveled form. He slid the barrel of the gun into the old man’s gaping mouth and jerked his face up with it.

“You’re not the only one who had an inside man,” he said. “I had one, too. Someone to take out your security at just the right moment. You got soft, old man. Complacent. Now you die, and I’ll take back my toy. And everything else you have, as well. It’s mine now. All mine.”

Novak struggled to speak. Georg jabbed the gun sharply, knocking the old man to the ground again. Then Georg turned and looked at Tam. That persistent white froth of bubbly spit dangled from his grimacing lips. His eyes dragged over her, lit up with unholy lust.

He licked his wet, foamy lips and started toward her.