He exhaled in a rush, blowing drops of liquid off his lips as he struggled against the ropes holding him to the chair. Cooper’s brown eyes surveyed the room, took in Blondie in all her glory, then settled on me. “Cherry? What is this?”
“I—”
“Nolan,” a male voice interrupted. Hispanic. Our captor. “I’d like to say it’s nice to see you in one piece, but I’m quite disappointed my request of Cherry didn’t work out.”
Cooper’s face hardened, his body growing tense. He flipped droplets of water off his face with a jerk of his head as he spoke through clenched teeth. “Treja. Didn’t peg the cartel as the kidnapping type. You usually just kill your victims and leave me to clean up the mess.”
“Don’t worry, my friend.” Treja walked toward me.
I tried to dodge his hand as he reached for me, but failed. He took a handful of my hair and pulled my head back, exposing my throat. The pain brought tears to my eyes, but I refused to cry out. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“We’ll get to that part.” Treja shot a smile over his shoulder. The intense light from the naked bulb in the ceiling reflected off the oversized knife’s polished surface, casting illusions around the room. He set the knife directly under my voice box. “Starting with her.”
Chapter Twelve
“I’ll cut your heart out if you hurt her.” Cooper’s eyes narrowed, but that wasn’t the only indication of the anger radiating off him. Heat crept into his face, turning his pale skin pinkish. Muscles bunched in his arms and shoulders as if he were trying to stop the blade at my throat from spilling blood.
I didn’t know what to make of his threat. He’d rejected me not even two hours ago, yet his tone indicated something along the lines of concern.
The combination of the angle of my head, the pressure from Treja’s hand to keep it that way and my bound hands made my shoulders ache. I tried to ignore the discomfort. Any small movement on my part would only press the blade closer to the delicate skin of my throat and I wasn’t about to be responsible for my own death.
“My heart was taken from me when my own team left me to die in that hellhole,” Treja spat. “You were my brother. I trusted you!”
The blade pulled a gasp from my lips as Treja pressed the sharp edge further into my skin. This had nothing to with me at all, I realized. I’d been taken to prove a point, to make Cooper hurt the way Treja had been hurt all those years ago. How could I explain to him that my death wouldn’t bring him the satisfaction he wanted? That Cooper had chosen the agency over me?
“I didn’t leave you,” Cooper assured him, his tone lacking the anger I’d heard a few seconds ago. “They pulled me out and I couldn’t go back.” The chair creaked as he moved. “I’m sorry, Treja. I never would have left if I’d known you were alive.”
His statement threw the room into silence.
I struggled to keep my breathing under control, panic rising in the center of my chest. A bad feeling worked its way into the pit of my stomach. Cooper’s apology sounded sincere, but the machete grazing my throat hadn’t moved. I gulped air as if these breaths would be my last.
“You are not sorry yet, hermano,” Treja whispered and turned his gaze onto me. He studied me, twisting my head from side to side. The movement sent fire down my spine and I gritted my teeth together to prevent my tears from falling. “But you will be. My lovely Ana killed herself because she believed me dead and now, you’ll pay for her blood by losing your love.”
“It’s me you want, Treja. Not her.”
At that bold statement, the man with the blade at my throat seemed to lose focus. His eyes glazed as he looked at me, but I couldn’t bring myself to make any sudden movements. “Pity, really. So beautiful a creature, just like my Ana.” His gaze sharpened. “You know you have the same look on your face that your father did when I cut off his head?”
I tensed under his hold, my eyes widening in disbelief.
“Ryder never told you?” Treja chuckled, his shoulders rocking the machete harder against my neck. I struggled to pull away from the pain, the chair screaming in protest as it moved against the concrete floor, but I didn’t stop. He held me fast and leaned in closer. “He found out your daddy was CIA. He was the one who ordered the hit on your old man, but he couldn’t afford you finding out, so he hired me to do it. All I had to do was make sure he didn’t come home. And to think, you had the pieces to the puzzle in your hands at our first meeting, but you willingly handed them over to me.”