Covertly Strong (The Strong Series Book 1) (41 page)

“Well, look who it is…” A dark voice pulls her back to the present. “The lovely Dr. Felicia Santora is back in my compound. I feel so honored to have such a beautiful woman here, tied up and waiting for me.” He winks with an ominous expression.

She blinks against the fog that continues to hover over her brain. She can only assume that they continued to use chloroform on her over the past ten or twelve hours, keeping her completely debilitated and unaware of her surroundings. She’s lucky that these assholes didn’t end up killing her with the uncalculated, lethal dosages of the depressant chemical they’ve introduced to her system.

He walks towards her, dressed in a black suit; the blazer is open, revealing the stark, white, collared shirt underneath. Hector Arturo is always dressed in a striking manner. The continuously perfect picture of business and class—despite the fact that he’s a notorious criminal and overall despicable human being. He’s definitely a man who thrives off money, power, and control.

And he will do anything and everything to obtain all three.

Greed
consumes
him.

He is an evil, awful person who’s committed some of the worst crimes the world has ever seen. Hell, if he killed his own flesh and blood—his own brother—because he wanted to control La Familia Arturo, it’s nearly impossible to imagine something he wouldn’t do. He is a man without a soul, a man who doesn’t live by a moral compass, and undoubtedly a man who most deem as the worst kind of human being to walk the Earth.

He doesn’t even deserve to be called a human being.

Nothing is off-limits to him. Nothing is ever too extreme.

He kneels in front of her. His hands rest comfortably on his knees as his dark eyes stare up at her with amusement. “Where is it?”

She doesn’t respond.

He laughs as he stands back up. His hand reaches inside the pocket of his dress pants, promptly pulling out a shiny, silver case housing cigarettes and matches. He lights up and billows smoke into her face after his first long drag of nicotine. She turns her head, avoiding the putrid smell.

“We can make this easy, or we can make this…
difficult
.” He stares down, letting her soak up his words. “I’m personally a fan of difficult. I’ve always loved a woman who puts up a fight, but you, my dear… You should probably go with easy.”

She still doesn’t respond, refusing to give in to his game.

“You need to tell me where the information is. We retrieved your laptop and found nothing. We ransacked the house and found…
nothing
. So where is it? Where is the information you retrieved when you made your way inside my compound?”

No words.
Zero.
Nothing comes out of her mouth. This man is the last fucking person on Earth she’d give information to. She just continues to stare back at him with pure distain, her brown eyes just as unrelenting as his.

There’s a small part of her that wishes she could actually enjoy this moment without all of the excruciating pain that is radiating throughout her body—or the fact that her life is most likely on the line. Yeah, she could definitely do without that little dilemma. Sloan wishes she could savor the fact that Hector believes she merely gained intel on him when, in reality, she gained a hell of a lot more than intel. She’s infiltrated his drug cartel in a way that will bring him down. The majority of his runners are now walking around with tracking devices installed inside their arms. The CIA is already in the process of dismantling his drug and sex trafficking operations.

Sloan knows that, even if she doesn’t survive this mission, the end of Hector Arturo is coming very, very soon.
Sooner than he even realizes.

“So this is how it’s going to be?” he asks, an insidious tone in his voice.

He takes another drag of nicotine and blows the smoke straight into her eyes as he leans forward, unleashing his harsh stare on her. His hot breath brushes across her face. The overwhelming smells of stale cigarettes and hard liquor fill her senses. She swallows back the distaste that fills her mouth with saliva and continues to stare back at him, showing no fear, no hesitancy in her steadfast facial expression.

His hand reaches out and grips her hair tight, pulling back on the strands and tilting her head upwards. “I’ve been nice,
Felicia Santora
… I’ve been real fucking nice, but my patience only lasts so long. You’re pushing your luck. I know you’re involved with the CIA and you need to start telling me
everything
.”

She blinks back the excruciating ache that radiates from her hairline, refusing to show weakness.

“Okay, let’s try this a different way,” he mutters to himself, obviously irritated that his presence has yet to have an effect on her. “I’m going to ask you questions and you’re going to answer me.” He grips her hair tighter. His dark eyes look nearly black as they glare into hers with a threatening edge. “What is your name?”

“Felicia Santora.”

He releases her hair and pulls a black Beretta 92 from the waistband of his pants. The butt of the gun whips across her cheekbone with deafening strength. Her eyes involuntarily tear up from the agonizing sensation that shoots across her face.

“What is your name?”

She blinks back the tears and answers resolutely, “Felicia Santora.”

He pistol-whips her again, anger clenching his jaw and spurring a twitching vein to protrude from his infuriated brow. “What. Is. Your. Name?” he demands.

She pronounces each syllable with precision. “
Felicia. Santora.
”

Another slash across her face has the metallic taste of blood filling her mouth

“How much longer, sweetheart? How much longer do you want to play this game?”

She spits straight into his face, still refusing to tell him anything. “Fuck you.”

His brow furrows intensely as a protruding vein beats relentlessly at the top of his forehead, the muscles in his neck clenching and unclenching in rage. “Fucking coño,” he mutters as he wipes drops of her saliva mixed with blood from his face. His callused fingers run down the center of her chest and rest between her breasts. “I should show you a lesson.” He eyes her wickedly. “I have several men within this compound who would love to get a taste of you.” His dark gaze is disturbing and exudes evil. “Oh, would they love to get their greedy hands on an American coño like you.”

She doesn’t avert her steadfast gaze from his. She remains strong, mentally telling herself that she would choose death over giving Hector Arturo any information.

“I’m not stupid. Tell me what you did when you were here.”

“My name is Felicia Santora and I gave immunizations to the members of your compound.” Her voice may be weak, but her intentions are one hundred percent strength. Her unwavering eyes exude her tenacity.

Three hard strikes across her cheek leave her head hanging dejectedly towards her chest.

The light in her eyes is completely knocked out, her equilibrium staggering for normalcy.

He grips her hair again—tight enough to rip the strands straight out of her skull—and stares into her eyes. “I’m going to walk out of this room and give you another hour to comprehend that, if you do not provide me with the information I am requesting, I will fucking kill you. And I don’t mean a quick death. I will kill you slowly. I will let each of my men have a turn with you, and when we’re done, there won’t be enough of you left to identify your body.”

He lets go of her hair, her head falling to the side unceremoniously, before putting out his cigarette on the open wound of her shoulder. A hiss escapes her teeth from the penetrating burn that permeates every nerve inside her body, the discomforting smell of burning tissue infiltrating her senses.

Hector Arturo strides out of the room, slamming the steel door shut with a harsh bang. Sloan remains captive on the decrepit chair, every inch of her body throbbing from excruciating pain. The shallow breaths that escape her lungs and the erratic pounding in her chest are the only sounds that resonate in the room. Her body continues to lose blood at a slow, agonizing pace from the open flesh of her left thigh. The normal clarity of her mind is becoming vaguer by the second.

The sensation of her life flashing before her eyes fills her senses, her thoughts reliving the moments of her past, the happy memories of her life. Her brain takes her away to blissful unconsciousness, where comforting memories wrap around her in a caressing, powerful hold, protecting her mind from the stark, unbearable realities that lie before her.

Nix.
She fades to unconsciousness with Nix filling her mind, protecting her from the painful reality.

THE STEEL DOOR OPENS AND a female form is thrown into the room. Sloan’s eyes fight to stay awake, the life source of her body slowly draining away at a devastating pace. The excruciating pain radiating throughout her body has turned into an incessant ache. It seeps through every pore—every microscopic cell of her body
—
and resonates deep inside her bones.

Crying echoes within the walls of the room. It’s a feminine cry, one that urges Sloan’s eyes to open and her retinas to focus on her surroundings, honing in on the woman lying dejectedly on the concrete floor.

Nico Delgado stands angrily above the woman’s prone form, shouting obscenities and threatening words in Spanish. His jaw twitches and his throat releases a piercing growl. “Get up! Get up, you stupid bitch!” he screams. “You are worthless!” he shouts before unleashing a harsh kick to the woman’s ribs. “Stand up! Fucking stand up!” Spittle releases from his mouth and onto the woman’s disconsolate frame.

Sloan watches her body slowly move to her hands and knees. The woman’s breathing is erratic, frantically inhaling and exhaling air at a hyperventilating pace. Her long, dark hair hangs over her face like a shield, and large drops of blood drip from the ends of her locks, unceremoniously falling onto the concrete floor. When she attempts to brush the hair away from her face, Sloan catches a glimpse of her profile.

Alejandra Arturo.

Nico grabs Alejandra by the throat, lifting her to her feet by sheer strength. His fingers tightly grasp her neck, the strangled breaths resonating inside the room. “What the fuck did you tell her?” he questions. His eyes gesture towards Sloan. “Are you working with her?”

Alejandra shakes her head, no words possible over the harsh grip locked around her throat.

“Stop lying to me! Stop fucking lying to me, Alejandra!”

She continues to shake her head at a furious pace, her eyes widening in distress, her lungs visibly heaving up and down with shallow movements.

“Leave her alone, you pathetic piece of shit,” Sloan manages to speak past the overwhelming dryness of her throat. She’s been without food or water for several hours, and bitter, putrid remnants of chloroform still remain inside her mouth, the tissue of her throat raw to the point of blood.

A barking, menacing laugh comes from Nico’s sharp mouth. He immediately releases Alejandra and her body sags to the floor. She is visibly beaten and mangled, and it’s apparent that she is hardly capable of standing on her own two feet.

Nico stands before Sloan, her body still restrained to the chair. He leans forward, his harsh, black eyes boring into her skull with absolute hatred. “Are you sure you’re not a man? I see you have tits, but have we actually proved that there’s not a cock tucked between your legs?”

His fingers trail down the center of her chest before grasping harshly to one of her breasts. His callused, sweaty fingers painfully knead the soft flesh.

She doesn’t reveal an ounce of discomfort through her unfaltering gaze. Her brown eyes glower at his without any apologies, without any fear of what he’s about to do. She refuses to show weakness. Her mind has already accepted the fact that she will die. She knows she will die no matter what. At this point, it doesn’t matter if she provides them with the information they want. Her life has already been claimed by these men and there is no way in hell they will release her from their control.

She knows that death is the preferable option over the other possibilities of what they could do with her. Men like Hector Arturo and Nico Delgado have a difficult time reining in their emotions. They’re passionate, volatile human beings, and once their rage takes over, any prior rational plans will fall to their least priority.