Driven by Fire (15 page)

It wasn’t, but he didn’t know it. Remy looked relieved. “Well, don’t let him get away with anything. He tends to think he knows best about everything, and he needs someone to set him straight.”

He needed someone to stab him, she thought vengefully, but she
wasn’t going to be the one. “Not in my job description,” she said lightly.

“What isn’t?”

It was
his
voice, and she could feel her stomach knot, her entire body freeze. She willed herself to relax, and by the time she turned to look at him she knew she looked completely unruffled.

If she expected him to look guilty, she was doomed to disappointment. He looked as he always looked, not like someone who’d used well-refined torture to get her to betray the only member of her family she still cared about. She wasn’t about to answer him, but Remy stepped in.

“I told her to keep you in line,” he said. “You’re an arrogant bastard when you’ve got something on your mind, and she doesn’t need any extra grief from you.”

“You mean apart from what I already gave her,” he said, and it was all Jenny could do not to stare at him. He didn’t have the slightest bit of shame or remorse, to bring up his abuse so casually. “I don’t expect we’ll have any problem in Calliveria. We both want the same thing, and she’s smart enough to know that if she doesn’t do exactly as I say she’ll find herself in more trouble than she’d ever be with me.”

Her small smile was icy. “I’ll do what you tell me to do.”

Ryder just looked at her out of his wolf’s eyes, but she turned away, ignoring him. “I’m going to find something for lunch,” she said, trying to come up with a casual excuse to leave his presence. She was shaken, and the last thing she wanted was for him to notice, even if the thought of food made her nauseous. “Just let me know when it’s time to leave.”

“That easy, is it? What if I told you I’d changed my mind and you couldn’t come with me?” he taunted, and she wanted to slap him. How dare he hurt her and then mock her, pouring salt on her literal wounds.

“You said it yourself—we both have reasons to save Soledad, and frankly, I don’t trust you to take proper care of her. She’ll be in shock after being abducted again, and God knows what they’ll do to her. She’ll need me.”

“Maybe,” Ryder drawled.

“Leave her alone, Ryder,” Remy protested. “Give the girl a break.”

Ryder turned to look at him, his eyes flat and hard. “I don’t remember asking for your opinion.”

“Don’t be a bigger asshole than you already are.”

To Jenny’s astonishment he actually laughed at that. “That’s part of
my
job description,” he said, before glancing back at Jenny. “We leave the house at five. Be ready.”

She almost told him to fuck off. She opened her mouth to deliver the stinging response, then shut it again, sudden uneasiness filling her. God damn that man. There was just enough of her that was frightened of him. She could face down her father, bureaucrats, corrupt policemen, and hanging judges without flinching, but all Ryder had to do was deliberately cause her pain and something had broken inside of her. She hated it, and she hated him.

She couldn’t give him a docile response either. She made do with a simple nod, walking away from him without a backwards glance. It wasn’t until she reached the safety of the kitchen that she looked down and saw that her hands were trembling.

Chapter Thirteen

Ryder had almost hoped she’d be sulking. Not that she didn’t have every right to—he’d hurt her, simply because he’d had no choice, and in the safe cocoon of the United States, most women weren’t deliberately, passionlessly hurt. Thank God. With someone from Calliveria—Soledad, for instance—he’d have to do a lot worse to get her attention.

But Parker was acting calm and passionless. Granted, she had a stick up her ass, but he certainly couldn’t blame her, and he treated her with distant courtesy, always the safest bet after the few minutes of cruelty.

She wasn’t showing any sign of discomfort, but he noticed she was only using her right arm, which made sense. She’d be in pain for another day, and then the ache would begin to wear off. He could have done much worse, and he would have if she hadn’t broken so quickly. There was always the chance that when she began to heal she’d start to trust him again.

Scratch that. That was never going to happen—he’d never be able to get near her again, which was definitely a good thing. He’d grown a little too fascinated with her recently, and not just because he suspected her of knowing something important. He’d liked watching her, liked her sassy attitude, liked her haughtiness.

She said nothing when she climbed aboard the expensive private jet that Peter Madsen had designated for their use. It was a hell of an expense, but it turned out to be a necessity. Even though they were stationed in New Orleans, the Committee was worldwide, and they needed the ability to get where they were needed at a moment’s notice.

If Parker appreciated the comfortable leather seats and built-in flat-screen TV and bar, she didn’t show it. She headed straight for the back of the plane, for the one seat that was usually reserved for a flight attendant, and buckled herself in, staring out the window in the darkness. He suspected she wouldn’t look at him during the entire trip, though he was tempted to make her.

But he’d hurt enough people over the years, people who were basically innocent, and he knew she needed time to protect herself, to heal from the emotional shock of it. He could give her that much.

Once the jet reached cruising altitude he took off his seat belt and headed for the bar. He didn’t tend to drink during an operation, but he’d been on edge ever since those few minutes with Parker, and a beer might take the edge off. The bar came equipped with his favorite craft beer, and he noticed a frozen margarita mix. According to the detailed background check, Parker had a weakness for margaritas. It wouldn’t be much of a peace offering, and she’d probably throw it in his face, but he mixed it anyway, stalking toward the back of the plane and setting it on the table beside her.

She didn’t look up or acknowledge his presence in any way, but she didn’t throw the drink at him, which he figured was progress. When he stole a glance at her half an hour later, the glass was empty.

He slept, simply because God knew when he’d sleep again, and woke only when they touched down at the distant runway outside Calliveria’s small city of Puerto Claro. She was already out of her seat belt by the time he rose, keeping just out of his reach, waiting for him like a docile, abused wife, and he wanted to snarl. Whether it was at her or himself, he wasn’t quite sure.

The air in New Orleans had been warm and humid, but this place was practically liquid. Calliveria’s geography went from rain forests up into the Andes, and Puerto Claro was down low in an area plagued with mosquitoes and disease. The sooner they were out of there, the better.

She wasn’t going to like where they were going, but then, she wasn’t going to like a damned thing about him ever again. “You ready?” he said unnecessarily, because the charged silence got on his nerves.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” she said in a low voice, and his urge to snarl increased. He swallowed it and gave her a small, lazy smile that left her stonily unmoved.

“So you are. And you’re going to do every damned thing I tell you to do, aren’t you?”

“Will it save my brother?”

“I doubt it. But it might save Soledad.” Whom he didn’t trust one bit, but Ms. Parker was far too gullible when it came to people—people like her brothers.

“I’ll do what you tell me to do,” she said flatly. “Within reason.”

“Reason has nothing to do with it.”

“Then you should have left me behind in New Orleans.”

“You didn’t leave me much of a choice. You like being difficult, don’t you?”

Again that shuttered look. The old Parker would have given him enough sass to amuse and infuriate him. The new Parker was muffled, faded, and it pissed him off. She’d given up fighting—she was a pale ghost of her former self, and it made him want to shake her.

“Come on,” he said finally. “We can argue about it later.”

“I have no intention of arguing with you,” she said.

“Tough shit. I intend to argue with you.”

He saw a flash of something in her eyes, and it could have been fear or anger. He hoped to God it was anger. He needed her to move past that slightly shell-shocked affect. She could be as pissed at him as she wanted, as long as she was alert and alive. Damn, he didn’t hurt her that badly, did he?

The airstrip was miles outside of the town, a run-down field that had once been the staging ground for the last violent government overthrow. Nowadays Calliveria had a supposedly democratic president and congress, but the dissidents, the Guiding Light, were strong up in the mountains and a force near the rain forests. They no longer bothered with attacks on military installations—they spent their time kidnapping Westerners and holding them for ransom, in between their lucrative coca business. The question was, had their forays into capitalism included human trafficking? He wouldn’t put it past them.

The ancient Buick was waiting for them, keys in the ignition, and Ryder headed straight for it, with Parker trailing along behind him. “What about the pilot?” she said when they arrived at the rusty vehicle.

“He’s got his orders. It won’t take him long to get back here if I decide to get rid of you.”

“If you decide to get rid of me you could just slash my throat and leave me to rot,” she said. “Why go to the trouble of sending me back if you’re just going to kill me?”

“I’m not going to kill you,” he said irritably. “For what it’s worth I’ve decided you’re basically innocent in all this. You may have let a felon escape, but he was your brother. I can’t fault loyalty.” It was as close to an apology as she was going to get, but she didn’t look appeased.

“How generous of you,” she said with a trace of bitterness, and he felt encouraged. If he could get her to fight back, then she’d start to make peace with what had happened to her. What he had done to her.

“Get in the fucking car,” he said wearily. “If you’re waiting for me to come and open the door for you then I suggest you think again. You’re with me to find your brother’s missing telephone, and we’d better do it damned fast before they’re able to decode the damned thing.”

“Decode it?” Her laugh was derisive as she climbed in and slammed the door, hard. “What do you think he has on it—state secrets?”

“Why do you think someone wants it so badly? And that someone was willing to break into what should have been one of the most secure buildings in the city just to get it?” He started the car. Fortunately the engine didn’t meet the car’s battered appearance, and it hummed happily.

“I was wondering about that,” she said with a flicker of life. “You can’t be nearly as good as you think you are when it comes to security.”

“Someone had to have let him in. Since I know my people wouldn’t, I’m putting my money on you or Soledad.”

She immediately sprang to Soledad’s defense. “She’d hardly let her own kidnapper into the house!”

“So then one has to assume that either she wasn’t kidnapped, she went willingly. Or . . .”

“Or what?”

“Or that you let him in, that you’ve been holding on to Soledad for your own reasons, and you sent your man off with the phone so he could start up the shipments once more.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” she said, showing more signs of life. “What good would the phone do?”

Christ, she really was an innocent, he thought. “If people want it back so desperately, if someone was willing to break into Committee headquarters in order to get it, then I expect it would do a great deal. At the very least it would provide contact information for people involved in the human trafficking. They lost their kingpin and the crime family that ran it, leaving the human highway from South America empty for someone to pick up the slack. I’m guessing your brother’s smartphone will go a long way toward reestablishing the infrastructure.”

“Next thing you’ll tell is that it was my brother who took Soledad.”

“I don’t think anyone ‘took’ Soledad. But no, it wasn’t your brother. He was my first guess, but the intruder was too short to be your beloved Billy, at least according to our intel. Any ideas?”

She said nothing, lapsing into the brooding silence again. God, women were a pain, he thought. The silent treatment was one of the most effective weapons he’d ever run across, at least with this one.

He tried a few more times, then gave up. By the time they reached the outskirts of the small city, his temper had begun to fray. He would have been better off not sleeping at all on the plane—he was better off powering through with effective five-minute catnaps than a deep six-hour sleep. He was lucky Parker hadn’t stabbed him while he slept.

He glanced over at her as he pulled up to the small inn he’d chosen as their headquarters. Her face was averted, and shadows danced across her still expression. He was going to have to do something about it, he thought. Dragging an emotional zombie around Calliveria would attract too much attention, and that was one thing they couldn’t afford. If he was to find the people who’d taken the phone and Soledad, they were going to have to fly beneath the radar, and Parker’s stiff, touch-me-not demeanor would have everyone’s attention, especially the men. The last thing he needed was to have people sniffing at Parker’s heels, though he couldn’t honestly blame them. There was something about Parker, some incandescent spark, that drew people to her. Just because he was thankfully immune didn’t mean that everyone else was.

He put the car into park and turned it off. Time for Ms. Jennifer Parker, Esquire to come back to life.

They stopped outside an American-style hotel on the edge of whatever Calliverian town they had flown into, and Jenny surveyed their night’s lodgings. The building was long and low, with doors leading from each room onto a veranda. It had seen better days—the paint was peeling and there was trash in the yard, but that bastard seemed to think it was the perfect place to spend the night.

He was already out of the car, clearly waiting for her. She didn’t want to go inside with him—she didn’t want to do anything with him—but she didn’t have much choice. She’d insisted on coming this far, for Soledad’s sake. No, it was more than that. If Ryder found her brother’s phone, she had every intention of destroying it. She should never have held on to it—she’d thought it would give her some kind of leverage with Billy, but if she trusted his word she wouldn’t need it. If Ryder didn’t have it he couldn’t send her brother to prison, without proof he couldn’t kill him. Maybe. At that point she wouldn’t put anything past Ryder’s brutality.

She climbed out of the car and moved toward him, careful to keep her distance. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, really look at him, or she’d be reminded of the man who’d kissed her in the kitchen, the man whose hard, warm body had pressed up against hers with undeniable need. As long as she didn’t look into his face she could pretend he was someone else, some brutal bully who didn’t care who he hurt in his effort to get information. As long as he didn’t touch her . . .

He put his hand on her arm and she panicked, trying to tear herself away, but she should have known it would be useless. He was much stronger than she was, and he simply hauled her against his body, wrapping one arm around her waist. “We’re supposed to be a newly married couple on a really stupid honeymoon, and anything you do to make people think we’re not is going to put us and everything you want to accomplish in danger. So chill.”

Chill was the operative word. His hand was on her waist, she remembered the pain that hand had inflicted, and it chilled her to the bone. Her sore arm was trapped between their bodies, and she couldn’t use it to push away. All she could do was stand still and try to disguise the fear that was leeching through her. She was trembling, and she bit her lip, trying to still the shaking, as he led her into the slightly run-down lobby of the hotel. He pulled her even closer, and for some unknown reason the heat of his body began to penetrate hers, and the tremors slowed.

“That’s right,” he murmured. “Just relax. I’m not going to hurt you.”

She couldn’t help it—she let out a small, derisive laugh. His hand tightened as a warning on her waist, but he still didn’t hurt her. “Not again,” he said simply. “Never again.”

His Spanish was better than hers, and yet when he talked to the desk clerk, his speech was halting, tentative, as if he couldn’t find the right word.
Turistas
, the man was obviously thinking,
and harmless
. Of course he had a room for the
norteamericano
and his
esposa
, and Jenny shivered again. One room. Of course it would only be one room if they were posing as husband and wife.