I Hear Voices (16 page)

Derek pulled on a pair of jeans. “Someone breached our security system. It’s either your family riding to the rescue or bounty hunters.”

I opened my mind and reached out. Crap. It was Fabian. “I’ll talk to them.”

“I’m not letting you anywhere near your family until we find the gold.” Hard fingers suddenly manacled my right wrist and I was abruptly cuffed to the metal headboard.

Anguish twisted my chest. After I had given Derek my heart, he still considered me nothing but

a tool. God, I was such a fool. “You really don’t want to do this.”

“Yeah, I do. I don’t have you tamed yet and I’m tired of chasing you. This way I know you’ll be here when I get back,” he answered, shoving his feet into a pair of boots.

“Tamed!? I’m not a fractious filly you’re breaking to the saddle.”

“Until you learn whose boss, I’m keeping a tight rein on you.”

“Yippee-ki-yay! Ride ‘em cowboy.”

His lips twitched. “I will ride you hard and often.”

“Well, this filly has the bit between her teeth and you’re in for one hell of a ride, cowboy,” I snarled.

Derek dropped a hard kiss on my mouth. “I wouldn’t have it any other way, Angel.”

My foot lashed out.

He caught it a scant inch from his balls. “Nice try.”

An explosion shook the room and Derek’s face hardened. “If that’s your cousin out there, I’m going to mess up that pretty face of his.”

“That would be a mistake on your part. The Dragos clan makes for really bad enemies.”

Punching a code into the gun safe, Derek pulled out his Glock and checked the clip. “I’m family now, Angel.”

I snorted. “Like hell, family doesn’t chain you to the bed. All I am to you is a way to get the treasure.”

Derek examined me, like a scientist studying an interesting but odd specimen. “Are you angling for a ring, Angel?”

I gaped at him in astonishment. Marriage!? Had he gone off the deep end? Okay, he was the man of my dreams but Prince Charming he wasn’t. “Why in the hell would I want to marry you?”

“Because you’re in love with me,” the jerk answered.

Horror bubbled up in me. There was no way for him to know that. Was there? “You’re delusional. I keep running from you, remember?”

“Liar. We’ll have a little heart-to-heart when I get back.” Derek opened the door and his hot-eyed gaze slid over my nude body. “Damn, but you’ve got a great pair of tits.”

My temper flared to life. “I’m not a damned hooker and that’s not a compliment.”

“I guess you don’t want to hear how hot your pussy is either?”

I grabbed the clock off the nightstand and hurled it at him.

With a laugh, he quickly shut the door and the clock bounced off of it.

“Go fuck yourself,” I shouted as my dreams of a grand romance vanished.

“I’d rather fuck you,” Derek called as he locked me in.

Did the moron really think a locked door or handcuffs would hold me for long? With a grim smile, I pulled the earring from my left ear. Numb nuts had forgotten to remove all my jewelry. A mistake he probably wouldn’t make again. Derek’s learning curve was truly scary.

With one twist of the earring, I had my lock pick. It took another ten seconds to free myself. I shot to my feet and immediately clamped my legs together. Lordy, did I have to pee. Sprinting to the bathroom, I took care of business and a shriek broke from me as I saw myself in the mirror.

Bed head didn’t even begin to describe the awful condition of my hair. Add in the raccoon eyes, battered face and badly bruised body and there wasn’t a doubt in my mind. It had been a pity fuck.

Grabbing a wash cloth, I took care of the raccoon effect and hastily washed off my sticky thighs. A sudden thought hit me. Had he worn a condom? I had no friggin’ clue. Derek was a man whore like Fabian and with my luck, I’d end up with herpes or some other sexually transmitted disease. Thank God I didn’t have to worry about pregnancy. Good ole’ Aunt Sophie had forcibly taken care of that little problem just before I had escaped. The bitch didn’t want me breeding and now I knew why.

I grabbed the man whore’s comb and hurriedly fixed my hair. At least I didn’t look like an escapee from the local skid row now.

A tube of lipstick caught my attention and I picked it up. The label read, Fuck Me Red.

Something clenched in my chest at the thought of Derek with other women. He didn’t strike me as a one woman kinda man and I would never be anything more to him than a convenient tool.

Pulling the cap off the lipstick, I wrote in big letters across the mirror, ‘ Thanks for the pity fuck but the gold is still mine.’

“If he hadn’t taken your virginity, you would be dead now,” Granny Annabel’s disembodied voice echoed eerily off the bathroom walls.

“Derek saved me because he needs me to find the gold.” I wiped angrily at the tears rolling down my cheeks. When had I become such a wuss?

“He truly cares for you,” Granny said.

“Really? Maybe I want the man in my life to love me,” I snapped. Storming into the bedroom, I pulled open a dresser drawer and helped myself to a t-shirt.

“It will come with time.”

“Will it?” I shoved my feet into those ugly orthopedic shoes.

“Your spirits are now bound together and only death can break the mating bond.”

“Yeah, he’ll probably shoot me himself when he discovers exactly what the bond means.” The thought of his little, okay not so little, pecker not rising to the occasion with any other woman but me brought a smile to my face. It was the ultimate payback.

It was karma.

It was justice.

God, I’d love to see Derek’s face when he found out he was now a one woman man; whether he liked it or not.

On second thought, gloating wasn’t really a good idea. Running away as fast as I could was a better one.

I picked the door lock.

“If you run, he will follow,” Granny Annabel warned.

“I know.” I stepped into the hallway.

“Going somewhere Angel?”

I jumped about a foot.

Derek leaned casually against the wall, cleaning his nails with a big, ass knife. I swallowed hard at the fury burning in his eyes.

“Shouldn’t you be out searching for bad guys to kill and maim?”

A nasty little smile curled his mouth. “The explosion was a diversion to draw me away.”

“Oh. Didn’t work, huh?” My increasing nervousness amused him.

“I’m not a fucking rookie.” He slid the knife into a sheath at his waist.

Shit! I could sense Fabian creeping down the hallway behind him. I couldn’t let my dumb ass cousin get the crap beat out of him.

The conniving bastard held out his hand. “Give me the lock pick.”

“No.”

A muscle in his cheek jerked. “No?”

I stubbornly shook my head and pointed to my mouth. “Read my lips. No.”

Derek straightened, taking deadly to whole new level as he repeated, “No?”

“You heard me. You’re not my boss or my boyfriend or my husband. You don’t have the right to tell what I can or cannot do.”

“You don’t get it, do you? You belong to me now and you will do exactly what I say.”

“Get a dog. They fetch, heel and roll over on command.” I poked him the chest. “I don’t.”

“How many times do I have to save your life before you show me some fucking gratitude?”

“Okey-dokey, thank bunches for saving my life again, oh snarly one.” I jabbed him in the chest.

“Now you can show me some fucking gratitude for saving you and your men from the Apache Thunder God, by letting me go.”

Derek’s hand clamped around the back of my neck and he growled, “Not happening. Ever. You’re mine.”

“Wrong answer.”

Derek grunted in pain, staggered and dropped to the floor like a pole-axed steer.

Fabian towered over his body, a menacing figure in head-to-toe black.

I gaped at him in stunned surprise. My God, he could give Derek a run for his money with all the weapons he had strapped on. This was a side of my cousin I had never seen before.

“You didn’t have to hit him that hard,” I growled, bending down to check on my Tomb Raider.

“Yes, I did.” Fabian grabbed my arm and dragged me away.

“His head is bleeding,” I protested, trying to break free.

“Trust me, he has a hard head. We must leave now, bella,” my cousin answered. Suddenly the macho male, he tossed me over his shoulder and strode off down the hallway.

Color me impressed. He carried me effortlessly.

I had lost a few pounds but wow! Maybe he could hold his own with Derek. I thought about it for about thirty seconds and shook my head. Nah, he’d get his butt kicked.

That brought up another question. How in the hell had the prissy man whore morphed into a take charge James Bond type? Which one was the real Fabian? I pinched his neck hard. “Lucy, you’ve got some ’splaining to do.”

“Behave,” Fabian hissed and smacked my bottom.

Where was a stun gun when you needed one?

“Hit me again and you’ll be missing a photo shoot or two.”

“Do you want me to leave you with la Polizia?”

He cracked the door open and took a quick look around the outside of Derek’s fortified safe house.

Yeah I really did but that would only lead to heartache and humiliation. “No.”

“Then be quiet.” Fabian jogged across the lawn with me bouncing up and down on his shoulder like a jiggly bag of potatoes.

An alarm sounded and flood lights sprang on.

I wiggled frantically. “For God’s sake, put me down.”

My cousin totally ignored me and broke into a run.

Ed burst out of the house in hot pursuit.

I jabbed Fabian in the back. “Got a flash bang or smoke bomb?”

“Belt. Left side.”

I yanked a canister off his belt, pulled the pin and tossed it as we crashed through the shrubbery.

Bam!

A thick cloud of billowing white smoke obscured us from view.

Fabian adroitly ran down a rocky hillside at breakneck speed.

I clung to his neck in amazement. “Omigod!

You’re like Zorro!”

My cousin chuckled. “Zorro? I discreetly retrieve things for Uncle Aldo but there is no sword play involved.”

“Zelda, if you don’t want your cousin’s pretty face permanently disfigured, you’ll get your ass back here,” Derek bellowed, from somewhere behind us.

Damn. He did have a hard head. “Maybe you should leave me. He’s really pissed.”

My cousin skidded to a stop next to a bright red dune buggy and dumped me in the passenger seat.

“Don’t be silly, bella. Buckle up.”

Yanking a grenade off his belt, Fabian pulled the pin and hurled it at Derek.

“Don’t kill him,” I cried in horror.

“It is only a flash bang, bella,” Fabian admonished as he jumped in the driver’s seat.

A blinding flash of light was followed rapidly by a thunderous cracking boom.

The Tomb Raider’s furious voice suddenly filled the silence. “Goddamnit, Zelda!”

Temporarily blinded, I sighed in relief and heard the motor roar to life.

“You are truly smitten,” Fabian groused.

“Si, it is amore. Sono innamorato”

The dune buggy bounced wildly over the rough terrain.

Blinking the spots out of my eyes, I glanced over at Fabian. His night vision goggles gave him an almost alien appearance. “What’s the plan?”

“I get you back to Las Vegas; we retrieve the stucco warrior and continue the search for the gold.”

We? Oh, hell no. “I’m doing this on my own.”

“No, you are not.”

The last thing I needed was another bossy male telling me what to do. “Don’t you have another shoot coming up in Rome?”

“Si, I will cancel it.”

I could hear the disappointment in his voice.

“Isn’t Tessa going to be there?”

“It makes no difference.”

What a liar. Tessa, also a super model, had been Fabian’s one great love until his man whore ways drove her away. I knew he had planned on wooing her back on the photo shoot. “There’s no need for you to make that kind of sacrifice.

Sebastian can back me up.”

“True but Uncle Aldo doesn’t want you left unguarded.”

“I’ve got Granny Annabel for protection.”

“Si, but…” Granny materialized on the itty-bitty hood. “Dios Mio!”

“Go to Rome. I will keep bella safe,” Granny reassured him.

“Holy Jesus!” My eyes bugged out. We were heading straight for a cliff. “Look out!”

“I have it under control, bella,” Fabian grumbled.

My mouth hung open, terrified and gasping for breath as the dune buggy hurtled down an almost perpendicular hill.

Fabian expertly steered the buggy around huge boulders, barely missing trees and ploughed straight through a muddy stream, sending water cascading in every direction.

His laugh was the last straw. Wiping the mud off my face, I hauled off and punched him in the arm as hard as I could. “You jerk. Stop this damned thing! Now! I’m walking from here.”

My cousin rubbed his arm. “When did you lose your sense of adventure?”

“Right after I paid a visit to the Ninth Hell. Now let me out.”

Fabian glanced in the rearview mirror. “Your man is right behind us.”

“What!?” I twisted around in my seat and groaned.

A yellow Hummer bounced madly down the hill.

An almost palpable fury emanated from Sloan.

His predatory instincts had taken over and he wouldn’t stop until he had caught his prey. Me.

Fabian asked, “You still want me to stop?”

“No. Put the pedal to the metal.”

“That’s my fearless little warrior.” He shot the dune buggy down a narrow canyon.

Holy Mother of God! I jerked my right arm away from the door as the canyon walls whizzed by.

Fearless? More like scared shitless. Another inch or two and we’d be splattered all over the place.

Glancing over my shoulder, I watched as the Hummer came to a sudden, shuddering halt in the mouth of the canyon.

I laughed. Damn, what a shame. The big, bad CIA agent was stuck.

Derek climbed out the window and whacked the hell out of the hood with his Fedora.

“Temper. Temper.”

“I will find you, Angel,” Derek roared. I will find you, echoed over and over again through the canyon.