The Witch and the Englishman (16 page)

“Nah. You didn’t come here for my pecker. I don’t think you want my child.” He shrugged. “Tell me. Which agency do you work for? DEA, CIA, FBI. Homeland Security?” He laughed. “Homeland Security.
Pinche gringos
, you know nothing ‘bout homeland security. Me. My country. Mexico.
I
am homeland security. You piss me off, I kill you. You don’t. You live. Wait. Maybe Pedro Cesar’s family sent you? Who, Tita? And what is your real name?” He laughed maniacally, the sound filling the room, drowning out the music. “
Dios mio!
I love the name! You have good humor, whore. Yes, you do.”

He was insane. Freaking insane drug lord—at least that title fit. I didn’t answer him but continued to eye him spitefully. He stood in front of me and lowered his voice. “I like your
name,
” he whispered, “but I don’t like being lied to and played for a fool.” He slapped me hard across the face. The sting of his hand against my flesh sent my head into a spin. Stars burst inside my skull. I shook it off and regained focus. No time for weakness. I was done with this! I spat at him. He smacked me again on the other cheek. Nice. Really nice. If I ever got out of here I would have two black eyes. I straightened myself in the chair.

Domingo sat down on his bed facing me, shaking his head. “You shouldn’t have done that. I thought you were smarter than that.”

Was he getting tired?

“
I paid for something.” He arched a bushy eyebrow, his eyes wide with anger, insanity, sociopathy.... “And I aim to get it.” He stood back up, the bed creaking as his weight lifted off the springs. He walked around the backside of the chair and draped his free hand on my shoulder, then slid a finger across my neck.

Yes. My skin did crawl.

He placed the palm of his hand beneath my chin, tilting my head back hard. My eyes met his. “That something is
you
.” He clucked his tongue.

Oh no. Oh holy hell. Then he brought the gun square between my eyes. My stomach sank. I had to do something quick. Where was my team?! I used my right hand to fiddle with the insert in the back of my panties, and I spoke a silent prayer to a God I’m really not sure that I believe in anymore.

“You’re going to be a good girl.” He bent down on one knee and wobbled. “But I don’t trust you. If you do what I ask maybe I’ll be nice enough to let you go. Maybe I’ll even make you a real whore. I have connections, as I’m certain you’re aware of.” He winked at me, placing his hand on my knee, rubbing it along my leg while maintaining the gun at my forehead. He stood again and unzipped his pants.

I thought I might be sick as revulsion sent a wave of nausea through me.

“Open your mouth,” he ordered.

It was now, or never. I opened my eyes and looked down at my bare feet, toenails painted a garish red in order to play “the part of a lifetime. For the job. For the higher good.” That was how Simms had put it to me anyway, telling me that I would be bringing down the man responsible for thousands of people’s deaths, many of them children.
Job of a lifetime.
Right. Bringing down a madman. The tables had turned.
Unless...

“
I said, open your mouth.”

My fingers tightened around the scalpel. My hands pulled free as I worked the knots, and before Domingo had time to think and pull the trigger, I went for it bringing the sharpened instrument around in a swift motion, slicing him in his most vulnerable area. Yeah. Karma is a bitch. That word stupid sent me over the edge. I could deal with filthy, but stupid. Not so much.

Domingo fell to the floor screaming, his eyes wild with shock, blood streaming everywhere. I scrambled to my feet as the drug lord’s bedroom door swung open. Sliding on Domingo’s blood, I fell back onto the tiles hitting my head against them. That smarted. I reached out to grab the gun that had been held to my head only seconds before. In one swift motion I retrieved the weapon and rolled to the side behind the bed, a bullet whizzing past me. Domingo bellowed like a wild animal, his screams echoing off the walls.

The scent of tuberose wafted into the room on a slight breeze. Someone had opened the French doors to the balcony outside Domingo’s room. Oh no. There had been a henchman waiting for the first sign of trouble. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement. Trapped and in real trouble now. The bodyguard who’d come through the front door took another step forward. He was large, bulky and one ugly son-of-a-bitch. Of course he was. I crouched down further as the bodyguard fired off a round of bullets. One grazed my shoulder. Thank God I was amped up on adrenaline. The sting zinged down my arm as blood seeped out. Scooching under the bed, I heard the bodyguard reloading. My vision was blocked some from the chair next to the bed, as I tried to get a lock on my target.

There was no time to waste or wait, knowing he was going to start firing again at any minute. I eyed the man’s knees and pulled the trigger, getting him on the side of the leg. He yelled out and fell to one knee, giving me just enough time to get out from underneath the bed. I aimed again and this time it wasn’t at his knees. The man fell to his death from my last shot. There were no bullets left in the chamber. I scurried out from behind the bed and ran over to where the bodyguard’s gun lay, and grabbed it—semi-automatic.

Loud shouts came from the downstairs foyer, above the samba music. “Get down, get the fuck down! Now!”

Thank God! I recognized the voices as I spun around to see Noah Kensington, his light blue eyes trained on me. “Nice work,” he said. He grabbed me by the arm and shoved me back down as another round of gunfire ricocheted off the walls inside the expansive master suite. Two more bodyguards entered the room, their weapons blazing, as Noah and I rolled opposite off one another, headed into corners where we could take better aim at the enemy. The guards were shooting randomly. Not good. I couldn’t see Noah. Images in the room blurred between bullets spraying chips of plaster off the walls, glass shattering and loud music blaring over the speakers.

Noah shot one of the guards in the face, his hands coming up to protect it as he dropped his weapon. I watched as the other guard turned around and saw what had happened—and locked on Noah. There was no time to think as I dove at him, bringing the large man down to the ground, where he thrashed and threw me off like a rag doll. I hit the wall hard, but it had given Noah the time he needed to take him out.

Noah bent down next to me as I held the back of my head. It was definitely hurting, and I knew it would get worse. He looked me up and down. “You okay? Pretty nasty bang there.” I nodded. “Holy shit, Ky, you’re bleeding.”

“
I know.” I glanced at my shoulder. “Just a scrape. Barely touched me.”

“
Can you get up?”

“
Yeah.”

He reached out his hand and I took it. I groaned. Yep. It was all going to hurt tomorrow. “Thank you,” he said. “Guy almost killed me.”

“No problem. Back at you. Guy almost killed me, too.”

Standing up, we took inventory of the carnage. On the ground was a dead Domingo Rodriguez, killed by one of the many bullets exchanged during the gunfire. There were four dead bodyguards. I was sure many more were spread out across the Rodriguez estate. The Calvary had indeed arrived. Not soon enough as far as I was concerned. Not soon enough.

The pounding of feet running up the stairs signified that the team along with several other CIA and DEA agents were on their way up. Noah threw his gun onto the bed and took off his T-shirt. He tossed it to me, my heart was still racing and the adrenaline pumping through me made me light headed. Then it hit me! I was clad only in a bra and a miniscule pair of panties. Cold snaked down through my body chilling me inside and out, not only from the lack of clothing, but more so from the thought of what Domingo Rodriguez could’ve done to me, and how close of a call it had really been.

Straightening the T-shirt out around me, I glanced at Noah. A bluish bruise streaked across one side of his face, blood splattered on his high cheekbones and slightly crooked nose. Tanned and toned, Noah Kensington was not hard to look at. But I hated that he looked at me the way he did at that moment—his eyes full of pity. Please. But we had saved each other’s lives and he’d given me the shirt off his back. Plus I was fucking alive. Thank God I was alive. And, thank God the T-shirt reached below my butt, so I didn’t feel quite so exposed as the room filled with agents, guns drawn.

I crossed my arms in front of me, heat rising to my cheeks. “Where the hell were you?”

Noah laid a hand on my uninjured shoulder. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault. When we lost contact I started to gear up the team, but I really thought we should hold off for a little bit. It was a fine line there of trusting you and then possibly losing this guy forever. Before the bug went out of range, we hadn’t picked up anything to signal that he was on to you. I thought we were losing the signal because of the location with the mountain range behind us.

“What? You thought, let’s wait it out and see if she makes it?” I pushed his hand off my shoulder. “Come on.”

“
Of course not. You know your job. You know how to do it. I mean, hell you’re a highly trained PSI agent. I wasn’t getting any kind of read that you were in danger.” He cast his eyes away from me. “Last time we went in too early with a raid I thought you were going to have my goddamn head. I wasn’t exactly eager to piss you off again.”

Hands on my hips, I shook my head. “That was totally different. We were raiding a Chicago south side apartment for a prostitution ring, not going after the biggest drug king in all of Mexico. Let’s seriously think about this. Just think about the reasons you weren’t
getting anything.
Maybe it’s
because your skills lie in reading the past, not present or future,” I replied.

“
Told him that. He doesn’t exactly listen to me though,” Ayden Connors said, entering the room. “I told him that I could
feel
you were in grave danger.” Long and lanky, Ayden was opposite of Noah in so many ways. Ayden tried to hide a smile behind his hazel eyes. His dark hair fell in waves around his ears. “He actually finally started to listen to me when I described your heart rate and the fact that I knew you were tied up and had a scalpel in your panties. Good thinking, Kylie.” He shook his head. “New one on me, though. The panties. Genius.”

I closed my eyes for a second. If only I could have crawled under a rock at that moment. I sighed heavily and glanced at the other faces in the room as someone cleared their throat. Every one of them looked incredulous. The PSI was not the most highly respected group within the ranks of the CIA or among any of the other government agencies who on occasion called on their special skills. There were many who referred to the PSI team members as hoo-do voodoo assholes—and worse.

However, it was the PSI, and our team in particular, whose work led to this bust. And, it was huge. The repercussions of what had just taken place inside the villa outside the small Mexican town of Sayulita would be felt globally within the world of organized crime and on the streets of American cities throughout the U.S. PSI had taken down a major Mexican drug cartel leader, shutting down a killing machine and a billion dollar drug business.

“
I think we should discuss this later,” Noah said.

“
Good idea, like after I get some clothes on,” I replied.

“
You need to have someone take a look at that shoulder, plus you have yourself a nice bruise on your face,” Noah said.

“
I’m fine,” I replied, but I didn’t exactly feel it. My body was beginning to ache all over and the pounding in my head was a repetitive drone banging on the inside of my left temple. Noah started to say something else, but I held up my hand. “No. I said I’m fine.” He sighed and dropped it. “I’m out of here,” I said.

One of the DEA muscle men placed a massive palm in front of me as I started to leave Rodriguez’s bedroom. “Wait a minute. You can’t go anywhere. You’ve got to give a detailed report.”

I did my best to smile sweetly at him, but I’m sure I didn’t look too terribly sincere. “I suppose I do, don’t I?”

The agent nodded. “That’s procedure.”

“Right. Well, you know what you can do with your procedure today? Shove it up your ass. I’ll give you a report, but not until I’m ready. It’s been a rough day, if you know what I mean.” I winked at him. His jaw fell open and I slid on past him. Little did he know that my tough talk was only that. I wanted to get the hell out of there because I thought if I didn’t that I might shatter into a million pieces.

We headed back to the small, seedy hotel we’d all been holed up in for over a week, riding in silence for the fifteen-minute drive. When I got out of the car, my hands still shook, regardless of the hot humid air billowing around us. I shoved them into the pockets of the jeans I had put on once I’d gotten outside of the villa. The last thing I wanted Noah or Ayden to see was how scared I’d been and, frankly, how scared I still felt.

“Can we talk now?” Noah whispered in my ear, as he held the front door of the hotel open.

“
No. Not now. All I want to do is take a hot shower, have a couple of shots of good Tequila, maybe a piece of fresh fish and go to bed. We can talk tomorrow.” I didn’t want to talk at all with Noah. I knew what he wanted to talk about, and that was what had happened the night before between us.