“I really like to film these kinds of things,” the man said softly with his accent. “Mozart needs proof, but I like videos as well for my personal souvenir. Smile for the camera.”
The blade disappeared, and he gripped her chin and forced her face over to the tripod. As she breathed hard through her stuffy nose, the nostrils flaring and sucking in, flaring and sucking in, she felt the switchblade snake down to her breast, the tip making a circle around her nipple.
“You’re going to be so pretty when I’m done with you.” The tone was soothing, as someone might placate a patient who was about to get a medical procedure done. “And don’t worry, I’m going to make sure you feel everything I do to you. If we have to take breaks for you to catch your breath, we will. And when the end comes, and I enter you properly, you’re going straight to heaven.”
Rio squeezed her eyes shut and thrashed against the ropes, her body fighting for its freedom on its own, her brain taking a back seat to the high-octane fear coursing through her veins.
The man took a break from the teasing and sat on his heels, watching her as a child who had picked the wings off a fly might regard the insect’s futile suffering.
She ran out of energy pretty quickly, and then she was limp and sweating, in spite of the cold.
“So pretty,” he murmured as he tilted his head and then brushed her bangs back with the switchblade. “I wish I could take out the gag. I want to hear everything you have to say to me, and I want to kiss you—”
The door to the apartment blew off its hinges, not opening but falling in, the panel hitting the floor with a clap and a cloud of dust, its screws bouncing free as they ran off across the bare floorboards.
After that . . . Rio wasn’t sure what happened.
The man with the switchblade was attacked, but not by another person. It was an animal, a huge . . . dog? The massive gray-and-white canine bounded into the space and launched itself at Rio’s torturer, punching the guy on the back with its forepaws so that her attacker fell face forward—then latching on to the nape of the neck with tremendous fangs.
The man tried to fight back, the switchblade swiping in wide, useless circles as the animal managed to keep him pinned on his stomach by planting itself on his back. And then there was a banging, the man’s torso lifted and slammed down, lifted and slammed down, the dog heaving its great head up and down, the bludgeoning turning the pale features of its victim to a crimson red as the nose was broken.
When the man went loose-armed and utterly limp, the dog shifted its bite to an arm and rolled the deadweight over, like it was thinking this all through, as if there were a specific strategy to what was happening.
Then it cocked its head, as if confused.
The pause didn’t last, and things got even bloodier now. The beast tore the front of the throat open and then went to work . . . on the face.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Rio trembled, and her nausea came back—especially as that strange smell she’d caught as soon as the man had revealed himself grew loud in her nose. And without her eyes tracking the carnage, the sounds of it all got unbearably loud: The wet slopping, the ripping, the crunching that had to be bones.
Rio was next.
That was her final thought as her blood pressure gave out entirely and she—
Rio resurfaced into consciousness slowly. Her head was pounding and she was sick to her stomach . . . and every time she breathed in through her nose, she choked on the stench in the air. Like roadkill and old-lady powder—
“It’s okay, you’re okay.”
Her lids flipped open. Someone was kneeling in front of her, someone her memory told her she knew, yet she couldn’t place . . . a man who was beautiful in a harsh way, his handsome face both stark and concerned, his dark hair on the long side—
His hair was wet. Was it raining?
Given the way his mouth was moving, she had a thought that he was talking to her, and that was when she saw the camera on the tripod behind him. All at once, the whole sordid mess came back to her, from being knocked out at her apartment, to drugged at Mozart’s, to what had happened here—
She needed to warn him. She needed to tell him about the—
“Dog,” she croaked.
As the word came out, she realized she no longer had the gag in her mouth. With a punching expansion of her lungs, one that caused pain everywhere in her body, she breathed in so deep and so hard it was as if she sobbed. Or maybe she was sobbing? And then the tether around her neck tightened and she moaned in fear.
That deep male voice cut through her protest. “It’s all right. I’m just going to untie you. I have to pull on the ropes a little to do it. Shhh . . . it’s okay. I’m going to take care of you.”
All at once, the tension around her throat was gone—and then she heard a shuffle and felt tugging at her ankles. Able to lift her head, she looked down herself and saw . . .
Luke.
It was the supplier, Luke. That’s who he was, and his eyes were full of worry and warmth as he looked at her—
“How . . . find me?” she groaned as he went back to work and cut what appeared to be nylon climbing rope with a knife—
Between one blink and the next, she saw the switchblade he was using right next to her face . . . felt it between her breasts . . . heard the pale man’s accent tell her they were going to stop when she had to catch her breath.
Rio let out a choked sob. “Oh, God. He was going to kill me—”
“Don’t think about that right now.” Luke collapsed the switch, and came back up to her head. “I’m going to get you out of here.”
Strong arms gathered her as if she were cut glass and pulled her into his heavy chest. Even though she didn’t know him, and had every reason not to trust him, she wanted to put her arms around him in gratitude. But she didn’t have the strength.
“I can’t walk,” she mumbled as she turned her face into his neck. “My legs . . . I can’t feel them.”
God, he smelled good. More of that cologne he’d had on before—and it was strong enough to cut through that horrible smell.