“I found you.”
I didn’t respond. Instead, my mind circled repeatedly, chasing down my lost memories. I had a vague impression of being in the back seat of a jeep-like vehicle. The sky was just starting to transform from black to gray as my body rolled from side to side with each jarring bump, but beyond that…I didn’t remember anything. I nodded. “Where am I?” The rudimentary furniture didn’t resemble anything I’d seen in the villa, and the room had a window, so I wasn’t in another windowless prison cell on the villa grounds.
He ignored my question and sat on the bed next to my hip. I scrambled away, but his hand came down hard on my thigh, stopping my retreat. Heat rushed through me, and goose bumps erupted on my leg despite my determination to remain unaffected by him. No. Not again.
His eyes dropped to my leg, and he smiled a lush, upward curve of his lips. My breath caught in my throat. His touch wasn’t particularly predatory or sexual, but my body didn’t get the message. Alert and standing at attention, my body wanted him even as my mind screamed a loud, resounding, no fucking way.
“Are you thirsty?”
I wanted to tell him no, but I was so thirsty and hungry I caved. I nodded. “And hungry.”
A lazy grin floated across his lips, and my treasonous heart fluttered with mischief. “Good. Breakfast should arrive in a few minutes.” His hand roamed down my leg to my knee and then my foot. Red lashes and purples bruises blanketed my legs from my knees to my feet. “You didn’t answer my question. Are you in pain?”
“I’ll live,” I said, snatching my foot out of his hand. His touch scrambled my brain and turned my thoughts inside out. “Well, maybe not now that you found me,” I amended with a shrug of one of my shoulders. “Are you going to kill me? Punish me?”
His eyebrows lifted, but he didn’t respond because someone with less than perfect timing knocked on the door. I wanted to know what he planned to do to me.
“That’s your breakfast.” He stood up, but after few steps, he paused with his hand on the doorknob. “You can scream or say whatever you want when I open the door. It won’t matter. This bed and breakfast is under the protection of the Vargas Cartel.”
I scrambled out of the bed. “And what does that mean?”
“That they exist because we let them exist.” My blank look didn’t escape his notice. “The owners of the bed and breakfast pay the Vargas Cartel a monthly quota or tax to ensure their business isn’t disturbed. The owners won’t jeopardize the arrangement to save some random American girl.”
“Like in the old movies about Al Capone where businesses had to pay for protection from the mafia.”
“Exactly. The Vargas Cartel taxes bars, discos, and hundreds of other small businesses.” Ryker shrugged. “It makes the businesses complicit in the crime network and secures the cartel’s territory.”
I folded my arms across my chest, as my optimism of finding help dwindled with every word that left Ryker’s mouth. “How did you explain showing up last night with an unconscious woman, or is that a normal occurrence for you?”
He glanced over his shoulder. “I told them you’re my girlfriend.”
“Asshole,” I mumbled under my breath, but my insult didn’t faze him. He chuckled as he opened the door.
“Ricardo. Buenas tardes,” Ryker said when he opened the door. “Gracias por complaciente mi novia y yo.”
“?Por supuesto!”
”Look, Hattie. He brought you food,” Ryker said, glancing over his shoulder before he returned his attention to Ricardo. “Gracias.”
The man smiled at me, a wide welcoming smile, displaying a gold-capped front tooth. “Su novio es hermosa.”
“Si, gracias.”
Ryker pivoted to me again. “Say thank you to Ricardo.”
“Why?”
“He said you’re beautiful.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “I guess he’s into the dirty, unkempt look.”
“You look fine. I cleaned you up last night.”
I gawked at Ricardo. He had a huge smile on his face. He probably thought he’d earned a lifetime of favors by accommodating the son of the head of the Vargas Cartel and his girlfriend. “Gracias,” I muttered, trying to smile, but I think it came out more like a grimace given the look on his face.
Ryker handed me the tray of food. “Will this work?”
“I prefer a lighter breakfast, but it will work.” It was a lie. I’d eat my hand if I had to, but I hated accepting anything from him, even if I was desperate.
Ryker raised one eyebrow. “Lighter?” he questioned.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I usually eat yogurt with chia seeds and fresh fruit.”
“I don’t think they have that,” he snapped before accompanying Ricardo out of the room, closing the door behind him.
The room didn’t have a table, so I sat down on the bed and surveyed the food—eggs, toast, ham, and freshly squeezed orange juice. It would do just fine.
By the time Ryker returned, I had scraped my plate clean. As he sat next to me on the bed, I kept my eyes lowered, staring at my bare plate and empty glass like the answer to the universe would be found somewhere in the crumbs or film of orange liquid coating the bottom of my glass.
He held out a bottle of water. “Here,” he said. “You’re probably still thirsty.”
I nodded my thanks but never met his eyes. My unease vibrated through the room, taking on a life of its own. So many issues dangled in the air: my escape, my capture, my future, but most disconcerting was the fact that I practically begged him to touch me again. All of it hung around my neck like a noose waiting for the right moment to squeeze the life out of me.
As my mind raced, his cold, gray eyes never looked away. I squirmed under his knowing stare. I considered what he saw. I questioned what he was thinking. I wondered what he planned to do with me. I debated what happened to the gun I stole from his room. I couldn’t take the silence any longer. “Why don’t you have an accent?” I finally said, blurting out the first inane thought that entered my head.
“My mother is an American. I lived with her during the school year, and I lived with Ignacio during the summer.”
“They weren’t married?” I asked, fidgeting with my hands.
“No.” He didn’t elaborate.
“What about your brother? Where did he live?”
“With Ignacio and his wife. We don’t have the same mother.”
“Oh. Where does your mom live?”
“Connecticut now, but New York when I was younger.”
“How did they meet?” I didn’t have a clue why I wanted to ask these questions. Maybe I wanted to avoid heavier topics. Maybe I hated the charged silence, or maybe I wanted to know something about the man who repeatedly frayed my self-control and inspired my hate and lust in equal measure.
“At a photo shoot at a hotel owned by Dad’s family. My mom was a model. He saw her, and the rest was history. She fell in love. He had a wife. He refused to leave her.”
“Even when she got pregnant?” I shouldn’t have continued the interrogation. It wasn’t my business.