Forbidden Captor
Julie Miller
Mills & Boon Silhouette
He'd fallen into enemy hands. Now, battle-scarred bounty hunter Bryce Martin and his comrades were imprisoned in dungeonlike torture chambers on wind whipped Devil's Fork Island.He was at the mercy of the barbaric militia members who'd been breaching homeland security, yet Bryce somehow forged a human connection with a mysterious servant girl. In the dark shadows of the night, gentle-hearted Anastasiya Belov saw beyond his beastly appearance to the tender man inside. Spurred by their desperate situation, a forbidden attraction ignited. Bryce's beautiful keeper was the key to escaping, but she led a double life in a dangerous game of survival. Could Bryce outsmart his foes…without sacrificing his most precious ally?
Bryce Martin wasn’t exactly what she’d call a confidant
But in the dark shadows of the night, when Tasiya felt vulnerable and alone, when she ached for a kind word—for hope—he noticed. He hadn’t said much, but the depth of his voice had resonated every shattered nerve, calming her, grounding her. He seemed solid as a mountain to cling to, yet just as forbidding.
There was a kindness to his perceptive gray eyes that had washed over her like a gentle spring shower. A sadness, too, as though the ugly marks on his body were etched more deeply inside.
He called himself a monster at their first meeting, and she believed him. But last night she saw a glimpse of the heart within the beast. And that paradox gave her the strength to survive one more day….
Forbidden Captor
Julie Miller
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Julie Miller attributes her passion for writing romance to all those fairy tales she read growing up, and shyness. Encouragement from her family to write down all those feelings she couldn’t express became a love for the written word. She gets continued support from her fellow members of the Prairieland Romance Writers, where she serves as the resident “grammar goddess.” This award-winning author and teacher has published several paranormal romances. Inspired by the likes of Agatha Christie and Encyclopedia Brown, Ms. Miller believes the only thing better than a good mystery is a good romance.
Born and raised in Missouri, she now lives in Nebraska with her husband, son and smiling guard dog, Maxie. Write to Julie at P.O. Box 5162, Grand Island, NE 68802-5162.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Anastasiya (Tasiya) Belov —Her father’s been kidnapped by the terrorists he dared to betray. The ransom? Cook and clean for—and spy on—an American militia who would gladly kill any traitor in their midst. The price of failure? Losing everything she loves. Including the man who would save her.
Bryce Martin —A battle-scarred warrior inside and out. He’ll do whatever it takes to escape from prison and save his Big Sky comrades—and the one woman who might learn to love this beast of a man.
Boone Fowler —Leader of the Montana Militia for a Free America. An escaped convict who has no love for foreigners. But he loves their money. And if their “gift” will help him take revenge on Big Sky Bounty Hunters…
Marcus Smith —Big as an ox, with the charm to match. He wants Tasiya Belov to be his reward for his service to the militia.
Dimitri Mostek —Lukinburg’s Minister of Finance. He has no patience for men who embezzle money from him. But he answers to a higher power.
Anton Belov —He was only trying to make a little extra money for bills and food. Now his extravagance might cost his daughter her life.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Prologue
St. Feodor, Lukinburg, November 4
9:07 p.m.
The chocolate-caramel torte was a delicious success. And an incredible mess.
But Anastasiya Belov didn’t mind being elbow-deep in suds and dishwater, scraping the sticky topping from the pan. Not when her latest recipe had brought such a delighted smile to her father’s face and earned her a hug even before she’d served him coffee.
Lukinburg, an eastern-European monarchy reformed after the disbandment of the Soviet Union, was a country beset by hard times. Even with her job cooking and cleaning for the minister of finance, Dimitri Mostek, she and her father, Anton, barely made ends meet.
But Anton, one of the senior accountants working for the ministry, had earned a bonus in his November paycheck. To celebrate his success, Tasiya had been extravagant with her market shopping and had prepared her father a feast far grander than anything she was allowed to fix for the Mosteks. Her father’s smile had been worth the extra pound of butter and brown sugar.
“You look so like your mother when I see you in the kitchen like this.”
Tasiya smiled and turned at the sound of her father’s musical accent. His rolling rs and guttural consonants echoed in her own voice. “You mean hot and perspiring, even though there’s snow on the ground outside?”
He brushed aside a strand of curly black hair that clung to her damp cheek. “I mean beautiful. Strong in spirit and body.”
“I love you, Papa.”
He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I love you, Tasiya. Now—” he stood straight and tall and clapped his hands “—is there more of that chocolate cake?”
Tasiya laughed. “It’s a torte, Papa.” She reached for a towel and dried her hands, then gave him a nudge back to the living room where he’d been reading the paper. “You go. Relax. I will bring you another slice and a fresh cup of coffee.”
“You spoil me, daughter.”
“You’re the only one who’ll let me. Now go.”
As her father disappeared around the corner, Tasiya went to work. She twisted her long tresses into a bun and secured them with her metal hair clip. Then she set the coffeepot back on the stove to reheat while she prepared a second helping of dessert.
She was glad to do this for him, glad to bring a little happiness into their humdrum lives. There’d been far too little rejoicing in recent years. Not since King Aleksandr had ascended the throne. His solution to creating order and reviving a badly wounded economy had been to rule with a tight, cruel fist. Inflation was out of control. And while the royal family lived in a palace that showcased the elegance and wealth of the Lukinburg of old, basic supplies such as food and fuel couldn’t be guaranteed to its citizens. Financial aid from foreign countries had been rejected time and again, and those who protested the king’s strict policies and isolationist philosophy were often imprisoned, or else they mysteriously disappeared.
So Tasiya took joy in her father’s success. She celebrated it as her own success because it was the only type of achievement she would ever be allowed.
After setting her mother’s silver tray with a plate, fork and napkin, Tasiya reached for the coffeepot and—
Gunshots exploded in the living room. “Papa!”
“Tasiya!”
She ran to her father as the front door splintered and cracked around the lock and swung open. Four or five men dressed in black from head to toe stormed in, along with rifles and curses and a blast of snow and frigid air.
“What are you— Papa!”
She never reached him. One of the men grabbed her around the neck and shoved her back into the kitchen. “Stay back!”
Tasiya twisted to see around the man blocking the archway with his gun. Though her father struggled, Anton was no match for the three men who dragged him outside into the snow. “Papa!”
Not waiting to ask questions, Tasiya pulled the lid from the coffeepot, grabbed the handle and whirled around to sling the steaming liquid into the man’s face. Even with a stocking mask on, the scalding coffee did the trick. He screamed in pain, lifted his hands to his face.
She scooted past him and dashed out the door in her slippered feet. “Where are you taking him? Papa!”
She leaped down the front steps and saw to her horror they weren’t taking Anton anywhere. Instead, two of the men pushed her father down onto his knees in the middle of the street. The third man pulled a gun from his belt and placed the barrel against her father’s forehead.
“No! Don’t!”
Tasiya ran straight into the nightmarish scene. Snowflakes bit into her cheeks, and cold soaked into her feet. She shoved the gun aside and hugged her father’s head to her breast.
“Don’t hurt him!”
“Tasiya, no—”
“What do they want?”
“Isn’t this a pretty picture?”
Tasiya recognized that voice. Smooth and arrogant, used to having its own way. She spun around as the fifth man approached, not dressed in black like the others, but wearing a finely cut suit and expensive wool coat. Keeping her hands on her father’s shoulders, she stared at the familiar face in shock. But she didn’t for one minute think this man would help.
“Minister Mostek.” Her employer. Her father’s supervisor. The man with the beautiful wife and three children and roving eye. “Why are you doing this?” she demanded. “What do you want?”
“Justice.” He trailed the tip of one leather-gloved finger along her jaw and Tasiya flinched. His smile never reached those cold, beady eyes. “Your father has stolen from me.”
“It was so little,” Anton protested. “I only took enough—”
With a nod from Mostek, one of the so-called soldiers of the kingdom rammed the butt of his gun into her father’s temple. Tasiya sank to her knees as he fell, cradling his bleeding head in her arms.
“Your bonus,” she murmured. Not a reward for a job well done. But funds stolen from the coffers of men who would terrorize their own country in the name of order and line their own pockets while citizens starved. “Let him go,” Tasiya pleaded, looking up at Mostek. “He’s an old man. He’s no threat to you. He was only trying to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. You cannot punish a man for trying to survive.”
Dimitri Mostek cared so little for her father’s plight that he’d pulled a tiny cell phone from his pocket and placed a call. “We have him,” he reported, his greedy eyes dropping to the beaded tips of her breasts, made rigid by the wintry air seeping through her blouse. “We will execute him and set an example for others like him who would put themselves before our cause.”
Execute?
“No!” Tasiya bolted to her feet, not knowing where to place herself with three guns all aimed at her father. “Minister…Dimitri…please.”
His black eyes glistened as she used his given name. He’d asked her to do that before. In the pantry one morning where he’d trapped her unloading groceries. In his son’s bedroom when she’d been changing the sheets. One time he’d held on to her paycheck until she’d said his name. Each time she’d reminded him she was there to work, to perform menial tasks for his family, nothing more. But to save her father…
“Take me instead.” Bold words for a woman of no value.
“Tasiya, no.” Her father’s weak voice whispered from the ground at her feet.
Mostek held up his hand. The guns lowered. “You would be killed in your father’s place?”
The man she’d burned inside the apartment came charging down the steps. “You bitch!”
Tasiya whirled around and gasped at the raised hand swinging toward her face.
“No!” Mostek grabbed the man by the collar and shoved him into a snowbank. “Stand down.”
“But she—”
“I said no.” Mostek’s deep, articulate order silenced the man. “No one touches her but me.”
The man in the snow, nursing his scalded cheek and humilated pride, had shed his stocking cap. But it wasn’t enough damage to keep Tasiya from recognizing the chief of security in Mostek’s office. Her heart raced at the discovery. She glanced all around her. Did she know all these masked men?
Dimitri shrugged, straightened his coat and faced her with a smile that oozed a repugnant brand of charm. “So, Anastasiya. You would sacrifice yourself for your father?”
He seemed to doubt her loyalty to the only family she’d ever known, the only person she’d ever loved. “If it will spare his life.”
Tasiya’s deep breaths clouded the air around her as she waited for a response. She lowered her eyes, sensing Mostek’s traditional beliefs that a woman shouldn’t be allowed to address anyone, especially a man, above her station.
“Such a waste of beauty.” She detected the same lustful hunger that had repulsed her when he’d offered to set her up as his mistress that day in the pantry.
“Yes. I’m here.” Mostek’s voice sharpened. He was talking into the phone now, though she could feel his gaze on her. “Anton’s daughter has offered herself to me as a gift in exchange for his life. I would like to accept.”
“No.” Anton tugged at her skirt. He wavered as he pulled himself to a sitting position and clung to her arm. “She cooks and cleans for you, but she will not be your whore.”
Mostek flicked his hand and the guns went up again. “Then you will die.”
“Papa…”
Mostek spun away, arguing with the man on the phone. “I have been your loyal servant, carried out every secret…”
“These are very dangerous people, Tasiya.” Anton reached for her hand. “I knew the risks when I embezzled their money.”
She knelt beside him. “But the punishment does not fit the crime.”
“These are terrorists, my love. They do not care who they hurt, only that their cause endures and is triumphant.”
“And what is their cause?” A long-suppressed anger blended with her fear. “Who benefits from their so-called patriotism?”
“Do not question them.”
Tasiya cupped her father’s swollen face between her hands. She unbuttoned the cuff of her white cotton blouse and dabbed at the blood collecting in his eye. “You are a good man who has been loyal to king and country as long as I have known you. And how do they repay you? With threats and violence.” She blinked back the tears that stung her own eyes. “You are all I have in this world. I will not let them hurt you.”
“Tasiya—”
“It is done.” Mostek stuffed his phone into his pocket as he hooked his hand beneath her elbow and pulled her to her feet. Away from her father. “The arrangements have been made.”
“What arrangements?”
Mostek nodded to the others. “Take him away.”
“No—” Tasiya lunged for her father as two of the men grabbed him beneath his arms and dragged him toward a long black limousine adorned with two flags bearing the Lukinburg coat of arms.
Mostek jerked her arm in its socket, drawing her up against his chest. He moved his thin, shapeless lips against her ear. “In exchange for allowing your father to live, you are going to take a small journey for me.”
Tasiya swallowed hard to keep the bile from scorching her throat. “Where am I going?”
“To America.”
“America?” So big. So far away. The country that had given Crown Prince Nikolai asylum after speaking out against King Aleksandr at the United Nations. America—the country Aleksandr had called an empire-building bully. The country that would join the international movement to overthrow the Lukinburg government.
“My superior…” He seemed to find the word distasteful. Any man Dimitri Mostek feared and reviled must be very dangerous and powerful, indeed. “…believes you can be useful to our cause.”
“I don’t believe in your cause. There has to be a better way to find peace and prosperity for our people.”
He smiled. She hated that loathsome sneer. “Your beliefs are irrelevant. I’m putting you on a plane to America where you will be delivered as a gift to some friends.” Tasiya shriveled inside at the implication. “They will be warned not to touch you. That—” he kissed her temple, making her skin crawl “—will be my reward.”
Tasiya pulled back as far as his unrelenting grip allowed. What else did she have of value, if not her body? “Then what am I to do in America?”
“What you do so well. Cook. Clean. Serve my friends as you have served me.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a squarish device that looked like a miniature version of his own phone. He pressed the ultramodern gadget into her palm and curled her fingers around it. “And call me every day on this secure line to let me know exactly what they’re doing.”
“You’re asking me to spy on the Americans?”
“I’m telling you what you must do to save your father’s life.”
Chapter One
Devil’s Fork Island, U.S.A., November 7
12:00 a.m.
“Alpha-Bravo-Tango—Abort! Abort! Abort!”
“Negative!”
Sergeant Bryce Martin defied the command crackling over his vest radio and slipped a large safety pin into the land-mine housing, holding it in place while he dismantled the trigger assembly. The charge was still there, but it could no longer be detonated by simple pressure.
Taking deep, steady breaths to counteract the racing fury of his pulse, he spared a moment to glance up at the women, children and old men huddled like live bait in the center of the rows of cultivated coca plants turned minefield.
Only three more to go and they could lead the hostages out through a safe zone. He had the mechanics down now. Though the jungle of San Ysidro was laced with these deadly contraptions, their design wasn’t any more complicated than a hand grenade. After diagnosing and learning the procedure on the first one, he could neutralize each mine in just over a minute. He’d come this far, he’d finish the job. “I need three minutes, sir.”
“I don’t have three minutes to give you, Sarge.” Colonel Murphy’s signal was breaking up. His soldiers were on the move. “The damn setup’s an ambush. You gave it your best shot, but you need to get the hell out of there. Cordero’s men are lining up mortars. They’re going to blow your position. I order you to abort. Powell’s hijacked an evac chopper. We’re buggin’ out. Now!”
Bryce moved on to the next mine and dropped to his knees, his big hands surprisingly agile as he opened the trigger housing and slipped in another safety pin. He couldn’t leave these innocent people behind at the mercy of a greedy dictator and his drug-funded army.
Not when he’d been so close to finding something meaningful in his life. Not when he’d been so close to caring.
He jimmied the housing apart and snipped the wire before risking a glance up at Maria. Some of the men in his Special Forces unit saw her as the village madam—older, plumper, past her prime. But he saw her as something special. A kind soul who looked beyond his scarred-up face and truck-size body to offer him comfort and friendship in a decidedly unfriendly country.
Her world-weary eyes had tears in them now as she shook her head.
Two minutes.
“Dammit, Martin—get your ass out of there. You’ve got incoming.”
Bryce averted his ears to the telltale thump of mortar fire. Their fiery trails lit up the sky.
He couldn’t tell the civilians to run.
He gripped his assault rifle and rose to his feet.
He couldn’t save them. He couldn’t save Maria.
“I’m sorry.” He barely mouthed the words. He was already backing up.
“Sarge!”
He shouldn’t have cared. Dammit. Why the hell did he have to care?
“Gracias.” She blew him a kiss. “Be happy.”
Bryce turned, ran. The mortars hit. The mines exploded. Smoke billowed in the air behind him and rushed upon his heels.
White-hot pain ripped through his legs and back, cutting through scars and skin and muscle and bone.
He flew through the air, knowing he’d been toasted long before he hit the ground.
Campbell and Blackhaw charged from their cover. He felt their hands on him, dragging him out of the fire and smoke and death.
Bryce twisted in his scratchy, lumpy bed, reliving the torturous pain, inside and out. Replaying the months of recovery that had tested even his considerable patience, unable to find a comfortable position that didn’t make something itch or burn or ache.
A gunshot cracked through the night air. The sound jerked through him before Bryce went still. His eyes snapped open to hazy darkness. Not a remembered firefight. The real thing.
Dread made his body rigid, suffused him in sweat. God, no. He swung his legs off the cot and ran barefoot across the slimy cold stones of his cell. Over the rattle of his chains, he heard the hoots of laughter and triumph from outside in the courtyard.
Grasping the vertical bars of his cage, he hoisted himself up to look out. “Son of a bitch.”
He dropped to his feet, turned his back to the wall and sank down on his haunches. He knew the wall was as cold and damp from the night air as the floor beneath his feet. But he barely felt it. He couldn’t feel much of anything beyond rage at his captors.
This was worse than his nightmares.
The bastards had just executed an innocent man.
Devil’s Fork Island, U.S.A., November 8
2:13 a.m.
Bryce stared at the soldier’s bloody chest. “Kid?” God, had he ever been that young?
Cruel hands dragged him away from the dead man he’d scrambled into the slick underbrush with. Despite a flying tackle, he’d been too late to save him. Hell. He and his comrades from Big Sky Bounty Hunters had unknowingly brought the enemy with them in the first place.
Tailed. Like a bunch of amateurs. When they’d been trying to help. To warn their old unit of a terrorist attack.
Only, these were no terrorists. Not the foreign kind, at any rate.
The fight was on.
“Grab the big guy! Take him down!”
How many times had he heard that kind of threat?
Three men piled on, forcing him to the ground. He got his hands around the throat of a black-haired man, butted him in the head, kneed him where it counted and shoved him out of the way. Down to two. More wrestling than punching. Idiots. With all the mud and water they couldn’t get a grip. His meaty fists were far more effective.
“Martin!” He heard Jacob Powell’s voice, shouting his name. “Money’s on you, big guy! Take ’em—”
A deep grunt silenced his cheering section. They were outnumbered. Taken by surprise. Going down or neutralized one by one.
Bryce felt the bonds going around his wrists as they finally wised up and started beating on him. He pitched, kicked, pounded—and with a mighty effort, he lurched to his feet, hauling the two men up with him.
The tattoo of an upside-down burning flag swam across his vision before a new fist connected with his jaw, driving him back to his knees in the muddy marsh of North Carolina’s Swamp Lejeune. But it was the telltale click of a military-issue Colt sliding a bullet into the firing chamber that finally stilled the fight in him. “Let me just shoot him like I did the other one.”
The man with the curly black hair and the gun, the only man here who could match Bryce in stature, waited for the okay.
“No, Marcus! The ones out of uniform are not to be killed. You’ve enjoyed enough target practice for one day.” Even with the steel barrel of the Colt pressing into the back of his skull, Bryce turned to get a good look at the scraggly beard and brown ponytail of the tall, well-armed man approaching him.
“Boone Fowler.”
“I see my reputation precedes me.”
Like a rat spreading the plague.
The weasly son of a bitch headed up the Montana Militia for a Free America. Fowler was the fanatic who’d broken out of prison four months ago with his loyal minions, regrouped his own private army and waged a personal vendetta against the men of Big Sky who had imprisoned him in the first place. He didn’t care who he hurt or how he hurt them—only that he got his way.
Bryce breathed hard, tasting the blood in his mouth and ignoring pain in his side, keeping his enemy in sight.
Fowler doffed a distinctly unmilitary salute. “I want them alive. But I don’t necessarily need them in one piece.”
The man named Marcus needed no urging. He rammed the butt of his gun into Bryce’s head, swirling pain around inside his skull.
Bryce struggled against the beating hands that bound his wrists and ankles and inflicted what damage they could.
He was still swinging until the moment his world went black.
Bryce swung at his attackers in his sleep, rattling iron chains, pinching his wrists and startling himself awake.
He sat bolt upright in the bed, orienting himself to surroundings illuminated only by the cold threads of moonlight shining in through the open grating at the small, high window.
Sweat trickled along his cheek and dripped onto the deep rise and fall of his naked chest. It pooled at the small of his back and soaked into the waistband of his jeans. With each breath, he inhaled the stale smells of mold and damp, the pungent odor of the straw ticking in the mattress beneath him, and the cool, salty tang of an ocean breeze. They were familiar smells by now, though not necessarily welcome ones.
Two dead now. Boone Fowler had promised to kill one man every day until he got what he wanted. Whatever the hell that was. They had to get out of this hell-hole.
As Bryce’s eyes and mind adjusted to the here and now, he took note of the stone block walls. The surfaces had been worn smooth, the edges eroded unevenly by centuries of use. He noted the new steel bars and massive lock that kept him from leaving his six-by-eight cell.
His ankles chafed and the chain between them rattled as he swung his legs off the side of the iron cot and flattened his bare feet against the cold stone floor. This fortress was solid as a tomb and sported all the archaic comforts of a medieval dungeon.
Ignoring the scars of his life and the bruises from his capture, he jerked his wrists out to the side, stretching his arms as wide as the eighteen or so inches of chain connecting them allowed. He squeezed his hands into fists, swelling his mighty forearms and biceps until every muscle shook with the effort to rip the restraints apart. Though rust from age and the damp sea air colored the chain and cuffs, each link held fast.
Releasing his breath after the feverish exertion, he dropped his hands to his knees and watched a mouse scurry from its cubbyhole in the corner up to the window and disappear outside.
Lucky bastard.
Bryce was hungry and sore, isolated and trapped like a caged bear on some uninhabited island he didn’t recognize. His injuries were minimal—a puffy right eye, a cut lip, bruised ribs and a gash on his right cheek that would need stitches to heal pretty. Not that one pretty scar would make much difference amongst the marks left by the fiery car wreck that had killed his parents, and the shrapnel wounds from that San Ysidran minefield that had ended his official military career. But his injuries would never heal if the beating and pointless questions he’d endured that afternoon were going to become a daily ritual.
His three comrades from Big Sky Bounty Hunters, as well as the thirteen Special Forces soldiers who’d survived the ambush at the Marine Corps training base nicknamed Swamp Lejeune, could be dead now or imprisoned in another barred room inside this ancient prison. And from where he sat, he couldn’t do a damn thing to help them.
Like he hadn’t been able to help that kid last night.
“Hell,” was all he said. The word echoed in the darkness.
Waking up hadn’t made the nightmares go away.
“A GIFT FOR A JOB well-done, huh?”
“Yes, sir.”
The man named Boone Fowler read the letter from the sealed envelope Tasiya had delivered from Dimitri Mostek. Though the two men had little in common in the looks department beyond their forty-something age, she sensed they’d been cut from the same arrogant, power-hungry cloth. Mr. Fowler was a good four or five inches taller than Dimitri’s stocky build. His hair was a faded brown, long and pulled back into a ponytail. While Dimitri’s short, black hair framed a pampered face, Fowler’s face was marred by acne scars, outdoor living and a thin beard.
It was the calculating black eyes that made her think of the man who held her father prisoner. Like Mostek, Fowler’s eyes were cold and hard. Full of suspicion. Quick to show blame and temper. Unused to reflecting patience or compassion.
Tasiya stood in the middle of Fowler’s stucco-walled office, still clutching the carry-on bag she’d brought with her on the flight to New York and a place called Wilmington, North Carolina. The same bag she’d held on the long truck ride to a white, sandy coastline and the remote ferry that had brought her to this place.
Devil’s Fork Island, the man had called it. He mentioned something about a conquistador stronghold, a sailor’s prison and pirate hideaway.
But Tasiya hadn’t been interested in the history of the place. She’d been thinking of that last glimpse of her injured father being dragged away from her and driven off to who knew where. She’d been thinking about how quickly Dimitri Mostek had put together a passport and traveling papers for her. Where he’d gotten the secure, high-tech phone that had been designed to dial only one number. His.
She’d been thinking that her father had taken money from some very dangerous people, and that it was her responsibility to make sure he didn’t pay too high a price for that mistake.
Now she realized the men she’d been sent to spy on were equally dangerous.
And wouldn’t take kindly to being spied upon, judging by the numerous security measures she’d seen thus far.
They’d been the only vehicle on the boat, and once it had docked, several armed men had materialized out of the tall, reedy grass on the banks to secure the ferry and tie camouflage tarps across the deck and wheelhouse. Clearly, there wasn’t going to be a return trip to the mainland anytime soon.
The wind off the ocean had whipped her long skirt and coat about her legs. And though the sun was shining and the temperature was several degrees warmer than the frozen home she’d left behind, she’d shivered.
She’d been shaking by the time her short, skinny escort had wrapped his hard fingers around her upper arm to lead her into some trodden grass along what she now realized was an unmarked path. He paused at a tall, wire mesh fence, hidden in a line of scrubby trees at the top of the sandy incline.
The man pulled a walkie-talkie from his pocket and pressed a button. Another man’s voice answered, demanding identification. Even with her limited English, she could tell they were speaking some type of code. Once approved, Tasiya heard a staticky hum from the fence that seemed to charge the air around it and stand the hairs on her arms on end. She started when the hum ended in an abrupt silence. With an “All clear,” the man pulled her beside him through a gate. Then there was another call, and the hum resumed behind her. Tasiya realized they’d passed through some sort of electric security barrier.
Such extreme measures to keep people out. Not that she’d expected a friendly welcome. Not that she’d trust anyone who did make a friendly overture.
No one had welcomed her to America or Devil’s Fork Island or Boone Fowler’s office. No one had asked about her trip or whether she was tired or hungry. No one had said anything beyond, “Show me your passport,” or “Get in,” or “This way.”
She had a feeling Boone Fowler was more used to barking orders than striking up conversations. Tasiya longed for a kind word, a bit of reassurance, a smile, to make her think she could pull this off. Because she had an equally strong feeling that—like Dimitri Mostek—Boone Fowler would have no qualms about taking retribution on anyone who crossed him.
“So we’re not supposed to touch you?”
He tossed the letter onto the gray metal desk and looked up, raking his dismissive eyes up and down her figure. Tasiya kept her own gaze trained to the floor. “No, sir.”
“That’s not a problem for me. I don’t do foreign trash.” He stood and circled around the desk, stopping just in front of her. “But I do like having a woman at my beck and call.”
Tasiya stared at the buttons on his black-and-red flannel shirt. “Minister Mostek said I should help you in any way I can.”
“You a decent cook?”
She nodded, not out of ego, but of honesty. “That is how I make my living.”
“Good. Anything would be better than that slop Bristoe’s been serving us.” Tasiya held her breath as his hand moved toward her chin, but he caught himself before making contact. He snapped his fingers instead. Her breath rushed out in a startled gasp and he snickered in his throat. Understanding the command to submit to his will, she steadied her nerves and tilted her eyes up to look into his. “I don’t want any of that spicy foreign crud where you can’t tell what it is you’re eating. Plain cooking. Nothing fancy. Use the supplies we have on hand. Can you manage that?”
Just like Mostek. “Yes, sir.”
“Marcus!”
She turned away as he shouted the order over the top of her head. An even bigger man opened the thick wooden door from the outside hallway. He had to stand six and a half feet tall, nearly a foot taller than she. He was built like an ox and seemed to share the same personal habits of a beast of burden. His slick, curly black hair and stained hands needed to meet a bar of soap. And the pool of yellowish-brown tobacco juice that swirled in front of his leering smile before he turned and spat his cud into a corner of the hallway nearly made her gag.
Quickly Tasiya closed her eyes and pictured an image of her father’s kind, smiling face. The face of the gentle man who’d read her bedtime stories as a child, and talked about her mother so she wouldn’t be afraid of the imaginary creature she’d thought lived beneath her bed.
She was calmer when she opened her eyes, but the big ox with the suggestive grin and large pistol strapped to his belt was still staring at her.
“I heard we had company,” he drawled, strolling into the room. “I’m Marcus Smith, Mr. Fowler’s newly promoted chief of security. ’Cause I’m so good at what I do. And your name, little lady?”
Little lady? She was five feet, seven inches tall. Of course, everyone must seem little compared to this brute. She fixed her gaze squarely in the center of his chest. “Anastasiya Belov.”
“She’s a gift from our benefactor for a job well-done,” Fowler explained. “He’s impressed that we were able to neutralize the strike force.”
“I’m the one who’s impressed.” The man called Marcus Smith reached out and twined his thick, grubby fingers into the long curls of hair that fell across her left breast. “Nice. Prettiest damn thing I’ve seen in weeks.”
Tasiya curled her toes inside her boots to keep from bolting.
But, surprisingly, Boone Fowler saved her the trouble.
“Hands off, Marcus.” He shoved the big man back a step. “She’s not that kind of gift.”
Tasiya winced at the pinpricks of pain that danced across her scalp before Marcus let go of her hair, but she refused to cry out. This was nothing. Her father might be suffering much worse than this. She could endure a few unwanted gropes for his sake.
But apparently Boone Fowler intended to follow his instructions to the letter. “The note says we’re not to touch her. Our contact wants her in pristine condition for himself. And since his people are funding our operation, I don’t want to jeopardize that relationship. Yet. We have business to attend to, anyway. Or have you forgotten our purpose?”
Marcus bowed his gaze like a chastized child. “I haven’t forgotten. I just thought maybe, since you seemed so pleased with my performance lately, that—”
“Keep it in your pants for a few days, okay? We’ll use her to free up some manpower to increase security patrols and interrogations.”
Keep it in your pants? Another strange Americanism. She might not understand the words, but she had no problem recognizing the lechery in Marcus Smith’s eyes, or the blame she read there for being reprimanded by the boss.
“I’m sure you can find other ways to entertain yourself. After all, I intend to break every one of Cameron Murphy’s team. I want them begging to do my bidding when we make that videotape and broadcast it.”
Breaking someone seemed to have a reviving effect on Marcus Smith’s mood. He was smiling as he looked up again. “Murphy’s men have been pretty stubborn so far. But I like a challenge.” He glanced down at Tasiya, giving his statement a double meaning. “I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve to try, if need be. This old pirate hideout is proving to be a very resourceful place.”
Fowler nodded, pleased with the answer that Tasiya couldn’t quite understand. “I don’t care how you get the job done. I just want results.”
“You’ll have them before we shoot the video next week.”
Tricks? Video? Were these the sort of things she was supposed to report to Mostek?
She hadn’t yet come up with an answer when Boone Fowler stepped beside her and demanded her attention. “I’ve got thirty men here who all need to be fed three square meals a day. When you’re done with that, in the evening, we’ve got seventeen prisoners. You’re to take them bread and water. Marcus will show you your room, the kitchen and larder, and the route you’re to take when you feed the prisoners.”
Three square meals versus bread and water? Compassion had her looking up into those cold, dark eyes. “Only one meal for the prisoners?”
Those dark eyes sneered. “Rule number one around here, Ms. Belov. Never question my orders.”
“No, sir.” Tasiya covered the unexpected flare of sympathy for someone besides her father by quickly lowering her gaze. “I just wanted to be clear on my duties.”
“You’re not stupid, are you?”
She had no trouble comprehending the insult. But she ignored it and made an excuse. “English is not my first language, sir. I only asked because I wanted to make sure I understood correctly. Three meals for your men. One meal for the prisoners.”
“In between, you can clean my office and the latrine. But I don’t want you in here without myself or a guard present. As a matter of fact, I don’t want to see you anywhere but your room, the kitchen or making your rounds to the prisoners unless you have a guard and my permission.” He bent his knees and brought his face level with hers. “Do you understand that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you’re dismissed.” He straightened and returned to his seat behind the desk.
Tasiya swallowed her anger and the urge to blurt out that he wasn’t a god. And that if he was as smart as he seemed to think he was, he’d realize he had a traitor in his midst. Standing in his office. A black-haired sheep in wolf’s clothing, to put a twist on one of those childhood stories her father had read to her.
Fowler was a lot like Dimitri Mostek. Full of himself and high on power. No qualms about being cruel and manipulative. The only thing lacking were the lusty overtures, and she had a sick feeling that Marcus Smith would be adding that dimension to this living hell.
“This way, sugar,” said Marcus, turning sideways in the doorway instead of stepping aside, so that her shoulder had to brush against his chest as she exited into the hallway.
Crinkling her nose at the whiff of stale tobacco and sweat, Tasiya clutched her bag tight against her stomach and hurried past him. She fixed an image of her father’s loving face firmly in her mind as she followed Marcus Smith down a spiral staircase of worn, warped stone to the doorless closet off the kitchen that would serve as her home for the next few weeks.
Chapter Two
“Please, Minister,” Tasiya whispered into the phone, glancing over her shoulder to make sure no one was eavesdropping on her call. She trimmed the wick on the kerosene lantern on her two-drawer dresser, dimming the light so as not to draw attention to her presence in the room.
By the end of the night, she vowed to at least find a blanket to hang across the arched opening so she could change her clothes without the curious eyes of Marcus Smith or anyone else ogling her. “I want to talk to my father. If he’s not safe, I have no reason to do this for you.”
“Anastasiya. Darling.” Mostek’s cultured voice tried to seduce her even across the ocean that separated them. “I like it so much better when you call me Dimitri.”
Tasiya swallowed her gag reflex and her pride. “Please… Dimitri. Let me speak to my father.”
“Very well.” Tasiya drifted toward the corner of the twin-size bed that took up half the room. She sank onto the hard mattress, hugging her arm around her waist while he spoke to someone on his end of the line. But Dimitri still had a few more words for her. “That wasn’t so difficult, was it, Anastasiya? I’m pleased you made it to your destination and are getting acquainted with the men you are working for.”
She had no desire to get acquainted with anyone she’d met thus far, but didn’t think it wise to share that information with Mostek. “No one complained about the dinner I prepared. In fact, I believe Mr. Fowler has ordered his men not to address me unless it is about my work.”
“Good. Your father’s well-being depends upon you doing your job there and then returning to be my mistress. I don’t want you sullied by American hands.”
“How can you—” Tasiya bit her tongue to keep the question to herself. It wasn’t her place to understand how men like Mostek and Fowler could do business when they didn’t like each other and trusted each other even less.
“How can I want you?” She let Dimitri run with the topic so she wouldn’t have to explain her impetuous question. “Because you’re a beautiful woman and I’m bored with my wife. I told you I could set you up in style in an apartment here in the city if you’ll let me.”
“What about my father?” She glanced at the clock beside the lantern, knowing she needed to cut the phone call short and get to her rounds delivering the prisoners’ rations before anyone questioned her absence from the kitchen. “What will happen to him when I return?”
“I’ll give you enough money that you can support him as well. But I don’t want him living with you.” She could visualize Mostek’s vulgar sneer. “I’ll require privacy for my visits.”
Not exactly the motivation she needed to successfully pull off this charade.
“Here’s Anton. Keep it short.”
Tasiya shot to her feet and trained every aural cell in her ear to the precious sound of her father’s voice.
“Tasiya?” He sounded tired.
“Papa?” This was what she needed to hear. “Are you all right? How is the cut on your head? Are you eating? Have they hurt you anymore?”
“I’m fine, daughter. They cleaned the wound and put a bandage on it. But I’m worried about you. So far away. So—”
“I’m fine, Papa.” He was being held by terrorists who wanted to use him as an example of how they dealt with anyone who dared oppose them. She wouldn’t be a burden to him on top of that. “The work here is no different from at home. I cook and clean.”
“But these men…” She could hear the fear in his tone. “Are you safe?”
She hurried to the open doorway and looked around the empty kitchen. For now, she could give him an honest answer. “I’m safe.” But Marcus Smith had warned her to start her rounds by eight o’clock or he’d show up to escort her himself. It was nearly eight now. She had to go, even though she wanted nothing more than to cling to the sound of her father’s voice. “I love you, Papa. We’ll be together again soon, I promise.”
“I love you.”
Those three words would have to sustain her courage. Dimitri Mostek snatched the phone from her father’s hand, ordered his men to take Anton back to his room and lock him in, and added a final threat.
“Your loyalty to your father is touching. I hope you will prove as loyal to me.”
Tasiya felt as if Mostek had ripped her father from her arms again. But she squelched her fear with a deep breath and kept her voice calm. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me thus far. I won’t disappoint you.”
“It’s imperative for your father’s health that you don’t. I’ll expect a call from you tomorrow. I want to know everything the militia is doing, the status of their prisoners, anything you can tell me. I also want you to find an American television—”
“A television?” In this drafty old place whose only modern amenities seemed to be its security systems? She’d had to hand-pump the stove to make it work, while a small generator produced electricity for the refrigerator and freezer. He wanted too much. “Where will I—”
“Do not interrupt me again.” Tasiya bit her tongue, lest he take his displeasure with her out on her father. “A radio or newspaper will do as well. I want to know what propaganda they are saying about Lukinburg, and what news they have of Prince Nikolai and Princess Veronika.”
“I’m to spy on them, too?”
The two royal heirs had remained in the United States after speaking out against their father’s inhumane policies in their homeland. Though branded a traitor by King Aleksandr and the Lukinburg press, Nikolai had apparently become the heroic darling of American women and politicians alike.
Providing news of the prince and princess to the king would no doubt bring some favorable reward to Dimitri. “I will try my best.”
“You will do these things,” he corrected. “Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
“Such a good girl. Such a good, beautiful girl.” The false charm bled back into his voice. “I’ll be thinking of you tonight. In my dreams.”
Tasiya cringed at the implication, but checked her response. “Goodbye.”
She risked a rare, perverse pleasure in ending the call before he could answer. Hiding the phone inside her pillowcase, she glanced at the clock. Two minutes past eight. Marcus would come looking for her soon.
Her father’s life depended on her carrying out Mostek’s orders.
Her own life depended on her doing it without getting caught.
Ponderosa, Montana
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN they shot another one? Where the hell are my men?” The tall, black-haired man wheezed, trying to rouse himself from his bed.
“Easy, Colonel.” Trevor Blackhaw braced his hand against the shoulder that wasn’t bandaged and eased his boss at Big Sky Bounty Hunters back against the propped-up pillows. “You’ve been home from the hospital all of two hours. If Mia finds out we’re in here talking business, she’ll have my hide.”
Mention of Cameron Murphy’s wife, who had just stepped out of the bedroom to put Olivia, their four-year-old daughter to bed, seemed to ease his agitation. “I guess this means you had to cut your engagement celebration short?”
Trevor sank into the chair beside the bed. “Sierra understands. She might be free of the militia’s influence now, but none of us will rest easy until Boone Fowler and his men are back in prison where they belong.”
Cameron rubbed at the scruff of beard that had sprouted along his jaw in the days since barely surviving a chemical bomb attack by the Montana Militia for a Free America at a nearby mall. Though he’d suffered critical burns and some temporary damage to his lungs, there wasn’t a damn thing wrong with his intellectual capabilities or leadership skills. “Tell me what we know.”
Trevor picked up the grainy black-and-white photographs he’d brought in to show his boss. “An army search-and-rescue team found one deceased soldier down in Swamp Lejeune at the ambush site. Michael Clark,” a fellow bounty hunter whose background in army intelligence made him an expert detective, “dates the second photo about a week after the initial capture. The army ID’d the victim as one of theirs, but it’s too dark to get any kind of fix on the location.”
“What about where the photos were processed?”
Trevor shook his head. “Clark’s still trying to trace the source. It passed through a lot of hands before reaching us.”
“And there’s no way to track them from the ambush site?”
“Lombardi and Cook are in North Carolina now. But Lejeune training base covers thousands of acres over a variety of terrain. They found some heavy-vehicle tracks, but the trail went cold at the New River. Fowler’s men could have choppered out, taken a boat, landed a seaplane. They could be camped out next door or halfway around the world.”
Cameron crumpled the sheet and blanket inside his fist. “Fowler’s on American soil, I guarantee it.”
“Both his victims were military, both were part of the covert strike team that was running training ops for an intel incursion into Lukinburg. The executed prisoner photo was delivered in Washington, D.C., with Fowler’s usual demand—if the UN insists on sending our men into Lukinburg, then he’ll find a way to stop them.”
“By killing off hostages one by one?” Cameron shook his head. “Terrorist tactics aren’t going to change the government’s mind.”
Folding his long, olive-skinned fingers together, Trevor leaned forward. “He’s probably sending a subtle message to you, too. What he’s doing to these soldiers, he intends to do to your bounty hunters.”
The bad blood between Cameron Murphy and Boone Fowler went back a long way. “Dammit, Blackhaw—Fowler murdered my sister for his cause. How many other innocent lives has he erased in the name of what he calls patriotism? He’s taken potshots at every one of us—hit us where it hurts the most. Why can’t we get this creep?”
“We will. Campbell, Powell, the sarge, Riley Watson, Brown and the others—we’ve all sworn to end this bastard’s reign of terror. Fowler’s the one who made this war personal. But we intend to finish it. I promise you that.”
A painful breath rasped through Cameron’s lungs. Though his dark eyes remained sharply focused, his battered body was fading toward much-needed sleep. “How are we gonna do that if we can’t find him?”
“I’ve activated every contact we have around the country. There’s a Special Forces unit waiting to assist us the minute we know anything. Don’t think for one minute your men—the men we fought with down in San Ysidro and in Africa and the men you hand-picked to work for you now—are sitting in a cell somewhere twiddling their thumbs.” Trevor tucked the graphic photos inside his jacket and stood. “If I know Sergeant Martin and the others, they’ll find a way to contact us.”
Cameron nodded. “Then let’s be ready to roll.”
TASIYA SMOOTHED HER PALMS down the length of her cream-colored sweater and steadied her nerves before slipping the elastic band of keys Marcus had given her around her wrist. Then she unlocked the wheels of her stainless steel cart and pushed it out of the kitchen into the breezeway that separated the refurbished quarters housing the militia members from the prison section of the compound.
She passed back through centuries of time as she unlocked a thick wooden door and entered the long passageway that housed the prisoners. In this part of the stronghold, little had been done to reclaim it from its colonial past. The uneven settling of the stones paving the floor created an uneven, repetitive clanking sound that chafed her nerves as her cart bounced over bumps and into ruts.
With no central heating and few covered windows, the chilly night air off the ocean drifted in and caught in the dark, dank corners. The breeze swirled her skirt around her knees. She’d brought one pair of denim jeans with her, which she suspected were going to become her new uniform if she couldn’t shake the damp chill that permeated her skin.
Behind locked doors she could hear the hum of generators and other machinery, which she supposed had something to do with the island’s alarm system. Driven more by survival than curiosity, she didn’t test her keys in any door until she reached the rusted iron monstrosity Marcus Smith had shown her earlier. After unlatching a modern steel padlock, she scraped the dead bolt across its hinge. The door itself groaned from weight and age as she shoved it open and entered the prison proper.
Foul, musty air stung her nostrils and made her eyes water. It was inhumane to keep a man in these conditions, but then she supposed kindness and compassion weren’t on Boone Fowler’s list of virtues.
Besides the padlock she’d slipped into her pocket to keep from being trapped inside herself, the only visible hint of technology was the single electric wire that ran the length of the stone walls to illuminate a bare lightbulb every twenty feet or so. And she suspected that had more to do with security than with the prisoners’ comfort.
Unintelligible snippets of conversation teased her ears and bounced along the walls, but the prisoners fell silent as she approached the steel bars that separated her from the men she was feeding. They all watched her with assessing, unfriendly eyes. Three soldiers in one cell. Four in another. Then three and three more.
They took the small loaves of bread and cups of water she poured for them with a variety of comments at seeing a woman, and a few jeers as they mistook her for a member of Fowler’s militia. But hunger quickly overrode their defiance, and they sat down to eat with a pitiful gusto that reminded her of some of the poor families she’d seen in Lukinburg.
Another key unlocked a second iron door. In this long, twisting catacomb, there were four isolated cells, each one separated from the other by thick stone walls and steel bars.
Here the men sat, bound by leg irons and wrist manacles, one to each cell like condemned murderers. These men didn’t wear uniforms like the others, but civilian clothing.
The first one had unusual blue-green eyes that looked right through her without blinking. She idly wondered if the blood on his torn shirt was his own or someone else’s. He never moved until she had passed on by. The next one stood up when she approached. Despite the bruising and swelling around one eye, he was a handsome man. He nodded a silent thank-you, then watched her every move until she’d rounded the corner out of sight. The third was deep in his own thoughts. And pain, she suspected, noting a dozen or so cuts across his roughly shaved head. Tasiya quickly set the bread and cup of water just outside the bars on the floor in front of his cell and moved on.
When she turned the corner to the last, most isolated of all the chambers, Tasiya hesitated. The lightbulb here had burned out, leaving the only illumination to the bulb twenty feet behind her, and the moonlight that streamed in from what must be the cell itself.
Tasiya silently cursed her luck. She could either travel all the way back to the kitchen for a flashlight, or she could swallow her fear of the unknown enemy around the corner and follow the wall with her hand until it opened up onto the cell itself.
Weighing the options of retracing her steps through the dungeonlike chambers past sixteen prisoners versus checking on the welfare of one man made her decision a quick one. If she could face down the guns of Dimitri Mostek’s men, she could certainly handle a shadowy passageway and an unarmed man who was locked safely behind bars.
The stones were smooth with age but sticky with moisture and dust as she trailed her fingers across them. Leaving her cart behind, Tasiya headed toward the shaft of moonlight. When she reached the end of the wall, she peeked around into the cell.
She caught a silent breath.
On the other side of those shiny steel bars stood the hardest-looking man she’d ever seen. He wore only a pair of jeans that hung loosely enough on his hips to reveal a strip of the white briefs that hugged his waist. He stood with his back to her, his arms reaching above his head. He was fiddling with something at the base of the window, doing something with the rusty iron brace at his wrist. He wasn’t any taller than her father’s six feet of height, but he was massive across his shoulders, arms and back. Twice as broad as her father. Muscled and formed in a way that reminded her of tanks and mountains.
He was all male from the short clip of his dark brown hair to the flexing curve of his powerful thighs and buttocks.
And even in the moonlight that mottled his skin, she could see he was horribly disfigured.
Raised, keloid scars formed a meshwork pattern from his waistband up to his left shoulder, where the dimpled terrain of a faded burn mark took over and disappeared over onto his chest, up the side of his neck and down to his elbow.
Tasiya pressed her fingers to her lips to stifle a gasp. Her stomach clenched and her heart turned over in compassion. My God, how this man had suffered.
To her horror, he froze at her nearly inaudible gasp. With precise deliberation, he lowered his arms and slowly turned.
Shrinking back against the cold stone wall opposite his cell, Tasiya stared. The front view was nearly as harsh as the back. She could see, now, that the shadows that dappled his skin weren’t all tricks of the dim light, but from bruising, as well. The old burn injury covered nearly a quarter of his chest and one side of his neck and jaw. His chin was square and pronounced. One carved cheekbone was bloody with the slash of an open wound. And the swelling around his left eye distorted the shape of a face that would have been harsh and forbidding under any circumstances.
Without a word he took a step toward her. But when Tasiya, trapped in a circle of moonlight, flattened her back against the wall, he stopped. His mouth opened as if he wanted to say something, but he shrugged instead. Tasiya’s gaze instantly darted to watch the fascinating ripple and subsequent control of all that muscle.
When she realized he’d stopped and was even retreating to the rear of his cell to alleviate her fear of him, Tasiya’s breath seeped out on a deep, embarrassed sigh. This man knew he was frightening to look at, imposing to get close to. Others had cowered from him before.
What a lonely, terrible existence that must be.
Sensing some of his pain, Tasiya looked up into his face.
The only thing not forbidding about the prisoner was his eyes. Enhanced by the glow of the moon, they were a cool, soothing shade of gray that reminded her of the quiet, wintry skies of her homeland.
And they meant her no harm.
Unlike the lechery she’d seen in Marcus’s and Dimitri’s eyes, the cold condescension she’d seen in Boone Fowler’s expression, or the blank, preoccupied stares she’d seen from the other prisoners, this man was making a point of putting her at ease.
Responding to that unexpected civility, Tasiya summoned her courage and retrieved her cart. She wrapped the last small, crusty loaf, which couldn’t be more than a snack to a man his size, in a napkin and poured some water into the last metal cup. Then she knelt down in front of the steel bars and laid the bread and water just in front of them, the way she’d been instructed.
When she heard the rattle of his chains as he moved to pick up his meal, she shot to her feet and backed well out of arm’s reach. Compassion or not, he still made two of her, he was still a prisoner, and he still frightened her.
But in her haste to put distance between them, she’d kicked the cup over and spilled the water. Tasiya watched the puddle quickly seep into the cracks between the stones on the floor.
She couldn’t leave the man without water.
She glanced up at him. He was staring at her, with ever-watchful eyes, but he wasn’t condemning her. He glanced down at the cup, and she knew what she had to do.
Shaking her head at her own skittishness, Tasiya picked up the pitcher of water from her cart. She had far greater things to fear from men far more handsome than this one. Good looks didn’t make a hero. Scars didn’t make an enemy.
This was her job. This was for her father.
“I am sorry,” she whispered, picking up the cup and pouring him fresh water. “Here.”
With a show of bravery, prompted by human compassion, she reached through the bars herself and held the cup out to him. He stared at it for a moment, as if he didn’t understand the gesture. Long, silent moments passed. But she waited until his agile, nicked-up fingers closed around the cup. She quickly pulled away as he gently took it from her grasp.
“Thanks.”
The deep-pitched voice startled her. The husky tone resonated in that big chest and washed over her like a warm caress.
Tasiya looked into those wintry gray eyes and felt the first human connection she’d known in the four days since Dimitri Mostek had kidnapped her father. She didn’t know if making that connection with this beast of a man should be a comfort or an omen. But she sensed that when he looked at her, he saw her. Not the foreign trash hired to cook and clean and be forgotten. Not a blackmailed mistress-to-be. Not the tool of betrayal.
Her.
“You are welcome.”
He retreated to his cot and sank onto the bare mattress to eat and drink.
Tasiya quickly replaced the pitcher and turned her cart to leave.
“I’m Bryce Martin,” he said between big bites.
She stopped midstride. He wanted to make personal conversation with her? No one else, not even her employers, had. The idea was almost as disconcerting as the darkened hallway and the threats she’d received.
Turning back to his cell, she watched him take a long drink. The ripple of muscles along his throat fascinated her. How could one man be so much…man? The visible proof of all that physical and mental strength was daunting. She didn’t need any female intuition to sense that Bryce Martin was a very dangerous man. And that she should be careful around him.
She quickly returned her gaze to gauge the trustworthiness of those assessing eyes. “I am Anastasiya Belov. Tasiya to most.”
“Your accent’s foreign, i’n’t it?” His wasn’t like any of the others she’d heard here in America yet, either. She detected a lazy articulation in his bass-deep drawl.
“I am from Lukinburg. In Europe.” She wasn’t revealing any secrets with that much information.
He stuffed the last bite of bread into his mouth and stood. She tilted her chin to keep those gray eyes in view, her heart rate doubling as his size and scars moved closer. His wrist chain grated across the bars as he thrust the empty cup between them.
The keys at her wrist jangled as Tasiya snatched the cup and hugged it to her chest, dodging back a step to avoid contact. Bryce Martin scowled, as if her aversion to touching him neither pleased nor surprised him.
“Next time, Tasiya Belov,” he warned, “be more careful ’bout stickin’ your hand inside the monster’s cage.”
Chapter Three
The monster’s cage?
Smooth move, Sarge. Had he really said that out loud to that woman? No wonder she’d high-tailed it out of here last night.
Bryce sat on the edge of his cot and twisted the crick from his neck. Squinting into the dust motes that filled the rays of morning sunshine, he wondered what kind of hell awaited him today.
Especially after he’d gotten an unexpected glimpse of heaven last night.
Tasiya Belov was a damn sight prettier than that scraggly Bristoe fella with the dirty hands and playground taunts who’d brought his bread and water the past seven nights. The insults and tough talk didn’t faze him—Bristoe was a misguided kid trying to prove himself a man. But it sure was nice to finally get a taste of food that was clean and water that was fresh.
It was nicer to get a look at Tasiya.
Bryce rubbed at the skin chafing beneath his wrist manacles and thought himself twelve kinds of fool. He should have come up with something decent to say to her, or kept his big mouth shut the way he usually did. Then, at least, he could have enjoyed the view a little longer. All that curly hair—blacker than the night around them—falling nearly to her waist. Skin that was as pale and pearlescent in the moonlight as her lashes were thick and dark. Lashes that surrounded wide, slightly tilted eyes the shade of rich, robust coffee.
Or maybe that was just the scent he got off her. Homey. Normal. Like his grandma’s good cookin’. Far removed from any of the crap that was going on around here. Something about Tasiya’s fairy-tale beauty and quiet ways had breached the cool reserve he wore like a suit of armor. He didn’t allow himself to be attracted to many women. By age thirty-three, he’d wised up to that futility. But Tasiya Belov, with the exotic eyes and accent, had gotten to him before he could distance himself from a man’s basic, male reaction to a beautiful woman.
So, of course he’d warned her off.
His chains jangled as he crawled onto the floor and squared off to do a set of push-ups. For years he’d used physical activity to dull the aches and longings and regrets of his life. What he couldn’t burn out of his system this way, he tried to ignore.
Bryce knew he wasn’t any great shakes to look at. The burn scars were old news; he’d had them since he was a kid, from the car accident that had killed his folks. The shrapnel scars that marked the end of his military career were more recent, more shocking to the unfamiliar eye. And the condition he was in now made his appearance even less appealing than usual.
It was a fact of his life. He was a big, scary-looking man. It made him a formidable enemy, a boon to his second career as a bounty hunter working for his former military commander, Cameron Murphy. He used his intimidating countenance to his advantage; few of the criminals he’d brought in expected the big guy to be so smart, or so good with his hands. And yeah, if it came down to it, he could out-bust just about anybody in hand-to-hand combat.
He’d had years to learn to accept his fate. It shouldn’t bother him.
But when Tasiya had looked at him with those wide, frightened eyes, he’d felt like a monster.
Yep, she’d had to muster up some real guts to hold out that cup of water. As if treatin’ him like a human being was some kind of apology—like she’d done this to him. Or maybe it was defiance that had made her reach out to him. But what was she taking a stand against? Him? Boone Fowler? Her own fear?
And what the hell was a beautiful woman from Lukinburg, of all places, doing here on this godforsaken island? The Special Forces unit he and his buddies from Big Sky had been ambushed with had been secretly prepping for a covert surgical strike into Lukinburg. The UN wanted to oust their despotic king and restore democratic rule there. Bryce’s former unit was supposed to be the first team in—to gather intel and remove a few key leaders.
So how had Boone Fowler’s militia gotten wind of that attack when the team had been under a communication blackout for days?
He did one last push-up, shoving himself up and bracing his weight over his arms. An image of a willowy woman with frightened eyes blipped into his thoughts. Surely not. A Lukinburg spy on the militia’s payroll? They’d never go for it. The whole point of Boone Fowler’s life—beyond his quest for vengeance against Cameron Murphy and the Big Sky team who’d put him in prison before his escape a few months back—was to cleanse America of any foreigners. And to keep Americans off foreign soil and out of foreign business.
So where did Tasiya fit in?
Dammit. He was thinking about her again. He was curious. Worried. Swift one, Sarge.
Bryce clapped his hands together as he pushed to his feet to do a round of squats. The noise startled some movement in the corner of his cell. He slowly sank to his haunches and smiled.
His little mouse friend was back, scoping out the nooks between the stones, scrounging for crumbs. Bryce’s empty stomach growled right on cue.
“You’re outta luck, buddy,” he teased his furry roommate. They both were.
He was doing his best to stay in peak physical condition in case the opportunity for escape presented itself. But his insides felt as if they were rubbing together. A little extra food would go a long way to maintain his strength and keep his thinking sharp. If there were any crusts of bread around, he’d have gone after them himself.
Bryce stilled as the mouse scurried between the steel bars and disappeared into the darkness of the passageway beyond.
Smart mouse.
Crossing to the locked cell door, Bryce wrapped his fists around the cold, unyielding steel and pressed his forehead to the bars to peer into the shadows.
That’s what he should be doing, searching this place.
But not for bread crumbs.
Let’s replay this escape scenario again. He needed to get outside to get the lay of the place. Scoping out the location of the other prisoners and ascertaining a sense of schedules, the number of militiamen at the compound and security protocols could secure a way off the island. Bryce had no doubt they were somewhere off the eastern coastline of the U.S. They hadn’t been transported by air, and after he regained consciousness on the boat they’d been tied up in, they’d traveled only a couple of hours. Not long enough to get them out of the country.
And it had to be the ocean. He recognized the smell of the salt in the air. In the still of the night he’d identified the pummeling of waves hitting land with a force too powerful to be a lake or river’s edge.
But knowing he was on an island in the Atlantic was hardly enough information to mount an escape attempt. And if he couldn’t get out of this hole to investigate for himself, then he needed to make a connection with someone who did have the freedom to move about the place.
Tasiya Belov.
A tight fist gripped his stomach and squeezed. He hated the idea of using her. But it made better sense than digging the mortar from around the bars at the window and climbing out into who knew what kind of situation.
He’d spotted the armload of keys around her wrist and suspected they could get him into nearly every place he needed to go. They could get him out of these chains, at any rate, and that would give him the ability to move about the compound with less chance of being detected.
That had been his first thought, grab the keys. But, short of using brute force against the woman—which wasn’t his style—that wasn’t gonna happen.
That left convincing her to befriend him, to run a few errands for him. Of course, he had no idea whether or not he could trust that she’d bring back the truth. Skittish as she seemed, she might run straight to Boone Fowler and tell him what the monster had asked of her.
Yeah, that’d go over real big in the escape-and-bring-these-murdering-bastards-to-justice department.
That left charming the woman.
A nearly impossible feat.
Long days out in the hills of the Missouri Ozarks where he’d grown up—hunting, fishing, camping—and quiet evenings spent on the porch with the grandparents who’d raised him didn’t go a long way toward developing a man’s sweet-talkin’ ways.
Maybe one of the other bounty hunters, Aidan Campbell, Jacob Powell or Riley Watson—strike that, Craig O’Riley was the alias he’d been using when they were captured—were thinking along the same lines. They had the sweet words and the deceptive smiles and handsome faces he lacked. Hell, the way Powell ran his mouth sometimes, he could wear down a body’s resistance, make a woman happy to concede to his will. And O’Riley was the master of undercover work. He could don a persona and make anyone—man or woman—believe every word he said.
So how was a former army sergeant who knew more about weapons and explosives than he knew about conversation and seduction supposed to get close enough to Tasiya Belov to gain her trust and enlist her help?
He wasn’t.
He’d have to find another means of escape.
And he’d have to find it soon.
Bryce had been staring down the hallway long enough for the shadows to lighten and take shape. His cell was at the dead end of a passage that doubled back on itself. He knew that route led to a series of locked iron doors, one of which was the interrogation room—four stone walls that housed all the twisted toys of the Inquisition. From this vantage point, all he could see was an electrical wire and broken lightbulb tacked up between the stones.
But he could hear the enemy coming. Since they had the guns and he wore the chains, there was no need for stealth. Bryce backed up to the center of his cell and shook loose the muscles in his arms and legs, mentally bracing himself and prepping his body for the hours to come.
Marcus Smith and a pair of bully sidekicks lined up outside his door to pay him a visit.
“Ready to talk today, Sergeant?” Marcus spat his chaw through the bars on the floor next to Bryce’s bare foot.
Bryce didn’t shift his gaze from those icy blue eyes. Satisfying Smith’s power-hungry need to control him wasn’t on his to-do list. Smith was buttin’ heads with a man who’d already endured the worst the world had to offer. His boys and toys couldn’t break him.
Bryce’s only response was the silent promise he made.
Ready to get what’s coming to you? Because it will come. Maybe not today or tomorrow. But the days of the Montana Militia for a Free America are numbered.
Bryce and his fellow bounty hunters at Big Sky were damn well gonna see to it.
“DID YOU GET A LOAD of the big guy today?” Even with the buzz of other conversations in the room, Tasiya couldn’t tune out Marcus Smith’s booming voice. She couldn’t ignore the lecherous fascination of his eyes, either. His cold blue gaze followed her as she moved from one table to the next to pour more coffee. Thank God she was out of arm’s reach and he was busy regaling his men with stories. “Sits there and stares at you. Never says a word. Pisses me off.”
“At least he doesn’t get you off track with all his smart-ass remarks.” Steve Bristoe, the skinny blond man who didn’t seem to mind that Tasiya had replaced him in the kitchen, stuck a forkful of apple pie in his mouth and continued talking. “That Craig O’Riley is gonna say the wrong thing one of these days and I’m gonna really let him have it.”
Marcus held up his mug, indicating he wanted her to return to his table for a refill. “Maybe it’s time to execute another one of the soldiers. If physical force won’t turn them, we’ll have to find another way. We’ll put one innocent life on each of their heads until we have those Big Sky bozos eating out of our hand.”
Execution? Was that the kind of atrocity Dimitri Mostek and his unknown boss were financing here? Would he put a stop to the killing if she reported the militia’s activities? Or would he applaud their work?
Tasiya swallowed the lump of dread in her throat and wiped all emotion from her face before stepping into Marcus’s personal space. In fewer than forty-eight hours she’d already learned that Marcus Smith, with his yellow teeth and dirty hands, didn’t think the no-touch rule applied to him. Unless Boone Fowler was around, of course. And since the militia leader preferred to take his meals in the privacy of his office instead of in the mess hall with his men…
A large, meaty palm attached itself to her backside. Tasiya nearly stumbled as Marcus pulled her even closer. “That’s it, sugar,” he said, as though his hand on her butt provided some sort of assistance in her duties. “Fill it all the way up.”
Even when his words were seemingly innocent, or didn’t quite make sense in her translation, his tone always made her feel dirty. The same way Dimitri had made her feel. This is what she’d sentenced herself to by agreeing to Dimitri’s plan. A life in which she jumped at the touch of a man’s hand, a life in which she turned off her emotions so as not to draw attention to herself and her discomfort, a life in which she would never know a man’s kindness or love.
But, for her father, she would do this. He was all she’d ever had. For Anton Belov she would do anything.
“Thanks, sugar.”
With the slightest of nods, Tasiya turned out of his grasp, unable to stop herself from wiping at the warm spot he’d left on the back of her jeans.
“Whoa, pretty thing, where you runnin’ off to so fast?” His hand at her elbow stopped her escape.
“I have work to do in the kitchen.”
This time, Steve Bristoe paused midchew to take note of the grubby hand on her sweater, then looked up at Marcus with a question in his eyes. He wanted to know how Marcus could get away with this infraction. But the black-haired giant was meaner and tougher than Bristoe could ever aspire to be. He was clearly the most feared man in this room. One look from Marcus, and Bristoe quickly turned his attention back to his dessert. With Marcus staking such a proprietary claim on her, there was no one in the room who would come to her defense.
Tasiya twisted against his grip, making an effort to defend herself. “There is food in the oven I must see to.”
“Now you hold on a minute, sugar.” The instant she saw how her struggles amused him, Tasiya forced herself to relax. Her quick concession to his will wiped away his grin. “I’m trying to pay you a compliment. I want you to clear these things from the table and bring me another piece of that delicious pie.”
“There is no more pie.”
His grip tightened, demanding she look at him. “I don’t like that answer.”
“It is the truth. You have eaten everything I prepared.”
“Then prepare some more.”
Tasiya shook her head. “But the time…” She pointed to the open kitchen door. “The bread I have baked for the prisoners will burn.”
Marcus stood up. Towering over her, he bellowed his fetid breath in her face. “Who the hell cares about them?”
His commander did.
“Mr. Fowler’s instructions were to feed them every night. To help them keep their strength—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know all that. He wants them alive, but they don’t have to be healthy. You take care of all our needs first. And then you can feed whatever the hell you want to those traitors.” He pinched her arm. “Are we clear on that?”
Tasiya bowed her head. “Yes.”
He released her and threw his hands up in the air as if reprimanding her had taxed his patience. “Now get this mess cleaned up and don’t defy me again.”
For a moment Tasiya couldn’t stem her temper or find her courage. She opened her mouth, but the right words wouldn’t come.
It was a moment long enough for Marcus to shove his plate into her empty hand and swat her rump to speed her toward the kitchen. “Tomorrow night, know that I’m expecting two desserts.”
She stumbled over her own feet in her hurry to put as much distance between her and Marcus Smith as possible. Temporarily beyond the sight of that big baboon, she dumped the dishes into the sink and ran cool water over a towel. Angry beyond words, feeling frustrated and helpless, she could do nothing more but silently curse Marcus and Dimitri Mostek. She was trapped by her love for her father in a completely horrible mess in which she had no one to rely on but herself.
Patting the towel across her flushed face and holding it against her nape beneath the French knot of her hair was the only comfort she could give herself, the only outlet for the feelings she couldn’t express. She allowed herself five minutes of relative privacy. Time enough to shut off the ovens and let her temper cool along with the loaves of bread. Time enough to fix her emotionless mask back into place, pick up a plastic tub and return to the dining room to begin clearing the tables.
The smells of tobacco and liquor stung her nose as some of the men lit cigarettes and doctored their coffee from flasks in their pockets. A few headed out into the breezeway or checked the pistols at their sides and returned to their posts. Those remaining went back to trading stories, plotting strategies and ignoring her as she worked.
“Hey, listen to this, Marcus. We’re on the radio.” A short, stocky man she knew only as Ike shushed the room when he turned up the reporter’s voice on his battery-powered radio.
“The nationwide manhunt continues for the eight prisoners who escaped from The Fortress prison in Montana where, like Alcatraz, escape was once thought to be impossible. The man believed to have spearheaded the prison break, Boone Fowler, the reputed leader of the Montana Militia for a Free America, is also sought as a suspect in a recent nerve gas incident at the Big Sky Galleria mall…”
“We’re famous.”
“Is the boss hearing this?”
“They’ll never find us here.”
“Shut up. I want to listen.” Marcus silenced the men.
Tasiya began quietly stacking and clearing dishes from the tables to hide how intently, she, too, was listening to the American news report. “In other news, Crown Prince Nikolai of Lukinburg—at a speech in Kalispell, Montanta—spoke of his gratitude to the American government and its people for their support in helping to bring peace and prosperity back to his country.”
After a crackle of applause, she heard the familiar, cultured voice of the man who would defy his king and father to save the country she loved from ruin. “Kalispell, Montana is quite delightful in November. It’s almost as pretty and picturesque as Ryanavik Mountain in my nation, Lukinburg. Can you envision the same…”
Tasiya paused with a handful of silverware, frowning at the eloquent oratory. Ryanavik was the name of a lake outside St. Feodor, not a mountain. A native of her homeland would never make such a mistake in geography. Was Prince Nikolai taking poetic license to create an analogy pleasing to the Americans? She dropped the silverware into a mug and reached for the wad of paper napkins at the center of the table. But Lukinburg had so many beautiful mountains, why not—
“Turn that damn crap off!”
Boone Fowler stormed into the dining hall, picked up Ike’s radio and hurled it across the room. It hit the stone wall and shattered, silencing Prince Nikolai and any protest from the men in the room.
Like the others, Tasiya froze. Her heart, thumping against the walls of her chest, was the only sound she could hear.
With the pinkie of his left hand, Fowler brushed aside a stringy lock of hair that had fallen across his forehead. But as calm and controlled as that tiny movement was, there was nothing soft or gentle about him as he paced the length of the room. “You men are getting weak and lax. Basking in your own glory. We are fighting for our country, not ourselves. Our campaign is not about our egos and making the news. This is about the truth that I have taught you again and again.”
“America for Americans,” Ike mumbled dutifully.
Fowler braced his hands at his hips and nodded, slowly turning to make eye contact with each man in the room. “America for Americans,” he articulated through the clench of his jaw. “I’ve trained you all to be better men than this. I’ve trained you to believe in the cause as much as you believe in me.”
He reached out and put a hand on Ike’s shoulder. Tasiya, clutching the trash from the table to her chest to hide her own trembling hands, didn’t for one second believe Fowler’s contact was meant to be a comforting, fatherly gesture. Yet Ike looked up into his leader’s black eyes as though receiving wisdom and reassurance from a saint. “I believe in you, sir.”
Fowler nodded, then stepped away. “I’ve devised a plan we must follow to the letter. I’ve given you orders and I expect them to be obeyed. I haven’t let you down yet, have I? I showed you the truth about how our government is betraying our citizens, I gave you something to fight for. Is there any room in that plan to bask in personal accomplishments?”
“No, sir.” The timid responses echoed across the room.
Fowler turned. “Is there?”
“No, sir!” they answered with more force.
“America for Americans!” one man shouted. He repeated the slogan and others joined in. Soon they were clapping their hands and pounding on the tables. Tasiya never felt more isolated and unwelcome in the world than she did when the chant reached a feverish pitch.
But as a nervous sweat broke out across the back of her neck and chilled her spine, Boone Fowler seemed to relax. A smile sliced across his thin beard, though the satisfaction never warmed his eyes.
This impromptu rally for their patriotic cause was not unlike the protests in support of King Aleksandr in her own country. But if anyone dared voice a dissenting opinion against king or crowd, the state police would show up. Or else minions like Dimitri Mostek and his security force would pay a more-private visit after the fact.
These men were afraid of their leader. And he’d used that fear to brainwash them into obeying him.
If this was democracy, it was truly a frightening thing.
“Marcus.”
“Sir.” Marcus jumped to Fowler’s side.
The cheers began to fade and were replaced by excited chatter. Tasiya laid the napkins in the tub and tried to make as little noise as possible sliding the chairs back into place.
“I have the prisoners’ speeches written for the video. I want an update on your progress with them today,” Fowler ordered. “Report to my office in twenty minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
Fowler turned to the hapless Ike who was already on his feet, with his shoulders back and his chin tipped up at attention. “I want you to go to the communications center and doublecheck the accuracy of the wire I just received.”
“But Simmons is on duty, sir.”
“Don’t argue with me. I want your expertise to verify it.”
“Yes, sir.” Ike scooted out the door, pulling out a ring of keys as he disappeared into the breezeway.
“The rest of you—I want a complete sweep of the island. Check every inch of the security grid. I want to know if so much as a pelican has breached the perimeter today.”
A chorus of ‘Yes, sir’ and the scramble of feet and chairs left Tasiya standing alone at the center of the room.
“And you—” She flinched when Boone Fowler pointed straight at her, yanking her from anonymity into the spotlight. “Bring me coffee in my office. Black. And plenty of it.”
“Yes, sir.” She needed no excuse to linger. Propping the loaded tub on her hip, she turned and hurried out to the kitchen where she dumped out the dregs and started a fresh pot. But she could still hear Fowler talking to Marcus Smith.
“I need to know if any of the prisoners have made contact with anyone on the outside.”
“Impossible, sir. The bounty hunters aren’t even allowed contact with each other.”
“Good. Now here’s what I want you to do.”
Apparently, the two men had left the room. Tasiya could hear nothing now but the silence of just how alone she was.
She glanced quickly at her watch. If she hurried, by the time the coffee was done brewing she could make her call to Dimitri about the executions and Prince Nikolai’s speech, along with what she’d gathered about Boone Fowler escaping from prison and orchestrating some sort of terrorist attack in Montana. Hearing her father’s voice would replenish her strength and give her the courage to venture into Fowler’s office and face the man one on one.
Fifteen minutes later, Tasiya had to bite the inside of her lips to keep her nerves from screaming out as she carried a tray into Boone Fowler’s upstairs office.
Dimitri had denied her the chance to speak to her father. Whether the excuse that Anton was asleep was the truth or a lie hardly mattered. She’d been denied the one thing that could sustain her through this hellish sentence of servitude. Now she was left to wonder and worry if her father was all right. Had Dimitri’s men harmed him? Was he locked up the way those poor prisoners here on Devil’s Fork Island were?
Dimitri’s compliment on her ability to ferret out detailed information had done nothing to boost her morale. And she couldn’t very well tell him how Marcus’s unwanted advances angered her or how Boone Fowler’s temper frightened her. If Dimitri learned that his prize mistress had been soiled in any way, he might take his disappointment out on her father.
So Tasiya’s goal was to slip into Fowler’s office, set the tray on his desk and disappear just as quickly as she came in.
But this just wasn’t her night.
Fowler must have seen her reflection in the glass as he leaned against his office window and gazed out into the moonlit sky. “Pour for me.”
Tasiya hesitated for a moment before setting the tray down next to a wrinkled sheet of paper that looked as if it had been crushed into a tight ball, then spread out flat and smoothed back into shape. She could do this. She’d fixed a full meal for thirty men and served them in two shifts without a mishap until Marcus Smith got her in his sights. Boone Fowler didn’t care about such things, certainly not with her.
Drying her nervous palms on the legs of her jeans, Tasiya asked. “You said black?”
“Yes.”
She picked up the mug and the steaming pot. As she poured, her gaze strayed to the words on the page that had been discarded, then reclaimed. It looked like some sort of press release. The wire he’d mentioned to Ike? Is this what had Fowler so upset?
“Cameron Murphy released from Montana hospital. Bounty hunter expected to make full, if lengthy, recovery. Timing critical.”
Bounty hunter? Like Bryce Martin and the other three prisoners she’d heard the militiamen talking about?
Who was Cameron Murphy? The timing for what?
“Can you read that?”
Tasiya gasped, startled by Boone Fowler’s voice behind her. She quickly set down the coffeepot and gripped the mug with both hands before she spilled something. But the warmth that seeped into her fingers couldn’t dissipate the chill of being caught poking her nose in where it wasn’t welcome.
She uttered the first lie she could think of. “It helps my English to read.”
“You didn’t answer my question.” He breathed his suspicion against the back of her neck.
The coffee in the mug splashed up the sides as she started to shake. His brand of intimidation was even more frightening than Marcus’s ranting threats. “I can read the words, but they do not all make sense.”
She had to get out of here. She spun toward him. “Here’s your coff—”
But he was already stepping around her. “Maybe if you stuck to your own—”
Her hands smacked against his chest. The coffee sloshed over her fingers, scalding them. Her grip popped open and the mug crashed to the floor, splintering on contact. The hot liquid splashed Fowler’s jeans and spilled over his boots.
Tasiya gaped at the spreading stain, soaking into suede and denim. “I’m sorry. I’ll get another cup. A towel.” The man was too still. This was too dangerous. She looked up into the cold void of his eyes and knew she was in trouble. “I am sorry.”
“You…stupid…” She tried to retreat, but her hips hit the desk. She turned, grabbed the paper napkin off the tray and squatted at his feet to sop up what she could. He never touched her, but his words were like a slap across the face. “Get up. Get away from me.”
Tasiya lurched to her feet, but he cornered her against the desk, preventing her from doing the very thing he asked. “Please.”
“Please what?” She squinted her eyes against the foul words he slung at her. “I don’t owe you any favors. You’re a clumsy foreigner poisoning the land I love. Your incompetence reminds me of every foul, stinking reason I have to do what I do.” He snatched the napkin from her fingers. “Now get out of my face! Go! Get out!”
Shuffling to the side, Tasiya scooted away. As soon as she was clear of the desk, she turned and ran.
His threats chased her out the door. “That’s right, you witch. Run. Run!”
“Hey, sugar. What’s your hurry?”
She didn’t bother sliding to a halt as Marcus Smith emerged at the top of the stairs in front of her. She shifted directions to run right past him. “Leave me alone.”
But his bear-size paw latched on to her wrist and hauled her up to his level. “Now that ain’t nice—”
“Don’t touch me!”
Tasiya jerked her arm away. Her hand flew back and hit the wall, scraping knuckles against stone and shooting a jolt of pain straight up to her elbow.
The sharp ache cleared the fog of panic that had consumed her long enough to shove Marcus aside and dart down the spiral staircase.
“Hey—”
“Marcus!”
Boone Fowler’s summons kept Marcus from pursuing her. But Tasiya didn’t stop running until she reached the relative security of her tiny room off the kitchen. She unfurled the blanket she’d hung across the opening, sank onto her bed and hugged her pillow to her stomach. Burying her face in the pillow’s muffling softness, she screamed until her throat was raw and her energy was spent.
She was less than a human being in this place. Without kindness. Without security. Without respect.
By the time she could think clearly again, she looked at the clock. It was going on eight o’clock. She had seventeen hungry prisoners to feed.
Men who’d been chained, caged, tortured, beaten. Men who might be executed on Marcus Smith’s whim.
It was empathy, more than duty, compassion or even fear, that finally prompted her to rise to her feet and dry her eyes. Tasiya straightened her bed, repinned her hair and walked into the kitchen with a determined stride. She fixed an unsmiling mask on her lips and buried her emotions in the deepest hole she could find.
She was a prisoner, too.
Only, her chains were the greed and lust of powerful men. Her cage was the deal she’d made with the devil to save her father’s life.
Chapter Four
Bryce’s hands stopped their diligent work as he tipped his head to listen to the food cart clanking over the uneven stones in the passageway.
She was coming.
That better not be his pulse rate kickin’ into a higher gear. Bryce’s sigh of self-disgust ached against his tenderized rib muscles and stirred the plaster dust at the base of the window. He had to move past this fascination with the woman. He had to focus.
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