She made the colossal mistake of meeting his eyes, her pink smile plastered across her face like a rictus of pain.
He didn’t really see her, even when he looked straight into her face. His eyes glittered with speculative interest. He lifted his glass to the Spider. “To beauty,” he said, and drank deeply.
“To desires fulfilled,” the Spider added. They drank again, their throats working.
The Spider’s hand tightened. “Turned into a statue, my dear? Put that meat upon my plate and refill my guest’s glass.”
She poured wine into the proffered glass, noticing the burnished gleam of a wedding band on the man’s hand. Cheating slimebucket. As before, her anger focused her. She drizzled the meat with sauce, imagining herself spitting on it instead. The Spider grabbed her blouse, tugged it. One of her nipples popped out. Her control snapped, and she jerked away. “Excuse me. I’ll just go and get the…the f-f-fruit.”
As soon as the door closed behind her, she ran, hand over her mouth, and barreled into something as unyielding as a brick wall.
It proved to be Mr. Big. He grabbed her shoulders.
“Please,” she gasped out, from behind her hand, before he could start scolding her. “I’m going to throw up. Right now. Please.”
He swung his arm around her shoulders and scooped her along in his wake, hustling her out onto a side deck.
Just in time. She hung over the railing, vomiting up her very soul, along with the half sandwich and coffee Mr. Big had insisted that she choke down earlier.
She dangled there, slung over the railing like a forgotten rag doll, spitting out the bitter strings of snot and bile. Eyes streaming, nose bubbling, bare ass hanging out for anyone to see. Not that she cared.
A big, warm hand on her shoulder made her jump. It was just Mr. Big again, shoving a wet linen napkin into her hand. She cleaned her face. “I c-c-can’t go back in there,” she stammered. “I’m too scared.”
“You have to.” His face was resolute, hard as stone.
She pressed the wet rag against her shaking mouth and tried to suck enough air into her lungs to speak, to make him get it. “You don’t understand,” she gasped out. “He keeps putting his hand between my legs. I think they want—that they’re going to—”
“Becca.” He gripped her shoulders. “I am trying to help you.” He enunciated each word so that they punched into her head. “But the timing’s not right yet. You have to go back. I need…more…time.”
Vibrating with fear, she didn’t fight back.
“Do you want to live?” he hissed.
She stared into his eyes. She mouthed one soundless word. Yes.
“Then buy me more time. Serve the fruit, the coffee, the dessert. Stay sharp. Keep your eyes open. Be ready for anything. And whatever you see me do, don’t scream. Got that?”
He waited a few seconds, and gave her shoulders a tooth-rattling shake. “Got that?” he hissed.
“Got it.” The words came out in a halting whisper.
He snatched the wet napkin out of her hand, and swiped it roughly over her face, beneath her eyes. She felt like a bewildered kitten being groomed, knocked and battered around by its mother’s tongue.
He pushed back the hair that clung to her damp face, spun her around and gave her a push towards the door. “Get on with it.”
She shuffled like a robot to the kitchen to collect the fruit and crème. Her mind looped and spun around like a carnival ride, struggling to derive hope from what he’d said. Trying to help her? That was good, as far as it went. Buy him time? Did he mean by letting those men have sex with her? She stumbled down the corridor, tried to picture it.
Could she…? To save her own life?
No.
She pushed open the door, let the emergency generator kick into action. Smile, smile, smile. Her heartbeat was deafening in her head.
Becca began serving the fruit plate with practiced grace, the fan of pineapple here, gleaming strawberries there, the fleshy strips of mango, the pyramid of raspberries. She drizzled crème over the berries, letting some puddle to the side. A suble turn of her serving spoon mixed berry syrup into the puddle, creating a delicate butterfly-shaped swirl.
Voices booming, fading, swelling in volume again. “…structure is completely outfitted with state-of-the-art equipment, and the waiting list is already growing. I’ll conduct one last round of testing before we—”
“We can talk business onboard,” the Spider cut him off.
His guest’s eyebrows rose. “I beg your pardon?”
The Spider slanted his eyes meaningfully toward Becca and back to his guest. “I wish to avoid electronic eavesdropping. My boat is under constant guard. We’ll go out a hundred meters from the shore, and discuss the practical details there.”
“Ah. As you wish,” the man replied doubtfully.
“Focus upon pleasure, rather than business,” the Spider invited, as his hand slid up Becca’s thigh, his fingers digging into her groin.
Becca’s hands jerked. A strawberry fell, bounced off the Spider’s powdered-sugar-dusted plate and onto the table, leaving an unsightly streak that stained the linen with a smear that looked horribly like—
Blood. She fished the berry up, murmuring an apology. His fingers slid into her pubic hair, groping.
“Before we take the boat out, would you like to have her?” the Spider offered, as casually as if he were offering his guest a drink.
“But I—but—” Her protest choked into a squeak as his hand turned to a claw, and his long fingernail dug into her clitoris.
The pain was awful. Faintness rolled over her. If only she could just let go, fall back into the dark. Forever. She stared at the obscenely red, wet, gleaming fruit on the plate. Hung on to consciousness.
“You could have her right here, or there are bedrooms upstairs, if you require privacy,” the Spider said. “Whatever you prefer.”
The other man cleared his throat. “My. I am tempted.”
She looked into the man’s eyes. It was true. He was considering it. She could tell from his flush, the slackness in his mouth, the emptiness in his eyes, that he was imagining it. That he was aroused. He looked right at her, but he still didn’t know she was there. All he saw was himself, using her.
The hatred she felt was so intense, she wanted to spit into his eyes, grab a knife, stab it right into his throat.
She could never endure that smug, self-satisfied face, reddened with wine and lust, hanging over her as he humped away. Her stomach lurched. Good thing she’d emptied it. Or maybe not. Projectile vomiting was one sure way to kill a man’s sexual buzz.
On the other hand, the Spider would be unamused.
Buy me time, Mr. Big had said. But what would she have to pay for it?
She focused on the Spider’s pudgy face. “What about dessert?” The voice that came out of her was pure restaurant robot, breathlessly feminine. “I’m flattered at the attention, gentlemen, but you don’t want to miss my Grand Marnier Angel’s Fall cake. It’s a flourless but tender chocolate torte that melts in your mouth, flavored with orange liqueur, layered with mousse, and enveloped by a thick layer of dark Belgian chocolate.”
At the mention of dessert, the Spider released her clit. Her knees almost buckled in relief. He gave her buttocks an approving squeeze. “Perhaps we’ll wait then, my dear. Just long enough to sample your masterpiece.”
The other man blinked. “Certainly,” he muttered. “Whatever you wish. A very small piece for me, please.”
Smile, smile, smile. “I’ll go prepare the dessert tray.”
She made it out the door, but that was it. No more buying time for anybody, for any reason. Her sanity was shattering.
She would use what time she had left to search the utility closet for something toxic to drink, or else run out screaming into the night and let them shoot her in the back. She would do any crazy, desperate thing before going into that room again.
That resolve firm in her mind, she hurtled towards the kitchen—and tripped over something big and dark sprawled across the corridor. Splat, she landed facedown and hard, in a puddle of—
Blood. Lots of blood. Her head lifted, slowly. She squinted into the kitchen, tried to focus her nearsighted eyes.
She abruptly wished that she hadn’t.
Chapter
10
B ecca’s timing sucked. Why was he not surprised?
Nick lowered Yevgeni’s twitching body to the ground and wedged as much of it as he could into the vid cam’s blind spot. Damn. Five more seconds, and he’d have been able to intercept her in the corridor.
Still, he was cool—back in the ice cave. The more blood he spilled, the deeper he went. It was always that way.
Don’t scream, he told her with his eyes. He’d left Anatoli in one of the vid cam’s other calibrated blind spots, but anyone watching the monitor would have noticed her tripping over an unseen obstacle. Luckily, the arterial gout had aimed itself down. Walls spray-painted with blood tended to catch the eye. He wiped his knife hastily on the guy’s shirt.
Becca looked, appalled, at the blood she’d slalomed in on, at her crimson hands, at the wet red knife in his fist. Her pupils dilated. Her mouth sagged. Time to beat hell out of there, Nick thought, before she sucked enough air into her lungs to start the screaming meltdown he could sense coming.
He yanked her to her feet, staying low, and dragged her over the pile of dead meat formerly known as Anatoli. She was slippery, but blood got tacky soon enough. Like glue.
Back through the corridor, onto the side deck where she’d lost her lunch. She made a high-pitched noise when he dragged her over the third corpse, shoved into the shadow of a conveniently overgrown tree.
Three down out of seven. Pavel was bodyguarding Zhoglo in the dining room, Mikhail was guarding the boat, Kristoff manned the vid monitors. One more was unaccounted for, probably on his way back from the dock. In a very few seconds, Kristoff would notice that he had lost visual contact. He would try to raise the other guys on the comm gear. He would fail. And Nick and Becca would be toast.
To her credit, Becca was quick and light on her feet. She made a lot of noise gasping for breath, but she wasn’t screaming.
He came to a stop at the blind curve on the wooden walkway, steadied Becca and strained with every sensory organ for information about what was around that bend in the dusk-shrouded forest. The vibration that had alerted him resolved into actual noise. The frantic speed of the guy’s thudding bootsteps told him they’d been made. No point in not using his piece then.
The tall blond guy came barreling round the corner, talking softly into his comm. There was just time for his eyes to widen before thhhtp, the bullet from Nick’s silenced SIG 229 drilled him in the forehead. The guy’s head snapped back and he ran on out from under himself, thudded heavily down and slid, half-on, half-off the boardwalk.
Easy. He dragged her past the corpse. Four down in less than five minutes. Not bad, for toast. Becca was starting to stumble, legs shaking beneath her. Going into shock, probably. The joke would be on him.
It was a miracle they’d gotten this far. He’d worked out the formula for this opportunity in his head. Several separate windows of opportunity had to line up perfectly long enough for him to jump through them and bring Becca with him.
He couldn’t take out seven armed guards at once. It had to be when Zhoglo and his new associate were distracted by their dinner and Becca’s tits. Guarding them would occupy Pavel. It had to be at the change of the boat guard, so that one man would be patrolling the front approach, not two. It had to be in careful sequence—front deck, corridor, kitchen—and done in dead silence, no gasps, shrieks, grunts or gunshots. It had to happen in quick succession. And finally, Becca had to appear at the right moment, keep her mouth shut and her shit together. Which she had. So far.
At this point, it broke down to running fast and hoping hard. Hoping the Vor’s manpower was reduced enough so that he would cut his losses and let them go for now. Hoping that he wouldn’t want his men to race after them with the boat, leaving him stranded and vulnerable on the island. Lots of hopes. Hope was a bitch. Nick mistrusted it bitterly. It set a guy up for disappointment every time.
He jerked her to a stop. She stumbled onto her knees. He leaped off the walkway, and plunged into the foliage, dragging her behind him. She made noise as the thorns and rocks tore up her bare feet.
Tough shit. Feet healed. Dead didn’t.
He pushed on, shoving through branches, abandoning stealth. It was all about speed now. And he had speed hidden down there in the water, if they could get to it before they got drilled.
He’d thought long and hard about providing himself with this bolthole, as if the implied lack of total commitment could jinx him. It had. He should have managed himself like the commanders of armies in ancient times had managed their soldiers. Lighting fires behind the troops. No retreat possible.
His last chance to find out Sveti’s fate was gone. He’d have given up everything he had, every last drop of his own heart’s blood, for that.
But he hadn’t been able to give up Becca’s.
The horizon opened up before them at the water’s edge, with the last of the sunset staining the sky, the fishy, weedy smell and gurgling of water all around them. There was no beach, no dock, just white roots sticking out over the dark water like bones, the water heaving and sucking and lapping beneath them.