laughed. “You are delightful, sweet Melita. What I hope for is a chance to find out. Do me a favor, and I will do you one.”
“I think I’ll stay in my prison.” She tried to walk past him but he blocked her exit.
“Don’t dismiss my offer too quickly. Your lover is dead. Your father owns every breath you take. Have you forgotten what freedom feels like?”
“The question is would I be free?”
“If I decide to talk to Cyrus, it won’t go well for you. You’ve been slipping out at night for weeks, trying to persuade a fisherman at the village to sail you off the island.”
“Go to my father and tell him your tale. But before you do know that my story will be quite different. I didn’t go to the village tonight, nor have I ever.”
She tried to go around him again, but this time he grabbed her arm, his grip so tight it would surely leave a bruise. He tossed his cigarette to the ground, pushed her against the stone face of the monastery and trapped her there.
“Taming you will be my pleasure, and it will happen soon. I will have you. A little preview of what it will be like, hmm…”
He smelled of tobacco and whiskey, and she thought perhaps it was the whiskey that had prompted such crazy talk. But it wasn’t just talk. Suddenly he tangled his fingers in her long black hair and jerked her head back. His free hand flattened out on her belly and he moved it slowly upward over her left breast. Squeezed.
“Very nice. More than I expected.” A second later his hand was around her neck, squeezing until she couldn’t swallow. “Hear me, Melita, you and I will party soon, and I promise you that you will enjoy yourself. I know I will.”
Melita closed her eyes as his lips crushed hers in a cruel kiss, and then he was grinding his body against her.
He forced his tongue down her throat and he raped her mouth with a promise of what was to come later. He was disgusting and vile, and the taste of him made her want to gag, then it made her want to scream.
Where was Hector? She was off schedule now. He should be checking his watch and starting to worry about her.
Desperate, Melita slipped her hand into her pocket and closed her fingers around the little bell she carried with her to call the goats that roamed the island, and to signal Hector in case she ran into trouble. Pulling it from the folds of her skirt, she rang it.
It was a gentle bell that could be missed in a windstorm, but tonight the breeze was but a whisper, the night as quiet as a graveyard. If Hector was nearby he would hear.
Holic’s mouth slackened and he pulled back as the bell registered somewhere inside his lust-crazed head.
When he let go of her neck, Melita sucked air into her lungs, the rush making her almost dizzy. She whispered this time when she spoke, her throat raw and bruised from his abuse. “Hector will be here within seconds. How do you want to die?”
He stepped back from her. “You have him trained well. I wonder if your father knows that your bodyguard’s loyalty is in question. I think it’s time your watchdog learned who pays his salary.”
He left her then, slipping into the darkness just as Hector appeared. Angry and scared, Melita rubbed her neck as she took her frustrations out on him. “Where have you been?”
“Following your instructions.”
“But I’m late.”
“Does that mean you had some luck tonight?”
Six feet, six inches, Hector dwarfed her, but he would never be as frightening as Holic Reznik. He was a gentle giant with none of the qualities it took to be a ruthless guard in her father’s camp, or an assassin for hire.
“No, I had no luck. No one in the village will help me. It’s a lost cause.”
“Why did you ring the bell?”
“Holic Reznik saw me. He knows I’ve been to the village. And he knows why. He…” She stopped before she spilled the rest of what had transpired between them. Hector wasn’t violent, but he was protective of her. She didn’t want him doing something stupid.
“I’m afraid he intends to tell my father,” she confessed.
“I’ll deny it. I’ll say your early-morning walk was to pick flowers and visit the goats. That I was with you the entire time.”
She slipped the bell back into her pocket. “The question is, who will my father believe?”
“You picked flowers and played with the goats. That is our story. Stick to it. Now go inside, and get that frightened look off your face or he’ll read the truth the minute he sees you.”
Melita looked up into Hector’s kind face. How he had come to be in her father’s employment she didn’t know, but he didn’t belong here any more than she did.
She glanced around, spied the lavender growing in the garden and plucked a handful, then hurried inside.
Sully scratched another mark into the leg of the wooden table with his fingernail. He’d been on the platform thirty-six days. Still shackled like an animal, he’d put on weight and started to regain his strength. It was due to three meals a day, and Argo’s determination to return him to the man he used to be. The question was why.
Physically he was winning the fight, but emotionally he was raw and heartsick. He was surrounded by pain and misery, his dying audience a constant reminder that he had become their enemy.
Argo was right, they hated him now. If he was tossed into the cage with them they would rip him apart and feast on his remains.
Like he did each evening after supper, he washed at the sink, then went to bed early. Lying on his back staring at the dark ceiling, he was constantly aware of the men ten feet away. Eyes closed, he could still see their skeleton faces and misshapen bodies—bodies that continued to grow weaker as his grew stronger.
He’d planned to share his food with them. How would anyone know? But they would know, Argo told him, pointing to a camera on the wall. If he tried to toss food to anyone, they would be taken out and killed.
The men haunted him day and night. His nightmares were his reality—and sometimes he would startle and realize his own cries had awakened him.
He jerked awake now, but this time it wasn’t due to the men moaning, or a nightmare. He angled his head and listened, picked up the sound of heavy footsteps moving down the corridor.
When the light came on, he swung his legs off the bed, the chain around his ankle rattling on the concrete.
Argo entered the dungeon. He pulled a key from his pocket and stepped up on the platform. “It’s time,” he said, then unlocked the manacles on Sully’s ankle.
“Time for what?”
“Your taxi just arrived.”
Sully didn’t get up.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to miss us here?”
That would depend on where Argo was taking him, Sully thought. For the past month he’d felt like a cow being fattened for slaughter. He was no longer hungry every hour of the day, or crawling with parasites. But there was no comfort in it.
Argo slid his gun off his shoulder and aimed it at his chest. “Get up.”
Sully eyed the weapon as he stood. He recognized the make. It was a Czech Skorpion M-84. The design had been deferred, then later buried altogether. At least that was the story.
Now who could be manufacturing bad-boy Skorpions?
It didn’t take a genius to figure that out. The Chameleon was involved in everything from contraband to global anarchy.
“Let’s go. Take it nice and careful, pretty boy. You wouldn’t want my finger to slip on this trigger.”