since the age of six. On a rare visit home, one of her mother’s lovers had broken her arm when she was thirteen, after trying to fondle her. She’d run from him in horror, and he’d caught up with her at the staircase. A rough scuffle with the man had sent her tumbling down the steps to lie sprawled at the foot of the staircase.
Her mother had been furious, but not at her boyfriend, who said that Callie had called him names and threatened to tell her mother lies about him. After her broken arm had been set in a cast, Anna had taken Callie right back to her foster home, making her out to be incorrigible and washing her hands of responsibility for her.
Oddly, it had been Jack Steele’s insistence that he wanted the child that had pushed a reluctant Anna into taking her back, at the age of fifteen. Jack had won her over, a day at a time. When Micah was home for holidays, he’d taunted her, made his disapproval of her so noticeable that her first lesson in the Steele home was learning how to avoid Jack’s grown son. She’d had a lot of practice at avoiding men by then, and a lot of emotional scars. Anna had found that amusing. Never much of a mother, she’d ignored Callie to such an extent that the only affection Callie ever got was from Jack.
She closed her eyes. Her own father had ripped her out of his arms when she was six and pushed her away when she begged to stay with him. She was some other man’s bastard, he’d raged, and he wanted no part of her. She could get out with her tramp of a mother—whom he’d just caught in bed with a rich friend—and he never wanted to see either of them again. She’d loved her father. She never understood why he couldn’t love her back. Well, he thought she wasn’t his. She couldn’t really blame him for feeling that way.
She was still sitting in a small bedroom that night, having been given nothing to eat or drink. She was weak with hunger and pain, because the bonds that held her wrists and ankles had chafed and all but cut off the circulation. She heard noise downstairs from time to time. Obviously Lopez’s visitors had stayed a long time, and been quite entertained, from the sound of things. She could hear the soft whisper of the ocean teasing the shore outside the window. She wondered what they would do with her body, after they killed her. Perhaps they’d throw her out there, to be eaten by sharks.
While she was agonizing over her fate, the sky had darkened. Hours more passed, during which she dozed a little. Then suddenly, she was alone no longer. The door opened and closed. She opened her tired eyes and saw the three men who’d kidnapped her, gathered around her like a pack of dogs with a helpless cat. One of them started stripping her while the others watched. Her cell phone fell out of the pocket of her slacks as they were pulled off her long legs. One of the men tossed it up and laughed, speaking to another man in yet a different foreign language.
Callie closed her eyes, shivering with fear, and prayed for strength to bear what was coming. She wished with all her heart that Micah hadn’t pushed her away that last Christmas they’d spent together. Better him than any one of these cold, cruel, mocking strangers.
She heard one of them speaking in rough Spanish, discussing her body, making fun of her small breasts. It was like a playback from one foster home when she was fifteen, where an older son of the family had almost raped her before he was interrupted by the return of his parents. She’d run away afterward, and been sent to another foster home. She’d been saved that time, but she could expect no help now. Micah wouldn’t begin to know how to rescue her, even if he was inclined to save her. He probably wouldn’t consider ransom, either. She was alone in the world, with no one who would care about her fate. Her mother probably wouldn’t even be bothered if she died. Like Micah, she’d blamed Callie for what had happened.
Desperate for some way to endure the ordeal, to block it out, Callie pictured the last time she’d seen her grandmother before she passed away, standing in an arbor of little pink fairy roses, waving. Callie had often stayed with her father’s widowed mother when he and Anna were traveling. It was a haven of love. It hadn’t lasted. Her grandmother had died suddenly when she was five. Everyone she’d ever loved had left her, in one way or the other. Nobody would even miss her. Maybe Jack would. She spared one last thought for the poor old man who was as alone as she was. But with her out of the way, perhaps Micah would go home again…
There was a loud, harsh shout. She heard the door open, and the men leave. With a shivery sigh, she moved backward until she could ease down into a worn wing chair by the fireplace. It wasn’t going to be a long reprieve, she knew. If only she could free herself! But the bonds were cutting into her wrists and ankles. She was left in only a pair of aged white briefs and a tattered white bra, worn for comfort and not for appearance. No one had seen her in her underwear since she was a small child. She felt tears sting her eyes as she sat there, vulnerable and sick and ashamed. Any minute now, those men would be back. They would untie her before they used her. She knew that. She had to try to catch them off guard the instant she was free and run. If she could get into the jungle, she might have a chance. She was a fast sprinter, and she knew woodcraft. It was the last desperate hope she had.
One of the men, the one who’d asked Lopez for her, came back inside for a minute, staring at her. He pulled out a wicked looking little knife and flicked it at one shoulder strap of her bra, cutting right through it.
She called him a foul name in Spanish, making herself understood despite the gag. Her mind raced along. If she could make him angry enough to free her, which he’d have to do if he had rape in mind…She repeated the foul name, with more fervor.
He cursed. But instead of pulling her up to untie her, he caught her by the shoulder and pressed her hard back into the chair, easing the point of the knife against the soft, delicate upper part of her breast.
She moaned hoarsely as the knife lightly grazed her flesh.
“You will learn manners before we finish with you,” he drawled icily, in rough Spanish. “You will do what I tell you!”
He made no move to free her. Instead, he jerked down the side of her bra that had been cut, and stared mockingly at her breast.
The prick from the knife stung. She ground her teeth together. What had she been thinking? He wasn’t going to free her. He was going to torture her! She felt sick unto death with fear as she looked up into his eyes and realized that he was enjoying both her shame and her fear.
In fact, he laughed. He went back and locked the door. “We don’t need to be disturbed, do we?” he purred as he walked back toward her, brandishing the sharp knife. “I have looked forward to this all the way from Texas…”
Her eyes closed. She said a last, silent prayer. She thought of Micah, and of Jack. Her chin lifted as she waited bravely for the impact of the blade.
There was a commotion downstairs and a commotion outside. She’d hoped it might divert the man standing over her with that knife, but he was too intent on her vulnerable state to care what was going on elsewhere. He put one hand on the back of the chair, beside her head, and placed the point of the knife right against her breast.
“Beg me not to do it,” he chuckled. “Come on. Beg me.”
Her terrified eyes met his and she knew that he was going to violate her. It was in his face. He was almost drooling with pleasure. She was cold all over, sick, resigned. She would die, eventually. But in the meantime, she was going to suffer a fate that would make death welcome.
“Beg me!” he demanded, his eyes flashing angrily, and the blade pushed harder.
There was a sudden burst of gunfire from somewhere toward the front of the house. Simultaneously, there was shattering glass behind the man threatening her, and the sudden audible sound of bullets hitting flesh. The man with the knife groaned once and fell into a silent, red-stained heap at her feet.
Wide-eyed, terrified, shaking, Callie cried out as she looked up into a face completely covered with a black mask, except for slits that bared a little of his eyes and mouth. He was dressed all in black with a wicked looking little machine gun in one hand and a huge knife suddenly in the other. His eyes went to her nicked breast. He made a rough sound and kicked the man on the floor aside as he pulled Callie up out of the chair and cut the bonds at her ankles and wrists.
Her