Unshackle (Deliver #7) - Pam Godwin Page 0,19
his teeth across her swollen cheek, the corner of her mouth, and bit her ear. “Nod your goddamn head.”
Her lashes fluttered against his face, and her breath came in rapid gusts. Then she nodded.
He unlocked her restraints.
When she didn’t move to stand, he scooped her up and cradled her to his chest. She weighed nothing but felt as strong as hell. Compact muscle. Sturdy bones. It would require a lot of effort to really hurt her.
He hoped he was right about that, for both their sakes.
“Should I bring the shackles?” Tomas asked.
“No.” His threat would suffice.
As he carried her out, the pull to look back at the dead girl slowed his steps. He wanted nothing more than to bow his head and give her a moment of respect. He needed to tell her he would never forget.
He’d stolen her life, and he didn’t even know her name.
How would he ever redeem himself? Ever forgive himself for what he’d done? Or what he was about to do?
Pushing forward, he felt like he was wading through ice, every step a perilous obstacle, every breath a frigid stab in his chest.
Vera waited at the exit, holding the door open to the final tunnel. Marco had already left.
“I want a medical kit.” He strode past her, tightening his grip on the injured woman. “Ice packs. Food. High-calorie, nutritional food. And a bottle of your best whiskey.”
“Tequila.” The fighter buried her nails into his nape, deliberately breaking skin.
“And tequila.” His lips quirked. “Make sure it’s in my room within the hour.”
“I’m surprised.” Vera hurried after him, eyes on her phone, presumably passing along his demands. “There are sixteen untouched girls back there, and you choose a whore who can’t even walk. She’s been thoroughly used up by all four of my brothers. This very moment, their come is leaking down her legs.”
His jaw hardened, and he almost lost his footing. But the rage inside him didn’t compare to that of the woman in his arms. She exploded in a fit of slashing claws, reaching toward Vera’s face while shouting in Spanish.
He wrangled her back, using more strength than he wanted to restrain her against his chest. Then he threw a withering glare at Vera.
“Oh, you didn’t know?” She swiped her key card and opened the elevator. “Marco and Omar tag teamed her after the fight.”
Raped.
If he’d acted sooner and followed Omar down here, he could’ve prevented that.
“Why do you care?” He stepped onto the lift with Tomas at his heels.
“I just think… You can do better.”
“Better, as in… You? Have you reconsidered my offer?”
Her gaze slid to the woman in his arms, and a malevolent drum of energy electrocuted the space between them. A hatred so rancid and sticky it raised the hairs on his arms.
“The two of you have a story.” He looked from one to the other, back and forth, before pausing on the woman he held. “How long have you been here?”
“Too long,” they snarled in chorus.
“Are you related?”
“God, no.” Vera laughed.
Similar brown eyes, black hair, and tawny skin. Both had Mexican accents, like many of the girls here. But their likeness ended there. Where Vera held herself with sophistication and reserve, the fighter was feral and impulsive. Vera had grown up in a loving home, until her mother died of heart disease.
The common thread between them was Hector’s sons. The brothers prized the woman in his arms, whether for sex or blood sports. But the nature of Vera’s relationship with them wasn’t clear.
Was she jealous of the fighter? Because Hector’s sons showed interest in another woman? Or because Luke showed interest in her?
The elevator opened, and Vera sashayed away, leaving Luke standing there holding an unsolved puzzle.
She entered a breezeway in the opposite direction of his rooms and paused, glancing at him before scowling at the fighter. “Have fun with that.”
“Have no doubt.” He headed the other way, placing his full attention on the woman he was about to become intimately acquainted with. “Tell me your name.”
Stubborn silence.
He growled, “This will go much easier if you give me that.”
“Easier for you?” Her accent dripped with vitriol while somehow retaining a seductive quality that made his balls tighten. “I’m not giving you shit.”
“We’ll both have fake names then. I’m John, and you’re Gina.” At her thinned stare, he clarified. “Gina Carano. The hottest female fighter of all time. At least, she was until I saw you defeat that kid tonight.”
She clamped her busted lips into an angry slash and looked away.
Why had