Unshackle (Deliver #7) - Pam Godwin Page 0,76

had everything Tomas would’ve passed along.

Luke turned his attention to Silvia, taking his time to speak.

“Why?” Slowly, casually, he rose from the chair and pocketed the phone. “I paid for her. You received the money. Alejandro assured me that you honor your deals.”

“It’s just a technicality. A hiccup in the deal. I’m sure we can work it out.”

“Explain the hiccup.”

“I’ll show you. Follow me.” She pivoted and strode away, giving him no choice but to follow.

CHAPTER 25

As Silvia led Luke outside, a disarming chill saturated the air. Maybe it was just him. His skin rippled with the prickles of a cold sweat, and the drum of looming doom sounded in his ears.

Unarmed and without backup, he had to keep his wits about him. Maintaining his composure and talking his way out of this were his only lines of defense.

Unless his cover was already blown. In that case, he was a walking corpse.

She escorted him along a trail through the lush garden, her heels carefully maneuvering the cracks in the cobblestones. He considered making a break for it, his flight-or-fight instinct gripping him hard. He could outrun Silvia with ease, but he couldn’t escape the cameras and the armed guards.

Even if he could, he would never leave Vera. If she was even here.

The path led to a small pond encircled on all sides by dense trees. The moonless shroud of nightfall cast the water in inky black, the muddy edge occupied by half a dozen man-shaped silhouettes.

Nothing like walking into a waiting throng of armed, distrusting, coldblooded murderers. His anxiety surged into overdrive.

As he approached, he squinted through the darkness, searching for Vera’s small frame among them.

Marco, Omar… All four brothers were here, dressed in a range of suits and street clothes. A few others in the cartel accompanied them.

No Vera.

“Where is she?” Luke paused a few feet away and wiped his slick palms on his pants, trying to control his nerves.

“Did you know,” Miguel asked, tilting his head, “that the black widow is the deadliest spider in America? At times, the female eats the male after mating, hence her name.”

He could’ve gone without that visual.

Impatience dogged him as he probed the pond and surrounding trees, his temper growing short. “I paid a lot of goddamn money for that girl, and you fucked me over. If this is how you do business, I will—”

“Careful.” Miguel’s accent sharpened. “A smart man would think twice before making threats against La Rocha.”

“Fuck you. Where’s my property?” As the insensitive question left his lips, he detected a disturbance at the center of the pond. His pulse lost rhythm, spiraling turbulently, his eyes refusing to adjust in the darkness. “What’s out there in the water?”

“The black widow’s bite is venomous.” Miguel slid a hand down his tie, needlessly straightening it. “But not usually deadly to humans. A single bite doesn’t have the potency. But many bites? Dozens attacking at once, especially when threatened? That would be fatal to a small woman. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.” He chuckled. “Nature is not merciful.”

Tension breathed down his neck, and vertigo threatened to buckle his legs.

Spiders.

A pond of tenebrous water.

Nothing foreboding about that.

Put Vera in the middle of it, and they couldn’t have orchestrated a more sinister nightmare.

If the desired effect was to scare the ever-loving fuck out of him, job well done. His throat felt like smoldering ash, his chest a cavern of dry ice.

But he only showed them the man he wanted them to see—an arrogant prick whose time was invaluable. “Get to the point.”

“Omar.” Miguel nodded at his brother.

Omar flicked on a portable spotlight. The blinding beam shot across the pond, illuminating two shapes at the center.

An unfamiliar man sat in a kayak with a paddle resting across his lap. A few feet from him, a small dome floated on the surface, wrapped in some sort of metal mesh, like the screening material in windows. It allowed in airflow and light, but little else.

He didn’t have to look closer to know what he’d find inside. The contraption was only slightly larger than a human head, and that was what it held.

Vera’s head.

With her body submerged to her neck—presumably anchored to the floor of the pond—her eyes squeezed shut against the glare of the spotlight. Her mouth angled above the water, but she couldn’t shout or make a sound because her lips were stretched open by a spider gag.

The metal ring sat behind her teeth, holding her jaw in a gaping O. A buckle secured