Last Breath (Hitman #2)(5)
Author: Jessica Clare

I stayed one night and in the early morning hours of the next day, he walked me out to my truck and told me not to come home until I’d found her. And I haven’t found her and I haven’t been home. There won’t be anything to go back to unless I bring her home.

In the months since my sister was kidnapped from Cancun, I’ve rescued hundreds of girls either in the sex trade or headed for sale. They’ve been grateful, traumatized, and tearful. I’ve never once encountered a mouthy one. Not until Regan. She looks like she might bite off my hand if I try to reach for her.

It took me nearly two months to find her after she was sold from Russia. And that snaps me back. Killing Gomes in a black rage isn’t going to keep Regan safe or help me find my sister.

Gesturing toward Regan, I try to get him to speed up this transaction. “We’re done talking now. Get me a coat for her. I can’t take her outside in that getup. Shit.”

Gomes leans out the door and yells to someone to get Regan a coat. “Depressa! Vai-me buscar um casaco.”

I cross my arms, looking like I’m seconds away from walking on this deal, when really I have my fingers close to the guns inside my coat. I could shoot Gomes right now, and I kind of want to, but hasty decisions like that would only hurt my situation. I learned that early on. You can kill a Gomes but a dozen others like him will rise up from the sewer like an army of rats. If you want to stop something like this you have to find the source of the rats and cut off the damn head and then cauterize it. But I’ll be back for Gomes. I won’t be able to sleep at night until I know the only hole he’s plundering is the asshole of a demon in the underworld.

The house mom appears at the door and hands Gomes a tissue-thin jacket that won’t even cover the tops of Regan’s thighs. I rip the thing out of Gomes’ hands. He’s not touching her again.

“Let’s go, sweet cheeks,” I command, snapping my fingers toward Regan. She lets out a low, feral growl. I want to laugh in Gomes’ face at this—that she’s withstood his treatment—but I can’t let any approval for her show. Gomes gives a jerk of his head and the house mom scuttles over to unlock the chains around her ankle. As the iron falls away, I see that the skin is scabbed all over. I’m surprised it’s not infected. Suddenly the contents of my stomach are at the back of my mouth, and I scrub my hand over my lips to disguise my reaction. I want to throw a blanket over her, shoot everyone, and carry her away.

This is such a goddamn travesty. My tone is sharp and angry. “Put this on.” I throw it to her and she catches it almost reflexively, but she’s slow as molasses putting on the coat, as if she’s weighing whether I’m worse than the devil she knows. Gomes motions for the house mom to hurry Regan up, but I put up a hand to stay the house mom’s actions. Regan doesn’t want to be touched by anyone. You can read that aversion in every line of her body, which is why I threw the coat to her. I don’t need a fight from her. And truthfully I feel sorry for her. God, she is barely a woman—around the same age as my sister, who was twenty when she was taken. Regan is twenty-two or so, Nick had told me. Nick, who sent me here to retrieve her.

“I don’t got all day.” I point to my wristwatch. It’s a reward, I’ve told people, for killing some family who had the nerve to tell me no. Half the time a badass reputation gets you out of tight spots better than two guns and a dozen magazines. Although I’d take those too. I glance over and Regan is still taking her sweet time. “You can either stay here chained to a wall or come with me.”

It’s no kind of alternative, but I’m banking on the fact that she’s currently thinking about a million ways she can escape me once she’s outside of this place. She gives a little nod, not really to me, but acknowledging some decision she’s made in her mind. I step out and walk away, pretending like I don’t care for a minute if she follows. Gomes doesn’t move but instead exchanges sharp words with the house mom in Portuguese, thinking, I guess, that I won’t understand him. But I do. The ability to pick up different languages and quickly is almost a requirement of being part of Delta Force, and I’ve spent time in both Portugal and Brazil.

"Faz com que ela veste o casaco!" says Gomes, ordering the house mom to help Regan put on the jacket.

"Eu não posso. Ela vai me arranhar,” the house mom responds. The house mom refuses, fearing that Regan will scratch her. Regan’s a terror even chained to the wall. Her fierceness is metal as fuck, and that almost cranks my chain as much as her legs. Some of the girls I’ve taken from these places are so broken that they don’t see anything but their abuse anymore. Some fall back into the business, working on their own or as part of someone’s stable, because they can’t function normally. Although what the hell is normal, I have no goddamned idea anymore.

A shuffling sound occurs behind me, and I pause. The steps are light, so they don’t belong to Gomes or the heavier house mom.

“You aren’t going to like owning me,” Regan hisses quietly at my back. If I really were an angry john with a taste for home, I’d backhand her, but my response isn’t one of anger but of resignation. I want to shake some fucking sense into her and beg her to make it easier for both of us for one hot second. Instead I grunt because deep down, part of me wants to show her how wrong she is. In different circumstances, if we were alone in a dark corner of some bar back home, I’d back her right up to the wall and tell her that not only would she like being owned by me, but she’d fucking beg for it.

But we’re not alone. She’s not some college girl slumming it in a hole in the wall outside of Fort Benning, so I don’t back her into a corner. I don’t slip my leg between her golden thighs, and I don’t start sucking on the tender skin at the base of her neck. I don’t even turn around to look at her, and I guess this makes her even angrier. “I bite and I don’t cry and I’ll vomit and pee all over you.”

Jesus Hermione Christ. This girl has balls of freaking steel. “Can’t wait, baby doll,” I say, trotting sideways down the narrow stairs. And for all her threats, Regan is close behind me. I can hear Gomes and the house mom making up the end. I can see the front door and our potential freedom beyond.

“You still want this whore?” Gomes calls out. “I have so many others. This one’s too much trouble for you.”

I laugh, a sour sound so Gomes knows I’m not really amused. “You took my money, Gomes. I’m not into international pussy, so I’m taking this girl and you’re going to be happy with the quarter I dropped for her.”