Last Breath

Four

Regan

HOPE FLARES IN MY HEART at the sight of the embassy. I am free. I am steps away from going home. Soon, all of this will be a bad memory and I can return to my previous life. Then, I want to laugh at the thought. I am a scholarship student; all of my grades will be torpedoed by my absence. I’ll have to figure something out. Maybe Mike will let me move in with him.

If he can stand to touch me after what I’ve been through. If he hasn’t already moved on and found another girlfriend after my absence. I like to think he’s waiting for me, but Mike has never been particularly emotional. I cling to him more than he clings to me. I have no illusions about our relationship.

I stare at the embassy through the dirty taxi window. Once I step out of this car, everything goes back to normal. I’ll return to the normal world, a slightly dirtier version of the girl who left it. For some reason, that scares me.

“There you go,” Daniel says at my side, voice dry with amusement. “I told you I’d take you to the embassy, and there it is. Don’t act so excited.”

I look over at him, hiding my uncertainty. “Thank you,” I say, hugging my jacket closer. “You don’t know what this means to me.”

“I can guess.”

I give him a faint smile, and I think for a moment that he’s a good-looking guy. I don’t know what he’s doing in Rio in whorehouses, but he’s saved me. Impulsively, I lean in and kiss his cheek, feeling the stubble under my lips. I want to recoil immediately at the touch, but I know it’s the right thing to do. He likes my touch. His sarcastic gaze softens as he looks at me and he nods. “You stay safe, okay?”

“Okay,” I breathe, and turn to the window again, my hand on the door. I can do this. I’ll introduce myself as Regan Porter. I’m an American who was taken from my home country, and a nice stranger rescued me from a brothel, and I’d really, really like to go home.

I tighten my grip on the handle and look out the window.

The breath dies in my throat.

There at the front of the embassy is the big bruiser. Mr. Freeze’s bodyguard. It’s dark outside, but he’s standing near the door, and I recognize that bald head and big shoulders. If it was light outside, I’d see those awful hooded eyes.

He knows I’m gone. Someone’s called and let Mr. Freeze know that his favorite dentally-perfect whore has flown the coop without his permission. I know as soon as I enter that embassy, I’ll be right back at the whorehouse.

I tremble, and then hate myself for it. He hasn’t seen the taxi yet. He doesn’t know that I’m here. I think for a minute and then turn back to Daniel, the nice-looking American man that has somehow, for some reason, tried to help me escape. I turn to him and give him a faint smile. “Can I ask a question?”

“Shoot.”

His words remind me that Daniel is carrying guns. He killed two men tonight that tried to take me back to the brothel. Whoever he is, he’s not with Freeze. That automatically makes him safer. “Who sent you?” I asked this earlier and he’d danced around the question.

He gives me a serious look, then glances at the cab driver, as if to point out that this isn’t a safe place to talk. Then he looks me over again. “Mutual friend.”

I don’t know who he means. I can’t think of a single person who would know a killer who hangs out in Rio brothels. I glance up at the embassy doors again. The bruiser is gone, but I know I saw him. I know he’s there, waiting for me.

I look over at Daniel again. He’s trying not to look at my legs. Trying, and failing. He’s clearly attracted to me. I’ve seen appreciation flash across his face a few times, quickly hidden. He’s trying not to be, but it’s hard for him.

If he’s attracted to me, I can use that. Sex means nothing to me now. Whatever intimacy it might have meant before has been beaten out of me. I can have sex with this man. I can use him to keep me safe from Freeze. This man killed two men tonight. He’s dangerous.

“You said you won’t touch me unless I want you to,” I whisper in a low voice and then bite my lip in a deliberate manner. I notice his gaze flicks there, to my mouth. He’s definitely attracted. “Is that true?”

“I’m not a monster, sweetheart,” he tells me, and looks almost insulted at the question.

I slide a little closer to him in the car, and my fingers touch the front of his jacket. “Then . . . can I stay with you?”

Daniel looks surprised at my suggestion. No, shocked. His brows draw down, and he flicks a glance at the embassy. “You can’t stay with me. This is as far as I go. I’m dropping you off here. I have other work in Rio. Come on.” He reaches over my lap for the door handle. “They’ll be good to you in the embassy. You don’t have to worry.”

I press my body closer to his, letting the fear I feel tremble through me. It’s not faked; I’m terrified that if I get out of the car, I’m heading right back to the brothel. “Please, Daniel. Please let me stay with you for just a bit longer.” And I cling to the front of his jacket and look as helpless and lost as I can. When he still looks doubtful, I try a different tactic. “I don’t want to go there looking like this.”

He examines my outfit; his eyes narrow as he considers me, then glances out the door. He leans in close. “You scared of something, sweetheart?”

I nod, my eyes wide and pleading. I don’t want to say it aloud because the taxi driver is watching us in his rearview mirror. For all I know, he works for Mr. Freeze, too. If the bruiser can be at the embassy waiting for me, no one is safe.

Except maybe Daniel.

Daniel, who has guns on him. Maybe I can take one of them while he sleeps. Maybe I can seduce him into giving me one or showing me how to shoot them. But I need more answers from him. I want to know who sent him, so I can know if I’m truly safe or if I’ve jumped into more danger.

But Daniel is the devil I know at the moment, and he can’t be as bad as Mr. Freeze. He hasn’t looked at my teeth once, after all.

Daniel seems to consider my frightened snuggling. It’s hard for me to do because I don’t want a man touching me, but I fight back my bile and continue to try and look helpless and innocent. I paw at the front of his jacket. “I . . . can we go to a nice hotel room somewhere? I’d really like a bath and some real clothes. Then maybe we can go to the embassy tomorrow morning, okay? Once I feel human again.”

But my mind is already whirling with new plans, new options. The embassy isn’t safe. I need some other way to get out of this country. Once I figure out how Daniel knows who I am, maybe I can use that.

“All right,” Daniel says reluctantly, then wearily scrubs a hand down his face. “Shit. Fine. One night, and then we’re going back to the embassy. I have a schedule I have to keep.”

“One night,” I agree with relief and force myself to hug him, pressing my breasts against him.

I’m going to use this man.

I’m going to flirt with him, and seduce him, and suck his cock if I have to. Whatever it takes to get him to take me with him and keep me safe. If he’s willing to shoot men for me, he’s a better bet than anyone else I have available at the moment.

I refuse to be abandoned again.

Daniel

I KNOW BETTER. I REALLY do. I should push open the door and haul Regan’s fine ass up to the embassy. There have got to be people inside who can handle this situation better than me. I’m bound to fuck something up. Hell, I can’t even stop looking at her legs like some goddamned pervert. First thing I’m going to do when we get to the apartment is start knocking my head against the floor tile, in hopes that some sense is pounded into my head.

But she looks damn scared and so I give in to her pleading even though I’m on my last fumes and I need some serious sleep so I can move on to my next goal—finding my sister—and then find the hacker Petrovich’s got a hard-on for.

Weirdly all three roads—Regan, my sister, and the hacker—lead straight to Rio. It might be due to the increase in economy Brazil has seen due to the impending World Cup and Olympic games or the rise in overall global prominence. More money means more dickheads willing to spend it on illegal things. The banking industry here is becoming huge, as is the biofuel market. It makes some kind of weird sense that there’s a corresponding rise in the demand for female flesh. It’s not a puzzle for me to figure out. I’m a weapon. Point me and I’ll shoot.

When I learned that Naomi might be here, I entertained the idea that she was the hacker. Naomi’s smarter than half the continent. Running a deep web ring would be something she could do in her sleep. But she’s so smart that I have to believe she would have found some way to contact me. I’ve never used an alias, wanting the word to get around that Daniel Hays was looking for his sister. But she’s never once sent me an email or a text or even a smoke signal.

Letting Regan stay the night with me isn’t going to delay my hunt because I’m in desperate need of sleep. Maybe she’s embarrassed about how she looks in her tiny coat and even tinier bikini. I’ll take her back to my temporary residence and fix her up. We’ll both sleep, and in the morning she’ll be begging me to return her to the U.S. diplomats. I can keep my hands off of her.

“Avenida Nossa Senhora de Copacabana,” I tell the driver to take us to an address down by the beach. He gives me a quick nod and we take off again. The trip from the embassy takes less than fifteen minutes and it’s a beautiful drive along the Guanabara Bay. The pavement and the high rise hotels give way and for a few minutes we drive along the bay, where sea waters pelt the rocks. In the distance, Sugarloaf Mountain rises like a stone torpedo.

Regan has her face glued to the window. “What is that?” she asks, pointing to the mountain.

“It’s Sugarloaf Mountain. When the Portuguese were transporting sugar from Brazil to Europe, they’d press the sugar cane into these cone shaped molds called sugarloaves, and one day, I guess, someone said, ‘hey that bump in the sky looks like a sugarloaf.’ The Portuguese name is Pão de Açúcar.” I found myself leaning close to her, almost whispering the native name in her ear. Another Portuguese phrase comes to mind. Eu quero te abraçar agora. I want to touch you.

I force myself back against the seat. The taxi drivers smirks at me.

“A mulher e a sardinha querem-se da mais pequenina,” he mutters merrily. He’s lucky he’s driving and that Regan doesn’t speak Portuguese.

“What’d he say?”

“That the cable cars are packed like sardines,” I lie. He really said that women and sardines should always be small, which I guess is a reference to Regan’s tight ass he saw waving in his mirror, but I’m not telling her that. Trying to distract her, I point to the wires running from the mainland to the mountain. “There’s the cars that take you to the top of Sugarloaf.”

“Huh.”

I can’t tell if she’s intrigued or whether she can’t wait to get the hell out of here. I’m guessing the latter. I have the taxi driver pull over on the corner. He doesn’t need to know where we are staying. I wish it were Carnivale because Regan in her spangly bikini wouldn’t look out of place during the festival. But as it is, she’s going to draw attention in her black socks secured by zip ties, the thin tan jacket covering the swimsuit. Nothing to do but brazen it out.

“There’s no hotel here,” she notes with worry. The buildings along Avenida Nossa Senhora de Copacabana are nothing like the favela. Here we are on level ground and it looks like any other metropolitan area near a beach. Touristy and a tiny bit rundown. Rather than hotels, I always stay in these apartments, which are run by individuals who are trying to avoid government regulations and extra taxes. These folks aren’t running to spill to anyone who their guests are. Pay them in cash and they are even more thrilled to pretend like the place stood empty for the entire time you were there.

“Walk like you own the place,” I mutter under my breath as I lead her past two large apartment complexes and down an alley to a three story thin building that houses three flats. Mine is the top one.

Regan sucks it all up and walks like a queen, head held high as if black socks, no shoes, and jackets are all the rage. If anyone is looking it’s because she’s fucking amazing. Can I hope that my sister will be like this? For so long I’ve worried that when I found her she’d be a shell, addicted to drugs, strung out, and barely functioning. But Regan’s nothing like that. She’s mouthy and straight backed and clear eyed. I like her, more than I should.

No one says anything to us and we’re inside the one bedroom flat before much more time passes.

“You live here?” She wanders in and looks around. It’s a tiny place. One tiny kitchen, one living room with a partial view of the Bay, and one tiny bedroom with one queen sized bed. She skitters away from the bedroom.

“Rent,” I answer. I open the door to the bathroom that contains a shower and a normal sized toilet. Some things can’t be small for me. I point to my one extra set of towels provided by the owner of the house. “Feel free to clean up.”

She nods and disappears. The water runs for a long time. So long that I’m able to shrug off my jacket, pull out my guns, discard my shoes. During the time the water is running nonstop and steam is starting to seep out from underneath the bathroom door, I’m trying to keep busy, to drum out the image of Regan completely naked inside the shower, running her hands down her gorgeous body, over the firm breasts she pressed against me earlier, and down between her legs. I’m cleaning a second gun by the time she pokes her head out the door. I’m surprised we had that much hot water.

“What?” I ask her, and it comes out more sharply than I intend because I need to turn off my desire for her. Her head inches back so all I can see are her eyes between the frame and the edge of the doorway. It’s not her fault I’m a dick with no self control. “Sorry.” Standing up, I gesture toward her. “Need anything?”

“You got more than this towel for me?” she asks.

Okay, I should’ve thought of that. “Sure.” Inside the bedroom I rifle through my pack. I have a few white dress shirts, beater tanks, dress slacks and cotton pants. I pull out a beater tank and a dress shirt. It’ll hang down to her thighs. Maybe later I can run outside and get her something from one of the shops along the beach. They’ll have at least a sundress.

“This is all I got.” I hand her the things, making sure I don’t look at her. When she takes them from me, her hand brushes mine, and that tentative accidental contact sends an electrical current down my spine. Stiffening, I quickly snatch my hand away, but this only causes her to seem offended. I barely withdraw my fingers fast enough to avoid getting a crush injury when she slams the door shut.

In the kitchen, I heat up some sauce while putting water to boil. I like to eat in if I can. You’re never more vulnerable than when you’re eating, shitting, and sleeping. Or been kept in sexual slavery for two months. I pause. No, Regan’s not vulnerable. That’s what makes her so attractive. In the months I’ve been searching for my sister, I’ve seen hundreds, maybe thousands, of girls and none of them has been able to walk out with pride and fire like Regan Porter. The thing that draws me to her isn’t just her looks, it’s her attitude. I admire her. She’s a rarity. And I decide then and there I’m going to do everything possible to make sure she’s returned safely to the bosom of her family because sometimes the good guys have to win one in order for there to be enough fight left in the white hats.

I’ve got the food plated and ready for her when she finally opens the door. Her long blonde hair is turbaned in a towel and the white shirt hangs open over the beater. I think I can see the shadow of more intimate places, and I force my gaze up to her face.

She looks speculatively at me, as if she’s a customer at the butcher’s shop, counting and weighing what kind of cut of meat I am. I’m the part you leave behind, honey. I’m old, chewy, and about as tasty as a leather shoe.

“Come eat.” I gesture to the table, shoving aside my gun parts. My primary weapon is a Ruger SR45 and it’s the one I cleaned first. I’ve got it lying on a chair next to the table. Easy to grab and shoot if necessary.

“Milk?” she asks, with raised eyebrows. “Are we five?”

“No. I’m twenty-seven, but I still need it.” I pull out a chair for her and she sits down. I wonder if she’s wearing underwear and curse mentally. Of course not; I didn’t give her any. “Do you need anything, ah, downstairs?”

“Like French bread?” she asks.

French bread? Is that a special term for a woman’s pussy? I gape at her, and she flushes under my scrutiny. It takes a superhuman effort on my part not to allow my gaze to drop to her chest to follow that rush of blood and see how much of her body turns rosy.

With her eyes cast downward, she gestures toward the food. “Sorry I asked. This is fine. I don’t need any bread.”

Oops. I guess maybe she took downstairs to mean me literally going downstairs to find more food. I try to be more direct. “I meant, do you need any underwear? I forgot to give you some. I don’t have boxers. I’m more of a briefs man myself.” When I wore any. This causes Regan to turn beet red.

“No I’m fine.” she shifts uncomfortably on the chair, which tells me she’s not fine at all. I don’t want to leave her by herself, but I need to get her some clothes.

“Eat. I’ll be right back,” I say and turn toward the door.

“No,” she jumps up, her hip catching the table and knocking it over. Sauce, noodles, and milk go flying. “Oh shit!” she cries, and then suddenly the warrior princess breaks down. She crumples to the floor and begins to sob, huge wracking cries that sound like she’s being torn apart. My promise to not touch her until she gives me permission dissolves like sugar in water and before I know it, I’ve scooped her up in my arms and am carrying her over to the sofa. I try to set her down but she clings to me, and I take that as consent of an unspoken kind.

Settling into the corner, I hold her body as she trembles and quakes against me. There’s a storm inside of her, and I don’t know how long it’s going to take to die down, but as I cradle her in my lap I realize that the world could burn up and I wouldn’t let her go. Not at this moment. Not until she doesn’t need me anymore because I can’t remember the last time I felt this good. Maybe I never have.