Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 88918 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88918 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
“Eleven years old?” He inhaled sharply. “Is it from the crash in Peru?”
“Yes. She barely survived. Badell’s men pulled her out, and his personal doctors saved her. I know there were multiple surgeries because I’ve heard Badell discuss it with her. But the details are unknown. It’s strange, because his doctors keep meticulous medical records on every person they touch, yet there’s no record of her.”
Goosebumps blanketed Tate’s arms. “Why did his men save her?”
“From what I’ve gathered, they happened to be in the area and pillaged the crash site for survivors. Easy targets for ransom. They found her and patched her up just enough to keep her alive, only to discover—”
“She has no living family.” Tate’s chest tightened. “No one to pay his ransom and compensate him for his trouble.” His pulse sped up as everything clicked into place. “Instead of killing her, Badell made her work for him? Since he saved her life, does he think she owes him?”
“It’s more complicated than that.” Cole returned to the laptop. “Watch the video.”
When he un-paused it, Lucia strolled across the screen and straddled the naked man’s torso, facing his feet. The camera operator kept her face out of view, honing in on her hands as she wrapped them around the swollen erection.
A pained wailing sound came from the man, his body bucking beneath her. “No, please. I’m married. I don’t want this.”
She preceded to stroke him. No hesitation. No apparent prodding or force by the others in the room. It was as if she was orchestrating it.
The video panned to a black painted wall, where words had been scratched with chalk.
200,000 bolivars
72 hours
No money, he dies
“Ransom,” Tate breathed, his stomach filled with lead. “This is a kidnapping.”
Cole nodded. “The video was sent to the victim’s wife with a bank account linked to it.”
Tate was about to ask why Lucia was molesting the poor guy, but the camera angle returned to her. She stood over the man now, a pistol in her hand, aimed at his legs.
“No! No!” His high-pitched shouting crackled the speaker. “We’ll pay. Please—”
She squeezed the trigger, and his knee exploded in a splatter of red. The camera jostled, lowering the view to focus on the pooling blood and gruesome injury.
No faces. No voices. Just the man’s yowling screams. Then the video cut off.
“Christ.” Tate leaned back, sick to his stomach.
His friends didn’t move, their faces pale as they stared at the black screen.
“His wife wasn’t able to collect the money in time,” Cole said. “His body was dumped in an alley a mile away from the compound.”
“Did Lucia kill him?” Liv closed a hand around Josh’s bouncing knee, stilling him.
“No. She doesn’t do the kidnapping or the murdering. Her job is to inflict physical and emotional pain. Torture. Sometimes she rapes them. Sometimes she causes non-fatal injuries, like this.” He gestured at the screen. “When the victim is female, Lucia operates the camera while one of the men puts on the grisly show.”
“How did you get the footage?” Tate asked, his throat dry.
“I dropped a hack on her burner phone and—”
“Don’t you have to have physical access to the device to do that?”
“Juice jacking.” Cole’s eyes lit up. “I tampered with her charging port, turned it into a data connection. When she charged her phone, I copied everything she had on it, including this video.”
“Hang on.” His neck went taut. “You were in her apartment? Why didn’t you just take her?”
“Yes, I accessed her apartment.” Cole scowled at him. “I didn’t just take her, because I’m not in the business of kidnapping.”
“It’s not kidnapping if—”
“She’s not being held against her will, Tate. She makes no attempt to flee, and there are plenty of opportunities. She knows the city, knows how to evade the gangs. In eleven years, she would’ve succeeded in an escape.”
“Or died trying.” He knew that denying the truth didn’t make the facts go away, but maybe Cole had missed something. Something glaringly important. “The woman in the video… You’re certain that’s Lucia? There were dozens of women in that crash in Peru. What if you followed the wrong trail?”
Cole opened another photo on the laptop—a wide shot of a woman walking along an urban road in daylight. He maximized the view, bringing her face into beautiful clarity. Her hair hung like a shiny black curtain to her shoulders, emphasizing her delicate, ethereal features.
At first glance, she looked like Camila with short straight hair. Her huge brown eyes, warm complexion, stubborn chin—every familiar detail made his chest ache for the sister he’d spent the last six years with.
The woman in the photo had a narrower face and slimmer build. Too slim. Her bones jutted sharply, pressing against her skin. The smile he’d memorized from Lucia’s childhood photos was missing, yet her beauty remained. A dangerous kind of beauty, like if he got too close, he would become hypnotized. Infatuated. Totally fucked.