INTRODUCTION
It seemed like ages since that fateful night Mandy Jenkins woke to the sound of a voice. An unfamiliar voice. The private thoughts of a man she’d never met swirled loud and clear in her head where they didn’t belong. He faced danger, this man, this Levi Bjorn, and he wasn’t alone. There were others with him—his team, all running from an enemy more ruthless and more vile than any she could have imagined.
That night, the sound of Levi’s footsteps pounded into Mandy’s mind, crashing through her life, taking the first steps that would lead her directly into his clandestine existence and into the underworld of the insane warlord Dappo.
In Levi’s world, Mandy discovered what was worth fighting for. Friendship. Trust. Loyalty. Love. She found those things, held them, treasured them dearly, and then she destroyed them. Only Levi and the bizarre telepathic connection they shared remained now, binding them together forever though her heart longed for another.
Kiser’s handsome face flickered now through Mandy’s dreams, dancing just out of her reach until, once more, he vanished. She reached for him, calling his name, but the nightmare played on. Torture at the hands of a madman. Dappo’s black eyes. The branding iron. His hooked nose. Machine gun fire and the evil laughter of his men. Dappo waited for her now, beckoning her into his lair, beckoning her into THE DEVIL’S GARDEN.
ENTANGLED: The Devil’s Garden
Book Two
by
D.C. Sargent
Copyright 2011 D.C. Sargent.
Cover Design: Enrique A. Colón
Smashwords Edition
Paperback also available at major online book retailers.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual events or locals or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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ENTANGLED: The Devil’s Garden
Book Two
D.C. Sargent
CHAPTER 1
“Ssshit! He’s got infrared! Run!” Levi Bjorn splashed into the murky swamp water, dialing rapidly with his thumb, and jerked Mandy Jenkins into a run around the blade of a cypress tree. She yelped, falling over the enormous root. With the phone pressed to his ear, Levi scrambled toward the nearest shore. “Pick up the phone, Carson!” he shouted. “Answer, dammit!
“Alto!” shouted a deep voice. “Stop!”
Levi skidded to a stop, ready to pull Mandy in a different direction. Militant soldiers in black battle uniforms charged out of the woods aiming their SIG 552 assault rifles.
“No se mueva! Don’t move!”
Levi spun, breathing heavily. They were surrounded. His right hand, shaking violently, slid down Mandy’s bloody arm to the handcuff dangling from her wrist. He snapped the open end shut over his slimy left wrist and laced his fingers through hers. If they were taking her, they were taking him too. Slowly, they raised their hands in surrender.
“Mmm, hello?” Carson’s sleepy voice sounded loud in the sudden quiet. “Hello?”
The dark-eyed Latino on the bank jerked his weapon up. “Drop it!"
Levi lifted his thumb. The cell phone slid from his hand and into the murky water with a splash.
“Get out of the water!”
“Levi,” Mandy whispered in panic.
Levi’s fingers tightened around hers. “It’s gonna be alright,” he lied quietly.
“Hands up! No talking!”
Levi and Mandy, standing in the stagnant, waist-deep water, eyed the weapons nervously. Four soldiers appeared from the direction of her house, carrying the two men Levi’d just killed.
Linked together, Levi and Mandy sloshed clumsily through the soft silt lining the swamp floor, their feet sinking deeper and deeper until Mandy got stuck. She struggled to free her leg from the sticky mud. Levi gave her a helpful tug and with a slurp, her shoe squelched off.
“My shoe!” she thought to him.
“Leave it,” Levi thought back, pulling her along.
Submerged plants brushed their legs and creatures slithered away, adding to the tension. At the edge of the bog, the green slime coating the surface of the water thickened into a dense orange foam. It clung to the tangled blades of grass jutting from the ground, completely covered a patch of lily pads, and spread over their hips as they waded through.
The muddy bank was steep and busy insects scurried in every direction.
“Ew.” Mandy grimaced and tried to select a bug-free spot to place her hands.
An impatient soldier with frizzy hair stomped forward, held onto a skinny tree, and snatched Mandy up by her hair. “Hurry up, puta!”
Mandy cried out as the soldier hauled her onto the bank and dragged her roughly to her feet. The handcuff on her right wrist snapped taut, nearly yanking her arm from its socket, and Levi slid in the mud with his left hand extended at an awkward angle. With a curse, he grabbed a root and scrambled angrily from the swamp.
The surrounding soldiers pushed and shoved to get him. Hands came from everywhere, clawing and grabbing, trying to gain control. Mandy shrieked, ducking the onslaught. Levi jerked her free. With a yank he spun her into the crook of his left arm and held her back against his front, protecting her from the clawing hands.
A split second later, the frizzy-haired soldier’s heavy body crashed into them, knocking them both into the trunk of a tree. This time, he shoved the barrel of a pistol hard into Levi’s cheek. “Da modderfucker cuff hisself to da gyal,” the man snarled and tried to aim the pistol at the chain. “Pull dem apart.”
There was an enraged shout from behind and the pistol was snatched away by a curly haired soldier. “No, Pedro! Tome él y vamo a ir.”
“No. We are not taking him, José!” snarled the one called Pedro.
“Esta es mi misión, Pedro,” shouted José. “Tu no tienes ninguna autoridad sobre mi carga!”
Mandy glanced at Levi in confusion.
“This is José’s mission,” Levi translated with a nervous glance. “Pedro has no authority over José’s cargo.”
“No! Kill him,” Pedro barked to the other men.
José snatched the handcuff by the chain and stuck his nose in Pedro’s face. “Este es mi examen,” he shouted. “Asi que comportate cabrón!”
Levi followed the conversation with a worried frown. “José, that guy there, says it’s his examination,” he thought to her.
“Examination?“ she sputtered. “A kidnapping?”
Furious, Pedro gave Levi a shove, said something nasty to the curly haired José, then stomped to a white panel van. Angrily, José yanked both his prisoners toward the open van door and shoved them to the floor beside the two dead bodies.
Mandy’s face pressed hard into the stiff carpet lining the floor. The strong smell of musky earth, dirty shoes, and synthetic pine air freshener burned her nose, not to mention the overpowering stench of body odor filling the packed vehicle. She could feel the road as the van rumbled over it on its way to who-knew-where. Levi lay over her, trying to offer some protection. His freshly shampooed brown hair, still slightly damp from his shower, hung down, tickling her eye. He smelled of soap, sweat, toothpaste, and bull frog—a nauseating mixture. Mandy lay partly twisted beneath him, uncomfortable and scared. Her pink shirt now reeked of peat bog and her blue jean shorts were sticky with stagnate swamp mud. Slime coated her legs and something wiggly oozed inside her waistband. On top of that, her hand throbbed from the nasty cuts she’d gotten trying to reach her kitchen knives during the fight. A tickle of muddy blood dripped onto the handcuffs linking her wrist to Levi’s. It was all too much. She shifted to ease her face from the scratchy carpet, turning away from the dead body beside her, and felt the sting of tears in her eyes.
“Don’t start crying, it’ll make it worse,” warned Levi.
“This can’t be happening! Everything’s ruined,” she cried miserably. “The team. My house. You and Kiser. I’ve destroyed everything! He was your best friend, and now we’re gonna die!”
Their captors, about seven total, packed in around them holding stun guns, pistols, and automatic rifles. They wore black and spoke with a mixture of English and Spanish. Mandy couldn’t understand a word of spoken Spanish, but Levi could. She tried to listen to his thoughts, but they were as frantic as hers and she understood nothing. “Where are they taking us, Levi?”
“I don’t know.”
A flash of temper bubbled inside Mandy at the injustice of it all. “Well, why did Kiser ignore your phone call!” she demanded angrily.
“Because he was mad, that’s why,” snapped Levi.
“But you called him twice! That’s not like you. He should have known there was a problem—like we were being kidnapped by freaking terrorists!”
“Obviously, he didn’t,” he said angrily. “Kiser and I have no business fighting over you. We’re a team, dammit, and we’re bickering over a woman. It’s stupid!”
The kidnappers were arguing now and shoving each other. One stepped on Mandy’s hair and she cried out. Levi swept her scattered hair off the floor with bloody fingers and stuffed it beneath her neck, smearing blood from his own deep glass wounds.
“What if Kiser can’t find us?” she worried. “What if they kill us and the team doesn’t even know where to find our dead bodies because Kiser won’t answer his stupid phone! That jerk!”
“Will you be quiet? I’m trying to listen!”
The van turned left. Around them, the Spanish conversation continued and someone in the front seat turned on some music. Two voices began to sing—badly—while the rest shouted over the noise.
Mandy perked up. “I just heard my name,” she thought. “Why are they talking about me? What are they saying?”
Levi kept his face resting heavily on hers, pressing her other cheek down into the filthy carpet. “They’re taking us to Dappo,” he answered.
“What!” Mandy cringed. The mere sound of that awful name made her shudder. The team had survived Dappo once and it was a miracle they’d managed to escape that time. The man was insane. Not only had he forced their helicopter down, but he also shot Levi, used Mandy as bait, and had Alec tortured by the butcher Vlad. Even now, she still had nightmares about the madman, could see his pockmarked face when she closed her eyes.
So, it was Dappo’s thugs kidnapping them!
This morning, she and Levi arrived home after a nasty argument with Kiser, oblivious to the ambush waiting for them. Dappo’s soldiers surrounded her house and moved in. The fight was unbelievable! Levi’d killed two soldiers and destroyed her house trying to save her. In the end, there were just too many soldiers and they’d been captured. Yet, Levi didn’t want her to cry. Yeah, right!
Mandy felt a jolt from above and Levi grunted in pain. “Levi!” she gasped, trying to grab him.
One of the soldiers mocked her, squealing in a high pitched voice. “Levi. Oh, Levi.”
Levi grunted again and held her still. “I killed two of their men,” he told her, receiving another blow. “They’re pissed.”
“Leave him alone!” she screamed, slapping at a rogue boot. “Stop it!”
Breathless, Levi caught her arm and held it. “Don’t! It’ll make it worse,” he panted. “Close your eyes and distract yourself.” He grunted again, dropping his weight heavily onto her as the beating increased.
Mandy squirmed, turning her face to ease her cheek from the irritating fibers.“I can’t close my eye. Your Adam’s apple is in the way.”
“Oh, my bad. If you want to be on top for a while I’d be happy to switch—uuu!” groaned Levi, curling in pain.
That one missed her by inches.
Levi curled his arm around her head, creating a barrier between her and the beating, which opened up the ribs he’d been protecting. He was immediately rewarded for his effort, but took the punishment so she didn’t have to.
Mandy understood, now, what it meant to have Levi’s loyalty, his friendship. He’d give his life. All of his teammates were that way—well, maybe not Madoc—but Kiser was. Kiser had been willing to do anything—whatever it took—to get to his men when they needed him, even force Mandy into marriage. He’d blackmail her into helping rescue his team. It was a powerful bond. Somehow, though, instead of strengthening those bonds, Mandy had neatly severed the ties they’d once believed unbreakable. She’d cut Levi away.
She felt so guilty.
“That wasn’t your fault,” Levi thought, butting in. Breathing heavily, he tucked his elbows around her again, tugging uncomfortably on the handcuff linking their wrists.
With a renewed sense of respect and a healthy dose of shame, Mandy snuggled the side of her face deeper into Levi’s neck and distracted herself by trying to think of a way to fix what she’d broken, but a sharp jab on the back of Levi’s shoulder interrupted her thoughts. She looked up as one of the captors, a man with a tiny red dot on his collar, held out a camera cell phone and gestured toward the couple. “José, aquí tienes.”
José, the muscular, curly-haired man with unusually light hazel eyes, took the phone and readied the camera. His black battle fatigues and a tight black t-shirt were neat and crisp. There was no mark on his collar, suggesting he was of lower rank, yet he seemed to be in charge of the abduction—perhaps as part of the examination he’d mentioned before. At the same time, Pedro, the scruffy man with wild frizzy black hair and hooked nose knelt at their heads. This man wore a rope around his waist instead of a belt. His physique was softer than the others and he reeked of stale sweat. On the collar of his wrinkled black shirt he wore a tiny red star. The insignia made no sense.
Mandy recoiled. “Gross. He looks familiar.”
“Someone called him Pedro,” Levi told her.
Grabbing him by the hair, Pedro yanked Levi’s head up, exposing his muddy face. José snapped a photo and sent it.
“Levi, is it? I seena you before,” Pedro sneered, showing uneven teeth. “On da beach. You was not so tough den. Was you?”
Levi jerked his head away. “Asshole needs a toothbrush,” he thought in disgust.
Pedro grabbed a handful of Mandy’s hair and jerked her head up for a photo. “And da bitch must be Manny, da one Garcia likes.”
Mandy glared at him through her tangles.
Pedro twisted her head to the side, breathing his foul breath into her face. “Where da fuck is Garcia, puta?”
“Aah!” she winced.
Levi snatched Pedro’s middle finger and snapped it back with a loud crunch, then jerked Mandy beneath him again.
“Aah!” Pedro shrieked and kicked Levi, letting out a string of nasty curses. “You breaka my finger, you sorry . . . !”
José shoved a taser into Levi’s back and fired, blasting a jolt of electricity through his body. Levi’s face hit the back of Mandy’s head with a crack, and he cringed sharply, crushing her with violently tensing muscles, squeezing the breath from her until the current stopped. Before he could take a breath, Pedro, cradling his hand, booted him angrily in the ribs. “Cabrón!”
“I’m beginning to not like him,” croaked Levi with poorly timed, half-hearted humor.
Beneath them, the tires rolled over what sounded like a thin metal bridge and then onto a very smooth surface before coming to a stop.
Mandy went still and listened.“What was that?”
The van shook from the outside, jolting and jostling as if it were being strapped down. There was a clank, clank, clank that seemed to come from no particular direction and then a solid, reverberating thud.
“Was . . . that a door?” thought Mandy in alarm.
Levi picked up his head, pushing painfully to his elbows. “A large one,” he gasped, wiping blood from his nose.
Suddenly, the van pitched. There was a rolling sensation and they slid sideways. The ground felt weightless and unstable as if—Mandy and Levi looked at each other—they were on water. Someone jerked the side door open and the soldiers piled out, dragging Levi and Mandy into the hull of a small cargo ship.
*****
Propped on his pillow, Carson shook long blond hair from his sleepy eyes and dialed Levi’s number for the fourth time. Once again, it went to voicemail.
“This is Levi. Leave a message,” said the recording.
Carson flopped onto his pillow and groaned. “Dude! You woke me up . Why’d you call and then turn your damn phone off? I’m going back to sleep,” he grumbled and hung up.
*****
Ocean swells lifted and lowered the boat, giving the floor an eerie swaying sensation. Mandy felt like she was standing in a bath toy, surrounded by chewed up plastic army men. There were soldiers everywhere, and she couldn’t breathe. Neither could Levi. Gaseous motor fumes filled the small vehicle bay, choking them. The guards led them across the parking bay, shouting, clawing, and shoving. Their echoing voices were shrill, bouncing around the metal room, piercing Mandy’s skull. Everything about the bay was metal—pipes, doors, walls, floor—creating a powerful echo. She didn’t feel so good, unlike Levi who seemed impervious to the motion. The floor swayed and she stumbled against the yellow paint-chipped railing along the wall.
A rough hand righted her and pushed her back into motion. Another soldier rammed Levi between the shoulders with his weapon, ordering him to move.
Levi glared and Mandy gagged. “What is puta?” she asked, covering her mouth.
“A whore,” Levi answered as he was shoved through a doorway and up a flight of steep steps into a narrow hallway lined with cabin doors. The walls were dirty, the carpet worn and tattered. Armed guards posted at either end of the hallway snarled as they passed.
Mandy drew back in fear, earning another push.
“Ignore them,” thought Levi. “They have strict instructions not to harm us.”
“Not to harm us?” Mandy looked down at her legs—muddy, scraped, and bruised, her hands bloody. Levi looked worse. Blood still trickled from his nose. His freshly shampooed hair scattered sloppily over a dirty forehead. The gray shirt, torn and muddy around the bottom, had blood spattered across it. After being zapped with a stun gun and kicked repeatedly by Pedro, he looked pretty bad. Clearly, he’d had a rough morning. Mandy wasn’t so sure about the strict-instructions-not-to-harm part. It seemed Pedro didn’t have a problem disobeying orders. Either that or he was braver than most. Mandy shuddered, remembering the last time she witnessed a soldier disobeying an order from Dappo. A memory of the beach in Guatemala flashed in her head, replaying the moment a young soldier refused a direct order to assault Mandy. Dappo simply raised his pistol, shot him, and continued talking without so much as a hesitation in his sentence. So why didn’t Pedro obey?
The mere notion that he might not be scared of Dappo sent a cold shiver through her. “What if Dappo’s definition of unharmed means ‘not dead’,” she worried.
“That would suck,” assured Levi.
“What are they going to do to us?”
“I don’t know. This is the first time I’ve ever been kidnapped.”
“Oh. Well, this is my second time.”
Levi cut his eyes to her in exasperation a split second before being thrown into a poorly lit six by eight foot space. They sprawled together onto the filthy floor.
The door slammed shut, muffling the tough-talk of the guards posted outside.
Levi groaned in pain, slow to get up.
Rolling to her side, Mandy looked around. A small, two-foot-wide bunk was welded along one entire side of the cabin. Beneath the bunk sat a portable commode. The opposite wall held a fold-down table with a padlock hanging from the release latch so it wouldn’t open. Bare gray, very dirty linoleum tiled the floor. A grimy, round window graced in the center of the farthest wall, bordered by rusty rivets and sealed shut with gobbed sealant. Black spray-paint darkened the glass.
The boat rolled over a wave and Mandy gagged again. Turning green, she clapped a hand over her mouth.
Levi rolled to his elbow and slid the portable commode out from beneath the narrow bunk. “Here,” he murmured, putting it in front of her.
Right then, the boat hit a particularly large wave.
Mandy’s stomach lurched. She stuck her head in, took a good whiff, and successfully vomited.
With a heavy sigh, Levi rubbed her back. “You alright?”
“I’ll live.” She lifted her head and wiped her mouth, looking around the room.
Levi sat up wearily and wiggled the locked knob, earning a thump from the other side. With a ‘well-here-we-are’ groan, he closed the lid and kicked the commode back beneath the bunk, then got up. Using a fingernail, he tried to scrape the paint from the tiny window. Paint rolled away, revealing another solid coat of black spray paint on the other side. Dammit. He searched the mattress thoroughly for a bug, a weapon, something, anything. Other than the commode, there was nothing in the room. He rattled the table, then lowered himself reluctantly onto the thin mattress and gripped his throbbing head in his hands. “Now,” he thought miserably, “would be a terrific time for an aspirin.”
“It’s a closet with a bed,” Mandy complained, grimacing at the room.
“If you’re unhappy with the cabin, darling,” muttered Levi sarcastically, “I’ll simply demand the captain turn around and return us to shore.”
“I can’t breathe in here. It’s stuffy.”
“Open a window.”
“Levi!” Mandy spun to face him. “This is serious!”
Levi jerked his head up. “Yeah? I was pretty damn well convinced of that about the time they zapped me! If there’d been a light bulb in my mouth I’d have been a fucking lamp,” he snapped back. “I know this is serious!”
Mandy flopped onto the mattress beside him with a huff, yanking the cuff. “Ow!” she hissed, massaging her wrist. “What was that thing? A stun gun?”
Levi rubbed his temples with his free hand. “It’s more like a stun gun on crack. It’s called an Electro-Muscular Disruption taser. M-26 or something. Kiser bought some like it last year. About 50,000 volts of fun on the receiving end. Once the cartridge is spent, you pop it off, then—yes—it becomes a stun gun,” he said quietly. “It can work either way.” He sighed again and thought silently to himself. “The tasers worry me far worse than the real guns.”
“Why? You think these men are professionals?”
Levi nodded and poked his tongue around a split in his lip, then touched it with a dirty finger. “I’m certain of it—but professional whats?” he answered, looking at the blood.
The question lingered.
Mandy laid down beside him on the skinny bed and began the search for a comfortable position. Levi searched with her. After a series of grunts and huffs and ouches, Levi finally was able to adjust his long legs and turn his hip to make enough room for them both on the narrow, single size mattress. The fun part was doing this with the handcuffs connecting his left wrist to her right wrist.
First, she lay on her left side with her back to him. Levi propped his elbow on the bed, holding his scuffed wrist suspended. Soon, the stinging wounds on his hand began to throb and Mandy didn’t like touching the cold, slimy mud coating her hip.
So they flipped over.
Levi stretched his left arm out and Mandy lay on it, curling her arm beside her. Levi winced. The angle hurt his swollen ribs, making it hard for him to breathe, and his hand fell asleep. This position wasn’t going to work either.
Finally, Levi turned Mandy to face him again and wrapped his arm behind her head, putting them nose to nose. Within minutes they were bored of staring at each other and switched to staring at the dirty walls, then the ceiling, then the walls once more. Before long they were ready to change again. They’d been there thirty minutes and there was only one position left.
Spooning.
It was going to be a long day.
*****
Finally.
Dappo picked up his cell phone and read the message informing him he had two multimedia photos. He chose one and opened it.
What the . . . ! This wasn’t the girl.
Dappo frowned. Who the hell—? Wait.
A young man with tousled brown hair and blue eyes glared back at him. He looked familiar. Dappo studied the photo for a moment, trying to place the face, then grunted. He knew who this was. Why had they captured him?
Piercing black eyes narrowed at the man—the one he’d shot point blank on the beach. He was alive now only because of luck. Maybe that was an omen. Huh. Interesting. This could actually work to his advantage. He’d have to think about that.
Dappo closed the picture and opened the second one. And there she was!
Mandy.
Satisfied, he leaned back in his chair and crossed his long skinny legs on his desk, looking at the image of Mandy. She was filthy. Her dark, sable brown hair was tangled and matted to her face. Arched brows twisted in frustration and her green eyes were narrowed in anger at whoever had her by the hair. Even in anger, the girl was a beauty. What a shame she wasn’t looking into the camera. He wanted her that angry at him, to look at him that way, to know she was in his power. Mandy was the only woman who had ever bested him—his whole army in fact—and that was unacceptable. Here, she would learn her place. Soon, the girl would look at him like that. Besides, he had the perfect job for her!
Dappo let his eyes linger on the photo another minute, imagining what he would say when she arrived, then he froze.
Fingerprints striped Mandy’s face.
One by one, Dappo removed his feet from his desk and sat straight up, angling the camera into the light so he could see the image better. There was no mistake, she’d been slapped! Blood boiled in his veins and his right eye twitched.
Someone had disobeyed a direct order.
CHAPTER 2
Alec twisted back and forth at the waist, tightening the string on his gray sweats, then stretched his legs on the grass. “It’s 7:15!” he announced, glancing at his watch. “Where is Levi? He’s never late for training. Is he taking another day off?”
Carson secured his shoulder-length blond hair in a high ponytail, then bent his right knee and stretched his left leg out to the side. “Probably got wind of Alpha’s mood and left town,” he grumbled, placing his fingertips on the dewy ground.
“What the hell is wrong with Alpha?” asked Alec. “He’s been like this since yesterday.”
Carson shrugged. “He’s got his panties in a twist over something.”
Justin chuckled, leaned forward and pulled his toe toward him to stretch his hamstring. “Is that worse than having his panties in a wad?”
Alec hopped in place from one foot to the other. “Wait. Why is Alpha wearing panties?
A slam interrupted their conversation. Kiser stormed out of the warehouse in the direction of training field. He looked angry. “What the hell are you waiting for?”
“Levi. Where is he?”
“How the hell should I know? Go!” Kiser shouted, slinging his arm toward the obstacle course. “Run the Gauntlet!”
“Apparently twisted is worse than wadded,” Carson said with a point. “Laundry duty says I reach the end of the Gauntlet first. Second day in a row.”
“Bullshit you will. Ready? One, two—what the . . . ! Justin! Hey! We weren’t ready!”
“Get him!” shouted Carson.
Thirty minutes later, Justin waited at the end of the obstacle course, gripping his knees and panting. “I win,” he laughed when the other two arrived.
“You cheated!” gasped Carson. His pounding footsteps slowed until he came to a stop. “That was dirty.”
“Hey,” Justin quipped, “today’s my laundry day and opportunity knocked. Have fun with that.”
“Dude!” Carson griped. “The only reason you won is because Levi isn’t here.”
Justin shook the sweat from his sandy colored hair and smiled. “I know. That’s how he always gets out of doing everything. This is awesome. I think I’ll take Bootleg to the park.”
Kiser’s voice boomed over a megaphone, interrupting them. “Hey! This isn’t a damn social gathering. Run it again. This time, bring the dummy with you. Move!”
*****
Mandy held her brows high to hold her eyes open.
Blink.
Sigh.
Levi rolled to his back, putting himself in her line of sight, and let his foot fall off the bed. Sooo, Mandy stared at him. There was nothing else to look at. Her eyes traveled over his attractive features. Tousled, fine brown hair was matted on the side, stuck up in back, and fell in dirty clumps over his forehead. His well-proportioned nose was straight, curving up only slightly at the tip, and lightly freckled. She’d never really noticed the freckles before. They were cute. Of course she’d never admit that. Dark level brows and thick black lashes rimmed breathtaking, almost iridescent blue eyes. Somewhere beyond the mixture of uncertainty, fear and worry she saw in them now lay the unmistakable arrogance he wore like a badge. Or maybe that was boredom.
Levi frowned in irritation. “Okay, I don’t like you staring at me. And no, I don’t have cute freckles on my nose. My eyes aren’t iridescent blue—they’re just blue—and they aren’t breathtaking either, if you don’t mind,” he said. With a snort, he placed his hands beneath his rear and started doing leg lifts. “You make me sound like a freaking cartoon. Can you please not touch my butt?”
“Uh. Handcuff. Hello?” Mandy rolled her head back to look at the ceiling. “I wonder what Kiser’s doing right now,” she thought wistfully. “Do you think he thinks about me?”
“Don’t care.”
Mandy pictured the love of her life clearly in her mind. So handsome, so powerful, so—.
Levi groaned. “Must we ogle Kiser again?” he thought with a dirty glance. “Six . . . seven . . .”
“Yes,” she affirmed defensively.
“No!” Levi stopped counting and lowered his legs, threatening her with a point. “I swear if I have to listen to how sexy he is one more minute I’ll strangle you.”
“Well I’m sorry, Levi! What am I supposed to do? I’m in love with him.”
“I know,” he said flatly and positioned himself to start again.
Mandy frowned thoughtfully and faced him with a question that had bugged her for a while now. Her tone grew wistful. “Why is that?”
“Hmm?” Levi glanced at her again, not following.
“Why him and not you?”
“You mean why aren’t we in love?” Levi asked, nearly losing his balance on the bed.
Mandy nodded. “There has to be a reason.”
Levi thought about it, then resumed his work out. “Don’t know. I’ve wondered myself.”
“Well then . . . why are you so jealous of Kiser if you and I aren’t in love?”
“Because I’m being pushed away—twenty-three. I’m the third wheel and I don’t like it—twenty-four. Because I don’t want those thoughts going through my head. I don’t think Kiser’s hot—twenty-six—and, because I don’t particularly care for the idea of you having a love life. I mean, think about that. Really. Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine.”
Mandy blushed.
“You were just lucky it was Kiser and not some other jackass I caught you with . . . thirty-one,” he continued, “‘cause I would have broken anyone else’s neck. Thirty-two—I recommend you consider that before you go falling in love again—thirty-four. You are not allowed to date. Thirty-five.”
“You can’t tell me if I can or can’t date!”
Levi stopped in mid leg-lift and lifted his brows. “Wanna bet?”
“That’s not fair.”
“Flirt with some jackass and see what happens.”
Mandy scoffed. “I’m not going to flirt with anyone. Kiser’s the only one I’m interested in. I love him.” She pictured him in her mind, so perfect, so—.
Levi jerked upright. “If you take me on another virtual trip across his physique,” he stuck his finger beneath her nose, “I’ll go full day-dream. XXX-rated blondes, I swear!”
Mandy puckered her lips in defeat and huffed.
Satisfied that he’d shut her up, Levi laced his fingers and started doing sit-ups.
*
“Ready? This is our last egg.”
Mandy bounced in excitement, bumping her knees against Levi’s. “Okay!”
“Trying to reach one hundred.” Levi tossed the hard-boiled egg high into the air. “One.”
Mandy caught it. She tossed it up. “Two.”
Levi caught it and tossed it up. “Three.”
She caught it. “Four.”
“Five.”
The egg arched away. “Six!” squealed Mandy, nearly falling from the bed.
Levi laughed. “Seven.
“Eight,” she said, righting herself.
“Watch this!” bragged Levi.
“Ooh, it’s spinning!”
“Like a football. Quarterback, baby.”
“That’s right! I remember the jersey in your black box. I was a cheerleader once.”
Levi gave her a skeptical look. “Oh, really?”
“Yep.”
“Only once?”
“Yeah. Never really made the team. I was just a stand in for a game one night.”
“No kidding,” said Levi, tossing the egg high. “So how’d that go?”
“Oh . . . alright, I guess. Until I got tackled.”
Levi laughed. “Now I believe you.”
Mandy caught the egg and arced it back. “What number is this?”
Levi launched it within inches of the dingy ceiling. “Let’s call it thirteen.”
“Fourteen.”
“Fifteen.”
*
What was your father like? Fifty . . . fifty-one . . .”
“Daddy?” Mandy smiled. “He was a wildlife biology professor, a workaholic, and a nut. Very smart. He liked wild animals. Loved owls. Every spring Daddy would take me and his students on these week-long nature walks and teach us about animals and snakes and bugs and trees—any wildlife we happened across. The man was an encyclopedia! I used to love those hikes just because I was with him. We’d take overseas trips—the kind they vaccinate you for—and find rare animals and flowers. I swear I’d get information-overload,” she chuckled sadly, “but I enjoyed every minute of it. Daddy was the only family I ever had. Then one day,” she shrugged, “that was it. He just died. I found him in his bed. The doctor said it was an aneurysm or something.”
Levi stopped exercising and wiped his face on his shirt. “You have no other family?”
Mandy shook her head. “Nope. Never have. I’m alone. Daddy was disowned from his family when he married my mother, I don’t know why. When she died her family never even showed for the funeral. After Daddy died, I took online courses and studied. I didn’t care what I learned, as long as I didn’t graduate. Wasn’t ready to move on, I guess.” A tear rolled over the bridge of her nose and dropped onto Levi’s arm. “I always hoped someone would come for me, like a distant relative, but no one ever did. I’ve been alone for nearly two years now.”
Levi pushed her hair behind her ear and wiped her cheek with his thumb. “Well, I’m here now. You aren’t alone anymore.”
Mandy dried her eyes with a smile and a sniff and whispered, “That’s it. That’s all there is to me. I’m not interesting like you.”
“Ha! I could tell you some stories,” agreed Levi with a nod.
“Do that. Tell me about you. How did you end up working for Simon?”
Levi shifted on the mattress. “My mom and dad divorced when I was young—like five. I don’t remember my dad. Mom and I lived in some dinky apartments. We were dirt poor, surviving only on minimum wage and child support payments. I was six when she started dating Simon. He was military—in some super-secret bad-ass black unit. He had long hair, a goatee and no social security number,” Levi said with an exaggerated expression.
“I hated Simon. I thought he was trying to take my mom away, which, of course, he wasn’t. Then, one day he told me I couldn’t do something,” Levi chuckled. “I don’t even remember what it was—like ride a friend’s motorcycle or something—but I bowed up on him. I tried and tried to kick his ass. By the time I realized that wouldn’t happen, he was teaching me to fight and I was paying attention. After that, I couldn’t get enough of him. Simon’s been like a father since. Later, he left the military to open a training camp with Jim, some guy in his black-ops unit. They did that for several years.
“When I was in a senior in high school Kiser moved in next door, working his way through college. He was still called Austin back then,” he added. “I was about eighteen . . . so he must have been nineteen, maybe twenty. Not long after he moved in, his mother was killed in a terrorist attack. Two weeks later, Carson showed up in the middle of the night banging on Kiser’s door, hysterical. Their father had just committed suicide.”
Levi’s eyes glossed over in memory. “Austin went nuts,” he remembered. “Tearing up the apartment, smashing and destroying stuff. Simon busted in and managed to stop him before he killed someone. Right there in the middle of the night, he took Austin to his training camp. He was gone for months. Carson was only fifteen so he stayed with me and mom. That’s how we met.”
Levi scratched his ankle with his shoe, sprinkling clumps of dried swamp mud onto the mattress. “When Austin came back he was ‘Kiser the bad-ass’ and huge, and Carson and I wanted to be just like him. So we built an obstacle course behind Simon’s helicopter repair warehouse and he started training us. We nicknamed him Alpha.”
“I thought the place Kiser was trained was called Jim’s Training Camp,” said Mandy, propping her head on her knuckles.
Levi nodded. “It is now. It was Simon and Jim’s Tactical Training at the time. Now, it’s just Jim’s. They don’t talk anymore—I guess they used to be real good friends.”
“What happened?”
“Some sort of falling out,” shrugged Levi. “Simon never told me, but I do know it had something to do with Kiser. They split and Simon opened the helicopter repair shop at the warehouse. That was my first job. I’ve always been good at fixing things so Simon let me work on the helicopters. That was fine for a while, but I wanted to become a commando. So did Alec and Carson. Jim refused to take anyone associated with Simon because of the falling out, so Simon and Kiser trained us themselves. That was how Team Esoteric—“
A roach scurried across Levi’s neck, interrupting his story. He slapped at it, forgetting about the handcuffs, and yanked Mandy’s hand out from under her head. Grimacing, he slung it off.
It landed on Mandy’s face.
She jolted violently. “Aaaah!” she shrieked, slapping at herself and kicking her legs.
The insulted roach scurried down her neck into her shirt and ran across her chest.
“Aaaah!” Mandy bucked, jerking Levi’s arm across the mattress and knocking him to the floor at the same time. “Get it—aaaah!—get it off!”
Throwing his free arm up, Levi ducked the violently flailing arms and legs. “It’s just a bug!” he snapped, trying to keep his shoulder in its socket.
“Aaaah! Yuck!” Mandy thrashed, bowing her back, twisting, and slapping at herself.
The cuff twisted violently on Levi’s wrist. “Ow! Dammit. Be still and I’ll find the stupid thing!”
The outline of the roach burrowed beneath Mandy’s shirt, running from the deadly blows. “Get it off!” she screeched.
Levi’s hand shot out, and the bug died with a crunch.
Mandy bowed her body in disgust. “Ughl! Yuck!”
Levi shook her shirt and the smashed roach fell onto the mattress. He flicked it onto the floor and rubbed his sore wrist. It was raw now and beginning to bleed.
“Ick,” Mandy squealed, cringing again when the goo touched her skin. She pulled the shirt off so it dangled on her cuffed arm. Wearing only her bra, she wiped the slime off on the wall. Unable to flip her shirt goo-side-out because of the stupid cuffs, she dried the fabric as best she could before pulling the shirt back on. “Stop looking at my boobs, Levi.”
“Then put them away,” he snapped.
Mandy pulled the shirt down with a shudder. “What were we talking about?”
The boat lurched and Levi wobbled to keep his balance on the bed. “I was telling you about me and the guys. I forgot what I was talking about.”
“So did I.” Mandy scratched at herself in a sudden fit of the heebie-jeebies. “Kiser has a nickname. What’s yours?”
“When we’re on a mission, I’m Thump. Carson’s Rezza Blade, Alec is Skeeter. Justin is Twig. Madoc is Doc or Snipe, depending on what he’s doing. We call Simon . . . Simon.”
“Is Simon still with your mother,” she asked with another shudder.
Nodding, Levi gave her a wide smile, showing even, unbrushed teeth. “Hot and heavy.”
“I can’t wait to meet her,” smiled Mandy. “Tell me about your first mission.”
Levi’s face lit up. “Oh, my God! It was awesome! Kiser had a buy in California. He thought we weren’t ready, but we would have none of that . . .”
*****
In the dead of night, Kiser blinked his eyes open to the sound of rich, musical laughter. His heart thumped furiously against his ribs.“Mandy?”
There was no answer.
“Mandy, is that you?” Pushing to an elbow, he looked around the dark room. The laugh faded, leaving only the hum of the ceiling fan. He’d had another dream.
Kiser sat up, ruffling his mused blond hair, and let the sheet roll off his sweaty chest. The cool air felt good. His skin still tingled at the sound of her voice. He knew it was only a memory, but he couldn’t seem to tell his heart that. It banged in his chest every time, thinking she’d come back. And, every time, he’d had to return to the truth of the matter—she hadn’t come back and neither had his best friend. He was beginning to think they never would.
Was Levi still that mad at him?
Kiser missed Levi. They’d always done everything together and now . . . nothing. Not even an angry phone call about putting stupid shit aside because he wanted to get back to work. It had been almost a week since the fight. It wasn’t like Levi to hold a grudge this long, especially with him. They were too close. Of course, this was worse than a simple petty argument. This was over a woman. But, Levi had to know those words had been spoken in anger. Didn’t he?
For the millionth time, Kiser heard the sound of his own angry voice telling them to get out and not come back. The words bounced around in his head. Why had he said something so stupid? In his mind, he could still see the stricken look on Mandy’s face. He saw the hurt in Levi’s eyes, the look of betrayal when Levi’d caught him kissing Mandy. Kiser could still feel that kiss. His stomach twisted at the memory and his chest constricted. Suddenly it was hard to breathe. What kind of man was he to take his best friend’s girl? What kind of friend was he to still want her?
Taking a deep breath, Kiser rubbed his face and got up. There would be no more sleep that night. He pulled on a pair of red plaid pajama bottoms and padded barefoot to the refrigerator. The smell of sour milk wafted out. Wrinkling his nose, he plucked a beer from the nearly bare shelves, closed the door, and popped the top. The cap sailed over his shoulder toward the trash. The house was a mess, but who cared?
Taking a swig, Kiser crossed the living room to the stereo and flipped it on. The music he’d played while teaching Mandy the Salsa began. His throat tightened.
A silver photo frame lay face down beside the speakers where he’d set it the other night when he’d woken to another dream. Or had that been last night? The heavy frame was made of a brushed, matte silver with ornate wedding bells carved into the bottom corner. Mandy chose it after the boys snapped ‘the wedding photo’ as a joke. She’d slipped the snapshot, which looked sorely out of place, into the fancy frame and set it out as a display, claiming it was the ‘perfect picture.’
Kiser took it to the sofa with him and sat down. Setting the frame on its back on the coffee table, he took a drink and stared at it. He and Mandy sat side by side, about where he was sitting now. Their bodies leaned together, her elbow on his thigh, his hand on her back. In the crook of her other arm she held a lopsided bundle of flowers. On her head she wore a napkin as if it were a tiny veil, its corner just falling forward onto her forehead. It had slipped off moments after the photo was shot.
Smiling, Kiser touched the napkin in the picture as if he might hold it on her head a little longer. He touched her lovely face, running his finger gently around her cheek, her pretty chin. The smile she wore was in her eyes. Mandy looked happy. He looked at his own face. It held the same expression. His smile, too, was deep in his eyes. If only he could go back to that moment.
Kiser lifted his head with a guttural curse and took a deep swig. Dammit.
Lowering the bottle, he cradled his head and exhaled slowly. His brown eyes fell back to the photo. Above where he and Mandy sat on the sofa hovered Levi’s face. He stood directly behind them, looking into the camera as if he belonged there. He’d stepped behind them just as Justin snapped the shot and had ‘accidentally’ made it into the wedding photo.
It was almost ironic.
Kiser looked at Mandy. He looked at himself. He looked again at Levi.
Or maybe it wasn’t ironic. Maybe Levi did belong there. Maybe it was himself who doesn’t belong, he thought. But why, then, did he still want her so bad? Why did Mandy feel the same about him when she belonged to Levi? Did she love Levi?
Kiser didn’t think so. She’d fallen for him, not Levi. He’d seen it in her eyes, felt it in her kiss. He could see it in the picture. So why couldn’t Levi see that? Why couldn’t Kiser have her? Why couldn’t Levi just let her go?
Kiser’s fingers gripped his head as these questioned spun through his mind. He heard his own voice again, so loud and so clear. ‘She’s yours’, he’d growled through his teeth. ‘Don’t come back’.
‘She’s yours.’
‘Both of you, get out.’
‘Don’t come back.’
‘She’s yours.’
Back and forth the words bounced until tears burned his eyes. He shook his head and took a deep, calming breath.
It didn’t work.
An angry growl rumbled in Kiser’s throat and he thumped his chest. “She’s my wife, dammit!” he shouted at Levi’s picture. Then in a burst of temper, he hurled the beer bottle across the room. It shattered, splattering beer across the wall. “I want her back!”
CHAPTER 3
“. . . hahahaha!” Mandy gasped and rolled to her side, clutching her stomach.
Levi waved his hands over his head, curling his fingers into claws, and danced his body back and forth like a tarantula. “ . . . big-ass spider finally got mad and put his legs up like this,” he hissed in laughter, “trying to look scary! That stupid cat—“
Levi doubled over in laughter, trying to finish his sentence, and swung his hand like a cat paw. “The cat nailed him! The spider . . . hahaha—!”
Mandy squealed, kicking her feet. “Stop! Stop! I can’t breathe!”
“—the spider f-face-planted!” Levi gasped and, after several tries, demonstrated the face-plant with both front ‘legs’ slapping down beside his head.
They rolled around the bed for several moments, trying to breathe.
Tears slid from Levi’s eyes. He tried twice to start, then squealed, demonstrating. “The cat hit him again . . . woo hoo hoo! . . . over and over! The spider turned with its legs in the air . . . hahaha! . . . and tried to run away on the back four!”
It was a while before he could continue.
“The cat followed and that was it!” Levi hissed, squeezing his eyes shut. “Next time that cat popped him . . . (gasp) . . . the tarantula grabbed the paw with every damn leg he had and bit the shit out of him!” he rushed in a high pitch voice.
Mandy slapped at the bed, doubling over in pain.
“The cat screamed like a woman! It took us two hours . . . to get Carson out of the tree!”
Mandy stopped breathing, writhing in agony.
Levi fell beside her, laughing.
*****
“Hey, Levi, it’s Justin. . . . again. Where in the hell are you, man? Gimme a call.”
Frowning, Justin tucked the phone back into his pocket and picked up his whittling knife. Where was Levi?
*****
The lock on the door clicked and Mandy and Levi both jumped, instantly awake. Levi jerked his arm from beneath her and sat up, snapping the handcuffs taut. Both winced in pain. The cuffs were killing them. Their wrists, sore and swollen even with strips of torn sheets stuffed inside to cushion them, were becoming infected along with all their other festering wounds.
Pedro opened the door, carrying a tray of food in his hand. His frizzy hair flopped forward as he bent down and slung it onto the floor with a clatter. The tray slid into the commode and bounced back. The door closed again.
The lock clicked and Levi laid back down in silence, feeling the pitch and roll of the small ship on the water, and listening to the low rumble of the engines. Mandy sighed and turned over. Neither had any interest in eating. In silence, they lay staring into space.
*
Thunder cracked angrily outside and the ship rocked over the waves. Long after Levi was asleep, Mandy lay awake, staring at the dim-lit, nicotine-stained ceiling, using his bent elbow as a pillow. Twisted at the middle, she lay against the wall with one shoulder pressed into the hard mattress, listening to the rain pelting the blackened window.
Levi took a deep breath and sighed in his sleep. His relaxed fingers rested on his side with Mandy’s wrist dangling awkwardly below on the chain, pounding with each beat of her heart. Her fingers picked at the mud clinging to his filthy gray sweatshirt, and she allowed her thoughts to wander, enjoying the silence so rare in her mind anymore. She thought about Kiser, remembering the first time he’d put his strong arms around her—how safe she felt. A memory flashed in her mind, transporting her back to the cave. The thrill of sitting between his legs. The warmth of his body when he leaned against her. His hand on her hip. She’d been so aware of him. Even now, she could see him clearly in her mind—turning his head to look at her, lifting a slanted brow at something silly she’d just blurted, then laughing. Her skin warmed at the sound. Did he know she’d been kidnapped yet? In her mind, he pulled away to look at her, frowning in concern. How many days had it been? Three? Four? Five? She’d lost count.
Certainly by now Kiser’d realized there’s a problem. Was he scared for them? Would he call the police? Mandy supposed that would be pointless. What could the police do? Knowing Kiser, he would do it himself. He’d be her hero. A surge of excitement tickled her belly. Yes, Kiser was coming for her. Of course, he was!
Relief bubbled inside and she nearly laughed. Any minute, he’d bust through that thin door . . .
Then, his handsome face hardened and the warmth was gone. Memory replaced daydream and Mandy heard his soft-spoken voice. “Get out. Both of you.”
Had he really said that?
“Don’t come back.”
The memory stung her like a blow and her throat constricted, cutting off her air. She could lie to herself forever, but she knew the truth. The truth hurt so bad.
Tears burned her eyes as the fantasy died and she hugged herself, trying to quiet the spasms. It was no use. Her lips grew taut and hot tears fell onto the thin pillow.
Kiser wasn’t coming.
*****
Alec and Carson climbed up the frayed training ropes and crawled across the netting. At the top, they both prepared to jump. Carson dropped silently down into a culvert and hid. Alec jumped up onto a tree branch. Without a sound, he attached his harness, preparing to drop down behind the mock buy.
Both were in place long before the timer was up.
A laser light shone on Spanky the Dummy, indicating ‘Alpha’ was being threatened. Alec sounded the alarm on his radio—a long beep—and the team burst into action!
Carson attacked.
Whack! Whack! Whack! Clank! Whack! went Carson’s knives. One shiny silver knife skittered to the ground. Alec slithered from the tree, dropped into a crouch, and fired his laser gun at the mechanical popup targets as they appeared. Pow, pow! Pow! Two to the chest, one to the head. The target-disabled indicators lit up as he fired. Each target was now impaled by a throwing knife—except one—and a flashing direct-hit light.
“Twig!” Alec said into the radio.
Matt jerked the helicopter around. “Stand by, boys,” he said calmly. “One can of Whoop-Ass headed your way in five . . . four . . .”
Across the yard, the helicopter flew toward the training field. It cleared the tall fence and skimmed just over the ground without slowing its speed. The back door opened.
“Green light, Twig!” said Matt. “Go! Go! Go!”
An engine roared over the radios and out flew Justin on a motorcycle. Airborne, he hovered, then landed flawlessly on the ground with a ‘whoop!’ Skidding sideways, he raced toward his team. Carson landed three more knives then charged toward the dummy with Alec covering his rescue. He grabbed the dummy, ran him away from the ‘bad guys,’ and heaved it onto the back of Justin’s bike.
The dummy fell off.
Carson picked it up and set it in Justin’s lap. Laughing, he wrapped the dummy’s arms around Justin’s neck and crossed its legs seductively behind his back.
Alec screamed in laughter and gave Carson a high-five.
Justin broke out in a wide smile. “Spanky’s being naughty today,” he chuckled, then drove the dummy to safety.
“What the hell are you doing!” shouted Kiser.
“Saving your ass,” Carson answered, gathering his training knives.
“Bullshit. What the hell was that with the knife? You missed! You never miss! How the hell did you miss?”
Carson stopped gathering his knives and glared at his brother. “I’m tired!”
“I don’t care if you’re tired! You don’t miss. Do it again!”
“We’ve been at this all day, Alpha. What is wrong with you lately? You’re treating us like a bunch of animals!”
Kiser jabbed Carson in the chest, backing him up. “Then focus!”
“It’s hard to focus when we’ve got a team member missing. We need Levi to get his ass back to work. He’s had a long enough vacation. You can’t expect us to do our jobs and his, too! We’re working twice as hard. I’ve got blisters on my feet, and my arm is sore.”
“Why are you standing here crying, boy? Your time starts in sixty seconds!” Kiser pulled his phone from his belt, snapped it open, and used it like a walkie talkie. “Twig, we need the dummy back. Matt, bring the helicopter around.”
Justin returned with Spanky.
Kiser pointed to the far end of the yard as Justin slowed to a stop. “This time, make the run with—,” he stopped when he saw Spanky sitting seductively on Justin’s lap.
“That dummy is supposed to be me,” said Kiser in a flat voice. “I don’t sit like that.”
Carson and Alec laughed and clapped each other on the back.
Justin chuckled. “This is no dummy, this is Spanky.”
“Stop calling it Spanky. It’s Alpha!” Kiser barked. “Now, put the damn thing down and start over!”
*
Carson grabbed the dummy, ran him away from the pop up bad guys, and heaved it onto the back of Justin’s motorcycle. This time, he lay the dummy face down with its belly over the seat, arms and toes dragging the ground on either side.
“Get that dummy off the ground! What is wrong with you?” shouted Kiser. “Do it again!”
*
Carson grabbed the dummy, ran him away from the pop up bad guys, and heaved it onto the back of Justin’s motorcycle. He wrapped its arms around Justin’s waist and laid the legs behind the bike. The feet bounced as Justin dragged it away.
Kiser growled in frustration. “Why am I dragging behind the bike? Again! This time, get it right!”
*
Carson grabbed the dummy, ran him away from the pop up bad guys, and heaved it onto the ground on its belly. Justin slid to a stop beside him and handed Alec duct tape and an apple.
When Kiser found the dummy it was hogtied. Its hands and feet bound and tied together with an apple taped over its mouth. Across its back was a sign in bold letters—ALPHA.
In spite of himself, Kiser chuckled. Then, straightening his face, he turned and shouted for his men. Carson, Alec, and Justin were nowhere to be found.
CHAPTER 4
Levi lifted his foot and scratched his dirty ankle with the toe of his shoe. When he was finished, he flopped it back down, inadvertently bumping Mandy’s foot.
“Quit it!”
“Quit what,” he asked in a dull voice.
“Touching me.”
“I didn’t touch you.”
“Yes you did. Shhht.”
Levi turned his head to give her a dirty look. “Don’t shoosh me, female. I wasn’t talking too loud.”
Mandy waved her left hand in annoyance. “ . . . twenty-six . . . twenty-seven . . . ”
“Ugh, will you knock it off,” he snapped. “You’re driving me nuts.”
“Hold on! You’re making me lose count.”
Levi dropped his head back onto the pillow. “It’s thirty-three! It was thirty-three before. It’s still thirty-three. It’ll be thirty-three the next time you count.”
Mandy raised her finger. “Not necessarily,” she informed him intelligently. “I blink fewer times per minute when I’m angry than I do when I’m relaxed. It was closer to twenty-eight that last time. I wonder if I’ll blink more when I’m happy.” She laid back down and stared at the ceiling. “Say something funny,” she bossed.