Free Kiss the Enemy (Slye Temp) by Dianna Love

on top of her with one last thought.
    She wasn’t breathing.
     

 
    CHAPTER 8
     
    “Time’s up,” Nick declared into the lapel mic on his comm set. It reached all his men covering exits from the hotel and garage. “Dingo, you and Ryder get inside the garage and down to the private parking. Check the trunks first. Tanner, go into the hotel and create the disturbance.”
    “Ten four.”
    Men were calling back to Nick after each order, confirming their positions and next moves.
    Tanner broke in. “I hear sirens coming this way. Might be nothing, but...”
    Nick heard something else. A helicopter. Who had called the cops? That might be good news.
    Sabrina could get Margaux out of jail.
    Sirens screamed and strobe lights flashed from police cruisers racing up to the hotel.
    “Pull back,” Nick called to the entire team.
    The beat of the helicopter blades picked up volume, getting louder as it approached.
    What were they hunting for? Nick dove into his rental and snagged a set of binoculars. He focused in on the helicopter hovering over the roof, but Josh had called back with a structural breakdown of the significant parts of the building.
    No way a helo could land.
    Nick couldn’t see anything that indicated there was a problem at the roof that would bring the cops in by air.
    More police cars poured into the scene. Two fire trucks blew their horns to clear the way.
    Guests poured out the front doors to the hotel. People on the street were crowding into the area to see what was going on.
    Dingo spoke into Nick’s ear, “There’s a fire in the basement and someone’s dead.”
    Nick didn’t say a word, too focused on the chopper that came into view moving slowly around the roof. Orange-yellow lights from the hotel’s interior illuminated the jagged spikes that capped the building. The helicopter lifted up and pulled away at the same time. A shape dangled on a cable beneath it, silhouetted against the roof and rising in sync with the chopper.
    The long, black shape was just the right size to be a container for a body.
    Nick would bet his Ferrari that Margaux was in that container.
     
     

 
    CHAPTER 9
     
    Screeching that would irritate the dead hurt her head. Margaux jerked awake and moaned. Pain clawed her body.
    More shrieking sounds. Monkeys.
    She sniffed. Rotting vegetation and mildew stench.
    And the noxious smell of her body sucking into itself, dehydrating.
    Oh, yes. Memory was booting up. Slowly.
    She was in a jungle. Naked, lying on the dirty floor of a hut. Locked inside. She blinked her dry eyes. Been here for one day? Two? Head hurt. Body hurt. So tired ...
    Her eyes drifted shut. Blurred images of men came at her, shouting in some language that wasn’t English. They dragged her naked body through the mud to a building. Tied her to a chair. Fists came again and again. Then the skin on her arm burned.
    She jerked awake, gasping. The world was spinning.
    Someone coughed close by.
    Turning her head took effort. She dropped her cheek back down on the filthy floor. She focused on a hole at the base of the wall.
    That hole was her connection to ...
    More coughing. A hoarse voice called out, “You there, Sugar?”
    Sugar? Dragan.
    Relief flooded her. She wasn’t alone. Now she remembered. Dragan had been captured, too. He was still alive. He’d used his fingers to tear a small hole in the rotting base of the boards in the wall between them.
    She tried to lick her lips that were parched and cracked. No saliva. “I’m here.”
    His lips had to be right against the hole. His sigh shuddered hard. “Good.”
    “How long have we been here?”
    “Two days.”
    “Got any plan?” She was struggling to stay awake. Her body wanted to shut down and quit, but they had to escape.
    Dragan coughed and whispered, “Working on it, Sugar.”
    “What’s with the Sugar?”
    He chuckled then grunted. Must have hurt to laugh. He said, “The name Violet ... doesn’t fit you.”
    She started to ask why not then heard