Free The Bargain by Lisa Cardiff Page B

coated his normally clean-shaven face.
    “Go ahead,” Ignacio’s hands dropped from my shoulders, and I took a deep breath trying to erase his touch from my mind and remain calm.
    “Hattie,” Evan breathed, inclining forward until his elbows rested on the table in front of him. “Are you okay?”
    Seriously. How did he expect me to answer his question? Of course I’m not okay. I’m as far from okay as I could conceivably get. I’m being held captive by a ruthless cartel. “I’m alive,” I said instead, dropping my eyes to my hands as they twisted the fabric of my dress. I was pretty sure my fingers would poke holes in the gauzy material by the end of the conversation.
    “Are you hurt?” Evan persisted.
    “Physically? No.” I hedged, unable to answer that question either.
    Evan stretched forward even further, his face only inches from the screen, bringing the different colors in his eyes into sharp focus…black, gold, chocolate mixed with green flecks. “Nobody has touched you, right?”
    My eyes flickered to Ryker. His face didn’t give anything away. I thought I’d see a hint of what he wanted me to say, but his face didn’t offer a single breadcrumb of information. Just before I returned my attention back to the computer monitor, his lips turned up at the corners, and his eyes flashed with a storm of lust, or maybe it was a trick of the light. Either way, that suggestive, fleeting glimpse of his thoughts transported my mind to an illicit daydream. It felt as though I had viewed a movie of us having sex against the wall on fast-forward. My heart stumbled inside my chest. What the hell was happening to me?
    Volcanic heat rushed up my neck, and I tucked my head against my chest. “I want to go home,” I whispered, ignoring the question entirely. “I really need to go home, Evan.”
    “As you can see, Hattie is alive and in good condition. When can I expect the exchange to happen?” Ignacio barked. Obviously his patience with Evan’s questions had expired. I didn’t care. Mine had too. As much as I wished otherwise, I didn’t have any information to help them rescue me. I suspected I was still in Mexico, but I wasn’t 100 percent certain, and Mexico was a huge country.
    “We’re working on it. Things like this don’t happen overnight. Hattie’s father is pursuing it from his angle, and I’m doing everything in my power to facilitate the prisoner exchange.” Senator Deveron cleared his throat and reclined in his chair.
    “I’m running out of patience. This needs to happen within the next week,” Ignacio persisted, shifting impatiently from foot to foot.
    “No way.” Evan vaulted out of his chair. “That’s impossible. We’re not some third world banana republic with a dictator who can snap his fingers and make things magically happen.”
    “Figure it out.” With those three words, Ignacio hooked his hand into the top of my hair, yanking it back, exposing my neck. His other hand curved around the front of my neck. Unfortunately, in that hand, he had a knife. He slid the knife across my neck up the side of my face. “I’d hate to have to hurt her or cause any permanent damage to this pretty face.”
    I squeezed my eyes closed, bracing myself for the moment his knife penetrated my skin. With each centimeter it slid along my skin, he pressed harder…deeper. I cataloged his movements.
    Cheek.
    Below my ear.
    The underside of my jaw.
    I wanted to scream, but my lungs constricted, preventing me from inhaling one molecule of air. I bit the inside of my bottom lip so hard the copper taste of blood flowed through my mouth. And then it happened…the sharp point of the knife bit into the side of my neck and a warm liquid trickled down my skin.
    A piercing scream echoed through the room, and it took me a few seconds to realize it came from my mouth. Ice ripped through my muscles and my heart froze in my chest. It took every ounce of control to suck in another breath.
    “What the fuck! You