“When I was running from Vitaly’s men, I kept telling myself I had to hold it together. I promised myself I could freak out later.”
Puck puffed again, sending a thick mushroom cloud skyward. “I’ve heard bits and pieces of that story, but never the whole shit and shebang.”
“It’s a long story, but here’s the Spark’s Notes version: Vitaly Karahalios had me kidnapped as a ploy to get back at Roth and Kyrie. I was bait, and he told me as much. Had me brought down to Brazil—and that trip is it’s own fun story, let me tell you. I spent three days with Vitaly, never sure if he was going to kill me, rape me, or both. He ended up leaving on business, and his second in command tried to rape me. I stabbed him in the eye with a pen, stole his clothes and gun, then hijacked a car from a one of the valets that worked in the building. I bought a burner phone, called Kyrie, which got me Nick—Harris, I mean. I was supposed to find somewhere and wait for Harris to find me, but Vitaly’s guys found me first. I stole their truck and took off like a bat out of hell. Eventually I managed to cross paths with Harris. We took down some of Vitaly’s guys in an ambush, hooked up with Thresh, who got us a flight out of South America.”
Puck just stared at me. Then, after a few processing blinks, he burst out laughing. “Jesus, woman. You stabbed a man in the eyeball with a pen?”
I snickered. “That’s not the worst part.”
He raised his eyebrows. “What is, then?”
“When they’d first kidnapped me, they’d kept me locked up in this little room in the bottom of an old fishing boat. There was an old, dirty ink pen lying on the floor. So I cleaned it off and—hid it.”
He frowned at me. “Hid it? Where?”
I quirked an eyebrow at him. “Best hiding spot a woman has, Puck. Up my hoo-ha.”
“You gotta be shittin’ me.”
“That’s not something I’d make up,” I said. “I called it ‘Mr. Papermate the Pussy Pen.’”
This got me another disbelieving belly laugh. “And you shoved it so far into the dude’s eye that he died?”
I couldn’t quite suppress a shudder at the visceral memory. “Not…immediately. I had to sort of…” I mimed slamming the heel of my palm down, over and over, “drive it…in a little. And even then, it took him a while to—you know. Die.”
“Fuuuuck.” He wiped at his face, still laughing. “That has got to be the most hard core thing I’ve ever fuckin’ heard.” The awe in his voice sent thrills of pride through me.
“I was in survival mode. I would have done anything to stay alive. I don’t go down easy.”
Puck snickered. “I think our boy Harris might disagree.”
I glared at him. “Don’t be a cock-waffle, Puck.”
He held up his hands, palms out. “Sorry, sorry. I’m an ass. I ain’t ever really had a filter. It’s why I never made it very far in the FBI. They don’t appreciate a man calling his superior a ‘pencil-dick weasel-fucker’, apparently.”
I snickered. “I would imagine not.”
Puck grinned. “He was, though. Typical desk jockey, you know? Couldn’t find his balls with both hands if you gave him a map and a flashlight.” He checked his watch, the same type that all the guys wore, thick rubber chronographs that looked like they could survive a direct nuclear blast. “Shit should be happening soon.”
He snagged a handheld walkie-talkie from the seat beside him. “Anselm. Report?”
“He is making the trade off now. He has the little girl in the Jeep, and he’s giving them the bags of money.” There was pause, and then a crackling as Anselm keyed his mic again. “Be ready. I have a bad feeling, you know? In my stomach. Shit! I knew it, I knew it!”
“Anselm, talk to me, what’s happening?”
“I cannot, I cannot. Go to him. Drive east and be ready to provide assistance. It has gone, as you say, off the rails.” There was a loudBOOOOMthat echoed weirdly, coming loudly from Anselm’s end of the line, cut off as his radio went silent, a sound which we also heard in the distance, the report of a rifle.
Immediately after the echoing boom of Anselm’s rifle we heard automatic fire crackling from multiple locations, and another long rifle report.
Puck had closed and tossed his laptop aside as soon as Anselm cursed, and by the time the first rifle report echoed, he had his door closed and the Humvee in gear.
“Hang the fuck on, Layla!” he shouted as he gunned it and slewed the truck around, the tires spitting sand and dirt and rocks.
I heard the radio crackle, heard Nick’s voice: “I’m heading toward you, coming in hot.” I heard gunfire in the background, a girl’s screams.
I was hanging on, leaning into the turn, trying to see out the window and failing. All there was to see was desert flying by. We hit a ditch and went flying, my head hitting the ceiling, and then the Humvee bottomed out with a nasty scraping crunch, and immediately we pitched down, sliding partially sideways down a steep, short hill. My heart was pounding in my chest, and my head was throbbing, but none of that mattered, buried as it was beneath the adrenaline and the fear.
Gunfire echoed from a thousand different directions, assault rifle fire, Anselm’s rifle—a deep, distant, basso concussion—overlapped by a different rifle report, this one louder, closer, and sharper.
