She knelt next to him, biting back the urge to repeat Jaime. Just to feel what his name would sound like in her mouth.
Silly. “All right, Rodriguez.” She placed the brush at the center of the bed. “This is Austin. The bed is Texas. I don’t have a clue...” She trailed off, realizing this man would know where they were. He hadn’t been blindfolded or hooded. He actually knew if they were still in Texas, if they were close to home.
She breathed through the emotion swamping her. “Where are we?” she whispered.
“An hour east of El Paso. Middle of nowhere, basically. Only a few small towns around.”
She blinked. El Paso. She’d had theories about where they could be, and El Paso had factored into them, but theories and truths were...
“Take your time,” Jaime said gently.
“But we don’t have much time, do we?” she returned, staring into compassionate eyes for the first time in eight years. Because as much as all the girls felt sorry for each other, they felt sorry for themselves first and foremost.
Jaime nodded toward the bed. “Technically, I don’t know how much time we have. I only know the quicker we figure it out, the less chance he has of hurting people. More people.”
She took a deep breath and returned her focus to the bed. “The brush is Austin. I get the feeling that’s something like...the center. I don’t know if it’s a headquarters or...”
“Technically, he lives in Austin. His public persona, anyway.”
His public persona. Though it fit everything she knew or had theorized, it was hard to believe The Stallion went about a normal life in Austin and people didn’t see something was wrong with the man. Warped and broken beyond comprehension.
“So, we’ve got his personal center at Austin,” Jaime continued for her, taking one of the rubber bands she’d piled next to her. He reached past her, his long, muscular arm brushing against her shoulder. “And this is the compound close to El Paso.”
“Right. Right.” She picked up another rubber band. “He seems to work by seasons, sort of. I started wondering if he had a place in each direction. If this is west, he has a compound in the north, the south and the east. Unless Austin is his east.” She placed rubber bands in general spots that represented each direction, creating a diamond with Austin at the somewhat center.
“He has a compound in the Panhandle. Though I haven’t been there, he’s talked of it. I’ve been to the one on the Louisiana border. I didn’t think he had women there, but... Now that I’ve seen this setup, maybe he did and I just didn’t know about it.”
The idea that there’d been women to help and he hadn’t helped them clearly bothered him, but he kept talking. “But south... He’s never mentioned any kind of holdings in the south of Texas.” He tapped the lower portion of her bed. “It has to be south.”
“It would make sense. The access to drugs, people.”
“It would make all the sense in the world, and you, Gabriella, are something of a miracle.” He grinned over at her.
“It’s...Gabby. Everyone, except him, calls me Gabby.”
His grin didn’t fade so much as morph into something else, something considering or...
The door swung open and the next thing Gabby knew, she was being thrust onto the bed and under a very large man.
* * *
JAIME HADN’T HAD a woman underneath him in over two years, and that should not at all be the thought in his head right now. But she was soft underneath him, no matter how strong she was...soft breasts, soft hair.
And a kidnapping victim, jackass.
“Rodriguez. Boss wants you.” Layne’s cruel mouth was twisted into a smirk, clearly having no compunction about interrupting...well, what this looked like, not so much what it was.
Damn these men and their interruptions. He was getting somewhere, and he didn’t mean on top of Gabriella.
Gabby.
He couldn’t call her that. Couldn’t think of her like that. She was a tool, and a victim. Any slipups and they could both end up dead. He glanced down at her, completely still underneath him, and it was enough of a distraction that he was having trouble deciding how to play things in front of Layne.
She blinked up at him, eyes wide, and though she wasn’t fighting him, he’d scared her. No matter that she understood him, his role here, he didn’t think she’d be trusting him any time soon. How could he blame her for that?
Wordlessly he got off Gabby and the bed and straightened his clothes in an effort to make Layne think he was more rumpled than he really was.
“We’ll finish this later,” he said offhandedly to Gabby, hoping it sounded to Layne like a hideous threat.
Jaime sauntered over to the door, not looking back at Gabby to see what she was doing, though that’s desperately what he wanted to do. He grabbed his sunglasses from his pocket and slipped them on his face as he stepped out into the hallway with Layne.
“Awfully clothed, aren’t you?” Layne asked.
Jaime closed the door behind him before he answered. “Still trying to knock the fight out of her. Wouldn’t want to intimidate her with what’s coming.” Jaime smirked as if pleased with himself instead of disgusted.
“It’s a hell of a lot better when there’s still a little fight in them,” Layne said, glancing back at Gabby’s door as they walked down the hall.
Jaime’s body went cold, but he reined in his temper, curling his fingers into fists, his only—and most necessary—reaction.
“Do you think senor would be pleased with that world view?” he asked as blandly as he could manage.
Layne’s gaze snapped to Jaime and his threat. The man sneered. “Not every idiot believes your Pepe Le Pew act, buddy.”
Jaime flashed his most intimidating grin, one devoid of any of the humanity he was desperate to believe he still had. “Pepe Le Pew is French, culo.”
“Whatever,” the man said with a disinterested wave. “You know what I mean.”
“I know a lot of things about you, amigo,” Jaime said, enjoying the way the man rolled his eyes at every Spanish word he threw into the conversation.
Layne didn’t take the hint. “Maybe you want to pass her around a bit. Boss man’s been pretty strict about us getting anything out of these girls but you—”
Jaime stopped and shoved Layne into the wall. What he really wanted to do was punch the man, but he knew that would put his credibility in jeopardy, no matter how much dirt he had on Layne. He wrestled with the impulse, with the beating violence inside him.
No matter what this man might deserve, he was not Jaime’s end goal. The end goal was to make this all moot.
So, he held Layne there, against the wall, one fist bunched in the man’s T-shirt to keep him exactly where he wanted him. He stared down at the man with all the menace he felt. “You will not touch what is mine,” Jaime threatened, making his intent clear.
“You’ve already stepped all over what’s mine,” Layne returned, but Jaime noted he didn’t fight back against Jaime’s hold—intelligence or strategy, Jaime wasn’t sure.
“I ran this show before he brought you in,” Layne growled.
“Well, now you answer to me. So, I’d watch your step, amigo. I know things about you I don’t think The Stallion would particularly care to hear about. A hooker in El Paso, for starters.”
Layne blustered, but underneath it the man had paled. This was why Jaime preferred everyone think of him as muscle who could