A rifle clicked next to Ryan’s temple. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
The man dug his fingers deeper into her arm. She’d have a nasty mark above her elbow tomorrow, but if they didn’t find a way out of here, a bruise was going to be the least of her problems.
She glanced at Ryan, and the horror that she was the one who’d gotten him into this slowly sank in. She should have listened to his father. Or at the least should have insisted he drop her off at the private airfield, then take his own flight back to the United States.
Except then she’d have been on her own.
She watched as the airplane that had once been their ticket out of here taxied down the runway. It picked up speed, took off, then skimmed the top of the tree line before fading into the white clouds above them. She’d missed something. No one was supposed to have known about her meeting with Dr. Reynolds. She’d made sure of that. And now, not just her and Ryan’s lives were at stake, but the doctor’s was, too.
“Welcome to the Amazon.” One of the armed men with a row of tattoos running down his neck smiled, revealing a large gap between his front teeth.
“This isn’t exactly the welcome we expected,” Ryan said.
“Your plans have changed, though I am assuming you have already figured that out.”
The man ran his finger down her cheek. Ellie pulled back as far as she could, her stomach souring at the smell of alcohol.
“Let her go,” Ryan said.
“You’re not exactly in a position to argue with me.”
“Yuri? I could put an end to this right now. Teach him a lesson.” One of the other men aimed his gun at Ryan, the look in his eye making his intent clear.
“If I were you,” Yuri said, “I would do what he says. Pedro, he is a bit...trigger-happy, as I think you Americans call it.”
“Then just tell me this,” Ellie said, searching for answers as to what went wrong. “Who’s paying you to take us?”
“I am just the middleman, but don’t worry. All of your questions will be answered before long.”
He barked out a string of orders in Portuguese.
“What did he just say?” Ryan asked.
“He wants them to look through our bags.”
One of the men grabbed her bag off her shoulder, unzipped it, then dumped its contents across the ground. A second man did the same thing with Ryan’s bag.
“Any knives? Weapons?” Yuri asked her.
She pressed her lips together as the man searched the pockets, refusing to answer while at the same time hoping they didn’t find the survival knife she’d packed in the bag. It was one of the last gifts her father had given her. But it was too late. The man slid out the knife and slipped it into his pocket. Thirty seconds later, they were finished.
“Pick up your stuff. Both of you.” Yuri grabbed a Snickers bar from the pile beneath her feet and ripped off the wrapper before taking a bite. “We need to go.”
Ellie studied the surrounding terrain as she shoved her things into her backpack. The small airstrip was surrounded by thick trees for as far as the eye could see. This Amazon rain forest was twice the size of India and made up of floodplains, savannas and rivers. Not exactly a place they could simply walk out of, even if they did find a way to escape. The doctor had told her that the airstrip where they landed was less than a mile from the river—north, she remembered—but the plan had been to catch a ride downstream to where Reynolds would be waiting for her. There was no sign of the guide the doctor had promised to send.
“Trust me, there’s nowhere to go out here, unless you want to run into something even more deadly,” Yuri said, seeming to read her mind. He laughed, then took another bite of the candy bar as she slung the pack over her shoulder. “Without a guide, there is no telling what you might encounter out here.”
He was right. Where could they run? She glanced at Ryan and caught the concern in his eyes. He’d come to take her out of here, and she’d just walked them both into a trap.
Yuri slapped his leg. “Time to go.”
They left the open terrain of the airstrip behind and marched toward the jungle with Yuri in front of them and Pedro and the other man trailing a few feet behind. The thick canopy of trees enveloped them as they stepped into the heavily forested terrain. Large trees with thick vines soared toward the canopy that blocked part of the sunlight. A bird called out beside her. If she was right, they were moving south, away from the village and deeper into the jungle.
“You haven’t told us what you wanted,” Ryan said.
She glanced at Ryan, who’d just spoken out loud her own deep-seated fears. Because while this could be nothing more than a random kidnapping and ransom scenario they’d just stepped into, her gut told her this was no coincidence. Though she had no idea how, Arias’s men could have found her in Rio and somehow managed to track her next move here.
“Like I said, I’m simply the middleman,” Yuri said. “And like your glorified pilot said, whoever is willing to pay the most wins. Today, you just happen to be the prize.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Let’s just say you’ve made someone very unhappy. Poking into things you shouldn’t.”
“Like my father’s murder,” she said.
She’d been right. This had to be the work of Arias, though she still had no idea how they’d found her.
“Even I didn’t ask as many questions as you when I took this job.” Yuri sidestepped a vine that was lying across the uneven path they followed. “You will find out when we get there.”
“So where are we going?” Ryan asked.
“To a camp not too far from here.”
Ellie fought against the mounting fear. Arias was known for his brutality, for his seemingly unlimited resources...and for the people working for him—hired to do his dirty work.
A small branch snapped as she stepped on it. How could she have been so stupid? She’d known the heavy risks of coming here. Knew exactly what Arias and his men were capable of doing, especially knowing how far his reach was. They’d found her in Rio, and yet somehow she’d managed to convince herself that her plan was invincible. That flying here would be the linchpin that took down Arias.
Instead, she’d only managed to put more lives in danger.
She glanced at Ryan, guilt saturating her far deeper than the sunlight hitting the spongy jungle floor. At least they hadn’t tied her and Ryan up as they marched between the armed men. But why would they need to? Yuri was right. There was nowhere to run. And even if they did, there were plenty of other dangers in the forest besides the men holding them at gunpoint. Spiders, snakes, poisonous dart frogs. A chill shot through her despite the humidity. And if they ended up in the water, there were things worse to encounter than piranhas. For starters, the razor-sharp teeth of the cañero, who moved in packs and had sharklike jaws. Not to mention malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever, that humidity made a breeding ground.
She tried to shut down her negative train of thought. Because it wasn’t the wildlife threatening to kill them right now. Instead, it was three armed men. And while she’d clearly read too many travel blogs about the risks of traveling in South America, no travel blog had told her how to deal with this situation.
Ellie stumbled over a tangled vine crossing their path. Ryan reached out to catch her arm with his hand.
“You okay?”
She glanced at where he was holding her and nodded. “Yeah.”
The