The Beasts of Juarez, R.B. Schow [books to read for self improvement .txt] 📗

into his eyes, she saw he was the immovable object, which meant she had to be the unstoppable force, only stronger because Leopold Wentworth doesn’t do standoffs—he requires only victory.

“Fair enough,” she said, standing up.

Then, without a moment’s hesitation, she leaped over the desk, gracelessly tackling the warden. He squeaked out in surprise, the awful sound becoming a belch of forced air the moment the chair toppled over with her on top of him. She punched him quickly and repeatedly in the ribs and solar plexus until he tried to suck in that one giant breath, but couldn’t.

Having knocked the wind out of him, she now had the advantage. She grabbed his balls, squeezed tight, and started to twist. Leaning forward, her forearm across his neck and her face now inches from his, she said, “If you don’t get me Atlas Hargrove right now, I’m going to crush your nuts and turn you into a permanent bitch. And if you don’t do exactly as I say, if Atlas and I are not walking out of this prison in exactly half an hour, give or take, I’m going to take the one thing from you that you won’t want to give up and that’s your life.”

“You can’t kill me,” he said, forcing the words.

She twisted his nuts even harder, her grip crippling. His face deepened another shade of red, his eyes bulging in their sockets.

“Do you really want to make that bet, Fabian?”

“Okay, okay,” he said.

She pushed off of him, straightened her hair and her clothes then she stood close enough to attack him again if he didn’t take her to see Atlas right away.

“You people are crazy,” he grumbled.

He tried to clear his throat and then he picked up the phone and said to the man outside, “I need an escort to solitary. We have some…extenuating circumstances.”

He nodded just as the door to his office opened. The guard looked at them both, suspicious because Dicampli was red and disheveled, and Cira was put together and smiling. When his eyes met hers again, she gave him a wink and a slight smile, hoping to convey this as a sordid affair in a room without cameras or listening devices.

“You needed an escort to solitary confinement?” the guard asked.

“Yes,” Dicampli said, straightening his shirt collar and tie. “Both of us will.”

They walked through an otherwise quiet prison heading to solitary confinement. Considering the hour, everyone was still asleep. When they arrived at solitary confinement, their escort walked them to the last cell, nodded to the duty guard, and said, “Open the door, Hargrove has a visitor.”

The duty guard didn’t move right away.

“Are you on a mental break?” Dicampli hissed.

“No, of course not,” the man said, confused. Through the bean slot where they slipped Hargrove his daily meal, the guard shined the light in on the prisoner. “He’s asleep right now, Warden Dicampli.”

“She can wake him,” Dicampli said. “Let her in.”

“This is against prison protocol.”

“Don’t lecture me on this prison’s protocol,” Dicampli said, stepping forward. “I’m the one who wrote the damn book on it.”

As Cira stood there about to see Atlas, everything she had gone through with him came rushing back at once. He had been an interesting surprise, a quick fling, the marrying of something thrilling and rare with the struggles of a hostile, violent world—the world of the Russian sex trade. She knew from her own past experiences that trauma had the power to bond two people together in more ways than even the human brain could comprehend.

The duty guard began to unlock the door.

She took a deep breath.

Her time with Atlas had been short and intense. Russia, Ukraine, the hunt, the sex, the killing, and the slaughter, all topped off with them finding Kaylee Barnes and saving the motherfreaking day. But that particular op bound the two of them together in ways she couldn’t seem to shake. The feeling hadn’t been front and center for months but it also never left her. Now that she was about to see him again, that feeling rushed forward once more, intense, thrilling, transfixing.

To the warden, she said, “I’m waking him up and we’re walking out of here. So if there’s some arrangement you need to make, I suggest you make it now.”

“Everyone is asleep. We will dress him, bag his head, and walk him to a transport van. From there you need to arrange your own way. We are not a taxi service.”

She had a chartered plane on a private airfield ready to go. She just needed to clear this hurdle and they’d be on their way.

“Get him some regular clothes,” she said.

To the guard who escorted them there, Dicampli turned and said, “Leave us to sort this out. I will call in a few moments for the prisoner’s original clothes.”

The guard had that look like he couldn’t believe what was happening.

“That wasn’t a request,” Dicampli said.

Before Cira went inside that dark hole to fetch Atlas, she turned to Dicampli and said, “If you try to stop us in any way, if you try to harm us or even slow us down, not only will I find a way to harm you in grievous, irreparable ways, Leopold will make sure he harms you worse. If you know what’s best for you, you will not fuck with us.”

“You have my word,” Dicampli said. He turned to the duty guard and said, “Let her in.”

The minute the door opened, she saw darkness as thick as oil. She gave the two men one last look and then she stepped into the gloom to collect the prisoner. Two steps inside the cell, however, and it felt like the darkness and the cold had swallowed her whole. She knew where she’d come from, but she wasn’t sure where Atlas was and it was disorienting, to