Page 7

The only thing to do was continue to bluff.
“If I’m not back at the hotel in ten minutes, my coworkers will come looking.”
Mustache Man grinned, showing nicotine-stained teeth. “You won’t be here when they arrive.”
“Let her go.”
The voice was calm. Deadly.
Caleb.
Gia shivered. Her fingers clenched tighter on the key.
Inside the bar, he’d been friendly, disarming even. Now his voice carried a lethal promise.
Pink Cap spun her. Metal, razor sharp and warm from his body heat, pressed into her throat.
She froze. Her key slipped from nerveless fingers.
Only her eyes worked. She raised them to her would-be savior.
The light bathed Caleb in gold and shadow, an avenging angel. A scar she hadn’t noticed earlier curved from behind his left ear down his neck. His t-shirt molded the toned chest and biceps she’d admiredin the bar. Jeans hugged his hips and thighs like God meant them to. He seemed impervious to the winter chill.
Their gazes met. A hint of warmth lightened the gold flecks in eyes the color of melted chocolate under moonlight.
Then they flattened into the cold, emotionless stare of a killer.
Gia’s heart plummeted. Not an angel.
But if this man could help her, she’d take her chances with the devil.
Mustache Man drew a wicked-looking knife from his boot. “Mind your own business,pendejo.”
Caleb smiled—a slow, lethal smile that made her blink—and stepped closer.
Without warning, his palm struck out.
The knife flew.
He moved again, a blur of motion.
Mustache Man crumpled to the ground.
Pink Cap flinched. Gia hissed as the blade at her throat bit deeper.
“Back off or she dies.” Fear leaked from his voice.
He was bluffing, like her. If Vincente’s father had sent them, then yes. She’d believe it. But Mustache Man had said Garcia, not Lopez.
If Vincente planned to kill her, he’d make it personal, not farm it out to a low-level thug.
“He won’t do it,” she forced out, past the press of sharpened steel.
Pink Cap flung her aside. He charged Caleb, his knife slicing the air in fluid strokes.
A scream locked in Gia’s throat.
Caleb side-stepped and parried the attack, sending Pink Cap’s knife hilt-over-blade to ricochet off gravel.