Last Breath

Two

Daniel

SHE’S A BITER. THAT’S THE warning given when I point to the blonde with the glazed green eyes in Senhor Gomes’ book of whores. He shakes his head and says that he has access to dozens of others that are better and all willing to engage in whatever perverse activity I want. He brags that there isn’t a sick sex act I can think of that Gomes can’t fulfill. I like home cooking, I tell him. A Texan in Rio sees a lot of beautiful Brazilian women, but sometimes you want a little star-spangled banner in the rotation.

He nods as if this makes sense to him, but I think it’s the money that I’m flashing that he understands. We walk up to the second floor and down a narrow hall toward the back, a windowless part of this brick and metal building. I can’t call it a home or even a brothel. It’s a dingy place where men with deep perversions but shallow wallets can get their rocks off.

I don’t want to have sex here, I’ve explained to Gomes. I have a thing against hellholes and having sex in them. I wave around a lot of cash, and Gomes nodded and asks no more questions.

We’re a strange parade—Gomes, me, and some house mom trailing behind. He stops at the second to last door and removes a key.

I’ve seen pictures of Regan Porter before, and not in Gomes’ look book, but nothing prepares me for her full-fledged, magazine-quality beauty. She hasn’t been eating well; her delicate bones are beginning to look sharp in places—at her shoulders, ribs, and hips. But there’s no denying her breathtaking looks. Her blonde hair is damp and small strands stick to her perfect skull. Her oval face, with its pink cheekbones and lush lips and eyebrows that look like wings, stands out like a piece of fine china at a flea market. Though she’s thin, there’s a delicious curviness in the slope of her side as it dips into the waist and flares back out to form a cuppable roundness at the hip. And those endlessly long legs.

Shit. I close my eyes and swallow. No decent man would be standing here thinking about those legs wrapped around his waist. But then again, I’m not decent. I’m no longer army sniper, Special Forces Daniel Hays who may have once been lauded as a hero for killing insurgents in Afghanistan. Now I’m Daniel Hays, mercenary who kills people for money and spends all his spare time in brothels and flesh dens like this one. Decency is a word I don’t even know the meaning to anymore.

It’s been too long since I’ve had a woman. That’s my only excuse. That and I’m becoming the monster that I’m hunting. I focus on the bruises on her knees that are scraped red and raw from time on the floor and the manacle around her ankle. Any feelings of arousal are jettisoned by the obvious signs of abuse.

Glancing sharply at Gomes, I wonder how he’s come to possess a beauty like Regan Porter. Gomes is a small-time flesh peddler, stuck up here in the slums, with a house full of females—half of which are missing their teeth or are too old or too broken.

He usually gets what the market calls second-hand goods, the girls that no other house wants. But Regan Porter is gorgeous, and while she looks a little rundown, she’s still model beautiful with big pink lips and wide green eyes.

“Nice tits,” I smirk for Gomes’ sake and her shudder of disgust only feeds into my growing belief that I’m as dirty as the flesh trader beside me. The dark edges of the world that I now inhabit are seeping into my skin like an oil slick covering an ocean. I shouldn’t want to touch her. And if I have to fuck her in front of Gomes to get her out of here—I don’t even let myself finish that thought.

There’s still life in her eyes. If she’s biting and spitting out acerbic insults, there’s spirit left in her, and I don’t want to be the one to snuff out that last flame. Her eyes convey her hate, and if she had a knife, I’d be sliced from my throat to my belly. I stare back, not because she’s fucking beautiful, but because she’s still standing. I’m not sure I would’ve been as strong. I don’t know if she sees my admiration or whether she can only interpret varying degrees of lust and degradation, but she sees something. An invisible string spools out between us and her eyes widen when it hits her like an electrical shock.

For months I’ve swum in a pool of blood and death and ugly deeds, and to hold onto my sanity and maybe my soul, I’ve told myself that saving these doves balances the scale. For every life I take, if I save one then it’s all a wash in the end. Don’t think it’s tallied that way at St. Peter’s Gate, but that’s the lie I tell myself so I can sleep at night and look at myself in the mirror the next day. Regan Porter will either be part of my attempt at salvation or the bloody stone that etches out the words He Failed on my headstone.

“She looks like a live one,” I say to Gomes, playing up my role as the asshole merc who’s just been paid for some godforsaken deed and needs to plow his victory lap into some unwilling broad.

He squints at Regan, tallying up her worth. She’s valuable now because I’m willing to pay so much for her, and Gomes doesn’t really understand why. “Twenty-five thousand could buy you a harem. Her pussy isn’t lined with gold. Let me hook you up with someone different,” Gomes whines.

Don’t know why he wants to hold on to her so bad, but I can see that he’s torn between wanting my money and wanting to keep Regan in the whorehouse.

“I prefer to eat domestic,” I say. Gomes doesn’t really expect a response, or at least he shouldn’t. Buying and selling human flesh requires some discretion, even here in Brazil where prostitution is legal but houses like these aren’t. Gomes and I stare at each other while the bangles on the dirty American flag bikini tinkle in the background. Don’t draw attention to yourself, I silently command the girl.

The urge to beat Gomes until his own mama won’t recognize him washes over me in a red, violent haze. My fist in his mouth, the heel of my boot crushing his dick would be phenomenal. I’ve been in and out of these houses of horror for the last eighteen months looking for my sister. She went on her first and only spring break trip and never came back. I was in Delta Force, playing sniper, when I got the news. I arrived home to find my mother distraught and my dad . . . fuck, I’ll never forget the look on his face. Dad was a hardened rancher who’d held onto his family legacy by the repeated sacrifice of his blood to the land. He’d seen shit and done shit, but the loss of his baby girl had hollowed him out. His eyes looked empty as if the news had sucked his insides dry.

I stayed one night and in the early morning hours of the next day, he walked me out to my truck and told me not to come home until I’d found her. And I haven’t found her and I haven’t been home. There won’t be anything to go back to unless I bring her home.

In the months since my sister was kidnapped from Cancun, I’ve rescued hundreds of girls either in the sex trade or headed for sale. They’ve been grateful, traumatized, and tearful. I’ve never once encountered a mouthy one. Not until Regan. She looks like she might bite off my hand if I try to reach for her.

It took me nearly two months to find her after she was sold from Russia. And that snaps me back. Killing Gomes in a black rage isn’t going to keep Regan safe or help me find my sister.

Gesturing toward Regan, I try to get him to speed up this transaction. “We’re done talking now. Get me a coat for her. I can’t take her outside in that getup. Shit.”

Gomes leans out the door and yells to someone to get Regan a coat. “Depressa! Vai-me buscar um casaco.”

I cross my arms, looking like I’m seconds away from walking on this deal, when really I have my fingers close to the guns inside my coat. I could shoot Gomes right now, and I kind of want to, but hasty decisions like that would only hurt my situation. I learned that early on. You can kill a Gomes but a dozen others like him will rise up from the sewer like an army of rats. If you want to stop something like this you have to find the source of the rats and cut off the damn head and then cauterize it. But I’ll be back for Gomes. I won’t be able to sleep at night until I know the only hole he’s plundering is the asshole of a demon in the underworld.

The house mom appears at the door and hands Gomes a tissue-thin jacket that won’t even cover the tops of Regan’s thighs. I rip the thing out of Gomes’ hands. He’s not touching her again.

“Let’s go, sweet cheeks,” I command, snapping my fingers toward Regan. She lets out a low, feral growl. I want to laugh in Gomes’ face at this—that she’s withstood his treatment—but I can’t let any approval for her show. Gomes gives a jerk of his head and the house mom scuttles over to unlock the chains around her ankle. As the iron falls away, I see that the skin is scabbed all over. I’m surprised it’s not infected. Suddenly the contents of my stomach are at the back of my mouth, and I scrub my hand over my lips to disguise my reaction. I want to throw a blanket over her, shoot everyone, and carry her away.

This is such a goddamn travesty. My tone is sharp and angry. “Put this on.” I throw it to her and she catches it almost reflexively, but she’s slow as molasses putting on the coat, as if she’s weighing whether I’m worse than the devil she knows. Gomes motions for the house mom to hurry Regan up, but I put up a hand to stay the house mom’s actions. Regan doesn’t want to be touched by anyone. You can read that aversion in every line of her body, which is why I threw the coat to her. I don’t need a fight from her. And truthfully I feel sorry for her. God, she is barely a woman—around the same age as my sister, who was twenty when she was taken. Regan is twenty-two or so, Nick had told me. Nick, who sent me here to retrieve her.

“I don’t got all day.” I point to my wristwatch. It’s a reward, I’ve told people, for killing some family who had the nerve to tell me no. Half the time a badass reputation gets you out of tight spots better than two guns and a dozen magazines. Although I’d take those too. I glance over and Regan is still taking her sweet time. “You can either stay here chained to a wall or come with me.”

It’s no kind of alternative, but I’m banking on the fact that she’s currently thinking about a million ways she can escape me once she’s outside of this place. She gives a little nod, not really to me, but acknowledging some decision she’s made in her mind. I step out and walk away, pretending like I don’t care for a minute if she follows. Gomes doesn’t move but instead exchanges sharp words with the house mom in Portuguese, thinking, I guess, that I won’t understand him. But I do. The ability to pick up different languages and quickly is almost a requirement of being part of Delta Force, and I’ve spent time in both Portugal and Brazil.

"Faz com que ela veste o casaco!" says Gomes, ordering the house mom to help Regan put on the jacket.

"Eu não posso. Ela vai me arranhar,” the house mom responds. The house mom refuses, fearing that Regan will scratch her. Regan’s a terror even chained to the wall. Her fierceness is metal as fuck, and that almost cranks my chain as much as her legs. Some of the girls I’ve taken from these places are so broken that they don’t see anything but their abuse anymore. Some fall back into the business, working on their own or as part of someone’s stable, because they can’t function normally. Although what the hell is normal, I have no goddamned idea anymore.

A shuffling sound occurs behind me, and I pause. The steps are light, so they don’t belong to Gomes or the heavier house mom.

“You aren’t going to like owning me,” Regan hisses quietly at my back. If I really were an angry john with a taste for home, I’d backhand her, but my response isn’t one of anger but of resignation. I want to shake some fucking sense into her and beg her to make it easier for both of us for one hot second. Instead I grunt because deep down, part of me wants to show her how wrong she is. In different circumstances, if we were alone in a dark corner of some bar back home, I’d back her right up to the wall and tell her that not only would she like being owned by me, but she’d fucking beg for it.

But we’re not alone. She’s not some college girl slumming it in a hole in the wall outside of Fort Benning, so I don’t back her into a corner. I don’t slip my leg between her golden thighs, and I don’t start sucking on the tender skin at the base of her neck. I don’t even turn around to look at her, and I guess this makes her even angrier. “I bite and I don’t cry and I’ll vomit and pee all over you.”

Jesus Hermione Christ. This girl has balls of freaking steel. “Can’t wait, baby doll,” I say, trotting sideways down the narrow stairs. And for all her threats, Regan is close behind me. I can hear Gomes and the house mom making up the end. I can see the front door and our potential freedom beyond.

“You still want this whore?” Gomes calls out. “I have so many others. This one’s too much trouble for you.”

I laugh, a sour sound so Gomes knows I’m not really amused. “You took my money, Gomes. I’m not into international pussy, so I’m taking this girl and you’re going to be happy with the quarter I dropped for her.”

We’re at the front door now, and Regan has stopped hissing insults at me because she’s stunned into silence by the prospect of escape. “How long you think you will keep her?”

Turning to face Gomes, I place my hand on the door. Down here in the entrance, it’s actually more dangerous. Gomes has guards at the door, inside and out. He’s having trouble processing that I don’t want to fuck in his little shithouse.

“You think I’m paying a quarter for her and that I’m going to just trot her back after an evening?” From Gomes’ frown it’s clear that he thinks she is coming back tomorrow. I shake my head. For the money that I’ve given him, he should’ve assumed that Regan would be fucked until she’s dead. “She’ll be back when I’m good and ready to return her. I didn’t pay that kind of coin for one night.”

“What will you do with her?”

“What do you care?” I ask impatiently. Regan is shivering beneath the jacket, the bangles beating a faster rhythm. Her feet are probably cold on the red clay tiles. Outside she’ll be warmer though, and as soon as we’re out of the favelas I’ll get her some shoes.

Gomes looks a little ill. “I need her back.”

I shake my head. “You let me worry about the disposal of this one. You should worry about the fact you’ve been spreading the tales about your wares into some dangerous places. Places where policia federal might have to take notice. Don’t be a shithead and ruin it for the rest of us.” And by the rest of us, I mean you, asswipe.

I look at the two hired muscles standing inside the front room, which serves as Gomes’ office and show room. It’s got a deep red carpet that has stains all over it. I don’t know whether it’s cum or blood, but I’m glad I was wearing shoes when I made that transaction with Gomes thirty minutes earlier. With my hand on the door knob, I give everyone a leveling gaze. “We’re done here.”

Gomes looks at his goons and then at me. There’s something about me Gomes doesn’t like, or maybe it’s because he thinks he’s losing a valuable piece of property. Second thoughts are all over his face, and I ruck up my suit coat on the side so I can have ready access to my gun, just in case. The goons move toward the door of Gomes’ front room and the tension becomes heavier, like dense smog descending over the slums. I calculate my next course of action. Gomes does not look armed. He’s wearing a thin cotton Panama shirt and linen pants, wrinkled and splattered with liquid around the ankles. The cotton would reveal any hidden guns at his waist or back. He could have an ankle piece, but I’m a good enough shot that he’d be dead by the time he bent over. I dismiss the house mom. The two muscled guys are my only worries. The entry way is narrow, like the stairs, and we are packed into the foyer like little sardines in a tin can. If a firefight breaks out here we are all toast. I know Regan doesn’t want to be touched, but I need to signal her, somehow, to get behind me.

“I worry about you in the favela,” Gomes says. He waves his hand and one of the goons step forward. “Ricardo will escort you out, to be sure that you get back to your hotel safely.”

Or he’ll shoot me in the back and take your blonde American prize back to the stable. No, not happening, but I’m anxious to get out of the house. Ricardo can be taken down once we are outside. No doubt there are several other thugs along the way that Ricardo intends to meet up with, but we have way better odds outside.

“Whatever,” I answer and then throw open the door, hard. It hits Ricardo in the nose and he curses. Behind me I hear a muffled snort. Good girl, I think, and then I walk outside with Regan close on my heels.