Disclaim (Deliver #3) Read online

  Disclaimer

  This is Book #3 in the DELIVER series.

  DISCLAIM can be read as a stand-alone, BUT there are references to events and characters in DELIVER #1 and VANQUISH #2 that you may not be able to appreciate without reading the first two books.

  For the victims of human trafficking—

  You are in my heart,

  In my mind.

  Human trafficking is the fastest growing and second largest criminal industry in the world. It accounts for more than 32 billion dollars in illegal profits every year—more than Nike, Google, and Starbucks combined.

  Yet it remains an almost invisible crime.

  There’s approximately 27 million slaves worldwide. Only 0.4% of the victims are identified, and the average entry age into the sex trade is 12-14 years old.

  Modern day slavery isn’t made up for books and movies.

  It’s real, and it’s happening in every zip code.

  What can you do to make the world less nightmarish?

  Get the facts.

  Spread awareness.

  Tackle a campaign.

  Copyright © 2016 by Pam Godwin

  All rights reserved.

  Editor: Jacy Mackin, Jacy’s Red Ink Editing

  Proofreader: Lesa Godwin

  Interior Designer: Kassi Snider, Formatting by Kassi Jean

  Cover Photographer: David Gillispie Photography

  Cover models: Matt and Amber

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review or article, without written permission from the author.

  Visit my website at pamgodwin.com

  WITH A SWING OF THE HAMMER, Matias pounded a steel tent stake into the arm pinned beneath his boot. A normal man would’ve flinched at the godawful howls of pain. The man he used to be would’ve puked out his guts at the feel of tendons snapping beneath the crude impalement. But focused fury was his internal companion, a ruthless beast risen from the ruins of his former self.

  Hazel eyes, identical to his own, stared up at him in pleading agony.

  He swung again, burying the spike into flesh. Shredded screams fused with the damp air of the shed as metal pierced muscle and tissue, finding purchase in the dirt floor.

  Four stakes secured Jhon’s arms and legs. The hooked heads protruded from bleeding holes, neutralizing any attempt to thrash free.

  Matias removed the final stake from his pocket. The one that would end his brother’s life.

  Luring Jhon to the abandoned farm was easy. Beyond the open doorway, thick foliage cloaked the mountainside, rippling toward a tributary of the Amazon River below. The blue haze of humidity filtered the sunlight and blanketed the atmosphere in a wet sheen.

  The remote site in the Colombian jungle indulged his brother’s greed to expand cocaine production. The absence of witnesses made it an ideal place for Matias’ revenge.

  With shallow breaths, Jhon blinked slowly, fighting to maintain consciousness. “Don’t do this.”

  The same words Matias uttered the night he was ripped from his home. From Camila.

  He was a world away from the Texan citrus grove where he spent the first eighteen years of his life. A world away from the girl he’d tried—and failed—to protect.

  He pressed the stake against the hollow of Jhon’s throat, his voice an avalanche of gravel. “Why her?”

  “She was—” Jhon wheezed past gritted teeth. “Something you cared about.”

  “She was family!” And so much more.

  Speared to the ground, legs twitching against the spikes, Jhon hardened bruised eyes. “I am your family.”

  Only by blood, which stank of corroded iron and betrayal as it seeped into the soil.

  Matias pushed on the stake, digging between corded sinews and breaking skin. “Where is she?”

  Camila hadn’t contacted him in six weeks. The moment his phone stopped ringing, he knew.

  A malicious grin cracked Jhon’s pallid face. “Sold.”

  Slavery. That much he’d figured out, but it didn’t stop the torment from exploding anew and ravaging his veins with fire. “Where? Who has her?”

  “She’s dead, little brother.” Jhon swallowed against the steel point, raising his chin to drive the stake deeper, taunting. “You’re chasing a ghost.”

  A ghost with an invisible trail, likely smuggled to the farthest corner of the world, to be used, broken, and disposed.

  The truth resounded in the empty chasm of his chest, a painful splintering quickly snuffed out by the nothingness that consumed him.

  He was wasting his time with Jhon. His brother was too cunning, too loyal to the organization, utterly single-minded, and willing to die to protect the only secret Matias wanted.

  So be it.

  He reared back the hammer and struck the stake, slamming ten inches of steel through Jhon’s throat. The gurgling cough ended too soon. Just like all the others, his brother’s glassy-eyed silence didn’t soothe Matias’ hunger for retribution.

  Jhon’s death was neither the first nor the last. In the months that followed, Matias sank deeper into the unforgiving armor of brutality. He belonged with the cartel, among the corrupted and the heartless, and used every resource available to search for her.

  Obliterating men as despicable as himself provided an outlet for the rage he was unable to quiet. He understood the need to gut betrayers and decapitate adversaries, to torture for information, build stronger compounds, and effect armies. He became one of them, embracing their predatory existence and embodying a reputation that made the worst of his kind fear his name.

  But it didn’t bring her back.

  It didn’t bring back the citrus scent of her golden skin when she’d dozed with him in the grove. The way her shiny black hair whipped against her back as he chased her through knee-high grass. Or the spark in her brown eyes right before she launched a lime at his head. Slowly, his memories of her decayed.

  Twelve months after her disappearance, she’d become a mirage in his wasteland, distorted at the edges and flickering out of reach.

  He lay on his bed in the newly renovated Colombian compound, hands clasped behind his neck, eyes closed, trying to forget, if only for a few minutes. The faceless blonde between his legs helped with that, bobbing her head and working his cock to distraction.

  His lower body clenched, balls aching and tightening as he strained for release. “Faster. Suck harder.”

  She quickened her movements, the suction of her mouth hot and wet and—

  A distinctive ring tone sounded from across the room. What the fuck?

  “Did you hear that?” He jack-knifed into a sitting position and shoved her off his lap.

  She dragged the back of a hand across her swollen lips.

  The ringing echoed again, chiming a tune he hadn’t heard in a year, waking a phone only one person had the number to.

  He vaulted off the bed. “Get out.”

  With a racing pulse, he sprinted toward the dresser. Following the muffled bleeps, he dug through piles of weapons, papers, and clothes that scattered the surface. There! He grabbed it.

  Unknown number.

  His hand shook as he tapped the screen and accepted the call.

  Dead air.

  No, no, no. He missed it. Hitting the call back button, he rubbed a hand down his face. Come on, come on.

  The screen flashed. Call failed.

  Vicious rage tore through his body, inflaming his muscles. He spun and found the blonde taking her
sweet-ass time dragging on clothes, her gaze on his softening cock.

  He grabbed a chambered .45 from the dresser, flicked off the safety, and aimed it at her head, his voice cold and lethal. “Get the fuck out.”

  Eyes wide, she snatched her shirt from the floor and shut the door behind her.

  He set down the gun and returned to the phone, deafening in its silence and still plugged in since the day he left it on the dresser. Call me back, goddammit.

  It was illogical to hope. Camila was gone. Anyone could’ve accidentally dialed him. But wasn’t hope the reason he’d kept the number all this time?

  He stared at the blank screen, willing it to come back to life.

  A moment later, it lit up. Unknown Number. The cascading ring tone penetrated his chest, stabbing interior scars with excruciating precision.

  Tempering his breaths, he answered. “Who is this?”

  Silence. Then a soft exhale. “It’s me.”

  He stopped breathing, every cell in his body screaming in denial. His countless enemies were insidious in their efforts to destroy him. How hard would it be to procure this number and impersonate her husky voice?

  He lifted his arm, zeroing in on the white pockmark on the inside of his wrist. “How old was I when I got my first scar?”

  “So paranoid.” A sigh ruffled through the ear piece. “Guess that means you still work for them.”

  His jaw set, his tone clipped with suspicion. “How old?”

  “I was…uh, six. So you were eight?”

  He gripped the edge of the dresser, his rib cage tightening. But any one of their friends or neighbors could’ve been tortured for that information.

  Relaxing his grip, he sharpened his voice. “Tell me how it happened.”

  “I hate your asshole games.”

  Exactly how Camila would’ve responded, and the lack of warmth in the voice was perfectly her. But he couldn’t trust it. “Tell me.”

  She growled in frustration. “You slipped in a stream and punctured your arm on a rock.”

  That was the story they told their families, an innocent lie to protect a mangy dog. Only Camila knew the truth.

  His hope crashed, burning in his stomach. “Wrong answer.”

  “Seriously? We swore to take that secret to our graves.” She cleared her throat. “Rambo wasn’t a bad dog. He just didn’t appreciate you taking his bone. You deserved that bite.”

  Camila. All the air evacuated his lungs as his mind spun and wrenched apart his painfully constructed acceptance of her death. Convincing himself she was gone had been a grueling effort in self-destruction, reinforced with irreparable distractions. The business, drugs, women, blood… So much fucking blood.

  He couldn’t feel his legs beneath the grip of shock, his mouth dry and acidic. “You’re not dead.”

  “Nope,” she said, casually. Too detached, even for her. “Did you look for me?”

  Every damn day. “Are you safe?” He snagged a pair of jeans, his hands sweating as he shoved them on. “Where are you?”

  “I’m safe, but listen, I just escaped a fucked up situation and need to lie low for a while.”

  Escaped? Impossible. No one escaped a highly-organized human trafficking ring. Especially not a seventeen-year-old girl. Eighteen now. She’d been in captivity for a fucking year. Did they beat her? Rape her? Take her virginity?

  His insides boiled with murderous wrath and overwhelming guilt. They were supposed to be each other’s firsts. She was only sixteen when the cartel came for him, and though he hadn’t seen her since that night, he’d waited for her, holding on to an impossible dream through their secret phone calls. Until she vanished.

  “You haven’t asked what happened to me.” Her tone hardened. “You already know, don’t you? How?”

  He couldn’t tell her, not until he was certain she couldn’t run from his answer. “I need to know where you are and how you escaped.”

  “Who do you work for?” she asked.

  “You know I can’t tell you, mi vida.”

  “Don’t call me that.” A muffled rustle of fabric followed, conjuring an image of her pressing the phone to her chest. “Dammit, I want to trust you, but you have to give me something. Anything. What happened to the boy whose thoughts completed mine? What did they do to you?”

  That boy was dead. How quickly they’d returned to their exhaustingly endless argument, one he refused to feed. “Tell me where you are.”

  “Will you help me?”

  “Always.”

  As she rattled off directions to an isolated reservoir in Texas, he scrambled for a pen and scribbled down the details. Two hours outside of Austin.

  It would take him a day to travel there from the bowels of goddamned Colombia. “I’m on my way. Just…stay put.”

  “Oh, I’m not there.” Her breaths quickened, as if she were walking at a swift pace. “That’s where I left a body. I need you to get rid of it since, you know, you’re still in the business.”

  His skin chilled with the ramp of his pulse. “What body?”

  “The sick fuck who bought me.”

  The phone’s power cord snapped from the outlet as he charged toward the shirt on the floor. “You killed him?”

  “Doesn’t matter. But I’m using his phone and need to toss it like yesterday.”

  Fuck! She’s going to get herself killed. And now his number would show up on phone records for rival gangs, FBI, fucking anyone to track.

  He paced the room as a year’s worth of ruthless crimes caught up with him. “Who else have you called?”

  A pause, filled by the rush of her breaths. “Just you.”

  Relief loosened his gait. “I have to kill this number.” He gave her the number to his main phone and made her repeat it several times. “Only use burner phones, and mi vida? Don’t try to contact your parents.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  They were dead. Buried beneath the scorched landscape of the citrus grove.

  He evened his voice. “You’ll endanger them.”

  She made a despairing noise, a small thing, but it was a hint of emotion nonetheless. She was closed-off by nature, reserving her softness for the few who earned her loyalty. He’d been on the receiving end of that once, had forgotten what it felt like.

  The reminder was a molten shock to his system, intensified by a combustible storm as he imagined what she’d endured in the clutches of her kidnappers.

  Who had touched her? How deep were her wounds?

  His hand clenched and loosened on the phone. “How many motherfuckers do I need to kill?”

  “I’ll handle it. Just deal with the body. I need to go—”

  “Give me a way to contact you.” So he could locate her. And reclaim her.

  “I’ll be in touch.”

  “Don’t you fucking hang—”

  She disconnected the call.

  Ten years later.

  “LOWER. THAT’S IT. A LITTLE LOWER…” Camila rocked her hips beneath the scratch of whiskers. “Right there, churro.”

  Churro, my ass. This underweight stick of a man reeked of sweat, stale smoke, and neglect. Or maybe it was the mattress.

  Not that she expected a pleasant experience. The man between her legs worked for someone vile. Someone who didn’t deserve to live. Shame she didn’t know who that someone was. But she was here to find out.

  Bony hands curled around her waist, his wet mouth slithering across the waxed mound of her pussy. Here we go.

  A purr vibrated her throat, her pleasure as fake as her role tonight. But damn if she didn’t sound convincing. With her legs spread, back pressed against the mattress, and a hundred-and-fifteen pounds of athletic nudity on display, she could rob a man of all common sense.

  As soon as she could seduce him into position, she’d take more than just his wits.

  He shifted lower, curled his tongue inside her, and Whoa! What the— A charged warmth of bliss shot across her skin and bowed her spine.

  “Mierda,
yes!” She turned her neck, hiding the shock on her face.

  Holy hell, he knew how to give head. She melted against the suction of his lips, clinging to the tingling rush of sensations. As far as surprises went, she could roll with this one. She might even come.

  With wicked flicks of his tongue, he peered up at her, his pupils bloated in the dim light of a floor lamp. “Condom?”

  He wouldn’t get that far, but he’d picked her up at the local bar under the assumption she wanted to fuck.

  “Got it covered, baby.” She grabbed his brown hair and held his mouth against her pussy. “I’m almost there.”

  An orgasm wasn’t in the plan, but fuck it. He did things with his tongue no warm-blooded woman could refuse. Tenacious and sinful, he licked in and out and all around, reviving the ever-present ache inside her.

  His unappealing looks didn’t matter. Whenever she climaxed, it was always the same face behind her eyelids. Jet black hair. Dimpled smile. Sun-soaked complexion. Strong jaw. Strong everywhere. With eyes like ripe limes, golden in the center and ringed in deep green.

  At least, that was her silly, childhood memory of Matias. The past twelve years—doing whatever unspeakable shit he did—likely marred his beauty. Time had certainly hardened his voice. Wrapped it in ice.

  But she could hear his timbre in her head, sharp and incisive. Come for me, mi vida. Come now.

  Heat bloomed low in her pelvis, gathering into a rhythmic pulse and tumbling her over the edge. She detonated on the stroking tongue, grinding and panting with abandon. Damn.

  He raised his head and snaked a hand over her abdomen, his gaze hungry and full of intent. He could look at her however he wanted as long as his fingers continued their prowl upward.

  Inching along her ribs, he teased each bone in his path toward her tit. His position was just…about…

  Perfect.

  She captured his arm, shifted it diagonally across her chest, and held it tightly against her. Tight enough to widen his eyes.

  Strengthening her grip, she lifted her knees above his head and pinned his neck between his own shoulder and her inner thigh.

  “The fuck?” He writhed and twisted, trying to jerk free.