Take Read online

  Contents

  Copyright

  Disclaimer

  Dedication

  1

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  3

  4

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  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

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  29

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  Other Books by Pam Godwin

  Manipulate Prologue

  Other Books by Pam Godwin

  Acknowledgments

  About Pam Godwin

  Copyright © 2019 by Pam Godwin

  All rights reserved.

  Editor: Fairest Reviews Editing Services

  Proofreader: Lesa Godwin

  Cover Designer: Pam Godwin

  Interior Designer: Pam Godwin

  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

  If you have not read the previous books, STOP!

  The books in the DELIVER series are stand-alones,

  but they should be read in order.

  DELIVER (#1)

  VANQUISH (#2)

  DISCLAIM (#3)

  DEVASTATE (#4)

  TAKE (#5)

  MANIPULATE (#6)

  UNSHACKLE (#7)

  DOMINATE (#8)

  COMPLICATE (#9)

  For Blitz

  My little deer

  In my heart,

  You will never stop spinning.

  Kate had been watching the storm gather strength for two days. Turbulent clouds collided beyond the barred window, howling and banging against the concrete walls of her prison.

  The wind wanted in as violently as she wanted out.

  She’d been here before. Not in this dingy stone building or in these exact restraints. This place was utterly foreign, the scratchy rope on her wrists too primitive to be real.

  But dammit, it was real. And intimately familiar. So much so it hadn’t taken her long to shake off the shock of being kidnapped. Again.

  The last time she found herself in shackles was four years ago. Back then, she was just a clueless eighteen-year-old girl. She hadn’t understood who had taken her, what they wanted, or how she—a nobody from nowhere Texas—could be of interest to anyone.

  But this time was different.

  When two men captured her at gunpoint behind the diner where she worked, she’d guessed why, how, and who was behind it.

  That was a month ago.

  She’d been locked in this room for a goddamn month and still hadn’t glimpsed her captor. Not once had she heard his name whispered on the guards’ lips.

  That didn’t stop her from shouting her assumptions from the rafters.

  “Tiago Badell!” Her hoarse roar echoed down the dark corridor, aimed at the door that remained closed at the end. “I know you can hear me!”

  She’d grown bold in her isolation. Impatient. Desperate. And reckless.

  “Show yourself, you fucking coward!” She yanked at the rope on her arms and glared at the end where it secured to the steel beam overhead and out of reach.

  With her hands bound together in front of her, she couldn’t loosen the knot between her wrists. God knows, she’d tried. Weeks of gnawing on the rope shredded her lips, her fingernails broken and jagged from useless clawing.

  She was being held in a second-floor antechamber to another room. Beyond the reach of her leash were two doors. One at the end of the hall. The other led down to the main level and the armed guards who patrolled the property.

  The rope allowed her access to a mattress and a doorless bathroom with no mirrors. There was no furniture. No objects that could be fashioned into a weapon.

  Hygiene, clothes, and food—the basics were granted and nothing more.

  She ached for fresh air, exercise, her friends, human contact… The list was inconsolably long. But what consumed her thoughts more than all else was the dark, elusive door to the other room.

  Someone lived in there, and she was certain that someone was Tiago Badell.

  Three times a day, an elderly man delivered two servings of food. With skin the color of midnight, he floated through her chamber like a shadow, never speaking, never meeting her eyes. He always set one serving before her, just within reach. The other he carried to the room down the hall.

  He wasn’t mute. Sometimes, voices drifted from beneath the door in a language she couldn’t decipher—the old man’s raspy accent and a deeper, richer timbre.

  When she first arrived, the old man would linger in that room for hours. Lately, his visits had grown shorter. He would slip behind the mysterious door and emerge shortly after with empty platters.

  He was in there now, having just dropped off her dinner.

  Steam rose from the tin plate on the floor. Rice, chickpeas, and grilled meat—the spicy aroma made her mouth water, but she was too focused on the corridor to eat.

  Lightning flashed, illuminating the window and strobing the stone walls of her prison. She strained to hear voices from the other room but couldn’t detect a word amid the thunder.

  “Tiago!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “Come out, goddammit! Tell me why I’m here!”

  Didn’t matter how often or how loud she yelled. He never came out.

  Was he sick? Hiding? Protecting his identity? She still didn’t know what he looked like.

  A few weeks before she was taken, her close friend, Tate Vades, left for Venezuela’s Kidnap Alley to penetrate Tiago’s compound. It was an insane undertaking, but not unexpected. All her roommates—Tate, Ricky, Martin, Luke, and Tomas—had a habit of running headlong into danger. After escaping Van Quiso’s shackles, they banded together to take down as many human sex traffickers as possible.

  Camila Dias had been the first to escape. Although she no longer lived with them, she continued to lead their vigilante group of Freedom Fighters.

  Tate’s latest mission focused on rescuing Camila’s missing sister, Lucia, who allegedly worked for Tiago Badell. As if Tate’s endeavor wasn’t risky enough, he took Van Quiso along as his backup.

  How the hell could Tate trust the man who had enslaved and raped him? Sure, Van expressed regret for the hell he rained down on her and her friends, but it was too little, too late. Kate would never forgive him, and she sure as fuck didn’t trust him with Tate’s life.

  The fear she had for Tate before he left was nothing compared to what she felt now.

  Now, she was petrified.

  Tiago wouldn’t have taken her unless Tate’s mission was compromised. How else would Tiago know she existed?

  That left some devastating questions.

  What happened to Tate? Was he still alive? Was he imprisoned within these very walls, gagged and forced to listen to her screams?

  Despair crushed her heart in a suffocating vise.

  She never mentioned Tate, just in case she was wrong about his connection to her kidnapping. Instead, she spent the past month telling herself he successfully rescued Lucia and escaped unscathed. If he’d bested Tiago, it made sense that Tiago would go af
ter Tate’s loved ones in retaliation.

  Of all the people in Tate’s life, she was the most vulnerable. The loner. The weakest fighter. The only woman without a companion. Of course, she would be the one to get snatched.

  That must’ve been it, but she needed to know for sure.

  “Tiago!” She faced the corridor and raised her voice. “I want answers, and I won’t shut up until I have them!”

  The door held still.

  Restlessness twitched her muscles, reaching into her bones and rattling her sanity.

  She paced toward the window and halted a foot short from the glass. It was as close as the rope would allow, but the angle supplied a view of the dusty, barren landscape.

  Two stories up, she couldn’t see the exterior of the building or any other structure in the vicinity. Two cars sat off to the side, where a burly man loitered, smoking a cigarette with a rifle strapped to his back. Farther out, a dirt road meandered around woody shrubs and cacti before fading into the sandy horizon of nothingness.

  She didn’t know if the guards lived downstairs or somewhere else. They seemed to come and go in shifts. Five men and one woman, by her count. All heavily armed.

  Her journey here had been foggy, muddied by sedatives and shrouded by a blindfold. Multiple transfers between cars, a long flight on a private plane, and more blindfolded car rides had obliterated the odds she was still in the U.S.

  Venezuela was the logical assumption.

  But this wasn’t Kidnap Alley.

  While Tate had prepared for his mission, she saw videos, photos, and maps of the slum where he was headed. This wasn’t it. Not this arid, desolate wasteland.

  She knew her friends would never stop looking for her, but how would they know to come here? She didn’t even know where she was.

  Her throat closed around a hard lump of reality.

  There was a good chance she would never be found.

  The day she arrived, two guards brought her to this room, stripped her down, and took everything. The cheap necklace from around her neck. The fitness watch from her wrist. The ponytail holder from her hair. They stole her damn dignity.

  Then they bound her arms and left her with nothing but a handmade, strapless dress thing to wear.

  How long would she sit in this room before she endured the real reason she was here? Her captor wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of transporting her unless there was something in it for him.

  His specialty was kidnapping. For ransom.

  She learned through Tate’s intel that Tiago’s goons tortured and raped their captives, sent video footage of the brutality to family members, and demanded payment in exchange for the victim’s release.

  God, how she hoped this was a ransom deal. She and her roommates had plenty of money—millions—thanks to the peace offering Van Quiso had given them. If there was a price for her freedom, her friends would pay it.

  But in the month since her capture, there had been no mention of payment. No torture. No video recordings. Other than the rough handling during her transport, the guards didn’t touch her, talk to her, or visit her room.

  If this wasn’t a kidnapping for ransom, it was something worse.

  She didn’t have to imagine the worse. She’d lived it. In a windowless, soundproof attic, Van Quiso had whipped her into an obedient slave. An object to be sold for sex. Not to take pleasure but to give it. With her hands, her mouth, and her pain.

  Her virginity had been a valuable commodity then. Maybe that was still the case?

  Would Tiago sell her virtue to the highest bidder?

  Or would he take it for himself?

  It was her biggest fear. Her heaviest burden.

  At age twenty-two, she should’ve explored her sexuality like a normal, healthy woman. But she wasn’t normal. When she escaped Van, her virginity was all she had left. A precious mercy, and she didn’t want to squander it. She longed to give it to someone she trusted. A man who would appreciate the significance.

  The naive notion resonated a hollow thud in her head, silencing all other sound.

  She managed to escape Van without getting raped. So what? She wasn’t stupid enough to believe that would happen again.

  Outside, the wind picked up, and with it came the first plops of rain. It would be dark soon, and she’d be forced to endure another night without answers.

  She stepped away from the window and shouted, “Tiago—”

  The door creaked open, shooing away the shadows in the corridor.

  Footsteps sounded. The clink of dishes. Then the elderly man emerged, balancing empty plates as he closed the door behind him.

  “Why won’t he come out?” She rushed forward and jerked when the rope caught. “I just want to talk.”

  He ambled past her, keeping to the farthest wall, beyond the perimeter of her tether.

  Vertical scars marred his face, two old cuts on each cheek, perfectly aligned, almost decorative. It was as if he’d them put them there intentionally.

  With a blank expression and eyes fixed on the door to the stairs, he moved in that direction, giving her no acknowledgment, not a twitch, like she wasn’t even there.

  “Just tell me what he wants.” Blood pounded in her skull.

  He reached the exit and uttered a foreign word. A command not intended for her.

  Locks clanked on the other side. The door opened, and a scruffy-bearded guard stepped to the side.

  Instead of leaving, the old man turned, lifted his wrinkled face, and rested glassy eyes on her.

  “Please.” She pulled on the rope. “Untie me. Just let me go.”

  For the first time since she arrived, he opened his mouth and addressed her in a heavily accented voice. “He’s ready to see you.”

  No shit?

  Oh, shit.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  Her body went taut against an ice-cold shiver, and the hairs on her nape stood on end.

  Don’t freak out. Don’t fucking lose it.

  Sweeping her gaze to the dark corridor, she drew in a slow breath.

  This was what she wanted. A conversation with the dickhead in charge. Answers. Reassurances. Negotiations.

  But none of that was a guarantee. After watching those videos with Tate, she had only one certainty to go on.

  Tiago Badell tortured his prisoners.

  A tremor unfurled inside her, crashing its way along her arms and legs.

  How badly would he hurt her? How long would it last? Hours? Days? Would he let her live? Would she want to?

  The elderly man mumbled something that sounded like Spanish, prompting the guard to step into the room. The massive man strode toward her, removed a pocket knife, and before she could blink, he sliced through the rope between her wrists and the ceiling.

  Her arms dropped, and the sudden freedom made her gasp.

  As the guard returned to the stairwell, she tensed at the opportunity to attack him from behind. Should she do it? Could she overpower him and get away?

  He was twice her size, armed with a knife, and her wrists were still tied together. The old man hovered in the doorway, physically frail, but those cloudy eyes watched her with unsettling strength, as if reading her thoughts.

  The odds stacked against her, but whatever happened, she wouldn’t go down without a fight.

  On the heels of that thought, she flung herself toward the guard, her bound arms raised to loop around the guard’s neck.

  He turned before she made contact, his hand already flying. Meaty knuckles met her jaw and sent her head whirling sideways.

  She staggered, momentarily stunned by the jolt of pain. After a soundless choke, she recovered, found her bearings, but not quickly enough.

  The door shut with a resounding click.

  “Fuck.” She raced toward it and yanked on the handle.

  Locked.

  “Fuck you!” she screamed. Then groaned. Not helpful, Kate.

  That left the other door.

  She trembled to summon movement
in her legs, her ears pricked for footsteps in the corridor.

  He’s ready to see you.

  Thunder boomed. Rain pelted the window, and her heart drummed an unruly dirge in her ears.

  Apparently, Tiago was too high and mighty to come to her. Whatever. She would go to him, because her curiosity demanded it. But she refused to trudge in there with shaking limbs and hunched shoulders. If he was anything like Van Quiso, her fear would give him a hard-on.

  A shudder rippled through her, and she snapped her spine straight.

  The only power she possessed here was that over her own emotions. She allowed Van to use her terror to control her and wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  Rolling back her shoulders, she stood taller, closed her eyes, and breathed deeply.

  She survived Van’s cruelty. The experience didn’t break her. It made her sharper, tougher, and really goddamn angry.

  Fuck Van for molesting her, beating her until she bled, and ordering her to suck his dick day in and day out. And fuck Tiago Badell for ripping away her freedom, shoving her into isolation for a month, and summoning her like an object.

  Rage scorched through her veins and spurred her into motion.

  Her bare feet slapped across the gritty stone floor, her body clad in one of the sleeveless, unfitted rags they provided. The thin gray linen covered her from chest to knees, but if she stood in the right light, the fabric would be transparent.

  Nothing she could do about the clothes. If Tiago wanted to strip her bare, she wouldn’t be able to do anything about that, either. Except fight. That she would do.

  Hands clenched around the severed rope, she stormed down the corridor and turned the door knob.

  She expected luxurious furniture, plush fabrics, and perhaps the fatal end of a rifle waiting on the other side. But as she stepped in, none of that greeted her. The room was as empty as her prison.

  The only source of light glowed from a shadeless lamp on the floor beside a small mattress. Rumpled blankets and a dented pillow suggested recent use. A large duffel bag of clothes sat open near a bathroom door, as if the room’s occupant didn’t intend to stay.

  As for the occupant…

  Her breathing stalled as she tracked the reach of light to the farthest, darkest corner.