Desert Ice Daddy by Marton, Dana (pocket ebook reader .TXT) 📕

He twisted, and the back of his head came into contact with something cold and hard.

“I got them,” a voice called out cheerfully behind him.

Then the guy whacked Akeem hard in the back of the skull.

SHE SHOULD HAVE KEPT watch while Akeem had looked. Fury at the men who held them raged in Taylor’s blood, mixing with anger at her own stupidity. She hadn’t been able to tear herself away from the sight of Christopher, had crouched with eyes glued to a gap in the boards.

But now all she could see was the blood on the back of Akeem’s head. They were shoving him ahead, in front of her.

A metal door banged open. Akeem was kicked inside. They pushed her behind him. Into the room.

“Christopher!” She tore herself from the man who held her and lunged toward her little boy, folding to the floor next to him, frustrated that she couldn’t hug him to herself with her hands tied behind her back.

But those little arms came around her neck as soon as his baby blue eyes opened. “Mommy?”

The men, three of them in the room, didn’t seem to bother with her. They were all focused on Akeem. So she pulled back a little and greedily took stock of her son, examining every inch. “Are you okay?”

“I knew you would come.” Christopher scrambled onto her lap. “Can we go home now? I don’t like it here.”

“We—”

The thud coming from behind her had her whipping her head around.

Akeem was halfway to the floor. She watched as the man in front of him delivered a vicious kick to his knee—another thud—and Akeem crashed to the ground. Instinct had her move protectively in front of Christopher to block the sight. She could do nothing at all to help Akeem.

“No, please don’t,” she pleaded with the men, but they paid no attention.

Another one kicked Akeem’s back, sending him face-first onto the floor. He looked stunned from the pistol-whipping he’d gotten when they had been captured. More kicks came as he struggled to get up, struggled to fight back, although he could do little being all tied up.

The two men were brutal. She flinched when she heard the crack of a rib. Christopher pressed closer to her back and whimpered.

“Jake, please.” She addressed the only man she knew in the room.

But Jake Kenner stood back, letting the other two take care of the dirty work, holding a gun on Akeem in case he got the upper hand by some miracle.

Which would have been impossible.

He’d fought hard when they’d been captured, but could do little against guns, gave up when they put one to her head. That was when they’d first gone to town on him, beating him to within inches of losing consciousness.

And they seemed hell-bent on finishing what they had started. They didn’t stop until he was a bleeding heap on the floor.

“Take him out into the desert and get rid of him,” Jake said dispassionately, in a voice colder than she had ever heard from the man. From any man, even Gary on his worst day. “Make sure he’s dead.”

He watched as his buddies hooked a hand under Akeem’s arms and dragged him across the floor, then he turned those cold eyes on Taylor.

“And now, you are going to tell me where the money is.”

She curled around her son as much as possible, not knowing if the words she was about to say were enough to save Akeem, or if they would be a death sentence for her and Christopher.

“I don’t know. Only Akeem does. He hid it.”

The men dragging him paused and turned, and a silent communication passed between them and Jake before they moved on.

Jake waited until they were gone before he pushed away from the table he’d been leaning against. “Either you’re telling the truth, or you aren’t. One way to find out.” He flashed a slow smile as he pulled a knife she recognized. The standard utility knife Flint supplied all his ranch hands with. “And we have plenty of time to do it.”

HIS BODY WAS MOVING toward unconsciousness to escape the pain, but Akeem was fighting it. He needed to pay attention to where they were taking him so he could find his way back to Taylor. He needed to figure out a way to escape summary execution. He wasn’t sure how much time Taylor and Christopher had left.

One of the men who’d dragged him out was in the cab, driving, the other was sitting in the back of the pickup with Akeem.

“She was telling the truth,” he said, just loudly enough so the guy next to him could hear as they bounced over uneven ground in the night.

The driver followed no road. Probably so Akeem’s body wouldn’t readily be found.

“I wouldn’t let her see where I buried the money so if she got caught, she couldn’t tell. She’s a woman.” He made a dismissive sound. “She wouldn’t stand up to questioning.”

If these two thought he had something, they might give him a little more time. He needed a minute or two to focus away from the pain and make his broken body obey his will once again. He was little more than a heap of bruised flesh at the moment.

The guy wouldn’t look at him, but from the way his eyes were focused, he appeared to be listening.

“This is going to go down badly. You know that. Whatever the original plan was, it’s gone way off track. Her brother is a powerful man,” Akeem went on.

The guy simply shrugged.

“How much is your cut? Can’t be too much. Too many people are involved. There were expenses. Someone had to pay off the police.”

He was fishing around in the dark, but the guy didn’t protest that last assumption. Anger boiled in Akeem’s blood. So the cops had been paid off. That—and not safety concerns—was why no civilian aircraft were being allowed over Hell’s Porch. They were making sure that no rescue was coming.

“I know where