Midnight Shadows Read Online Free Page B

from? You need some more pain to help you concentrate better?”
    “No…No. She, uh…she’s from up north. Maine or New Hampshire. One of those cold states.”
    “Not exactly pinpointing it for us, but it’s a start.”
    The reality hit him then. His knees were ruined, and as hard as that was to accept, he already knew they weren’t through with him.
    As if he could read Armando’s mind, Marsh said, “I think he needs a little something to take his mind off his knees.”
    Agony erupted in his ankle. And then pain exploded in his other ankle.
    Armando screamed and sobbed. His body jerked and twitched in rebellion, his muscles cramped with strain. The meal he’d recently consumed surged up his throat. Turning his head so he wouldn’t choke, he vomited. The sheer atrocity of what was being done to him stunned him for several seconds. How could he get out of this? He couldn’t think straight. He had done nothing to deserve such torture.  
    “I swear I don’t know anything else,” Armando sobbed. “She said she was from up north, that her name was Lauren Kendall. Her family is all gone. I swear that’s all I know.”
    Marsh’s face appeared above him. “I believe you.”
    Though agony pounded in his knees and ankles, Armando closed his eyes in relief. Finally, at last, it was over. Now—
    Something cold and hard pressed against his right temple. Armando opened his eyes. Ryan Walker had a Glock against Armando’s head.  
    “You traitorous bastard!” A last gasping scream of “Noooooo—”  
    And then there was nothing.

Chapter Two

    She was in big trouble.  
    Sabrina stared at the pool table where the bloody, lifeless body of one of the most notorious drug lords in the country lay. Dying rarely came easy, but for Armando Cruz it had come with an unequaled brutality. The man had been a disgusting, vile specimen of humanity. She could still feel his filthy hands on her, smell his foul breath. The revolting image of his penis wasn’t something she could unsee.  
    Despite her revulsion and disgust of the man, watching his torture and murder had been a singularly unpleasant experience. The sheer barbarism of the act was sickening, but she hadn’t expected it to be followed up with a bullet to his head. Who were these people? What had Cruz done to them to deserve such a brutal end?
    Silly. Here she was worrying about a lowlife criminal dying when very soon she might be joining him. Every instinct she possessed was telling her to run, but Sabrina stood frozen in place. The gun now digging into her spine was troublesome, the man holding the gun even more so. She had trusted him.
    Undercover cop Ryan Walker had been her entry into Cruz’s domain. The drug lord’s former mistress, Lauren Kendall, had come to Wildefire Security, the agency she and her sisters owned, for protection. Which they had provided. But when they’d taken the case, they had known that providing protection wouldn’t be enough. Cruz would always be a threat to Lauren until he was stopped.  
    Sabrina had gone undercover to get information on Cruz. Her intent had been to help put him behind bars and remove the threat against Lauren. What had just happened here had not been anywhere on her radar.
    One thing for certain—Cruz was no longer a threat to Lauren. Problem was, how was Sabrina going to get out of this? Ryan Walker was a dirty cop. A killer. No way in hell did he plan to let her live.
    “Sorry you had to see that,” Walker said.
    Just before going into their meeting with Cruz, Walker had told her to be prepared for anything. Having him double-cross her hadn’t been on her list of things to be prepared for.  
    “Why did you kill him?”
    Walker came to stand in front of her, his gun only inches from her face. The cold amusement in the man’s eyes wasn’t encouraging. “It was time for him to go. Cruz didn’t know it but he was a minnow in an ocean of sharks. His biggest mistake was believing he was more than