Sleeping with Danger [Silhouette Romantic Suspense Series #1489]

They had stopped beating the hell out of him five days ago and started feeding him regularly. The thick gray mush and a cup of water now came every day instead of three times a week.No longer numb, he slowly became aware of his wretched existence, as well as the pain that raped his body with every breath he took. He was given two weeks to contemplate the change in the routine--to consider whether it was a blessing or a dark omen--before they came for him.Even though the sun was low on the horizon, he squinted against the brightness as the heavy iron grate overhead was unlocked and he was pulled from the pit and dropped like a sack of garbage on the rocky ground.In the beginning the hole in the earth where they kept him had been a tight fit, but that was months ago. These days they could have flushed him down a sewer pipe, he was so damn thin."On your feet. Greegorah!"The old instincts that had kept him alive for a year and a half were still a part of his memory. Those memories urged him to get up and fight back, but he was physically broken. Even the guards' orders didn't rally him to his feet."Get up. Now!" Pedro gave him a vicious kick. The guard's steel-toed boot connected with his ribs. He grunted, bit back a pitiful moan, then flattened his dirty hands out on the hard ground and pushed his body upward.After three tries he managed to get to his knee, and there he remained, too weak to stand.Again Pedro used his foot, and like a rotten stump in a windstorm it toppled him easily. His head struck a jagged rock and split open his forehead."That's enough."It wasArgo who had spoken.A man twice as brutal as Pedro. He waited to feel more pain from the commander of the guards, but for some reason the short-legged Greek with a passion for sadistic torture wasn't interested in making him scream today.He forced himself back to his knees, and as soon as he did, the two men grabbed him under his arms and began dragging him toward the old Greek monastery. A few yards from the back entrance he managed to get his feet under him. When the guards let go of him, he leaned heavily against the stone wall while Argo retrieved a key from his pocket. When the door swung open a blast of sour air stole his breath. Whatever was down there was dead, or close to it.Pedro pulled him away from the wall and that's when he saw the steep stairwell that led down into the bowels of the sanctuary. There was no way in hell he was going down those narrow steps on his own power."Move. I don't have all day to babysit your ass."Pedro gave him a shove and he reached out and saved himself from eating another rock by grabbing on to the door.Argo took a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, shook one out and pinched it between his lips. Firing it up, he said, "A smoke takes me four and a half minutes. See you at the bottom."With the clock ticking, he shuffled forward and flattened out one hand against the cool stone wall. Then, like an old man, one step at a time, he started down the narrow steps as the faint smell of tobacco was swallowed up by the stench below.With each painful step he imagined Argo's cigarette between his own lips. Imagined inhaling the nicotine--what he wouldn't give for a little buzz right now.You can make it, he told himself. Slow and easy. One step at a time.A smoke takes me four and a half minutes. See you at the bottom.In the old days he would have taken the steps four at a time. Hell, in the old days he would have turned on the two guards and snapped both their necks in less than...four and a half minutes.He never let go of the wall, and like an infant who had just learned to walk, he tested out his balance with each step he took.He heard Argo and Pedro start down.Three more steps.Two.One.He came off the last step just as Pedro came up behind him. The guard looked disappointed that he'd managed to make it without falling on his face.[read more]