Enemy Lover Read Online Free PDF Page A

leaving this room until you tell us what happened,” Mr. Black said.
    Angela moved into his space, daring him to touch her, daring him to push her, daring him to cross her clearly drawn line. “Then I guess we’ re going to have a long night.” She turned and plunked down on the chair she had been tied to. Crossed her legs and her arms and tipped her head back and closed her eyes.
    She wondered how long it would take him. She wondered if he’d lose control and force the truth from her. Every muscle in her body tensed hard, anticipating an attack. Long minutes passed. Silence, save for the soft breaths of the men that echoed around her. She could feel Mr. Black’s presence. He had not moved. She guessed he was staring down at her with that sharp scowl. Let him.
    More minutes passed. Now she was bored. Slowly Angela opened her eyes and stared directly into Mr. Black’s icy gaze.
    “You will discover, Giacomelli, that as part of this team, you will have no secrets.” He stepped closer. “You will also discover that cowards are not allowed.”
    His baiting worked. She stiffened but still kept her appendages crossed, closing all of them out.
    “Cowards get other people killed. I value each and every life in this room above all others. I will not allow you to jeopardize any of them.”
    Angela looked up and said, “Well, I guess maybe youshould have done a little more homework before you
recruited
me. I have nothing to say to you.”
    Mr. Black moved in closer. Angela unwrapped and stood up. When he chest-butted her, she caught her breath. He lowered his head and spoke so softly that she barely heard his words: “Tell us what happened, now, or I send you back to Jessup.”
    Angela swallowed hard. For spite alone, she wanted to tell him to fuck off. Tell him she didn’t need him, his little group of elite operatives, or his pity. But she didn’ t.
    “We are not the enemy,” he said with just enough sincerity that she felt herself crumble a little inside.
    It wasn’t his words, she realized, that struck something deep inside of her; it was the compassion in his tone. Angela fisted her hands at her sides, wrestling with the nightmare of what had happened to her and speaking about it to these strangers. They had no idea that for her to talk about it aloud was to relive it. And she was not strong enough to go there. Not yet. Not here.
    Tilting her head back, Angela glared at each man in the room, and instead of arrogance, she saw in each one of them pain, buried and endured. Had they purged as she was being asked—no, forced—to do? She turned her attention back to Brinks, who had not moved and stood quietly waiting for her to speak. Swallowing hard, she opened her mouth to speak, but only a hoarse grunt emerged. She swallowed again.
    “You say me and your shrink might have something in common?”
    Brinks nodded.
    Angela laughed, the sound harsh. “Was your Doctor Martin raped by a piece of shit pimp while her team,the team that was supposed to make sure that didn’t happen, sat on their asses?” Angela demanded. “Was she tied up and beaten while the little girls he smuggled in from Mexico sat and watched, knowing if they didn’t do exactly what he told them to do, they’d be next?” She trembled violently, unable to control the outburst. The faces in the room blurred as she was sucked back in time to Montes’s filthy hovel. She could smell him. Sweat, cigarettes and tequila. His skin was soft and clammy, his arms furry, his breath putrid, his dick small. When she’d laughed at his midget hard-on, he’d lost it. She flinched, feeling the smash of his ham-sized fist on her face, the sound of crunching cartilage so close. The warm spray of blood on her face.
Her
broken nose,
her
blood,
her
body being violated. The screams of the children, their desperation as they were forced to witness her attack.
    Angela jerked her head back and glared up at Brinks. “Did Doctor Martin’s rapist break her nose and