Because she was fast running out of patience, she slapped his file closed. “It won’t get any sweeter. You cooperate, and I should be able to keep you from spending the next twenty years in a cage.”

He screamed at her, then leaped across the table and struck before she had a chance to dodge. The backhanded blow knocked her out of her chair and onto the floor, where he fell on her. “You get me out!” He squeezed his hands on her throat, too wired even to feel her nails rake his wrist. “You bitch, you get me out or I’ll kill you!”

At first she could only see his face, the sick rage in it. Then it faded as red dots swam in front of her eyes. Choking, she struck out, smashing the heel of her hand against the bridge of his nose. His blood splattered over her, but his hands tightened.

A roaring filled her ears, buzzing over the wild curses he shouted at her. The red dots faded to gray as she bucked under him.

Then her windpipe was free and she was sucking air down her burning throat. Someone was calling her name, desperately, and she was being lifted, held tight. She thought she smelled the scent of the sea before she fell limply into it.

Cool fingers on her face. Wonderful. Strong hands clasped hard over hers. Comforting. A sigh before waking. Agony.

Rachel blinked her eyes open. Two faces were looming over hers, equally grim, with eyes that held both rage and fear. Woozily she lifted a hand to Zack’s cheek, then Alex’s. “I’m all right.” Her voice was husky, bruises already forming on her throat.

“Just lie still,” Alex murmured in Ukrainian, stroking her head with a hand that still throbbed from where it had connected with Lomez’s face. “Can you drink some water?”

She nodded. “I want to sit up.” As she focused on the room, she realized she was lying on the faded couch in the captain’s office. Murmuring her thanks to her brother, she sipped from the paper cup he held to her lips. “Lomez?”

“In a cage, where he belongs.” Fighting off the tremors of reaction, Alex lowered his brow to hers. He continued to speak in Ukrainian, kissing her brow, her cheeks, then sitting back on his heels to hold her hand. “You just relax. An ambulance is on the way.”

“I don’t need an ambulance.” Reading the argument in his eyes, she shook her head. “I don’t.” She glanced down to see that her blouse was gaping open. It was ruined, of course, she thought in disgust. That and her suede skirt were spotted with blood. “His blood, not mine,” she pointed out.

“You broke his slimy low-life nose,” Alex snapped.