THREE

Zak surreptitiously took in their surroundings. Small clearing. A patch of low underbrush surrounded on three sides by massive trees, vines, and thick vegetation. No road to get to wherever the hell they were. Behind the tires of the van, nothing more than flattened undergrowth. In days, if not hours, the jungle would take even that back, and there’d be no sign that humans had ever been there.

Piñero snapped her fingers. One of the men came up beside her, handing her two American passports. One-handed, she flipped each open, fanning them so their photographs were exposed. She didn’t even glance down, but maintained eye contact with Zak. “Zakary and Gideon Stark. ¿Sí?”

Something told him she’d known who they were already.

“We’ll pay to ensure our safe return to a city or town close by. No questions asked,” Gideon said, using the deep, calm, rational voice that usually pissed Zak off. Today, he could have kissed him. “Take us to a bank and we’ll—”

“Your ransom is twenty million. Each.”

“Fine,” Zak interjected sharply, concerned by Gideon’s labored breathing and the gray tinge to his skin. Had his older brother suffered internal injuries when they’d captured him? Had Gideon been stabbed by one of those KA-BAR blades and the son of a bitch was too stubborn to tell him in case the knowledge skewed Zak’s focus? Because, yeah, that’d do it.

Maybe throwing money at this problem would make it go away. Maybe. “Whatever it takes,” Zak added. Under normal circumstances—whatever the hell those were—Zak wouldn’t sweeten the pot. Not yet. A good player knew when to reveal what was in his wallet without adding that he had shitloads of money shoved in his jockstrap too. But this was now about Gid’s and the woman’s survival, and that trumped anything else.

“Zak,” Gid warned quietly, but Piñero’s thin lips tightened into a grim little smile as she said swiftly, “Cash. American dollars.”

Yeah. They’d known exactly whom they’d kidnapped. “Fine. Obviously we don’t carry that kind of cash on us,” Zak told her. “We came to BASE-jump Angel Falls, not make a business deal. As my brother said, take us to a bank in Caracas—”

“You will be held until the ransom is paid.”

It would be a fucking long time. Zak and Gideon, much to the concern of their partner at ZAG Search, frequently visited countries that had cottage industries in kidnapping. That, Zak understood grimly, was only the start of the cost of a damned good adrenaline fix. Which was why he, Gideon, and Buck had that no negotiating clause in their insurance policies.

They had a nonnegotiable, ironclad stipulation in place that no ransom would be paid in the event they were ever kidnapped.

Didn’t mean they couldn’t negotiate their way out of this, given half a chance. They hadn’t parlayed a small business into one of the leading search engine companies in the world by sitting around waiting for someone else to make the first move.

Zak was half-tempted to inform her she was as shit out of luck as they were. Gid beat him to it.

“Contact Anthony Buckner,” he said, and rattled off Buck’s private number at ZAG’s corporate office in Seattle. Buck knew where they were. Fortunately, though as a company they refused to be blackmailed into paying ransom, that didn’t mean they had no provision for such an eventuality.

The guerrilla didn’t write the number down, merely cocked her hip and stared down at them with those cold black eyes that absorbed light, her scarred fingers loose on the assault rifle.

“If I do not have forty million dollars cash in three days,” she told them, tone chillingly expressionless, “I will start sending body parts back to your families.”

Handy. All the family the Stark brothers had was right here, kneeling on the jungle floor with a dozen weapons trained at their heads. Other than a handful of friends and a user base numbering in the anonymous millions, no one would give a flying fuck if they disappeared for good. Buck was too pragmatic to let the death of his partners affect the bottom line. He’d do everything in his not inconsiderable power to find them. But if and when he didn’t, it would be business as usual at ZAG Search.

Zak gritted his teeth as a sharp scream from inside the van was accompanied by loud scuffling. The commotion was followed by a cut-off cry. Seconds later Acadia was brought to the party and shoved down unceremoniously beside him.

Her face was dead white and dirt-streaked. As she sank to her knees, the grasses almost obscured her smaller frame.

“Watch out for snakes,” she warned under her breath, her eyes darting not to the two-legged variety, but as if searching the thick vegetation surrounding them. “There are over seventy species here, and most are poi—”

“Quiet.” Piñero was not entertained by her captive’s chatty observation. “I talk.” She gave the blonde an unfriendly look. “You listen. ¿Entender?”

Barbie nodded. Her hair fell in a tangled mess around her shoulders, but matted and sweat-dampened as it was, it still gave off the faint fragrance of jasmine. That pleasant aroma was obliterated when Loida Piñero stepped forward.

“I have some money,” the blonde interrupted, voice shaking, breathing panic-mode rapid as she looked up at the other woman.

Guerrilla Bitch’s black eyes flicked to her. “Twenty million for you, too, perra.”

“T-twenty million what? Dollars? I don’t have nearly that much.”

“This is unfortunate, ¿sí?” Piñero’s attention slid back to Zak and Gideon as she dismissed the other woman as easily as one would a pesky fly. “And to be—how you say?” Piñero cocked her head, and her dead eyes bored into Zak’s. “Humane? ¿Sí? I will start with the woman.” She fingered the wicked machete on her hip. “She has pretty hands, yes? Such elegant fingers. We will play … ¿como se dice? This little piggy?”

Jesus.

“My daddy is head of the CIA,” Acadia said in a cool, surprisingly calm voice. “He’ll pay whatever you ask, but if you hurt us, he’ll kill every friend and relative you have, and then he’ll hunt you down until you don’t have anywhere to hide.”

The ice in her tone made Zak’s narrow-eyed gaze slide sideways.

“I love him, but he is not—” She shuddered. “My father is a cruel man. He killed my mother in cold blood because she just looked at the president of the United States at a dinner party.”

She’d just managed to convey a powerful father, great wealth, and a presidential connection all in one breath. Bullshit. But impressive. Her bluff might protect her. For a while.

“Asegúrese bien de que están atados.” Unimpressed, Piñero told her men to secure them well. “Vamos al campo.” She turned on her heel and stalked off, leaving her men to haul the captives roughly to their feet and encourage them—with an unnecessary and vicious prod from the barrel of one of the Uzis—to follow her to the tree line.

Zak staggered forward in Piñero’s wake. “Wie stark bist du verletzt?” he whispered to Gid as they walked side by side through the dense grass and lush foliage, the sun beating a hot brand on the crown of his unprotected head.

It was unlikely that the two men behind or the three in front understood German, but he kept his voice just loud enough for his brother to hear him.

“Ribs geknackt.” Ribs cracked. Gid slanted him a look that tried to catalog every ache Zak wasn’t acknowledging himself. “Du?”

“Ich bin gut.” Barring a few bruises, anyway. It wasn’t anything a damn long soak in a hot tub wouldn’t soothe. More important, he needed to know how badly that cracked rib was going to hamper them. “Kannst du laufen?”

If Gid wasn’t able to run, they were going to have to start thinking about a plan B, C, and D. Because Zak suspected there weren’t going to be that many chances to make a break for it before these goons realized there was no ransom money coming.

“Ja,” his brother assured him. “Sprechen das wort.” Say the word.

He got the point. As the less injured of the two—and not counting Barbie—he’d have to be the one to give the word to roll out. Zak hoped like hell it wouldn’t be the last fucking word he ever said.

He watched the guards closely, but they didn’t seem too worried that the prisoners would bolt. Why should they? There was nothing for thousands of miles but jungle, flat-topped mountains, and rivers. Stepping off the rudimentary path meant death.

Every now and then the guards in back fell behind to have a smoke, and Gideon, who’d taken the lead, let more and more space open up between himself and the guys ahead. Zak kept one close eye on them, and one on the suddenly all-too-silent blonde between them.

Her clever little fingers dipped into another pocket, and she reached forward awkwardly to hand Gideon several aspirin. Zak did his best to block the motion from the guards behind them with his body, and frowned as Gideon chewed the bitter pills dry. That was enough to tell Zak that his brother’s ribs were hurting more than he was letting on.

Serious problem. The more deeply they penetrated the jungle, the more dire their situation became. Making a break for it now, no matter how inattentive their captors were, wouldn’t exactly be optimal, Zak knew. But given the circumstances, he’d act on whatever opportunity arose.

He was in the best shape he’d been in his life. So was Gideon, but not with that injury. And Barbie, as valiant as she was, was already flagging. Over the last hour her steps had become slower and slower.

And the guards, now realizing how much space had opened between them, closed in again. There went any chance for making a break for it. Catching his brother’s eye, he used their own form of sign language and waited for Gid’s nod of acknowledgment. Later. The unique brand of sign they’d learned and developed over the years had saved their asses almost as often as it had allowed them to commit mischief growing up. Barely a year separated them in age. They were as close as twins. People frequently said they looked like twins. But Zak couldn’t see himself in his brother other than a facial similarity. Gid was charming and compassionate, and had a hero complex. Zak was and had none of the above. They were opposite sides of a coin. But there wasn’t a person alive whom Zak loved and respected more than he did Gideon.

He’d die for his brother. He just hoped like hell it wouldn’t come to that.

He and Gideon exchanged subtle hand signals until they agreed on a plan; it was half-assed, but it was the only one they had. Zak fell back, angling behind Acadia once more.

They couldn’t account for every contingency, and most of it would depend on their surroundings at the time, but it would work. It had to work. Failure was not an option he wanted to entertain, not again. Not when it meant the blonde’s terrified gray eyes pleading with him to stop Guerrilla Bitch and her machete from chopping off her fingers one by one.

He’d already proven to one woman he was no hero, so protecting both this one and his brother from what was about to happen was a tall fucking order.

THE PLANT LIFE LOOKED nothing like her poor, half-dead Dieffenbachia at home, Acadia thought, glancing around nervously as she pushed her way through the undergrowth. She tried not to let her imagination run away with her. Since she wasn’t usually an alarmist, or that imaginative, she was surprised by the detour her mind took, thinking that if the leaves were this big, then the inhabitants of the jungle were also supersized. She braced herself to be jumped on by something that bit. Maybe a giant snake, or a spider the size of a dinner plate. She shuddered.

Somewhere in the thick wall of foliage to her left, something snapped. She flinched as a flurry of dry, rasping sounds skittered and moved behind a woven tangle of vines.

Don’t picture it, she told herself silently, and bit back a groan as a slinky, fanged creature filled her imagination. Catlike. Glittering yellow eyes. Hungry, salivating, stalking—Stop it, Acadia!

Her wrists were bound with plastic handcuffs. Not tightly, but it was uncomfortable to walk with her hands hobbled in front of her, and her shoulders had stiffened into aggravated knots an hour ago. The rough ride in the van had left bruises in interesting places, and the long, difficult walk through thick trees was making exhaustion and pain mingle into a steady beat pounding from her forehead to her leaden feet.

She studied her surroundings as they marched through the trees in the hope that, given an opportunity, she could backtrack. But she knew that would be next to impossible. One tree, one tangle of vines, one freaking Jurassic-size leaf, looked pretty much like the last. The lush jungle foliage was a thousand variations on vivid green, the giant leaves unrecognizable as the common houseplants they were related to. It was surreal tromping through a tropical forest. Even though Acadia had planned this trip to the last detail, even though she’d had mental dress rehearsals every day for a month, she’d never actually pictured herself here for real.

“That was a good save,” Zak said abruptly from behind her. He hadn’t spoken to her in probably half an hour or more. She jumped, heart hammering, as his voice pierced the thick silence. “Keep her on her toes for a while. So which is it? Is your father CIA or military?”

“He was a staff sergeant, in the army.” Acadia told him, chest aching. “He died a few months ago.” He’d died not knowing who she was as she’d held his hand in that soulless, sterile hospital room. Early-onset Alzheimer’s. Her father hadn’t known who she was for the last six years of his life. She’d always been a daddy’s girl. They’d moved every two years from base to base, like clockwork. She’d lost her mother in her early teens, so it had always been she and her father. She’d adapted to the constant upheaval, and the task of making new friends in new cities. But the slow, terrible way he’d started getting sicker and sicker had hit her hard. They’d stayed in Junction City after his diagnosis. She’d remained at his side, even when it meant forgoing her dreams of a degree in architecture, and Acadia had never regretted putting her life on hold to care for him. She’d treasured every moment. No matter how seeing him like that had torn at her heart.

Knowing that he didn’t realize who took care of him day in and day out had just about killed her.

Something must have shown on her face, because Zak moved in closer to drop his voice. “You all right?” His gaze was on her mouth, and he was practically on top of her. His breath moved her hair against her sweaty cheek.

“If by all right, you mean happy to still be alive, then yes. I’m most excellent.” Her exposed skin itched, from sweat and the bugs that were feasting on her as though she were a long-awaited banquet. She didn’t scratch. There was no point. She did her best to ignore everything. Ignoring the man beside her wasn’t quite as easy.

“Is your name really Acadia? You told me ‘Candy’ last night.”

Lovely. He’d done things to her she didn’t even want to think about, and he didn’t even know her name. “Acadia,” she told him stiffly. His brother paced several yards ahead. Zak stuck close beside her. Far too close for comfort, and frankly no easy feat, considering the space restraints on the hacked-out path through the dense foliage.

He shot her a glance. He had very nice eyes when he wasn’t looking at her as though he wished she’d go somewhere else. A wish they both shared. His eyes were dark-lashed, and a brooding hazel—sometimes green, sometimes a tawny brown that ate the light. And unfriendly.

Sweat stained the front of his once-crisply-ironed shirt, and he’d rolled the sleeves up over his muscled forearms for relief from the unrelenting humidity.

Because of the way the sunlight fell through the trees, Acadia noticed a previously unseen hair-thin scar on the corner of his upper lip, and another high on his right cheek. The cut above his right eye was definitely going to give him another scar. If he lived long enough for the wound to heal.

“So, which is it? Candy or …?”

“You obviously didn’t hear me.” Some of her friends occasionally called her Cady. But that wasn’t often. She wasn’t a nickname type of person. The pet name had sounded appealing in the bar the night before. He was not, she didn’t need reminding, her friend by any stretch of the imagination.

“Last night you didn’t even know your own name when we were practically having sex all the way up the stairs, down the corridor and—” She sucked in a hot, humid breath. He’d been there. She didn’t need to do a verbal reenactment. Besides, his brother was not even three feet away, listening in. She blushed again despite the heat.

“My name,” she reminded him, trying for sophisticated nonchalance, “is Acadia Gray.”

She could smell him even through the lush, wet scent of the jungle. Hot, sweaty male. Not sweaty like the soldiers. His scent was clean and earthy and brought back every vivid memory of every place on his body she’d kissed and tasted the night before … Her heartbeat sped up, and all her girl parts seemed to have antennae tuned in to him.

She waved her bound hands in front of her face and tried to move ahead of him. It gave her a little comfort being sandwiched between two big, strong guys.

Pinhead-tiny black bugs swarmed in lazy circles inches in front of her nose. Pulling out her insect repellent now would only get her gear confiscated, or worse, subject her to a more thorough search. A large red-and-green-striped leaf sprang out into her path, and she used her knee to push it aside, then scratched an itch on her cheek as something bit her.

“You don’t look like the type who’d BASE-jump the falls,” Zak said, sounding annoyed, as if her presence there was an affront to him personally. “What the hell are you doing in Venezuela?”

Acadia resented the implication that she wasn’t the bold, daring type. “Looks can be deceiving,” she told him mockingly. Hoping like hell she didn’t—“What else would I be doing here?”—lie. Nerves, damn it.

“You were going to jump the falls?” He sounded insultingly disbelieving, but she didn’t glance back to see his expression.

“I was waiting for my guide. He was picking me up later this morning. Now, I suppose.” God. She wished she’d stop doing that. It was a ridiculous defense mechanism she’d thought she’d outgrown, from when she was an insecure kid. Apparently not. Zakary Stark brought out the worst in her. Which was unfortunate as hell, since she was stuck with him for the duration.

“Is that right? Venezuela’s a damned dangerous place for a woman to visit alone.”

“That’s very unenlightened of you. Isn’t Venezuela a dangerous place for a man to come to alone?” Judging by the scars on his body, he’d been to some very dangerous places already.

“Yeah. It is. And as I recall, I didn’t come alone.” Heat rushed to her cheeks at his oh-so-obvious double entendre. But he saved her the embarrassment of floundering for a response as he added, “As it so happens, I traveled here with my brother.”

She cleared her throat. “Well, I was expecting five friends to fly in later this morning. I wasn’t planning on—” Don’t say it! “—being alone for long. They’re going to freak out when they arrive and I’m not there.”

An understatement. Shelli, Sharon, Julia, Amber, and Natasha were going to be frantic. They’d practically strong-armed her onto the plane because Acadia hadn’t wanted to be this daring. Sure, she’d reluctantly agreed to step out of her comfort zone, but she’d imagined they’d all go to New York, or maybe be wild and crazy and take a trip to Aruba and be served umbrella drinks at the pool by tanned cabana boys.

Sharon, the boldest of her friends, had dared the group to go to Venezuela. The next thing Acadia knew, she was paying a fortune for the tickets and accepting the itinerary from well-organized Julia. She’d known before her brandnew Cypress Ion WPi waterproof hiking boots touched the ground in Caracas yesterday morning that she was having a mid-something crisis and way in over her head. But by then it was too late to chicken out and turn back.

Zak shrugged, powerful shoulders moving in her peripheral vision. “Your friends will put two and two together and go to the authorities.”

Nice of him to sound half-assed confident, but Acadia was pretty sure that wouldn’t achieve anything. The police in Venezuela were pretty much as corrupt as the plethora of kidnappers in the country. They’d go to the American embassy and hope someone there could help. Then they’d run out of money and options and return home to see what they could do from there.

She fell silent, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other in the knee-high grass. As it got hotter, moisture on the foliage evaporated into a steamy hothouse fog that caught in her lungs and made sweat pour down her face. She felt around in one of the pockets on the outside of her pants, checked on the position of the guards—Zak met her eyes as she glanced behind her, and shifted subtly to block their view of her—and surreptitiously pulled out a flat packet of moist towelettes.

“Thanks,” she murmured. Plucking one wipe out of the package, she carefully restuck the seal and shoved it back into the hidden pocket, her mind returning once more to her friends as she wiped her face and throat. They would blame themselves, she knew. They’d go to the police first. Then they’d freak. Natasha’s father had served with Acadia’s dad at Fort Riley. When Natasha realized there was no trace of her friend, she’d call in the cavalry. Literally.

“Perhaps they’ll think you went off with some local guy,” Zak offered after too long a silence.

Acadia choked back a laugh. “Not in a trillion years.” It wouldn’t even cross their minds that she might be with some handsome Latin American man having a wild adventure. Going off with strange men wasn’t who Acadia Alyssa Gray was. She was the leave-the-kids-with-Acadia-on-Friday-night kind of friend. She was predictable, reliable, and, she hated to admit, boring.

“Not that far from the truth,” he corrected, which annoyed the hell out of her.

“You don’t have to sound so smug about it,” she retorted waspishly. “It was hardly a red-letter day on my calendar.”

“Really? You pick up men in bars all the time, do you?”

“Isn’t that like asking someone if they’ve stopped beating their wife?”

He chuckled.

Gideon gave a muffled snort of laughter too. His white T-shirt was sweat-stained and blotched green from the leaves they were pushing through.

“Great, so happy I can amuse you guys.” She applied the now warm, moist cloth to her hot cheeks. The mild antiseptic stung the abrasions on her skin, but it smelled fresh. She used it on her hands and as far up her arms as she could maneuver her bound wrists. She wished she could wash the blood off her skin, then pulled her thoughts back from the abyss. Blood splatter on her back was the least of her problems right now.

She tucked the used wipe into another pocket. No littering for Acadia Gray. Even while being kidnapped. Follow the rules. Do the right thing. Acadia felt a giggle bubble up in her chest, and ruthlessly tamped down the urge. This was no laughing matter, and she wasn’t entirely sure that she’d be able to stop laughing if she started.

“What else do you have in those hidden pockets?” Zak asked.

The whole point of hidden pockets was that they were freaking hidden. None of the soldiers had bothered to pat her down, thanks to their scary boss. If he talked about what she was carrying, someone was sure to want to see exactly what it was. “How do you know I have pockets?”

“Unless you’re a magician planning on pulling a rabbit out of your ass, I’m presuming the aspirin from earlier and that wipe were secreted in that outfit you’re wearing. What else is in there? Cough everything up, Miss Gray. Our lives might depend on whatever you’re carrying.”

“You want me to dump everything on the ground right now?” Acadia was rapidly discovering a hidden talent for sarcasm just as pointed as his.

“No. But once it makes sense, I want to inventory everything you brought.” He paused. “How heavy are your clothes?”

“An extra eighteen pounds, that’s all.” Although, after walking for what seemed like days, the weight seemed to be increasing with every step. “I have just about everything we might need,” she admitted, sotto voce. “Except, unfortunately, a weapon.”

He came up right beside her, his arm brushing hers. “You’d be surprised what can be made into one.”

“I know how to make a shiv.” How hard could it be?

His smile widened. It didn’t reach his eyes, but he showed his white teeth and a dent of a dimple in his lean right cheek. “Ah. Learned no doubt while you were incarcerated for your life of crime.”

“I’m a quick study.” Make of that what you like, smart-ass.

“I’m starting to think you just might have hidden depths,” he said dryly.

They walked for about five minutes while she mulled that over, then she blurted, “I don’t. Have any hidden depths, that is.” Honest to God, she could keep lying, but in this scenario it wasn’t in her best interests to mislead him. She had no idea what—if anything—he was planning, but making him think her capable of things she was incapable of doing would be not only stupid but hellishly dangerous as well. “Look, I’m not exactly what you think I am—”

“A pretty woman way the hell out of her depth?”

“Yes. That.” He thought she was pretty? “Wait, no, I am exactly that. Out of my depth, I mean,” she admitted. “I wasn’t exactly honest last night. I’m not an exotic dancer. I work at Jim’s Sporting Goods store in Junction City, Kans—”

“Kansas?” His laugh sounded rusty, and he stopped to stare at her. His eyes looked very green and were deceptively filled with laughter. Clearly a trick of the light.

Acadia scowled. “Yes, Kansas. What’s so funny?”

He started walking again before the guards could prod him. “Keep moving. Nothing, Dorothy.”

Infuriating man. “You weren’t held as a baby, were you?”

“I have pictures.”

Acadia made a rude noise. “Obviously Photoshopped.”

Gideon chuckled as he shoved enormous, leathery leaves out of his way, then held them so she could pass. “Zak was born sparring.”

He’d clearly had plenty of practice. Acadia changed the subject. “Kidnapping is a pervasive problem in Venezuela, were you aware of that when you came?” She’d read about it, but of course had thought it wouldn’t apply to her. For God’s sake, she had no idea how she could have ignored the compelling statistics and the probability of being kidnapped herself. In for a penny, in for a pound. “I don’t want to sound like I’m lecturing you or anything,” she added, “but it’s good to know some facts. Caracas has one of the highest per capita homicide rates in the world.”

“Fortunately,” Zak murmured, his voice Sahara dry, “we’re not in Caracas at the moment.”

“And it’s even higher in outlying areas where there’s no pretense of law and order.”

“Aren’t you a font of information.” He didn’t sound like a fan.

“I am, actually,” she replied, unperturbed. “They even have a National Counter Kidnapping Commission. In fact—” Now she remembered the data, anyway—“In fact, kidnappings have increased from forty to over sixty percent in the last year alone. And that’s just the ones reported to the police. Most aren’t.” Because, reported or not, the kidnappers were rarely caught, and even then, rarely charged.

Zak said nothing as he dropped a step behind her, so she continued hopefully, “It’s unlikely that they’d walk us all this way just to kill us later, right?” Pointless to mention that the guerrillas could do worse than kill them. He’d know that.

“I imagine they’ll hold us until the ransom is paid.”

“Hold” didn’t mean gently. The way the one called Eloy had been looking at her when he shoved her out of the van didn’t bode well. “About that …” Now would probably be a good time to tell him just why he and his brother were being dragged willy-nilly through the jungle with her.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, using his bound hands to brush a small green lizard off his shoulder. “Gideon and I will figure something out.”

“There are three of us involved here,” she pointed out. “But in the interest of full disclosure, I have to tell you why we’re here. It’s because—”

“Save it.”

Acadia understood the situation wasn’t optimal, but did he have to be so rude? She rubbed her cheek on her shoulder, retorting, “For what? Candles and dinner?”

“Until we’re alone or can’t be overheard. Get Gideon’s attention for me.”

They were walking single file. With her hands bound at the wrist, Acadia used her fingertips to poke Gideon Stark in the back, but he turned around so fast, and with such fury in his eyes, she fell back a step and bumped into Zak’s chest.

“Easy,” Zak said, steadying her with his forearm against her shoulder.

“Sorry,” she told Gideon. He wasn’t looking at her, but rather at his brother, who was right over her shoulder. Acadia could feel the tension coming off the two men in waves. Like her they were stressed; she just hoped they didn’t do anything stupid in this volatile situation.

“Look. Don’t engage these people, okay? I’ll just tell them how to access the money, and I’m sure”—Not in a zillion years—“that they’ll let us go.”

“How could you … What money?” Gideon Stark scowled, then continued walking. A flying insect the size of Acadia’s fist landed on his back. The iridescent blackish green bug was a millimeter from the exposed skin of his neck. She shuddered.

“There’s a Godzilla-size insect on your—Yes. There—okay. It’s gone. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you guys for the past hour.” She hadn’t, but she should have. “I’m the reason they grabbed you. I’m really, really sorry.”

“You’re the reason?” Zak asked, sounding incredulous. “Who are you? Head of State? Rock star … Not an actress.”

“I work—Why not an actress?”

“Because you can’t act worth a damn.”

“Funny,” Acadia said lightly, “that’s not what Spielberg said.”

His lips twitched. “Steven Spielberg?”

“Who else?” Well, Michael Spielberg, her eighth-grade math teacher, who could never tell when she was fibbing, even when he knew she was. It hadn’t been a compliment as much as a statement about him.

Acadia lowered her voice and slowed her steps so he could hear her. She hoped her voice wouldn’t carry. Though the kidnappers must have a pretty good idea how much she was worth; otherwise why bother kidnapping her? “I won five hundred thousand in the Kansas lottery two months ago.”

“Ah,” Zak responded. A lot less interested, or relieved, than she’d expected.

“I still have most of it,” Acadia assured him quickly, just in case he was worried she couldn’t pay at least a portion of what the kidnappers were asking. “I paid for this trip of course, for myself and five of my friends, and—”

“This isn’t about you.”

She tromped through a thicket of leaves and vines to give that a moment to sink in. A toucan high on an overhead branch tilted its yellow head to watch them pass. She stepped over a pile of branches and leaves that the men up ahead had sliced to clear the path. “Wow,” she finally said, surprised. “That’s pretty rude considering the circumstances. I know kidnapping is the national pastime here, but I suspect they knew who I was when they burst into my room instead of yours. Do you guys have half a million dollars?” she added sarcastically.

Gideon chuckled and continued walking.

“Gid and I own ZAG,” Zak informed her.

It took her a moment. ZAG? The multigazillion-dollar online search engine? “Oh.” Here she was, feeling guilty as hell, and all the time she was the one who’d been inadvertently scooped up in their kidnapping. “Then I guess you owe me an apology.”

“At this point, your lotto score is pretty worthless. As you say, kidnapping is big business in South America. They’ve already set a ransom demand at forty mil for me and my brother, and they don’t care that you’re just collateral damage. Loida Piñero set the same price on your head.”

“Forty million?” That was so far above what she now thought of as her meager winnings that it didn’t even seem real.

“Wait a minute … Loida Piñero? I presume that’s the name of Cruella de Vil, scary leader of the pack? How do you know her name?” Acadia demanded, sidetracked.

“She told us.”

“That’s not good. She doesn’t care that the three of us have seen her face and those of her men, and she told you her name? That doesn’t bode well for our chances of survival.”

“Don’t worry about it. They’ll contact our people to make their demand.”

“Don’t worry about it? I’m blond, not Pollyanna. I’m plenty worried. With just cause.” Blondes might have more fun, but she should’ve told her hairdresser to give her screaming red kick-butt hair instead of foils. Right now she needed the courage of a redhead and the sophistication of a brunette. She was feeling her mousy hair right now.

“We’ll be out of here as soon as the ransom’s paid.”

“Liar,” she said without heat. She tamped down the fear bubbling up inside her. Freaking out and panicking weren’t productive. This situation needed a clear head, and some ingenuity. And while she hoped Zak and Gideon Stark could come up with a viable plan to get them safely out of the jungle, Acadia was too used to taking care of business to trust her life to two men she didn’t know. “As soon as they get the money, we’ll be redundant, won’t we?”

And then it clicked. From somewhere in the vast filing cabinet of her brain, she remembered the headlines. The outcry, even brief as it was in the never-ending run of bad news that filled the media every day.

In stark, bold letters, the headline flashed across her memory: ZAG OWNER LOSES WIFE IN TRAGIC ACCIDENT.

The brothers’ argument in the van now made a bit more sense. It had barely registered as a blip on her radar at the time. So, Zak Stark had lost his wife. Tragic. But why did his brother have strong issues about it? Jennifer Stark had been an investigative reporter for CNN; if Acadia remembered the news correctly, she’d been killed in some war-torn country a couple of years ago. Acadia tried to remember what she’d read, desperately rifling through what few facts she’d gleaned at the time, but she didn’t recall more than a few headlines.

“Redundant or not,” Zak said evenly, “Gideon and I will get you out of here.”

She hoped he could. But just in case that didn’t happen, Acadia was trying to come up with an escape plan of her own. Planning, practicality, and adaptation were her strengths. They were attributes she’d needed when she’d continually changed schools. New teachers, new kids to make friends with, new everything. She’d had to draw on those same strengths when she’d had to deal with her father’s diminishing capacity.

If she could just sit down somewhere cool and quiet for a while, she knew she would come up with some sort of plan. Too bad cool, quiet, and seated were out of the question for the moment. So be it. She had several ideas. None of them feasible. Yet.

“How does sitting behind a computer monitor at your fancy Internet company qualify you to liberate us from armed kidnappers?” She kept the sarcasm out of her voice with effort.

“You’d better hope we have something up our sleeves,” Zak answered, not exactly forthcoming.

Gideon paused until she was practically right on top of him. “We’ve accumulated some skills in the years we’ve been doing extreme sports,” he told her quietly. “Trust us, this isn’t that much different than the Mount Kilimanjaro climb we did a few years back, right, Zak?”

“Right. Hostile natives, and an even more hostile environment.”

They both sounded as confident as she didn’t feel. Climbing a mountain, while certainly dangerous, didn’t quite compare to trekking into dense jungle surrounded by Uzi-carrying guerrillas. “Armed kidnappers?”

Gideon glanced over his shoulder with a grim smile. “Armed terrorists. They all have shitty attitudes and consider violence a conversation starter. Don’t worry, honey. We’re working on i—”

“Manténgase en movimiento!” one of the men yelled from behind them.

Acadia gave Gideon a little shove with her bound hands. “He wants us to keep moving.”

“We both speak Spanish fluently,” Zak informed her, his voice low. He was right on her heels, and the closeness of his voice made her start so that she almost walked right into a thick clump of bright red flowering vines hanging like a garland right in front of her. The twenty-foot vines, covered in flowers, were alive and moving with buzzing insects.

She walked around the clump, swatting the bugs away from her face. “Then why didn’t you—”

“Because pretending not to understand the language gives us an edge.”

“How did you know what I was goi—”

“Going to say? Barbie, you’re an open book.”

A drop of sweat trickled down her temple, making her skin itch. Acadia bit her tongue. There was no point in engaging him in an exchange. There wouldn’t be a winner, and arguing would just irritate them both.

Acadia put one foot in front of the other and kept her gaze on the middle of Gideon Stark’s sweat-stained back. Three small capuchin monkeys swung from branch to branch at eye level, sweet little white faces turned to watch the humans’ progress, black eyes curious.

“Look,” she said calmly after about fifteen minutes of human silence, “I don’t know you. I’m sure you mean well, but don’t make promises you can’t possibly keep. We all know that when they have what they want, they’ll kill—”

“Zakary.”

Acadia glanced up at Gideon’s warning tone, expecting to come eye to eye with some large man-eating animal or, worse, the lead kidnapper, gun in hand, murder in her eyes. Instead she saw a clearing in the jungle, foliage hacked back and wide-open space filled with a dozen or more armed men. Waiting for them.

This was it, then. The end of the road.