Temptation Island by Victoria Fox Page A

moved. She heard the clean smack of his step as he approached. Smart, controlled, precise. ‘Wrong. Let her go.’
    Lori raised her head, taking the newcomer in in pieces—the oil-black shoes, the expensively tailored suit pants, the way a strip of crisp white shirt emerged from each sleeve of his jacket. His suit was the sharp, thousand-dollar sort she had seen on models in magazines and on businessmen who dealt in money and gambling and sex with their secretaries. He was tall. One of his hands was visible. Strong knuckles. His hair, the colour of sand after the tide’s been in; his precise profile and square-sharp jaw; his mouth. In his right earlobe he wore a flat black stud, which was ill-matched with the attire and spoke of something exotic.
    The man regarded her directly and with a gaze that was bluer than the colour itself, light blue of a kind that seemed artificial. She saw his top lip was scarred, a jagged groove that ran like lightning, almost ugly, through his philtrum.
    ‘You got no business comin’ round here,’ warned one ofDiego’s gang. They were hesitant with the stranger—they outnumbered him and yet they did not make a move. ‘Walk away now an’ no one gets hurt.’
    The man reached down to Lori and held out his hand. With the gesture, his sleeve lifted a fraction and she saw a thin band of leather encircling his wrist.
    ‘Get up,’ he told her.
    Diego was quick but the stranger was quicker, bringing Lori to her feet as if she weighed nothing at all. Smoothly, swiftly, he positioned his body in front of hers, simultaneously catching Diego’s punch in one of his fists.
    ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’
    Diego’s eyes flashed a caution. One of his guys freed a gun. The weapon was raised.
    ‘We ain’t gonna tell you again,’ growled Diego. ‘Walk away. ’
    One of the crew lunged but the man seized the strike, twisting the elbow back at such an angle that the body crumpled to the floor.
    ‘My arm!’ the guy howled. ‘My fuckin’ arm, you’ve broken it, you sonofabitch!’
    A second swing; the audible rush of swiped air as he evaded the blow, landing his own fist squarely in the throat of his assailant, who performed a sickening pirouette and was slammed back against the wall with a force that made something crack.
    The next she knew, they had the gun. The last of Diego’s crew still standing was making a run for it. ‘Fuckin’ get outta here, man!’ he urged his chief. ‘Fuckin’ let’s go!’
    Diego stared down his own weapon. ‘You don’t know who I am,’ he said. ‘Do you?’
    The gun didn’t waver.
    Lori saw Diego hesitate, a ripple of fear behind his eyes.
    ‘Take your men away from here,’ the stranger said, in an accent she could not place. ‘And don’t ever come back. If you come back, you will disappear. Nobody will know what happened to you. Your wives will not know. Your friends will not know. Your brothers will not know. Your children will not know. Your lovers will wait for you in a cold room in a cold bed but you will never come. Do not doubt this will happen. If you come here again, it will happen to every last one of you.’
    And in a rush that felt like flying, the stranger had taken her hand, she was with him, next to him, and they were moving, out of the door and into the blazing sun. She saw his car, a gleaming, purring Mercedes, black and silver, opened to an interior of plush, heavy-scented leather, a secret world. She hadn’t time to question her actions. They were inside, the door slammed shut; he was pushing a button and giving instructions to someone up front, concealed behind a screen of dark glass, to drive. He turned to her, eyes so blue, so blue.
    ‘I won’t let you go until I know it is over. I’m not going to hurt you. You’re safe with me.’
    She found her voice, only it sounded like someone else’s. ‘Do I know you?’
    ‘No.’
    The car was moving at speed. ‘Who are you?’
    ‘I am no one.’
    Lori wanted to touch