Emi’s Hero (Brotherhood Protectors Hawaii #5)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

“Why aren’t you wearing the swimsuit I told you to wear?” Fallon Vance stalked out onto the deck of the yacht, his dark eyebrows dipped low on his forehead. “I wanted to see you in the red one, not this...” his nostrils flared, and his lips curled back in a sneer, “boring black, one-piece abomination. I don’t keep you for boring.”

Emi Sands lifted her chin. He shouldn’t keep her at all. “The strap broke,” she said, hiding the truth behind a poker face she’d perfected over the years. She’d deliberately ripped the strap off the bra of the suit. She wanted to tell him that she hated it, that the suit displayed more than it covered. She didn’t like wearing it, especially around her young daughter.

But she couldn’t say anything that might direct attention to her daughter. Her sweet Sara was the only thing keeping her there. The only reason she hadn’t tried to escape.

Escape.

She’d dreamed of escape for the first four years he’d held her captive. She’d tried on a number of occasions, only to be heavily sedated and kept on mind-numbing drugs until she’d gotten pregnant with Sara.

Since then, he’d used the baby growing inside her, and then the child she’d given birth to, as leverage to keep her compliant.

He hadn’t needed the drugs anymore. Sure, she might eventually find a way to leave the bastard, but leaving with a small child...

Impossible.

And she wouldn’t leave without Sara.

She remained stuck with a horrible, abusive monster who kept her like a dog on a chain, threatening her every time she dared to suggest he let her and Sara leave.

He kept her locked away on his compound with its high walls topped with concertina wire. His employees were either foreigners who barely spoke English and were probably part of the human trafficking chain, or highly paid mercenaries who would do anything he asked of them—including kill.

Fallon had insisted on her accompanying him on his yacht for a few days away from the compound, fishing and boating around the islands. Thankfully, he’d agreed to let Sara remain behind with Maria, one of the cleaning staff from Guatemala. Though she barely spoke English, she was Emi’s only friend in the compound.

Emi didn’t want to go anywhere with Fallon, especially not on his yacht. Most often, he liked to take the helm and drive like a maniac, much faster than prudent.

The poor captain would stand back with his fists clenched around a rail, holding tightly and praying his boss didn’t flip the boat and send them all to the bottom of the ocean.

Emi almost wished Fallon would flip the boat and put them all out of their misery. But then, what would happen to little Sara? Perhaps someone would find her and place her in foster care. Maybe there, she’d be happier and learn not to be afraid of all men.

“Fix the suit and put it on,” Fallon spat. He didn’t release his hold on the swimsuit.

“I don’t have a needle and thread,” Emi pointed out.

“Then tie the damned thing,” Fallon shouted and turned the wheel sharply, causing the ship to lean sharply on the port side.

Emi staggered across the deck and slammed into the shiny metal railing. Pain shot through her hip.

“Go, bitch,” Fallon called out. “You have exactly two minutes to get it right.”

The “or else” didn’t need to be stated.

Emi knew it was implied. If she didn’t show up on the deck in two minutes, he’d beat her like he’d done so many times over the past eight years.

She hurried down the steps into the stateroom below, grabbed the top of the red suit with the torn strap and tied it together with shaking fingers. As soon as it held together, she stripped out of the one-piece and fit the bra over her breasts.

One minute had passed.

Emi jammed her legs into the thong bikini and pulled it up over her thighs. Without checking her reflection, she raced back up the steps onto the deck, approaching the helm at two and a half minutes, hoping Fallon hadn’t noticed she’d taken longer than he’d given.

Fallon stood tall behind the helm, staring out at the ocean in front of him. With smooth deliberation, he raised his hand and glanced down at the Rolex watch on his wrist. “Two minutes and forty-six seconds,” he said, his tone cold and biting. “How long did I give you?”

Emi swallowed hard on the fear closing her throat and answered, “Two minutes.”

“Captain!” Fallon called out and released his hold on the wheel.

The yacht’s captain stepped forward and took the helm, averting his gaze from Emi. None of Fallon’s staff members questioned the boss. To do so could cost their jobs.

They also understood that their jobs weren’t all it could cost them. Some of the people who had displeased Fallon the most had disappeared. Emi suspected they hadn’t made it past the wall of the compound.

Fallon didn’t let go of what he considered his property. If he did allow a staff member to leave, that person could spread the word that he was holding people hostage on his estate.

Like he’d held her hostage since he’d stolen her away from her college friends that fateful day eight years ago.

Emi wondered if her folks had given up on her. When they’d been informed of their daughter’s disappearance, had they flown out to Hawaii to help find her?

They hadn’t had a lot of money. Emi had worked part-time while going to college and full-time in the summers. Some of her friends’ parents had a more secure financial situation and could afford to send their daughters to Hawaii on Spring Break. Emi had earned the money she’d needed to pay for her flight and her portion of the room and rental car.

Emi had worked at the diner up to the last minute before she had turned in her apron and rushed out the door to catch her flight. She’d been too tired to party their first night in Hawaii. The flight had been long, and her friends had talked all the way, excited and ready to make the best of their last spring break before graduation.

She hadn’t been in Honolulu but a few hours when she’d left her group of friends at a bar to walk back to the hotel. So often since that night, she’d wished she’d stayed with her friends, no matter how tired she’d been.

Second-guessing her choice did nothing to improve her situation. She had to do whatever it took to survive and protect Sara.

Fallon gripped Emi’s arm and marched her through the yacht, his fingers digging into her flesh. She’d have bruises to add to the collection across her body.

He rarely hit her face, not that it mattered. She never came into contact with anyone who didn’t work for Fallon. His employees didn’t stick up for her when Fallon beat her. Some of them had bruises much like hers.

The man had a violent temper, and even the smallest infractions set him off.

Forty-six seconds and a red bikini would be his latest trigger.

Emi had learned not to fight back. It only made him more violent. The only time she’d fought back, Fallon had almost killed her. He’d left her on the floor to die, refusing to take her to a hospital.

Emi had wished she was dead. But her heart had kept beating, she’d still breathed, and her wounds and broken ribs had healed.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the telltale flush of ruddy red staining Fallon’s neck and cheeks. Her heart plummeted into her belly.

He was mad. Really mad.

Why had she dressed in the one-piece? What had possessed her to rip the strap off the red bikini top?

He brought her to the back deck and slung her around like a ragdoll. “When I tell you to do something, I expect it to be done. Every order must be carried out precisely.”

Emi bowed her head, refusing to look into his eyes, at the hatred and maniacal gleam that always preceded a beating. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again,” she murmured.

“But it does. Again and again,” he said his voice low and dangerous. “What’s it going to take to make you compliant?”

“I promise,” she said. “It won’t happen again.”

“You’re insolent, disrespectful and you spend too much time with that brat of yours. I should never have let you keep it.”

It?

Fallon didn’t even consider Sara a human. She was a beautiful child. He was the biological father. The man was anything but a father to his own little girl. He scared her.

Although Sara was only three, she’d come to Emi’s defense on more than one occasion when Fallon had tried to hurt her.

Emi had been afraid the monster would hurt Sara for trying to help her mother. She did her best to keep her daughter away from Fallon.

It.

Emi shook her head slowly, counting to ten to keep from saying her daughter was more of a human than Fallon ever would be. He was a sperm donor. Nothing more.

“Yeah. You’re too involved with the kid. I should’ve had them carry the kid out with the bloody sheets. I still think I might do it.”

Despite her determination to maintain a poker face, Emi’s head jerked up, her eyes widening. “She’s a child. Not an it ,” she said, her voice low and fierce. “She’s done nothing to hurt you.”

His eyes narrowed. “You’ve become more insolent and disobedient since I allowed you to have her.”

“I forgot myself,” she said, trying to tamp down her anger and fear, knowing it wouldn’t help the situation with Fallon. “Trust me, I won’t do it again.”

He snorted. “I don’t trust you. You’re a useless woman when you aren’t obeying my orders. And I have no use for children. They’re a distraction. I don’t know why I let you keep her. I think it’s time to remove her from the property.”

All the pent-up emotions she’d held back for years exploded inside Emi. “No!” She raised her fists and pounded them against his chest. “She’s my child. You can’t take her away.”

Fallon snagged her wrists in a tight grip, yanked her close and sneered into her face. “I can do whatever the hell I want,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “I own you. I own your brat. I own the people who work for me. No one cares about you or that little shit. The only reason you’re alive today is because I allow you to live. Remember that. And if I say the brat has to go, it goes.” He shoved her away from him, releasing her wrists. “Hit me again, and you’ll pay.”

“Anyone who could throw a child away like so much garbage is a monster,” she said between gritted teeth. She should have stopped there, but she couldn’t, the words pouring out unguarded. “You can’t get a woman to sleep with you, so you hold us prisoner so you can rape us whenever you like. You’re a bastard, a colossal asshole and your dick is as small and insignificant as your mind.”

Fallon’s narrowed eyes became ominous slits.

He crossed his right arm over his chest and then swung it out, backhanding her so hard that her head snapped to the right, and she flew across the deck. Her hip hit the rail so hard, she tipped over the shiny metal rail. She reached out in an attempt to grab for it. Her fingers only grasped air as her momentum carried her body over the side of the yacht.

With her head spinning and pain making her world grow dark, she fell. As if in slow motion, she plunged into the water below, sinking beneath the surface, churned by the yacht’s wake.

The abrupt dunking triggered survival mode in her hazy mind. She kicked her feet, unsure of which direction was up. Her body churned in the water thrust out by the propellers. The knot she’d tied on her swimsuit top must have come loose in her fall. The red bikini top lost in the sea was the least of her worries.

When she’d fallen overboard, she hadn’t had time to catch a breath. If she didn’t surface quickly, she’d drown.

Her first clear thought was of Sara. If Emi died, what would happen to her daughter?

Panic pushed back the threatening darkness.

The more Emi flailed in the water, the more disoriented she became. Her chest burned with the need to breathe.

She remembered what she’d read before she’d come to Hawaii, something about snorkeling and scuba. Watch which way the bubbles go. They always rise to the surface.

Emi forced herself to be still and let out the last little bit of air still in her lungs.

For what seemed an eternity of the second it took for the bubble to orient, she watched. As soon as the bubble established a direction, Emi kicked her feet, chasing the bubble all the way to the surface.

As her head breached, she sucked in air, filling her lungs.

She looked ahead at the vast expanse of ocean.

Where was the yacht?

Her heart still thundering against her ribs, she spun in the water, waves splashing up into her face.

A small spec on the water’s surface grew even smaller. With no other shape on the water besides small waves, that had to be the yacht.

Fear and despair washed over her like a tsunami.

“Wait!” she cried and waved her arm.

The spec on the water didn’t slow or turn around. It disappeared into the distance, leaving Emi alone in the ocean with no other vessel in sight, no land to swim toward and no hope.

Tears joined the water splashing against her cheeks.

“No,” she moaned. “He’ll kill her. He’ll kill Sara.”

Emi couldn’t let this be the end of her. She had to make her way back to land, find help and get to Sara before Fallon. She prayed Maria would find a way to hide her little girl, at least until Emi found a way back to save her.

Striking out in the opposite direction from where the yacht had disappeared, Emi swam, pacing herself for what could be a long way back to shore, fighting back the gloom and doom of the what-ifs.

What if she wasn’t going in the right direction? What if she never made it back to shore? What if some sea creature decided she looked like a tasty snack? What if she was out there for days without food and water?

Determined not to succumb to negativity, she focused on the positive.

The saltwater made it easier for her to stay afloat. Since it was still considered summer, the water temperature was relatively warm, though still lower than her own core temperature. The longer she was in the water, the colder she would get.

She had to keep moving. Not only to find land but to keep from getting hypothermia.

Minutes passed, the sun beating down on her, keeping her warm. The sunscreen she’d applied earlier probably had been washed away in the tumbling effect of the water spun up by the yacht’s propellers.

She couldn’t let that worry her as she alternated strokes between freestyle and breaststroke. When the muscles in her arms began to cramp with the effort, she flipped onto her back to rest and float, kicking her feet to keep moving.

The sun slowly sank toward the horizon, sparing her burning skin but taking the warmth with it. As darkness settled over the ocean, despair filled her chest. How could she keep moving through the night when exhaustion crept into every muscle, nerve and cell?

Sara.

She couldn’t give up. Dying would be the easy way out for Emi. But Sara had an entire life ahead of her. If she got to her soon enough. That beautiful little girl deserved a life. One filled with happiness and joy. Not the existence she’d been forced to live in from the day she’d been born.

Sara deserved to live.

Her daughter’s name became the mantra pushing her forward when she thought she had no strength left.

Sara. Sara. Sara.

Emi kept moving.

I can do this. I can make it another hour.

Stars blinked to life in the heavens above, lighting her way.

The sea calmed, making it easier for her to push on.

Another hour. I can do this. For Sara.

The night seemed to last forever.

Please. Please. Please let the morning sun rise. I’ll take a break. I’ll float. I’ll regain my strength.

She couldn’t stop in the dark. Her body was losing heat even as she moved. If she stopped, she might succumb to the cold.

Her daughter’s image swam into her mind. Her strawberry blond hair curling around her cheeks, her beautiful green eyes a mirror of her own looking into Emi’s soul, urging her to come back.

I’m coming, baby.

Sara. Sara. Sara.

When she thought she couldn’t lift her arms one more stroke or kick her legs one more time, the gray light of dawn lightened the horizon, giving her a direction to aim for. They’d left the island the previous morning with the sun at their backs, heading west. Surely, she would see land soon.

Her arms and legs hurt so much she had to flip onto her back and float.

Just for a minute or two.

Beyond tired, she could do nothing else. She closed her eyes and breathed in and out. The gentle rocking motion felt good. Too good.

Emi drifted off, waking with a start when water washed over her face.

“Can’t sleep,” she said, her voice nothing more than a whisper carried away on the ocean breeze.

Her eyes closed again.

Exhaustion claimed her.