Chapter 8
EIGHT
HUNTER
Aslate gray sky and the sea spitting choppy waves at us made for a rough, gloomy crossing.
Seagulls hovered like kites on strings over the Durango, a fishing trawler that rarely had any fish onboard.
The gulls would be sorely disappointed with the catch in our cargo hold, twenty thousand dollars of good quality blow, a treat for a coke addict but definitely not for a hungry seagull.
Rincon had sent the orders and coordinates for the drop just an hour after I’d fallen asleep.
Now the heaviness in my head matched my black mood perfectly.
I’d been tired as hell when my head hit the pillow, but all the confusion and crossed signals I was getting from Amy made my head spin too much to let me sleep.
One minute she was begging me to bend her over a desk and fuck her, and the next she was pissed and ready to push me away for good.
I knew damn well it had always been about commitment, but it wasn’t like we’d suddenly woken up in a new world or that I’d suddenly grown a fucking soul.
She knew I cared about her, but she also knew she wasn’t going to squeeze much more than that out of me.
I was fucking cardboard when it came to emotion.
Although, there were times when being with her took me to the brink, to a place where I was more human than stone.
Like in the office, when our physical need for each other had dissolved into a wild, hot fuck that, just thinking about it, still gave me a hard on.
Having her naked in my arms and completely mine for the taking had stirred that splintered, confusing sense of feeling that she had to be with me forever, that losing her to someone else would be unthinkable.
Colt pulled the collar of his coat up over his ears and tossed a handful of potato chips onto the rough water. Our feathered traveling companions screeched loudly and dove for the chips before they sank below the surface and became fish food.
Colt grinned back at me. “I think if we covered this boat with barbecue potato chips and cheese curls, we’d be more popular with the birds than any trawler carrying fish.”
My brother walked over and stood next to me at the railing. I swept my binoculars around once. The sea was empty. Most of the fishing boats were farther out, and the incoming storm had kept pleasure boats docked. “Shitty weather, eh?” he said.
“Yep.” I lowered the binoculars but still kept a watchful eye on the water.
We’d been making these drops for nearly two years and had only run into problems twice.
Once there was a pleasure yacht that seemed to be following us, but it’d turned out they were behind us to find out where the good fishing spots were.
It was pretty fucking funny considering we were a fishing trawler heading away from the best fishing grounds.
Another run-in with the coast guard was definitely less funny.
As they pulled up to find out why the fuck we were floating away from the fishing grounds and why our nets were still stacked, Slade came out of the pilot house with an old coffee can.
He told them that we were out at sea to distribute our dear father’s ashes, his last wish.
Colt and I had been floored and duly impressed with his quick thinking.
Slade had even shocked himself. It had worked.
The coast guard gave us their condolences and motored away from our boat and our illegal cargo.
“If you don’t mind me pointing this out, bro, you seem to be in an ugly fucking mood today,” Colt said.
“I do mind, so fuck off and keep watch off the starboard side. Something has me uneasy today, and I don’t know why.”
Colt shoved some chips into his mouth and turned around to lean against the railing and watch over the starboard side. “Probably just the weather. And the fact that Rincon sent us this drop order just an hour ahead of time. What the hell is going on with him?”
“Like everyone else— it’s greed.”
“Yeah, I guess so. I hear things are a little messy between you and Street, huh?”
I didn’t answer. Colt knew damn well that meant I wasn’t interested in the topic, but apparently, he was feeling immortal today.
He crunched on another chip. “I think you’re going to regret this.”
I lifted the binoculars to my face. “Just because you like playing house doesn’t mean it’s right for me. Street knows that, and if she can’t understand then I guess there’s not much to say. I don’t need any ball and chain around my nuts.”
He laughed. “Ball and chain? Shit, if that’s what I’ve got around mine by being with Jade then I’m happy to keep them securely locked up. One thing I know for sure— if you lose Amy for good, you’re going to get even grumpier and then I won’t even want to be around you.”
“Scary threat. Now go tell Slade I can see them in the distance.”
He pushed off the railing but stayed next to me.
“Don’t want to hear any fucking more, Colt.”
“Right.” He took a step and stopped. He really had gotten up feeling invincible this morning.
“Everyone in the entire fucking town knows how you feel about Amy. Shit, guys won’t even step within ten feet of her because of you.
The only person who doesn’t know how you feel about her— is you.
Pretty fucking thick— that head of yours. ”
“Colt— swear to God, I’m gonna—”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m leaving.”
I pushed Colt’s irritating lecture out of my head for now.
I still wasn’t feeling right about this morning, and I needed to focus on the drop.
A feathery fog had fallen over the sea, but I could see our contact boat anchored in the distance.
Ace, our main contact, had seemed pretty fucking shady at first. He’d always insisted on holding a gun to one of our heads, in case something was wrong or short with the cargo.
Not that we had anything to do with the quality or quantity of the goods we were delivering, but Ace seemed to think it was a necessary threat for Rincon to keep up his end of the deal and think twice about cheating him.
The funny thing about that was that Rincon couldn’t have cared less about us.
If one of us had our head shot off, he’d just find a replacement crew.
There were plenty of people willing to take a risk to make a quick buck.
Coincidentally enough, when Jade’s creepy ex, Ray Ward, had put up a reward to find her, Ace had answered the call and provided Ward with information leading to Jade.
Only once Ward lured Jade back by holding Colt hostage, he’d decided not to pay Ace the reward.
A big mistake. Ace had helped us get Jade back from Ward, and after that, we’d gained a mutual respect for each other.
Now the drops were much less intense. Until today.
Ace climbed down into the inflatable with his two men.
Occasionally, he brought different men with him.
We never bothered to learn their names because it wasn’t necessary.
This was a business deal, not a tea party.
Only one of the men with him looked familiar, he was an older guy with skin weathered by days at sea and a tattoo of a giant squid on his forearm.
We’d always just referred to him as squid.
There was something about the set of Ace’s shoulders that didn’t seem right.
The man was as confident as a fucking rooster in a flock of horny hens, but today his rigid posture looked forced.
Colt leaned over the stern and lowered the rope ladder as the inflatable boat bobbed up and down over the uneven tide like a car on a roller coaster. Even with the battering the small boat was taking, Ace sat like a pillar of marble, smooth-faced and stiff.
As they made their way across, I lifted my binoculars and looked over at the other boat.
As always, Ace had left two crew members behind.
One was familiar, a goofy looking guy who always wore a yellow beanie pulled tight over long, dark hair.
The other guy, who stood right next to yellow beanie, wasn’t anyone I’d ever seen before.
I knew Ace went through crew members pretty fast. He was quick to get rid of them if they lost their nerve easily or were unreliable, but this new crew overhaul seemed more than usual.
Ace’s boat, a slick overhaul on a fast Sundancer, lifted up and down on the choppy current.
Aside from Ace’s unusually severe posture and the new crew members, everything seemed normal and quiet.
But just as I lowered the binoculars, my eyes glimpsed something that shouldn’t have been there.
I lifted them again and focused on the Sundancer.
From the corner of my eye, I could see Ace and his men getting closer to the Durango.
I squinted through the binoculars and waited for the stern of Ace’s boat to dip down with the rough sea.
The bow went up and the wave rolled beneath it until the stern dropped.
I hadn’t been imagining it. There was a small motorboat tied off on the far side of the Sundancer.
Adrenaline pumped through me. As badly as I needed to jump into action, I couldn’t let on that I knew something was up. Even though they were only twenty feet away, I casually swept my binoculars toward the inflatable boat. The man behind Ace had a gun in his back.
I held two fingers up to the pilot house, our signal to let the person in the captain’s chair know that something was up. “Colt, be alert.” That was our verbal cue to be ready to pull a gun.