Chapter Two
Phoenix
Twenty-Five Days Ago.
Miami Beach Marina.
Miami Beach, Florida.
Standing at the helm station of my sixty-five-meter Heesen as I brought the mega yacht into the marina, I glanced at Helios.
“Don’t give me that fucking look,” the former Delta operator warned.
“What look?”
“Like you’re still hung up on that crazy-ass blonde trespasser from last week that you fucked all night, right before she up and left your ass in Spain. Or should I say, broke out of that locked cabin, then left your pussy ass.”
“One, not that it’s any of your business, but I didn’t fuck her.
” Not full penetration. But I was still thinking about everything else I had done.
In detail. “Two, it wasn’t last week. It was thirty-six hours ago, and I was at the helm with you for eight of those hours that night, navigating through the storm. ”
“Now you’re gonna blame the weather?” Helios snorted. “Should’ve known you SEAL fucks were one pump chumps. And for the record, three days on your fucking boat feels like a damn lifetime. You’re lucky I didn’t bail in Tenerife with that crazy bitch, and fly back to Miami.”
“Watch it,” I warned.
“Or what?” Helios smirked as he glanced starboard where his brother, Ares, also former Delta Force, was deploying the fenders. “You’ll fire me?”
No. I’d eliminate him if he spoke about my petite intruse like that again.
Except the woman wasn’t my anything.
Finding her on my Cap d’Antibes property had been… unforeseen.
The fact that she’d avoided all my security cameras had been a setback.
But when the sniper that’d followed the bikini-wearing trespasser onto my property engaged in a firefight with Helios, it’d turned critical.
So I’d kidnapped the drifter.
Bringing her on board the Paragon, I’d told myself it was to contain the situation, get answers, then either eliminate or neutralize the threat. But the second the little trespasser’s feet had hit the decks of the Heesen, she’d looked up and smiled at me without reservation.
My world had simultaneously suspended and zeroed in with laser focus, then the woman had made me a liar.
Staring down at the blue-eyed blonde, selectively ignoring how her mere presence had threatened everything I’d been planning, I hadn’t contained anything. I’d disregarded my own rules of no engagement and, for a single beat, I’d gone there….
My dominance. Her agency. Hard sex.
Every breath of hers under my control, I’d tasted the possibility.
Then I’d shut down my depravity and reminded myself I didn’t have time for a little intruse—especially not one who’d made my cock so damn hard, I’d forgotten who I was.
Now, I had even less time and zero margin for distraction.
Focusing up, I checked speed, wind, current, and tidal conditions.
Then I switched to the bow and stern thrusters, and answered Helios.
“I don’t fire my operators.” If any of the Tier Ones working for me at Paragon Operations wanted out, they could walk.
So far, none had. “If you became a problem, I’d eliminate you. ”
Helios glanced at Ares again, the only other crew we had on board, and gave him a hand signal to move to the stern before he leveled me with a glare.
“You may as well put that fucking Sig to my head and pull the trigger. Because this shit?” He jerked his chin toward the busy marina.
“It’s fucking suicide for me and Ares, and everyone else on the team.
You’re hanging a goddamn beacon around our necks, telling every undead motherfucking terrorist we ever pissed off exactly where to find us. ”
That was the plan.
The burner I had sitting on the bridge rang with an incoming call.
Maneuvering the Heesen, I gave Helios an order. “That’s Cypher. Put the call on speaker.”
Helios swiped across the screen, then snapped at my hacker. “What?”
“Fuck you too, Helios,” Cypher clipped. “Where’s Nix?”
“Stroking his thrusters so he can fuck us real good.”
“I’m right here, Cypher.” I spared Helios a warning glance before I gave Cypher a heads-up. “You’re on speaker. Sitrep?”
“You’ve already got eyes on you,” Cypher replied.
I hadn’t expected otherwise. “Who?”
Cypher downloaded, Helios cursed, and I pulled the Paragon into her berth as I thought of the blonde.
Isla Sennan—no employment history, no permanent address, no digital footprint, no current ID.
She’d done us both a favor when she’d walked off my ship three days ago.