Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
The storm is growing. The thunderheads are rolling, billowing further and further upward, making mountains above us.
I push forward, the wind slapping my coat against the body armor underneath.
Fighting the whipping sting of my hair, I put my head down, racing across the lawn to the stairs.
Keep going.
The staircase is steep, requiring all my attention as I move as quickly as I can. A fall here could be deadly. I have to get this right.
Below, frothed by the wind, white caps reach toward the far edges of the private cove that my father’s always been so proud of.
Truck’s boots land heavily behind me, sending shockwaves through the rungs below me with his impacts.
When I look up, my eyes go right to a camera mounted on a high pole.
Oh no.
I knew my father wasn’t big on indoor cameras, but I forgot about the exterior ones.
This could be disastrous. I don’t want my father getting a text notice about movement on the dock.
Upset, I almost miss the last step, but I manage to hit the wooden decking and continue to run.
Breath sawing, I tap the ring they gave me. “Guys. Uh. This is Goldilocks. There’s a camera…Over.”
There’s a rumble in my ear—no, not my ear—inside my head. The super high-tech communications system uses bone conduction. The sensation is weird.
“This is Beast. Taken care of. Tech guy scrambled them remotely. Over.”
“Oh. Okay. Oh, my god!” I stumble, having caught my toe on a board. “Sorry, didn’t mean to yell in your ear. I almost fell into the water. Over.”
Fumbling to keep running, I stay in the center of the long dock. My heart nearly exploding from my ribs.
Some operative, I am. I’m a rolling trainwreck.
If I fall in the water, it will cost us precious minutes we don’t have.
Keep it together, Allison.
The yacht gleams in the darkening storm. The white hull is obscenely large, almost too large to be tucked in the corner of the private dock. Next to it is a low, open-bow boat that I’ve never seen.
It has a tactical look like Agile’s trucks. Gray and black with a tower, antennas. It has a very coast guard-like look.
Unease makes all of my skin goosebump.
Something’s definitely going on.
Plowing ahead, I leap onto the rear deck of High Dollar and screech to a stop.
The door to the salon is open.
But before I have time to react, to step back or do anything, a huge man lunges out from behind a pillar.
“Gotcha.”
His arm lashes around me, and the nick of a blade under my chin causes a startled cry to rip out of my throat.
But it’s what I can see from that bruising hold that makes me truly panic.
Truck’s folded into a crouch on the dock. His left hand braced on the deck. The right palm is cupped against his temple.
“No!” I scream.
The cameras are out. No one knows he’s down. No one knows I’ve got a knife to my throat.
“What are you looking for in such an all-fired hurry?”
A nasty blast of hot air hits my cheek as he lifts me to my toes with the bruising hold he’s got on me.
Spinning me, the monster presses me against a gold and black column.
“My—my father,” I stammer. “Is he here?”
A sickening reply comes back with a dark laugh. “I can be your daddy.”
My stomach lurches, horror crawling up my throat, my heart bleeding in terror for Truck.
They must have shot him. But I didn’t hear anything.
Nothing makes sense.
“You hear me?” The man shakes me roughly.
Tears tighten my throat, but a fire is building inside of me that might burn the whole yacht down.
I need to get to Truck. “Where’s my father?”
As if the sick bastard isn’t scary enough, he lifts the blade away, inspects the gleaming surface before he presses it to my throat again. “You’re bleeding. I like it.”
Since he hasn’t mentioned Truck, I can only pray he didn’t see him.
“Let me go. My father will be furious with you.”
“That is, if I’m still here when that old fucker gets back.”
The gray boat.
“What are you doing on the yacht?”
“Getting it ready for your daddy’s big trip.”
Fighting the dizzying fear, I try to think of anything that will get me out of this so I can go to Truck.
“If you let me go, I won’t mention you to him.”
The laugh that bursts near my ear is blood-icing.
“You lie so pretty. Bet you fuck even better.”
The cold blood sluicing through my veins reaches my fingertips, my toes, tingles along my scalp. Then I remember the ring. Tapping my finger, I start talking.
“Let me go. The knife is hurting my throat. I don’t know who you are or what you want with me. I was just looking for my father on his yacht and you grabbed me. But now you’re scaring me.”
“Finally, you’re wising up.” He buries his nose in my hair, making a thick growl that knocks the wind out of me. “Like I said, I bet you’re gonna fuck real good.”
Thunder bursts above us, rumbling through the deck of the yacht.
“This fucking storm. It was pissing me off, now…I love it,” he growls, and he loosens his hold as the rain begins to drop from the sky like bullets. “Get inside. No one will come down here when the lightning starts cracking, which means I’ve got plenty of time to enjoy?—”
A whoosh of air hits me, the knife flies past my face, bouncing off the column, clattering onto the deck next to my foot.
The heat that was pressing against my back is suddenly gone.
A giant splash erupts from the water beside the yacht.
For a few raging heartbeats, I don’t understand what has happened. Then before I can escape the yacht, I see the most terrifying sight I could imagine.
Truck’s baseball cap bobs to the surface.
My world collapses as I scream into the microphone, hoping Justice can hear.
He’s the only one close enough to help.