Chapter 42
FORTY-TWO
Only the creak of the yacht and Kenzie’s ragged breathing broke the silence in the corridor. The guard’s forearm pressed against her throat—not crushing, but firm enough to remind her she had no control.
Jaz stood ten feet away. Alive. Beautifully alive. His gun was aimed at the young guard in front of her.
He had a plan. He must have a plan.
“What do you think is going to happen?” Magras spoke calmly, but terror hummed beneath the words.
“Let her go and you get to live.” Jaz’s tone sounded flat, empty of the charm she’d seen him use a hundred times. “She dies, you die.”
Kenzie couldn’t see Magras’s face from behind. He didn’t move, though. Didn’t speak.
The young guard shifted his weight. She assumed his gun was aimed at Jaz. The one holding Kenzie tightened his grip, and she fought the urge to struggle. Lord, tell me what to—
“This is Gavin Wright.” Her father’s voice thundered through the yacht, amplified impossibly loud. “Surrender, and you have hope for mercy. Don’t sacrifice your lives for Magras or the man who calls himself Henry Sebast. They won’t sacrifice their lives for you.”
A deafening bang erupted from somewhere to her left. The guards and Magras’s heads all snapped toward the sound.
Jaz met her eyes for a split second.
Kenzie drove her bare heel down onto the guard’s instep, grinding it with everything she had.
He grunted, his arm loosening, and she whipped her head backward. Her skull connected with his face. She let her legs go out from under her as his grip loosened.
She landed on the floor as gunfire exploded.
She lay flat, arms over her head, squeezing her eyes shut. Even with her muffled hearing, the gunshots were deafening. The smell of gunpowder filled the narrow space. Someone hit the floor with a heavy thud.
It was over in seconds, all those gunshots fading, her father’s voice still booming.
Her ears were ringing. A shout came from far away, though maybe it was right beside her.
Kenzie peeked. The young guard lay crumpled in front of her. The one who’d held her was down behind her, alive, trying to stem the blood flowing from a chest wound. More blood stained his face from the nose she’d broken when she’d head-butted him.
His weapon was loose a few inches from his hand. She snatched it, then shifted so her back was to the wall.
Where was Jaz?
She stared at the spot where he’d stood a moment before.
He couldn’t have been shot. She’d just gotten him back. Please don’t let him be dead.
A touch to her shoulder had her twisting, lifting her weapon—
The man gripped the gun barrel and shifted her aim away from himself. “I’m with your father and Jaz.” She could barely hear him over the ringing in her ears. “Name’s Duck.”
Duck? She must have misheard. Or maybe not. Why should anything make sense at this point?
His face was smeared with black. He wore a wetsuit, just like Jaz.
He released his grip on her gun and aimed his own down the corridor away from the staircase toward what looked like a dead end but wasn’t.
This man knew his ships, knew there was a staircase that way that led to the helm. “We have to go.”
“Final warning!” Dad’s voice boomed through the sound cannon, muffled as if she were under water. “Surrender now.”
Vibration started beneath her feet—the engines roaring to life. Henry had no intention of surrendering.
Kenzie stood, legs shaking. Everything was shaking.
She focused on the chaos, trying to make sense of it. Where was Jaz?
The guard who’d held her wasn’t moving anymore.
Magras knelt a few feet away, hands raised, head down like he was terrified to look up.
The young guard, who’d been still before, now shifted.
She nearly gasped, then realized someone was shoving aside his body. Someone was under him.
Jaz.
He stood. Chest heaving, beautifully, wonderfully alive. He turned and seemed to have the same thought when he met her eyes.
Duck said something about a hostage, probably into a radio, then added something about a hostile.
Kenzie barely heard him. She was already moving, skirting the cowering man and the body of the guard—alive or dead, she didn’t know and couldn’t bring herself to care.
She reached Jaz and fell into his arms.
He caught her and pulled her against his chest. “Thank God. Thank God.” His voice broke on the words spoken into her ears. “I thought I’d lost you. I thought…”
“I’m okay.” Somehow, she was. She breathed him in—salt and safety. “He told me you were dead.”
“He’s a liar. When we heard you were gone…” He backed up to look at her, his eyes narrowing. “Are you injured? What did they do—?”
“It’s not my blood.”
“Thank God. I’m never letting you out of my sight again.”
She laughed, the sound short and shocking.
“Enough.” Duck was zip-tying Magras’s hands behind his back. “We’ll leave him here.”
“What? No!” The man had the audacity to plead with Jaz. “Henry will kill me.”
“Not my problem.” Jaz turned to Duck. “What happened to you?”
“Room wasn’t empty. An old lady pulled a knife on me.”
“Francine?” Magras asked.
Kenzie hadn’t known she was aboard. “Is she alive?”
“Had to disarm her. The chokehold took a minute. Glad you started without me.” Duck hauled Magras to his feet, tossed him in the room that’d been her prison, and locked the door.
The man who’d seemed so confident screamed for them to come back. The sound was muffled, irrelevant.
“We have to move,” Duck said.
Jaz tapped her shoulder, and she looked at him again.
“Can you walk?” he asked. “Swim?”
“I’m fine.” Her cheek throbbed, her head pounded, but she was standing. “What about Henry? Are we just leaving him here?”
“Our job is to get you off this boat,” Jaz said. “We’re not here to stop Henry, just rescue you.”
“But Dad—”
“He’s a distraction, that’s all.”
“And then what? Henry gets away?”
Behind her, Duck said, “You’re the mission.”
“I don’t care.” She shifted so she could see both of them. “I’m not letting him reach Venezuela. He’ll disappear.”
“We know who he is now,” Jaz said. “He won’t—”
“You don’t know that.” She scanned the corridor. The seam in the floor would give her access to the bilge, where she could reach the engine, but that would trap them below.
Last thing she wanted was to be trapped again.
“Come on, Kenz.” Jaz was pleading. “We have to go.”
“We can disable the engine so they’re stuck.”
“There’s no time.” Jaz looked like he was ready to throw her over his shoulder. “Please.”
“No guards coming yet.” Duck studied her through narrowed eyes. “You can do it?”
“Yeah.” She kept up the search. There had to be…
There. Beneath the stairs, the emergency panel. She opened it, found the pull cable that would activate the fire suppression system. She pulled out the pin and gripped the T-handle, then looked at the men, both watching her.
Jaz looked worried, but Duck seemed curious.
“When I pull this, they’ll know it. We’ll need to move.”
Duck spoke into his radio. “We’ll fly off the stern in thirty. Be close.”
Jaz gave her a go-ahead nod.
She pulled on the handle. The cable stretched, but she couldn’t get it to engage. “Help me.” She stepped aside.
Jaz took her place and yanked.
Instantly, the engines powered down, the vibration fading. The overhead lights flickered off, replaced by the emergency lights. A heavy clunk below their feet. She couldn’t hear the whoosh of the fire suppression gas filling the engine compartment, but it was happening.
An alarm sounded.
Jaz pulled her around to the staircase, then started up in front of her, gun out. Kenzie went next, Duck behind her.
They reached the salon. Jaz popped his arm out, then pulled it back as gunshots volleyed toward them.
Duck grabbed her arm, then pointed down the stairs, speaking into her ear. “Shoot anybody who comes.”
She let him pass, checked the weapon she’d taken from the guard, and aimed down at the corridor they’d just left.
The shooting above stopped. She felt movement behind her and glanced back as Duck dove low, shoulder on the salon floor, and fired. Two shots.
Movement from the corridor below. All she could see past the wall in front of her was a leg and a foot.
She aimed at a foot and fired. The person fell back.
Jaz gripped her shoulder, and she glanced his way. “Be ready to shoot,” he said. “When it’s clear, run and jump off the stern.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be right behind you.”
“You’d better be.” She climbed to the top, took a breath, then peeked at the luxurious room where Magras had enjoyed his drink just a few hours before.
Now it held two bodies.
She bolted through the space, launched herself off the back of the boat, and plunged into the sea.