Chapter 6 #2
“Right, okay.” She’d smiled.
He’d smiled back. “Where does she live?”
“She’s down in Florida. Has a little house on the east coast, in a place called Melbourne Beach.”
She’d looked away again. She’d known she should schedule a trip to visit Nim after they got all this sorted. About that— “Have you heard from your team yet?”
“Yeah. I’m supposed to meet them at a coffee shop tomorrow. I’ll bring Luis down to the shop and they’ll pick us up there.” He’d raised an eyebrow. “In broad daylight, so no funny business.”
Aw. “You can’t think I’m gonna let you take him.”
He’d held up a hand. “No, of course not. You come with us. You get all the information you need out of him, and then he’s ours.”
“Or you get the information you need out of him, and he’s all mine .” She hadn’t smiled as she’d met his eyes.
“I should have added stubborn,” he’d said quietly.
She’d stared at him and he’d stared back, and suddenly the kiss they’d shared in the alleyway just a few hours earlier had risen between them.
She could still taste his lips on hers and feel his body closing in as he’d pressed his hands on the wall behind her.
It had been a quick kiss, of course—just to hide them from the police that had walked by.
But he’d put enough into it to make it look real, and for that moment, maybe. .. maybe she’d wanted it to be.
Which was super crazy—then and later and especially now, as she shook the memories away in the galley of the yacht.
Darkness bathed the kitchen, the only sound the motor’s hum as the yacht churned through the waters. At the top of the stairs, she eased the galley door open.
Two guards sat in the salon, their guns trained on the captives. Declan sat on one of the sofas next to Austen. He held a towel to his nose and sported a fairly brutal black eye. Yeah, well, that’s what he got for being a terrorist.
Okay, maybe that wasn’t fair. Or even accurate. But she found it hard to echo compassion for the man, given his evil global plot. Still, nobody else deserved to suffer, especially since the Russians wouldn’t be here if they weren’t tracking Emberly. So... it was now or never.
She sneaked back down the stairs to the front of the galley.
The forward stairs wound up from the galley all the way to the bridge, with an exit to the bow lounge area.
Slinging the bag with the flares over her shoulder and hanging the Sig Sauer across her body, she eased up the stairs and opened the door to the bow. She crept out into the lounge area.
The area at the very front, beyond the bow lounge, held all the buoys and bumpers and ropes and coils needed to dock the ship.
She crouched by the built-in sofa, took off the bag, and pulled out a flare gun. She loaded a flare and was about to fire when a hand snaked around her mouth. Another hand grabbed the gun and then yanked her hard against a sopping-wet body.
“Stop.” A voice low in her ear.
She jerked, elbowed him hard in the ribs. He released her, and she turned.
Even in the dim light as the moon rose over the ocean and the stars prickled overhead, she could make him out. A very wet, very fierce, very grim-faced Steinbeck. And then he smiled. “I thought that was you.”
The smile had the effect of the flare gun, a spark, and light exploding through her entire body. What? Aw, no, no!
“Shoot,” she said. “I thought you didn’t see me.”
“You’re very hard to miss,” he said, his gaze raking over her and then the flare. “So what’s your plan there, Sparky?”
“Distraction, then I get into the salon, take out a couple of the Russians, and hustle everyone onto the Russians’ boat before the others can get down from the bridge.”
He made a face of approval. “Not bad. I think I could help with that, but I need a sitrep first.”
“A sitrep?” How had he even gotten back onto the boat? “How are you even here ?”
“It took me a little bit to realize that was you, but I knew wherever you were, there was trouble.”
And then he smiled again.
Stop smiling. Stop smiling ! “All right, I’ll tell you on the way.” She scrambled back up the bow, through the door, and down into the galley, Steinbeck on her tail.
“Where are we going?”
“I’m going to get you a gun.”
“I love it when you talk that way.”
Oh. She had no hope of getting off this boat unscathed.
* * *
Next time she got taken hostage, Austen was definitely not wearing a swimsuit.
Because whereas the sun had baked her skin and settled her into a comfortable, relaxing morning, the chill of the AC in the salon turned her bones brittle and sharp.
And sure, she was deflecting, because that seemed easier than focusing on the two thugs carrying lethal-looking machine guns.
Or on the fact that Declan sat beside her holding a towel to his nose, his expression brutal and not a little angry.
Hunter wore the same look, and he kept exchanging glances with Declan as if they were in cahoots, ready to overpower the thugs.
Worse, Steinbeck’s word kept circling back. “Criminal.”
Clearly, she didn’t know Declan as well as she’d thought she did. Because she’d heard the thugs talking to Declan, asking where he’d stashed something. And that’s what criminals did, right? They took things and hid them from others.
No, no , that wasn’t right. Declan was a good man. But something just didn’t feel right in her gut, and she hated to think that it was Steinbeck’s voice latching on and speaking truth.
She wasn’t going there. Right now, all Austen cared about was surviving. And maybe going to the bathroom, because it had been a couple hours now, and she’d had a lot of lemon water thanks to her dehydration yesterday.
“Um,” she said into the quiet of the room, “is there any way I could use the ladies’ room?”
One of the thugs looked over at her and frowned.
“Me too,” Elise said. She glanced at Austen and gave her a quick smile. Solidarity .
“There’s a bathroom just off the salon,” Declan said, lowering the towel from his nose. The blood had stopped. He pointed. “And another down the hall in the stateroom.”
One of the men rose, nodded toward the hallway, and pointed at Austen. “Make it fast.”
He didn’t follow her, but where was she going to go anyway?
They’d taken Captain Teresa up to the pilothouse—two of the other thugs had disappeared with her.
Another man stood by the stern, guarding their boat.
Not a big boat—seemed the same size as her trawler, but rusted and beaten by the waves.
Maybe they’d taken out some fishermen to steal it.
Darkness had found its way into her brain even as night fell around them. Blackness filled the portholes, the moon glistening on the water. She moved down the hallway, past the dining-room table, and into one of the staterooms.
Opulence touched every area of this boat. An expansive king-size bed took up most of the room, with white wooden nightstands and a giant mirror along the headboard. The room looked out onto the port side of the boat and contained a small en suite bathroom.
She used it, then stared at herself in the mirror. She didn’t look like a person who had survived at sea and was now being held hostage. But then again, she’d never seen herself as a victim.
She didn’t typically stand around looking at herself, really. She combed her fingers through her hair, braided it into a long ponytail, then stepped out of the room.
A hand covered her mouth. “Don’t scream.”
She froze, her heart caught, and a voice bent into her ear. “It’s me—Steinbeck.”
He let her go and she whirled around. “What the—” Again, he slapped his hand over her mouth and pressed a finger to his lips.
Oops. She peeled off his hand, cut her voice to a whisper. “What on earth are you doing here? I thought you left the boat.”
“I did,” he growled, his tone low.
“I’m so confused.”
“I knew something wasn’t right.” In the semidarkness, he was a warrior, dangerous and shadowy. She’d always seen him as capable. Now the sight of him, the power of his presence, shook her.
Steinbeck was here.
And sure, he was her brother. But he also looked like a protector, fierce and lethal. So this was how people felt when heroes showed up.
She let out a breath. Still, “What, do you have a radar on me? A twin radar?”
“Something like that.”
“Wait,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “Are you surveilling me? Have you attached some super-sneaky SEAL gadget to me to track my every move?”
“No,” he said, “but that’s not a bad idea.” He grabbed her elbow. “Listen, we’re going to get you off this boat. In a few minutes, you’re going to hear pops and see fire at the bow. Flares will go off. I want you to make for the trawler tied to the stern.”
“What? Who’s we ?” Her mouth gaped. “Oh no, you didn’t drag Hawkeye into this, did you?”
“Of course not. I’ll explain later. Just do what I tell you to do.”
She held up her hands. “If you get killed, I will be so angry.”
“Love you too, sis. Stay here until you hear the chaos, and then run for it.” He turned away.
She stopped him with a hand on his arm. “No, I can’t do that. They’re waiting for me back in the salon.”
He paused.
“Listen, Declan’s in there, and so is the crew. If I don’t come back, they’re going to come looking for me, and I don’t know, maybe find you or whoever your sneaky partner is.”
He studied her for a second. “Right. Okay. Get back to the salon. But when the chaos starts, get down. And when you hear the word run, you run.”
“What are you gonna do?”
He looked at her. “Just do what I say, okay?”
“Aye, aye, captain. You don’t have to get snippy.”
His eyes widened.
She held up a hand. “I will run when you say run.”
“Not me. When somebody—yes, anyone—says run?—”
“I will run! I promise.”
He put a finger to his lips again, and she nodded, then walked out of the room, through the hallway into the salon. Elise had returned too, and the two thugs stood by the window.