Chapter Twenty-Two
Caymen
I surfaced with a gasp, my arms fanning out over the water to keep me afloat.
All I could think was… I had to get to Noa.
She had no idea.
The five minutes had to be up.
She was too stubborn not to come looking for me. And she wouldn’t find me. She would find him. This bastard who’d been trying to kill her for the past several days. The reason she had a bullet wound in her shoulder and a foot in a boot.
He couldn’t get her.
All I could hope was she wasn’t watching the clock, that she was still safely locked in the room. And that by the time the guy could try to break in, I could stop him.
Lord knows I was pissed enough to bash his head in as I swam around the boat to the swim deck where the ladder was located.
It was as I was hauling my drenched self—bandaged feet slipping on the fucking ladder rungs—that I saw her. Them. But her. Thrown over the motherfucker’s shoulder, her arms and legs bound.
She was still.
Not writhing, fighting, yelling, raising hell like I knew my girl would do if she was capable.
Was she unconscious?
When I called out, there was nothing.
Fuck.
Fuck .
I hauled myself onto the deck, going as fast as my damn wet feet would allow.
Then I watched as that bastard just… dropped her. Like a bag of trash.
I saw fucking red.
It was all fists then. Hitting, being struck. I tasted blood, felt the burn as my lip split.
My motivation was higher.
But the asshole had a plan.
And one second I was fighting.
The next, I was on my back in the fucking kitchen.
The door slammed.
Before I could get to my feet, I saw him tightening down another set of flex cuffs, securing the handle to that fucking little hook beside it.
There was no other exit.
I flew to my feet, jiggling the door, ramming it. All the while watching that man lean down, grab Noa, and sling her over his shoulder again.
I could see her face more clearly now.
Unharmed, as far as I could tell. But she was conscious, not knocked out. That glassy, unseeing look in her eyes, though, told me everything I needed to know. She wasn’t fighting back because she was drugged.
He was going to get down onto that boat of his… and disappear with her.
A sound escaped me then that was half growl, half keening.
I ran back to the bedroom, finding my phone, and bringing it up to my ear. There was almost no chance that even if any of the guys were in Miami, that they were close enough to cut off that boat making it to shore.
But I needed help.
I dialed my brother and listened to the ring as I charged at and rammed the door.
Once. Twice.
“What the fuck is that?” Dixon asked, sounding like I’d woken him up.
“He took Noa.”
“What? Who?”
“The guy. The one who’s been chasing us. He took Noa.”
“Are you still on the boat?”
“I am, but she isn’t. He’s taking her off now. Get everyone the fuck up.”
I hung up as panic tightened around my throat, making it hard to breathe, let alone talk.
I ran back further, then went at the door full-force.
I saw a crack in the doorway, the salty air sneaking in.
The flex ties were loosening. I just had to keep going until they broke completely… or there was enough room for me to stick my hand out and snip them with scissors or saw them with a knife.
My phone rang in my pocket.
I let it.
They could figure out their next moves without me. I needed to focus on mine.
It took three more slams to get just a three-inch gap.
I ran back to the kitchen, grabbing the most serrated knife, and went back to saw at the zip cuff until, with a dramatic fling of the door, they gave.
I ran toward the stern where I knew the tender (the small boat for fun or, yeah, quick escapes) was located.
If I ever lived to tell this tale, I would leave out the part where I slipped on the wet deck (and my wetter bandages) and landed hard on my ass.
I got myself up and made my way to the control panel I likely would have missed, if not for the note telling us how to use the spare boat.
I stabbed my finger into the button for the hydraulic platform, feeling myself dropping down toward the water.
It couldn’t have taken more than twenty or thirty seconds. It felt like a fucking lifetime. Because I didn’t even hear the engine of the guy’s escape boat. Could he be on shore already? Loading Noa into a car? On his way to a second location?
My stomach seized just as, finally, the platform stopped moving.
The tender was strapped down hard, and it was frustrating work to free the front and back free, my hands feeling fat, slow, useless.
Eventually, they released and I climbed onto the small boat, so small I worried my weight might flip it. But it stayed steady as I found the ignition and stabbed my finger into it.
Sucking in a deep breath, I put my hand on the throttle, easing it forward because the last thing I needed was to go too fast and end up back in the water, this time without a fucking escape boat.
I put one hand on the wheel as I leaned off the throttle, turning the boat toward the lights on the shore.
But as soon as I turned, I fucking gunned it.
There was no time to be careful, to let myself learn. I had to get to her as quickly as possible. Especially if she was incapable of fighting for herself.
The drugs wouldn’t last forever , I reminded myself. At some point, she would be in her right mind again. And I knew my girl. She would fight tooth and nail to get free. Hell, she probably knew some super-secret trick to getting out of flex cuffs that I knew nothing about.
I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of her rage when she realized she’d been drugged, cuffed, and carted off like a sack of flour.
Actually, I kind of hoped I was there for that moment. I’d hold the fucker’s arms while she went apeshit on him. Then I’d ask for the pleasure of ending the bastard myself.
With those thoughts in my head, the panic eased back as the tender cut through the dark water, taking me closer and closer to the shore with each passing moment.
Until, finally, the boat was shooting up onto the sand, spitting it everywhere as I laid off the throttle and cut the engine.
I scanned the beach, seeing the other abandoned motorboat sitting there.
I wanted to stop, to look at it for clues, to make sure there was no blood. But there was no time.
I tore up the beach, heart pounding, lungs burning, gut churning.
I still had a sliver of hope in my heart as I made my way to the parking lot.
There were several parked cars. But there wasn’t anyone in sight. And definitely no tall asshole tucking a bound woman into his trunk.
“Goddamnit!” I screamed.
My phone rang again in my pocket, and I reached for it blindly.
“He got away with her. I got to shore. But he’s gone. He took her.”
“Fuck. Okay.” It was Huck’s voice in my ear. “I know it’s pointless to tell you not to panic, but you gotta keep your wits about you. Your brother and Velle are on their way to you. Right now. And probably Zayn.”
“My friend.”
“He’s here. I gotta go.”
Turning, I saw Zayn. He was still in a fucking suit in the middle of the night. Did he sleep in them?
Beside him stood the silent, assessing Daniyal. But as soon as he saw me, the man nodded, then made his way to the beach.
“Don’t worry about him, my friend. He knows what he’s doing. Come with me,” he said, putting an arm around my shoulders. “And tell me what happened. What you saw.”
“We were sleeping and something woke me up, but I couldn’t figure out what. So I went to check it out while Noa stayed in the room.”
“You were infiltrated.”
It was a ridiculous word.
But fitting.
“Yes.”
“Did you see him?”
“I fought him twice, so yes.”
“I will have Levee’s lovely wife come so you can have her work up a sketch. We will get further with that than anything else, I believe.”
“This lot has to have cameras. The street out there too.”
“Yes, I’m sure someone in your club is already having that hacker friend of yours working on it. But I think you and I both know that it is unlikely if he was able to track you down twice, then neutralize you, and that lovely hellion of yours, he likely doesn’t have his real plates on his vehicle.”
That was true.
But maybe even a direction could help.
With that, he reached for his phone, waited, then greeted Jade like an old friend. Which, I assumed, she was. He’d commissioned increasingly absurd art pieces from her since they’d first met. One of them was of Daniyal, I think, riding a unicorn with a cowboy hat on.
After a moment, he handed me the phone and Jade got to work asking me questions. She was too far away to waste time driving to me, so she was going to send updates along the way for me to help her tweak.
It wasn’t long before my brother and Velle pulled up on their bikes.
“Are you coming with us?” Dixon asked, looking at Zayn. “We’re all going to go to Arty’s so we can move the second we have something to go on.”
“No, no, he had dark hair,” I told Jade. “Black, I think. Eyes too. Tan but white, as far as I could tell.”
“Pardon me,” Zayn said when his pocket started ringing.
A second phone. Of course someone like Zayn had two phones.
“Yes, Daniyal? I see. Yes. Good work.” He hung up and turned to us.
“Daniyal took the tender back to the boat. He said he figured out how you were found twice already. There was a tracker in Noa’s handbag. ”
“A tracker?” I asked, spine stiffening, a slice of ice sliding down it.
Because whoever this was, he would have had close contact with her if he got a tracker in her purse. Right? Was it an old client? A friend?
Zayn watched me then reached out, patting my shoulder.
“Come. I’ll drive you to Arty’s.”
I was helpless but to follow.
But to feel my heart sinking with each rotation of the tires.
Noa was out there.
Drugged.
Alone.
With someone who’d been tracking her for fuck-knew how long.
But why?
And who?