Chapter 40
Gabby blinked herself into consciousness a while later.
There was no dancing or music, no chatter of partygoers or clinking of glasses.
The sun was fully down, and a cool wind raised gooseflesh on her bare arms. When she tried to swipe a hair out of her face, she found her hands were bound behind her back.
So much for staying out of trouble before Valentina arrived.
Markus was next to her, his solid weight pressed into hers, but not in the sweet way she craved. He was dead weight.
“Markus,” she whispered. When he mumbled something unintelligible, relief shot through her veins. At least he was alive.
Phil, reeking of one of Jasmine’s colognes, was on the other side, his face dropped to his chest. Everything was foggy.
The three of them were sitting ducks. She could feel the knife and taser still strapped to her legs, but she had no way to get to them. A moment later, Markus snapped awake. “Damn it,” he muttered. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Again?”
“It wasn’t me this time,” Gabby said.
He gave her a withering look. “I wish it were.”
From across the deck, someone said in a marked Australian accent, “I didn’t think you two would be so kinky. It’s always the ones you don’t suspect.”
Damn it. Gabby had offered the immunity deal to the wrong person.
She turned her head to see the captain’s chair slowly spin around to reveal Jasmine.
The flowy cover-up was gone, and she’d changed into a jumpsuit.
As the chair spun, she recrossed her long legs like it was a choreographed move and casually rested her arms at her side.
She had on the sailor’s hat that Justin had brought for Gabby.
Fuck. Gabby felt like smacking herself in the forehead, like after you walk out of a test and realize you picked the wrong answer. But so much worse.
“I like your ponytail,” Gabby said. “I’ve never seen your hair up.” It really did look good.
“Thank you,” Jasmine said. “I don’t like to risk breakage unless the situation warrants.”
Murder warranted an updo. Now that was a fashion tip.
“I’m guessing your husband wasn’t funding Inner-G selling gossip.
” This woman was not along for the ride.
She’d bought the boat with misappropriated funds from North Korea, and she’d packed a jumpsuit for hostage-taking.
Right now, Gabby’s only hope was that Jasmine had to pee soon.
Jumpsuits were cute until you had to get fully naked to take a leak.
“Took you long enough to figure it out, super spy.” Jasmine flipped her murder pony. “Gabby Greene, I know who you are. You’re not exactly a genius at this.”
“Where’s everyone else?”
“Don’t worry, they’re all enjoying an absolutely delicious dinner, none the wiser about this situation. They think you canceled the ceremony and are having a couple’s spat on the upper deck.”
Phew. That was a relief.
“I don’t think they’ll even notice they’re locked in until well after dessert. No one is going to come looking for you two.” She looked at Markus and said, “Pro tip: Try not to pick such a dumb cover next time, Mr. Fidget Spinner.”
Gabby whispered. “Sorry. My bad.”
Jasmine cocked her head to the side. “What’s with Phil, though? Who does he work for? Because his cover is working.”
Gabby rolled her eyes.
“Just kidding. I know he’s your ex. And he’s not getting up anytime soon. He drank all the champagne.”
This was her life. You have kids with someone, and they’re coming along for the ride, no matter what.
They’ll show up at work, on vacation, and eventually be taken hostage with you.
You can’t just cut someone out of the photos and be done with them.
If she and Markus made it out of this and stayed together, they were always going to have an entourage.
Valentina, though—Gabby couldn’t complain. She only hoped Valentina hurried up.
Markus said, “A team of agents is on the way. You still have a chance to de-escalate this.”
Jasmine tsk-tsked him. “Stop bluffing. It doesn’t suit you.” She turned to Gabby and said, “Guess what? Today, we’re going to play Sophie’s Choice. You get to pick one man.”
That was easy. Markus. “I already did. The divorce is final.”
Jasmine laughed. “I was kidding, I’ll have to tell Phil how quickly you were ready to throw him to the sharks, though.”
“Is this about the article Amanda wrote?”
Surprise flashed across Jasmine’s face. “How’d you know about that?” She narrowed her eyes. “Naomi?”
“No.”
“You can tell the truth. Naomi chose her sides when she didn’t snap up your stupid immunity deal. She’s dead to me.”
Yikes. “Cut her some slack, Jasmine. It kind of makes sense that she’d want to think about it before she abandoned everything.” Why was Gabby arguing for them to stay together?
“Doesn’t matter now. But yeah, Amanda came out here a couple times.
I thought she was joining, and then last month, I got that trash in my inbox.
She was giving me the chance to comment before she published.
The woman was a snake in the grass.” Before Gabby said anything, Jasmine said, “I commented all right.”
“Did you kill her?” Markus asked.
Jasmine cocked her head. “Amanda wrote that ‘Inner-G has done everything but murder.’ It was practically a dare.” She stood up from the captain’s chair, walked to the railing, and gazed out over the water. It was a starless night. Fog was rolling in and undoubtedly frizzing Gabby’s hair.
“What did she expect me to do, go to prison?” Jasmine said, still looking out to sea. “It isn’t hard to hire a hitman if you have enough money.”
This was the problem with starting a Substack instead of working for a bigger newspaper. No one probably even knew she’d sent the article to Inner-G for comment. No one else knew the article existed.
“How does Sheridan come into it?”
Jasmine laughed, and the wind whipped her hair. It whipped Gabby’s hair too, right into her face, but her hands were tied, so she couldn’t fix it. Jasmine kept giving her evil villain speech, while Gabby could barely see through a curtain of red.
“I really need to get going, but someone needs to appreciate this with me, and now that I’ve met your ex, I think you’re just the woman.”
“Was she really a gift?” Gabby asked.
“Yes, which was bonkers because I wasn’t even a fan. That dummy just doesn’t pay attention. I mean, I was freaking out about her when G brought her down here, but only because I’d murdered Amanda and thought she might know something.”
Gabby laughed. “I don’t think she knows.”
“Well, now I know that.” With a flippant smile, she said, “Hindsight.”
Gabby scanned the horizon for any sign of Valentina. Now would be a great time for a rescue.
“So basically, if my man hadn’t given me the most epically stupid gift of all time, we wouldn’t be in this situation.” Jasmine shook her head.
There was an art to gift-giving. Besides having good taste, you had to know the person, you had to have history with them. You had to pay attention. Sometimes, no gift was better than a bad one.
The taser on her leg—now that had been a great gift, if only she could get to it.
“I didn’t want a reading,” Jasmine said. “Especially from her. Sheridan’s really not much of a psychic. I got all worked up for nothing about her.”
“She’s just stressed. It’s hard to make a prediction when you’re stressed.” Plus, could you really make predictions about yourself? Gabby still believed in Sheridan and her uncommon sense.
“And the president?”
“What about him?” Jasmine said as if she’d never given the man a second thought.
Gabby would have face-palmed if her hands weren’t tied behind her back.
After all that, the president had nothing to do with it.
Amanda’s murder and attacking Sheridan—it was all about protecting Inner-G’s reputation.
One spot-on Substack piece had caused all the trouble. How many followers had Amanda even had?
“You know, Jasmine, you can’t blame G completely. If you’d talked to him, he would have known—”
“Would have known that I had spent all the money he wanted for that stupid movie, and I’d killed a reporter to protect myself?” She shook her head.
“What are you going to do, kill us all? There are a lot of people on this boat, Jasmine.” Markus looked at her seriously.
She didn’t respond.
“And how are you going to explain this?” Markus asked. “Have you thought of that?”
“Yep. I think it’s plausible that you two undercover idiots and Genesis get in a big fight after he realizes who you are. There’s a struggle, the boat catches on fire, somehow, and… I’m the only survivor.”
“It seems like there could be a simpler solution than lighting a brand-new yacht on fire and burning us all alive.” As Gabby said this, she recalled her conversation with Phil.
If Jasmine sank the ship, she could collect the insurance and get out from under her North Korean debt.
It sounded crazy, but that hadn’t stopped anyone yet this week.
And thanks to Gabby, Jasmine might just get away with it. Last time Gabby had talked to Valentina, she’d told her that Naomi and Jasmine needed immunity and that Genesis was behind everything.
“Jasmine!” A yell came from the other side of the boat. It was Genesis.
She muttered a swear word and growled before composing herself. “Yes, baby,” Jasmine said. “I’m coming.”
For a split second, it seemed like G was in on it, until Jasmine muttered, “I should have given his three-hundred-pound ass more drugs.”
She pointed a finger at them like a mom telling them to behave themselves. “Don’t get into trouble. I’ll be right back.”
As her footsteps faded, Markus whispered, “We’re about to do that wedding game where the groom gets up under the bride’s dress and rips off the garter with his teeth.”
“I’ve always hated that one,” Gabby said.
“Can you help me? Move in this direction. I don’t have free hands here.”
From the other side of the boat, Jasmine’s voice was rising in pitch.
Gabby spread her legs and tented her dress as best she could. Markus wormed his way under the full white skirt until he got to the thigh holster.
“This would have been nice yesterday,” Gabby joked. She shivered at the touch of his lips along the tender skin of her thigh. He planted a kiss in response. “Later, baby,” he said.
“Promise?”
“Mm-hmm. Let’s just take care of the bad guys first.” Apparently, there was nothing like the threat of death to show two people what matters more in life.
From across the boat, they heard Jasmine and Genesis still talking.
“Hurry,” Gabby gasped.
“You can’t hurry me when I’m between your legs.” His voice was muffled because he was so busy doing other things, but she understood him well enough.
“Ohmygod, Markus. The knife is on the outside of my thigh!”
“Oops, yeah. Just going on muscle memory down here.”
Gabby maneuvered one leg over his head, and he gripped the handle between his teeth and managed to get it out of the holster. He backed out from under her skirt with a knife between his teeth.
“Here. Come over here, and I’ll try to saw through those cords.”
Before Markus had finished, Jasmine yelled, “I want a divorce, G!”
A scream tore through the night, followed by the unmistakable sound of a gunshot.