Chapter Twenty-Three
One Mile South of Cabrera Island
Mallorca, Spain
Verena’s eyes followed the pistol as it skittered across the teak deck.
Shit. I’m dead.
She raised her gaze, bracing for the muzzle of a pistol pointed at her head, but the woman wasn’t aiming at her.
Her gun was pointed at the wounded Guardia Civil officer slumped into one of the cockpit chairs.
The woman pulled the trigger, and the back of the officer’s head blew open, spattering the deck with brain, blood, and bones.
“How many more?” the woman asked.
Verena hesitated. Was she a friend or foe? If the woman had meant to kill her, she’d already be dead.
“Two more,” she replied. “They’re inside, searching the cabin. One has a sidearm and a compact submachine gun, the other only a pistol.”
The woman nodded. “Wait here. I shouldn’t be long.”
Mia ejected her partially spent magazine and inserted a fresh one.
She then hunched to pick up the pistol she had kicked away and tossed it overboard.
She did the same with the female officer’s shotgun and pistol.
She didn’t think Burton would attempt anything, but there was no sense leaving potential threats lying around, was there?
He’s a fucking coward, she thought, glancing at the Veloce’s skipper.
Burton hadn’t moved. He stood rooted to the deck, wide-eyed, with his hands still raised. He hadn’t gone for a weapon when he had the chance.
Pathetic.
She was about to step past him, then changed her mind, disgusted by his lack of action. She shot him point blank in the side of his head, her round entering through his left ear, and he collapsed without a sound.
Twenty-one.
Mia looked at Verena. She hadn’t flinched.
Good.
She didn’t look overly concerned either.
Maybe she, too, had realized that Burton was a useless tool.
Mia stepped over the body and entered the interior of the Azimut S8.
The ambient lighting coming from the ceiling gave just enough glow for her to navigate the space without bumping into furniture, allowing her to see that the interior was minimalist and modern, with lots of high-gloss surfaces. She cleared the main salon in seconds.
Pistol raised in front of her, Mia took the companionway down to the galley. The space tightened, and all her senses were on high alert. She paused at the bottom step. She’d heard something coming from the master stateroom.
Mia scanned the hallway. Several closed doors stood between her and the master cabin. Not great.
Tactically, it wouldn’t be optimal for her to walk past these doors without clearing the rooms first.
Gunfire erupted close by. She flinched, the sound jolting her.
She hadn’t anticipated it, especially not coming from behind her.
Then, an officer—a man of medium height with a thick black mustache—dashed out from the master stateroom just as a man wearing pink pajamas stepped out from another stateroom.
The chef.
Mia locked eyes with the cop for a fraction of a second. It was clear that the man was as surprised as she was. He had a submachine gun—an MP5—in his hands. Mia’s pistol was already up, but the chef was in her line of fire.
She fired, squeezing the trigger four times.
The first round hit the chef in the forehead.
The second struck the officer in the abdomen just below his bulletproof vest. The third and fourth rounds slammed into his body armor as he ran toward her but weren’t enough to fully stop his momentum.
He crashed into her before she could fire again, driving her hard against the bulkhead.
Even though she had wounded the man, he was still much stronger than she was.
Mia heard one more gunshot, but she had to finish off the threat in front of her before dealing with anything else.
She grappled with the man, but somehow the blood oozing from his abdomen had slicked her hands, allowing him to wrestle her pistol away.
He tried to drive her to the floor, but Mia twisted out of his clinch.
She brought her knee up, connecting with his groin.
He grunted, but didn’t go down. He swung wildly, got lucky, his fist catching her on the chin.
Her vision momentarily spotted, but she managed to keep her footing.
Another punch came, but slower this time.
She ducked, drove her shoulder into his gut, and heard him gasp in pain as she pushed him against the opposite wall.
Her hand found the hilt of her knife, and she drew the blade.
She brought the knife up and stabbed her opponent several times under his rib cage, right below his body armor.
The officer let go of her, and stumbled back, dumbfounded. He fell on his ass, his hands clutching his wounds.
Breathing hard, Mia picked up her pistol and fired twice into the man’s face.
“Twenty-two,” she murmured to herself, making the conscious decision not to count the chef.
She turned around and climbed the stairs back to the main deck.
As soon as she reached the main salon, she saw Verena with a pistol in her hands.
As Mia got closer, she spotted the last Guardia Civil officer.
He lay on his back, blood pooling beneath him on the teak deck.
Standing a few feet behind the dead officer was Paul Hobb, his eyes wide and fixed on Verena’s gun, which was now pointed at Mia.
“He had a pistol on him,” Verena said, nodding toward Burton’s corpse.
Mia shrugged. “Then he was an even bigger coward than I thought.”
“Are you here for me, or for the journalist?” Verena asked.
“I’m here to clean up your mess, Verena. That’s all.”
“My mess?”
Mia nodded. “It is what it is.”
Verena studied her, then said. “Today could have been better . . . so what now?”
“It’s really up to you,” Mia replied truthfully. “I won’t kill you, if that’s what you’re asking. Not after what I saw tonight. But then, how can you be sure I’m telling the truth?”
“It’s as if you want me to shoot you.”
Mia smiled, then shook her head. “I don’t. I believe in what I’m doing. And there’s still so, so much to do. Besides, I need to be in Budapest in three days. I’m playing at a big-venue concert.”
Verena gave her a quizzical look. “What?”
“I’m a professional piano player, Verena. Name’s Mia Hernandez.”
Her explanation didn’t remove the puzzled expression from Verena’s face. On the contrary, the woman was now looking at her as if she was batshit crazy.
Mia shrugged, then said, “What I can tell you is that if you kill me, you’ll be dead before the end of the week.”
“Yeah? How’s that?”
“Because there are others like me. We’re everywhere, Verena. Everywhere.”
Verena didn’t know what the hell to think anymore.
Three minutes ago, she’d been a breath away from being handcuffed and hauled off by the Guardia Civil.
Now four cops were sprawled dead across the deck of the Veloce.
At least one more had dropped on the patrol boat.
And the woman who had executed four of them, and Burton, stood calmly in front of her, a suppressed pistol still in her hand.
A concert pianist, she’d claimed. Right.
Verena thought about squeezing the trigger, but her gut told her otherwise.
The woman had warned her she’d be dead within a week if she did so.
And Verena believed her. There was something terrifyingly competent about Mia Hernandez, but there was something else too.
She just couldn’t quite put a finger on what it was. Yet.
She looked the woman over. She was much smaller than Verena.
Her chestnut hair was slicked to her face with sweat and blood.
Still, her golden skin shimmered in the moonlight.
But it was her eyes that stopped Verena.
Mia’s eyes weren’t cold. Not dead. In fact, they were surprisingly kind.
Too kind for someone who’d just killed five people without blinking.
So why am I not dead?
Could Mia have been sent by Verena’s employer to rescue her and her team?
Unlikely. The way Mia had offed Burton said otherwise.
And there was the fact that her employer’s number was no longer in service.
No, Mia Hernandez wasn’t a rescuer. She was damage control. She’d said as much herself, hadn’t she?
“Ticktock, Verena,” Mia said. “Whatever you’re going to do, decide now. I’m four seconds away from making the call for you.”
Four. Not three. Thankfully.
Verena lowered her gun, half expecting the other woman to shoot her. But she didn’t.
“Throw that pistol overboard,” Mia said.
Verena tossed it over the gunwale on the starboard side. Then, taking Verena by surprise, Mia handed her suppressed pistol to her.
“Now, kill that reporter,” Mia said, her eyes flicking toward the stern where Hobb was on his knees.
She followed Mia’s gaze. The reporter was tied up, his mouth duct-taped, his eyes wide with panic. He was making noise, garbled pleas behind the tape, and tears were running down his cheeks.
She didn’t look at Mia. She didn’t need to. She’s testing me.
It wasn’t lost on her that she’d been fired from the LAPD for having killed the two men who had executed her partner.
And now, here she was with real blood on her hands.
Still, killing the Guardia Civil officer might have been self-defense, depending on how one chose to frame it, but this?
What Mia was asking of her was something else entirely.
This was cold-blooded murder. She’d already crossed a line when she’d accepted the position to lead Blackstone Security.
Since then, she’d done things she never imagined she’d be capable of.
Illegal things. Morally gray things. She’d been on a slippery slope for a while now.
She knew that. But since the operation in Manchester, it hadn’t just been steep, it had become slick with oil.
She’d ordered people killed, hadn’t she?
Was there really such a difference between giving the order and doing it herself?
Maybe. Maybe not. But I’m in too deep now. I passed the last exit ramp a long time ago.
Her finger hovered on the trigger, and she closed her eyes, but only for a second. Then she opened them, leveled the pistol, and fired, sending four rounds into Hobb’s chest. The reporter slumped to the side.
Three would have done it, she knew, but three felt careless. Four was safer. Cleaner. Five would have been too much.
“Good,” Mia said, as if Verena had just passed a field test. “Give me my pistol back.”
Verena did.
“Now, get the Veloce ready to move. I’ll scuttle the patrol boat, then we go. I want to be out of here in ten.”
Verena nodded, her ears still ringing from the shots she’d fired at the Guardia Civil officer. “Where are we headed?” she asked.
“A few miles off of Ibiza. That’s where we’ll sink Veloce. Once that’s done, I’d like to pay a visit to someone in Valencia.”
Verena almost asked why. But she already knew. They were going after the yacht broker. The one she’d used to charter the Azimut.
“Ten minutes. Understood,” Verena said. “I’ll be ready.”