by Matthew Rief
“You’re right, Ben,” I said, seeing his expression shift from pissed off to confused. “I’m not going to kill you.” I paused for a moment and glanced over my right shoulder, looking out towards the dark ocean beside us. “But they might.”
His eyes grew wide as he kept his gaze directed towards the sand around our feet. For the first time, he realized that the other handcuff had a thin line tied to it. Following the line with his eyes, he saw that it disappeared into the dark ocean.
A pair of outboard motors suddenly roared to life far in the distance. Ben looked up at me for only a moment, his face filled with rage, then the high-strength fishing line went taut. He grunted an incoherent chaos of curses as his body jerked horizontally. He slid helplessly along the sand for a brief second before splashing into the surf. In a blur of splashes and screams, he vanished into the night. After a few seconds, his sounds and the sounds of the distant boat were silenced. All that was left behind was a trail in the sand leading from our table to the ocean.
The other patrons were in shock. A few of them spoke, wondering what was going on, but most just sat quiet, stunned and in disbelief.
I grabbed my wallet, slid out five hundred-dollar bills, and set them on the table next to the gash Ben’s blade had cut in the tablecloth. Then, with my bag in my right hand and the bottle of champagne in my left, I walked casually down the beach, heading in the opposite direction of where I’d come from. Just a few hundred feet beyond the restaurant, I came to a secluded section of beach that jutted inland to form a cove.
Just down the beach, I spotted a boat with its bow carved slightly into the sand. The water was calm, and the black-and-white-hulled Monterey 270 CR barely rocked at all. Angelina sat up on the bow with one leg hanging over, toes touching the water, and the other curled up on the deck. She was wearing a pink dress and had a local white flower over her right ear. I smiled as I stepped towards her and noticed three guys tied up to a palm tree down the beach. Ben’s security. I smiled even bigger.
“That was crazy,” she said, setting a pair of binoculars on the deck beside her.
When I reached the boat we’d rented on the mainland earlier that day, I set my black leather bag in the cockpit and handed Ange the bottle of Dom Perignon. Grabbing hold of the railing, I lifted myself up and pressed my lips to hers. After a few seconds, I dropped back down onto the sand.
She smiled. “From here, it looked like an angry titan decided to use him as a skipping rock. Be honest, how close were you to wringing his neck?”
I pressed my hands into the bow, dug my feet into the sand, and pushed the boat out towards the water. Then, to avoid getting my shoes wet, I pulled myself up over the railing at the last second and plopped down beside Ange.
“I was tempted, but I’m confident that Felix and his boys will take care of him.”
I rose to my feet and offered my right hand to her. After I pulled her up beside me, we stepped down into the cockpit and I started up the Volvo 425-hp engine. As I pulled us out of the cove, Ange stepped out from the galley, holding a glass of wine in each hand. She squeezed onto the pilot’s seat alongside me, and I wrapped an arm around her.
“Let’s go home,” I said, kissing her on the cheek.
I took a few sips, savoring the flavor, then quickly brought us up on plane, cruising out into the open water of the Chumphon Archipelago. The engine roared as we skirted across the dark water. Behind us, the lights indicating Koh Samui dimmed as the distance between us grew, and the island soon disappeared altogether.
THE END
Logan Dodge Adventures
Gold in the Keys
(Florida Keys Adventure Series Book 1)
Hunted in the Keys
(Florida Keys Adventure Series Book 2)
Revenge in the Keys
(Florida Keys Adventure Series Book 3)
Betrayed in the Keys
(Florida Keys Adventure Series Book 4)
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About the Author
Matthew has a deep-rooted love for adventure and the ocean. He loves traveling, diving, rock climbing and writing adventure novels. Though he grew up in the Pacific Northwest, he currently lives in Virginia Beach with his wife, Jenny.