Now he lay shaking on the deck, still trussed in chains. The fact that he was alive meant Morgan had overpowered two burly Russians and saved his stupid ass.
A damned miracle.
She knelt next to him in a black bra and jeans, stripping off the chains, loop by loop. Once they were gone, she smiled down at him, tears of relief in her eyes.
“Hey. Look at you. You’re still alive.”
“Yeah. Go me!” he said, then coughed again. His mouth tasted like the bayou, a mix of dirty water, fish crap, and whatever else. He’d be lucky not to die from some hideous disease.
Using herself as a brace, she helped him sit up against the side of the boat. A rough blanket went around him, and despite the fact that it was hotter than hell, it felt good. Then she was back with a bottle of water. It proved impossible for her to open, so she put her T-shirt around the cap and twisted it. When she held out the bottle to him, he saw blood on her hands. Her blood.
A swig of the water helped him wash out his mouth, and he spat it to the side. Then he took a long drink, savoring every swallow. When he was done, he gestured for her to spread her hands. Over her protests, he washed away the blood and found cuts and blisters forming. It had to hurt like hell.
“Jesus, Morgan, what happened?” he asked.
“The chain,” she said. “It kept slipping.” And ripping her skin, link by link. “My T-shirt saved your life.”
No, you did. “Thank . . . you . . . ” he whispered.
She left him alone for a time, and he took cautious breaths, which determined that his ribs were not broken, probably just bruised. There was no reason for him to still be alive, other than Morgan being too stubborn to let him go to his grave.
She settled next to him now, another bottle of water in hand. He took it from her and opened it, then handed it back over. Her smile told him she appreciated the gesture.
“No boat keys. I’m guessing they’re in some gator’s belly by now,” she reported.
“My phone?”
She tugged it out of her jeans and waggled it at him. He closed his eyes and listened as she called Sanjay and was patched into Crispin. Her voice was in control, not a hint of the panic he’d heard as he struggled to take that first breath only a few minutes ago.
“Thanks. I’ll tell him.” She ended the call and set the phone next to her. “They’re sending Neil to get us. He’s out here somewhere. They’ll use the phone’s GPS to geo-locate our boat.”
“Miri still with him?” She nodded. “My sister is going to”—he coughed—“lose it when she sees us.”
“Probably.” She laid her head on his shoulder and wrapped her arms around him. “Thank you for not dying.”
He had no proper reply. She could have let him drown, let him be torn apart and stuffed in some gator’s larder. It’d be an easy tale to spin to her boss—sorry, couldn’t save the ex-con. Shit happens.
But she hadn’t. Morgan had risked her life, cut up her hands pulling him to safety. He could hear her now, whispering over and over that it would be okay. Trying to convince herself as much as him.
Looking back at his life, frame by frame, woman by woman, he’d never expected to find one like this. What he felt for her—was that love? He didn’t know. He swore he’d forgotten what that word meant.
But now as she held him as close as her own skin, and he began to wonder if that was what fate had in store for him. For them. Because he knew, no matter what it took, he would never let anyone hurt her.
Not even himself.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Once he’d rested, Alex insisted on typing out the e-mail to Vladimir Buryshkin. He forwarded the audio recording of the man’s daughter telling Alex how she had poisoned the coke and planned to kill Grigori. How she was going to get revenge against the father she hated.
“Take that, asshole,” he murmured. “You harbor a snake, you get bit.”
“Buryshkin won’t believe it. He’ll come after you instead,” Morgan said, standing now.
“Probably, but I kept my part of the bargain. Now it’s all on his head.”
“I shut off the video camera and erased the footage. I really wanted to send it to Anya, just to piss her off.”
He laughed. “I can get behind that.”
The thrum of a boat engine had her picking up the gun.
“Trouble?” Alex asked.
Morgan squinted into the distance. “No. Our ride’s here.” Then she looked down at her bra, and sighed.
“Here. Can’t have you flashing the Iceman,” he said, cautiously stripping off his T-shirt in pained motions. As she pulled it on, she noticed the red marks on his chest, deep ruts and bruises from the chain’s links.
Her stomach damn near emptied itself.
Alex was checking them out as well. “Like I said, my sister is really going to freak.”
“You want your shirt back?”
“No. I want you covered. No guy sees you in your bra but me.”
She knelt next to him. “That’s pretty Neanderthal, Parkin.”
He grinned. “That’s how I roll.” His hand touched her cheek. “Can we start over? Before what I said at the camp?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I was an asshole. I took all my anger out on you, and that wasn’t right.”
“But you were right in some ways. I didn’t tell you about who I was right up front, and Wayne wasn’t there for you when you needed him the most.”
“Neither was my wife, so there was a lot of that going around. None of that was your fault. Promise we’ll talk, once this is all over?”
Morgan gave him a tentative nod, then went to welcome their rescuers. She knew she looked pretty scary, with bruises on her arms, her hair in a tangle. She tried to push it out of her face and failed. Her back felt like it had been ripped apart and glued back together wrong. A visit to a chiropractor was in her future, along with some strong drugs. She could only imagine what Alex felt like.
The yacht was within a few feet of their boat when Miri went sailing over the side and onto the deck with an ease that said she’d spent time on the water.
“Alex?” she cried out, and took off toward her brother. As she flew by, Morgan noticed that she’d found a way to comb her hair to hide her injury. In fact, she looked good. Certainly better than her sibling at the moment.
Morgan found herself staring up at the Iceman. Knowing Neil never missed anything, she figured he’d already noted that the shirt she was wearing was too big to be hers, that she held her hands by her side as if they hurt, and that there was a large patch of dried blood on the deck near where she stood.
“Bad?” he asked.
She nodded. “Nearly lost him,” she said, keeping her voice low.
“You hurt?”
“Yeah. My head, hands, and back. Alex might have a cracked rib and water aspiration, I can’t tell.”
Neil looked at the brother-sister reunion with a concerned expression. Miri was crying while giving Alex hell for being injured.
“You and she doing okay?” Morgan asked.
“Yeah. She’s damned tough.”
Again, high praise. “Careful, she’ll get under that thick skin of yours.”
Neil shook his head, as if that were impossible, then tied off the boats so they wouldn’t drift apart. He landed lightly on the smaller boat’s deck, then noticed the video camera and tripod.
“Anya wanted a memento of the event,” Morgan said.
Neil’s eyes went stone cold. “So she’s as fucked up as they say?”
“Worse.”
With a nod, he headed for the wheelhouse.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
“Charts. Anything that our boss might find of interest.”
Leave it to an ex-SEAL to think of those kinds of things.
A short time later, Alex was on Veritas’s boat, making his way through the kitchen toward the master bedroom. His sister was by his side, Morgan following behind.
“No worse than normal,” Miri said, joking.
“A shower, some sleep, then food. In that order,” he said, his tone telling Morgan that he wasn’t going to be deterred.
“You’re not steady on your feet yet. You’ll faint and bash your head,” Miri warned.
“I’m taking a shower. You can stand in there and watch me get clean, or back off.”
“Naked brother bits are not something I want to see,” she replied, shaking her head. “Get some sleep and then maybe—”
“Morgan?” Alex called out.
She knew what he wanted, and that it would out their relationship to the others.
She sighed. “Okay, I’ll make sure you don’t kill yourself in the shower.”
Miri slowly turned toward her, eyes widening as it dawned on her what that meant.
“Yes, we’re sleeping together,” Alex said. “Which means she can keep an eye on my bits so you don’t have to.”
Miri colored. “Ah . . . okay, that’s good.” She stepped back as Morgan took over her duties.
“Thanks, Monkey,” Alex said solemnly.
She shook her head at him again, dropped a kiss on his cheek, and left them behind.
Alex looked at Morgan now. “Sorry about that. I should have asked if you were okay with that announcement.”
“You want a shower, and we’re both adults. No big deal.”
“Will it get you in trouble with your boss?”
“No. Neil won’t say a word to him. Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”
*~*~*
The shower didn’t last long because Alex’d faded fast, just as his sister had predicted. While he washed, she cleaned her hands in the bathroom sink, letting the sound of the running water muffle her curses as she scrubbed the rust and crap out of the wounds. He wanted to dress them, but she refused, insisting that Neil would take care of her.
“It’s more important that you get some rest.” Nearly dying was a tiring business. She knew that from experience.
Morgan replaced the strips on his neck and put some ointment on the places on his chest where the chain had abraded the skin. Others needed a bandage. All the while, he fussed about her injured hands and whether she should get a tetanus shot. She reassured him that she was up to date on her vaccinations, but he continued to worry.
He kept mumbling until his eyes closed and his breath leveled out. She smoothed back his hair and then kissed him gently. But for sheer luck, she’d almost lost him today.
*~*~*
Alex woke when Morgan slid into bed next to him. He was pleased to see that her hands were properly bandaged. She’d showered, and smelled of soap and shampoo. Now, after a nap, his body told him it wanted to know hers a lot better.
Situation normal. Other than the fact that he’d damned near drowned and his ribs ached like he’d been worked over by a methed-up biker gang.
“Are you having any problems breathing?” she asked.
“Nope, I’m okay.”
“Let me know if you do. You inhaled some water, and that’s not good.”
“I’ll be okay.” He traced her lips with his finger. “Are we better now? The two of us?”
She looked away for a moment. “I . . . understand why you were so angry.”
“Being angry is one thing. Being an asshole? Not good. I am truly sorry.”
Morgan nodded in reply. Then her eyes met his, and he saw the spark in them.
She must have read his mind. “No make-up sex. Not now. You need to sleep.”
Alex wanted to argue, but she was right. He was exhausted.
“Rain check?” he murmured.
“A rain check is a possibility. Now sleep, Parkin.”
Alex nestled her against his body, smelling the scent of clean hair, the scent that was this woman. She was alive, and that meant everything.
*~*~*
Morgan woke about an hour later, feeling better. Part of it was the anti-inflammatory drugs she’d taken, which had reduced her aches a notch. Most of it was that Alex was still alive.
She’d forgiven him. It was hard not to, his apology was so sincere. Lord knew he had enough to be angry about. But if they stayed together as a couple, then what? Her job took her all over the world. Alex wouldn’t want to go very far from his sister, at least not until Miri was settled in a new place.
Complications. Those were always the bane of any new relationship. In this case, those complications might shut it down even before it gained any traction.
Quietly, Morgan rose and dressed, aware that the boat was stationary now. Neil had said he’d move it to a new location, away from the Russian’s boat. It was only a matter of time before someone checked on why the three goons hadn’t returned to home base.
Shutting the bedroom door behind her, she found Miri in the kitchen, making sandwiches. On the deck above them, Neil was doing his watchdog thing. Morgan wondered if the man ever slept.
“Is Alex up yet?” Miri asked.
“No. Still sleeping,” Morgan said. That earned her a sidelong glance. “Go on. You can ask about anything you want.”
Miri paused in her sandwich assembly. “You’re actually shagging my brother?”
Rather than be offended, Morgan grinned, liking this girl for her “what you see is what you get” attitude. “Yes, I am.”
Miri cocked her head in thought. “He’s a good guy, but he can be an ass with women he’s just screwing for fun. Maybe he’ll act different with you.”
“He will, or we’re history.”
Alex’s sister smirked. “Oh yeah, he’s in trouble now. The man has finally met his match. I am so gonna love this.”
Morgan figured out where the girl was in the food-making process and joined in, smearing butter on slices of bread and then handing them over, trying not to mess up her bandages.
“You’re not like his ex. Alicia was all about herself,” Miri said. “Someone who’s just in it for themselves wouldn’t have come after that perv in the alley. She would have gone back into the bar because it wasn’t her fight. You got involved. You got hurt because of me.”
Morgan’s jaw ached at the memory. The bruise was slowly turning dark green now and looked pretty ugly without makeup. “I need to have the Iceman teach me a few more self-defense moves, like for guys who are way bigger than me.”
At the mention of the former SEAL, Miri waggled her eyebrows. She checked to make sure the man in question was out of earshot, and then whispered, “He’s totally hot. Watching him do his one-arm planks just about killed me. This hiding-out gig hasn’t been that hard at all, at least when I’m not worrying about Alex.”
The sound of feet on the stairs made them snap apart like guilty schoolgirls.
“We need to talk,” Neil called down the stairs.
“Coming up,” Morgan said, knowing that tone meant business.
She and Miri joined him up top. “What’s up?” she asked. “Any sign of the Russians?”
“No, but there are more boats going by us now. Most of them have one occupant. I’ve been tracking their transit times, and they’re gone for about an hour or so, then they’re back. Not nearly enough time to fish.”
Morgan’s body reminded her that tangling with two big Russian dudes wasn’t for wimps. “Unless they’re like me,” she said, gingerly sinking into a chair. “I can’t handle drowning worms for more than about ten minutes.”
Neil handed over a pad of paper that sat on a table near the binoculars. Her eyes skimmed down the page and found that he’d listed what looked to be boat registration numbers, the times he’d seen them going out and coming back, and descriptions of the occupants. Neil had kept his head in the game.
Unlike me. Her mind kept straying to the guy asleep downstairs.
“Sanjay’s checking on the reg numbers to see if they have anything in common,” Neil explained. “Something doesn’t feel right. It was why I brought the boat back to this l
ocation.”
“Your gut is rarely wrong,” Morgan said, one of the reasons she liked working with him. His instincts had saved her butt more than once.
“Are they like those guys from this morning?” Miri asked.
“No. Sanjay checked out their boat registration numbers and those losers were locals. The Coast Guard has had run-ins with them, since they like to screw with other boaters, at least if they think there’s a chance they won’t get their asses beaten.”
All heads turned as Alex came onto the deck, dressed in a pair of sweatpants and a loose T-shirt. His feet were bare, and he seemed more alert now.
“How’s the breathing?” Neil asked.
“Pretty good. Why is everyone worried about that?”
“Secondary drowning. You think you’re golden, until you’re not. If not treated quickly, you’ll die. I lost a buddy that way. Fine, then gone.”
“Hell,” Alex replied. “No, I’m sore, but okay. If there’s any change, I’ll let you know immediately.” He looked out on the water. “You guys had trouble this morning?”
“Just some morons who didn’t understand that ‘no, I don’t want to party with you’ meant just that,” Miri replied. “Fortunately, they understood a shotgun up the nose.”
Neil wasn’t a shotgun type of dude, which meant that Alex’s sister must have been the one so armed. Morgan flicked a glance at the Iceman. His expression remained neutral, though there was something almost like pride in his gaze.
Was there something cooking between Alex’s little sis and her bodyguard?
“Glad you guys handled it,” Alex said. He leveraged himself into one of the deck chairs. His movements spoke of sincere discomfort, and Morgan made a note to slip him some pain meds later. “Did I hear you say something about more boat traffic?”
Neil nodded. “It happened yesterday afternoon as well. I didn’t think much of it, but today I decided to track it because I saw some of the same people. I’m not sure what it means.”
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