Deep Cover--A Love Over Duty Novel

by Scarlett Cole

  Cabe took his dive a little deeper, silently gliding under the hull of the first large yacht. There was obviously a loud party on board, the dull thud of music sounding like it was coming through a chamber filled with cotton wool. They steered clear of the engine, staying close to the bow and away from the stern.

  One boat, two boats. When they got to the third hull, Mac, the strongest swimmer of the three, swam beneath the water to the other side of the dock and hid in the shadows. Cabe could no longer see him, but knew he was going to quietly go above water and assess whether it was safe for Cabe to surface.

  When Mac returned, he pointed to the hull and showed a fist. No fingers meant no people.

  As silently as they’d entered the water, they raised their heads above it. Cabe let go of his mouthpiece, letting it drop to his chest. He extended the pole and hooked it on the top rung of the caving ladder. As Cabe pushed the hooks at the top of the ladder higher, it unraveled. With little effort, he was able to get the ladder hooked over the side of the boat.

  It would have been easier to simply hoist themselves onto the back of the boat and find somewhere to hide the beacon, but it would have been impossible to clean the deck of the water from their wetsuits, and an eager deckhand tasked with cleaning down the boat daily would certainly have noticed the wet tracks or semi-dried footprints that would have led to wherever they hid the beacon.

  “Where are you taking me?” a female voice said with a giggle.

  Cabe looked onto the dock and listened for footsteps, for more voices, for anything that would give him clues as to what to do next. Six made a play to take the pole Cabe was holding to lower the ladder, but Cabe put his hand on Six’s arm.

  “Somewhere a little more private,” the male voice replied. It sounded young. Cabe guessed that if they just ducked back into the water, the couple would be too wrapped up in each other to question a chain ladder on the side of a boat. He slipped his mouthpiece back between his lips, as did Six, who quietly collapsed the pole and disappeared beneath the surface.

  “You know I want to go with you, but we can’t. My dad will come looking for us.”

  “Babe, I just want to touch you, you know.”

  “I want to touch you too,” she said, her laughter ringing out through the air.

  Cabe felt their pain. There were moments he felt the exact same way about Amy, and despite being in cold water waiting for cock-blocked teens to figure their shit out, he smiled around his mouthpiece.

  The footsteps soon led back to the party boat, and Cabe began to climb. The moment he cleared the water, he stood still and allowed the water to drip off him as he looped his arm around the next rung and cleared the chamber of his gun by cocking it slightly, just until he could see the round. Water dripping sounded like a five-bell alarm in the quiet of the night, and he was grateful for the music coming from the boat. He held his breath, waiting for someone to hear or come rushing to see what was happening.

  But nobody did.

  He climbed the final rungs until he could lean over the edge of the deck and reach for the door of a small storage locker built into the side of the fiberglass hull. Once it was open, he ripped the waterproof package from his belt and released the beacon into his palm. Careful not to drip onto the deck or allow the ladder to touch the side of the boat, which would disturb the natural dew that was settling on the white hull, he reached into the locker and felt around for the perfect spot. He slid the GPS beacon into the gap, pushing it in until it was secure.

  When he was certain it was, he closed the door to the narrow locker and crept back down the ladder, slipping silently into the water.

  Six raised the pole and lowered the ladder, wincing as the metal clanged against itself.

  “Hey, you?” a second male voice shouted. “What are you doing out here?” It was louder, gruffer.

  Was the voice calling to them? He wasn’t certain, but he remained calm.

  The sound of three quick cracks of gunfire echoed through the air, as the same number of bullets hit the water three feet to the left of Cabe’s head.

  Cabe put his mouthpiece back in, grabbed the end of the ladder, and dove beneath the water, keeping it taut. The breather units were only good to six meters, after which there was a risk of oxygen toxicity levels rising quickly.

  Six submerged with the end of the ladder and the two of them moved beneath the safety of the boat. Cabe began to roll the ladder as Six collapsed the pole. They still had plenty of air, but they needed a plan of escape. Cabe pointed toward the dock, dipping his hand to suggest they go under it.

  Six nodded.

  As they began to move, two more bullets hit the water, then the rumbling thunder of feet running down the dock. Which potentially meant more guns, with hopefully equally lousy aim.

  Cabe took the lead, swimming under the dock, and beneath the yacht moored on the other side. Mac, always such a strong underwater swimmer, pulled up alongside them.

  Beams from a flashlight illuminated the water close to where they were hiding before moving farther away. Cabe signaled them into deeper water, where, in the shadow of the last docked boat, he raised his head above the waterline. The idiots were only checking around the original berth.

  Submerging once more, Cabe led the three of them to the point where they’d entered the water.

  And then, as silently as they’d arrived, they left the marina.

  * * *

  Exhaustion was an awful thing to battle in high heels, Amy thought as she dealt her final cards of the night.

  The hours were starting to build. The job at the casino filled her forty-hour-a-week quotient. But layered on top of that were the hours spent at Eagle and FBI headquarters. And then there were the reports and the updates.

  And the sex.

  She couldn’t help the smile that escaped as she thought of the sex, and the love, and the raw side of Cabe she’d witnessed the previous evening. That side of Cabe had made love to her and after only a matter of moments had taken her again as if his very life had depended on it.

  His dream had scared her at first, but she’d thought a lot about what it must be like to be a widow. To be single not because love had disappeared, but because the person you were in love with had. There had been moments since Cabe had told her about Jess that she’d wondered whether she would ever measure up, ever be enough to capture Cabe’s full heart instead of just the bit he’d managed to wrench away from Jess.

  But now she knew deep down inside and with complete and utter certainty that Cabe was hers. It was a wonderful feeling. At least, it would be if Cabe wasn’t currently in the marina putting a beacon on the boat. She glanced across to the bar were Sokolov was sitting with three of his associates. Just because he was in the casino, didn’t mean Cabe was safe. Sokolov had a vast reach and likely protected his assets.

  Ortega approached her table. “Mr. Woods would like to see you in his office. Tanya is going to take over the table for you.”

  Amy’s heart stuttered as she ran through all the reasons Woods might want to see her. It had been a week since she’d attended the private gambling event at Mr. Sokolov’s home. A week since she’d been slipped an envelope with ten thousand dollars in it. When she’d tried to protest, Sokolov had run his knuckle along her cheek and told her she was worth every penny. Woods had whispered to her conspiratorially that Sokolov was in fact a cheapskate and should have tipped her five percent.

  She’d wanted to use it to help support crowd-funded activities to find missing loved ones but had been told to hand it over to the FBI along with any tips she’d earned. Amy knew that the financial reward for information her father still promised to honor for news of her mother had brought in more wild-goose chases than anything else. But it had also helped add some clarity to her mom’s last steps. And the knowledge that those nuggets of information might one day lead to them knowing the truth of what happened to her mom made it worth it. With the ten thousand dollars, there was a chance she could help another family fe
el the same way, and it burned not to be allowed to.

  She understood why Cabe had been pissed. When he’d pointed out the danger she’d put them all in, the glaring mistake she’d made in her decision to enter Sokolov’s office, she’d understood why. Something about this case—her desperation to find the missing women—had made her reckless.

  But then again Cabe wouldn’t be in the murky waters of a marina right now putting a beacon on a vessel without what she’d done.

  Why would Woods, who’d deliberately ignored her for the best part of her week, want to see her now? Had someone seen her go upstairs after all? When Cabe had asked if she’d noticed cameras on the ceiling, she’d truthfully said that she hadn’t, but she hadn’t looked carefully for them either.

  Breaking what she was sure was protocol, she looked over to where Harley and Lite, who had replaced Cabe’s cover, were seated in the bar area. She caught Lite’s eye before she turned to leave the floor, hoping he would get the message that something odd was up, and didn’t wait for any acknowledgment.

  It was the sixth of October, and she’d heard the date of the tenth mentioned at the game. She wasn’t even sure the tenth was in any way linked to offshore gaming, but on the off-chance it was, it was imperative she didn’t take unnecessary risks with her safety. There was a GPS in the sole of her shoe that was permanently on and another in the wristwatch she wore. Both were checked constantly by someone on Cabe’s team.

  When she arrived at Woods’s door, it was open. “Mr. Ortega said you wanted to see me, Mr. Woods.”

  Woods stood quickly, ushering her inside. “Yes. Yes. Come in, Amy.” His face gave nothing away. No interest, no excitement, no anger. Nothing readable.

  Amy kept her ground by the door, taking only a couple of steps inside, reluctant to put herself in reaching distance of his grabby hands. He’d kept them to himself while they’d been at Sokolov’s house, but that didn’t make him a changed man.

  “You did very well at Mr. Sokolov’s home,” he said quietly. “Very well, indeed.”

  “Thank you,” Amy replied. As always, she knew it was better to say nothing than too much. Don’t fill the silence. Let the other person fill it for you.

  He took a step closer, reaching his hand toward her hair and then pulling it back as though having second thoughts. “Do you remember the conversation we had when we met in the hallway?”

  Her stomach turned. Was he expecting her to pay him back now? There was no way she could do what he’d expect of her. Her knees began to shake but she unclenched her jaw and forced herself to relax. She wasn’t out of her depth … yet. And she had backup. “I do.”

  “I’m afraid you’re going to have to trust me if you want to know how can you can make ten times the amount you made last week, Amy. I have the power to make you quite wealthy … if you’ll let me. But I’ll have to ask for you to sign a non-disclosure agreement before I can tell you any more.”

  A non-disclosure wasn’t really worth the paper it was written on in cases like this, so of course she’d sign. She needed to know what happened next. But she also needed Woods to work for it.

  Amy pursed her lips as though thinking about what he’d suggested. “Okay, I’m interested.”

  “Well, you’re going to need to come all the way in and close the door. This is not for everyone’s ears.”

  The door clicked shut as she did as he asked. When she was seated in the chair in front of him, he handed her the piece of paper, a copy of Casino Management magazine to lean it on, and a pen. Her name was already in place at the top of the page, a contract between herself and Faulkner Woods.

  She’d done enough business classes to give the contract a cursory review. It explained that she was going to be told something but that she was not allowed to share it with anyone else. The language was deliberately intimidating and threatening. She could imagine a less confident, less capable, more desperate woman feeling terrified or out of options. With a flourish, she signed the document, remembering at the last moment to sign her surname as Reynard, not Murray.

  “Mr. Sokolov will be entertaining a very exclusive group of friends on Friday. The venue will be a private yacht. He would very much like for you to be the dealer for the event. The guests wish to maintain their anonymity, hence the need for the non-disclosure.”

  Her heart leapt and fell in the space of a second. The boat. They’d been right. That was how it went down. And Mac was there now, ensuring the boat would be easily tracked. Dear God, in less than a week she’d be getting on that boat and relying on Cabe, and Eagle, and the FBI, the Coast Guard, and whomever goddamn else to get her off it again. Her life would be in their hands. In Cabe’s hands. There was no way in hell he’d leave her in danger.

  “It’s not illegal, is it?” she asked, trying to think of the kinds of questions someone in her position would ask—the type of things Eve Canallis had searched for on her computer.

  Woods leaned forward and placed his hand on her leg. The move made her squirm inside, but she acted as though his fingers weren’t reaching for the soft skin behind her knee. “My dear Amy. While a little gambling between friends on a private boat should be legal, as long as it occurs in territorial waters, it isn’t unless you have a license. Yet this causes harm to no one. These gentlemen are wealthy and private. If you agree, you’ll be given a meet-up point two hours before the boat departs to ensure you have plenty of time to get there. The boat will sail at nine in the evening and will cruise for a little while before the games begin. There are worse ways to spend the evening than sailing the California coastline in a private yacht, but in case that isn’t enough of an incentive, the salary for the evening is twenty thousand dollars excluding tips, which will be extensive.”

  Jesus Christ. No wonder the women signed on for this. No wonder there were so many. For a young woman with student debt, or wanderlust, or a need to be home for Thanksgiving, it would be impossible to turn down that kind of money.

  Unless.… She looked at Woods’s hand still on her knee and inwardly blanched. It made her ill. But maybe if someone else had been a little braver, a little stronger, more committed, her mom would be home in Vegas drinking martinis with her father.

  You can do this. Amy repeated the words over and over until they sounded meaningless in her head.

  “I’ll be there.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Cabe grabbed Amy as she collapsed onto his chest, breathless and spent, just like he was. Watching her ride him, watching her take what she needed, had brought him to the point where he’d detonated deep inside her, making him wish they didn’t need condoms. He wanted to feel the sensation of her coming around him without any barriers. But conversations about testing and birth control would have to be added to the things-we’ll-do-when-this-is-over list.

  He knew they shouldn’t be in her apartment, but the idea of her getting hooked up at Eagle with her security kit and heading out on that damn boat without him seeing her one more time alone was unbearable. When she’d agreed to his meeting her here before they went in, he’d been thrilled. Plus hard. All the time fucking hard for her, like he’d never had sex before. She only needed to look at him out of the corner of her eye and he would remember her looking at him the exact same way when he’d taken her from behind.

  “Just when I think it can’t get any better,” Amy muttered against his shoulder, and he laughed as he rubbed his palms up and down her back.

  “I was just thinking the same thing,” he said as he turned to kiss the damp skin by her temple.

  Amy raised her chin to face him. “I love this. I love being with you. But I’m also looking forward to being able to go outside, to walk to the market holding hands, or take a hike or a trip, maybe.”

  She sounded hopeful, a little wistful, and—Cabe realized—a little uncertain. A line creased between her eyebrows, and he hated seeing it there. Maybe the wait-until-it’s-over-list couldn’t wait.

  “You know there is an after, right. After all this?
Where we do all that? Where we argue over where we are going to spend Christmas, and make love on a tropical beach, and forget to put the toilet seat down, and decide to get tested and forgo contraception so I can do all of this all over again and feel skin on skin,” he said as he pushed inside, making them both groan. He kissed her gently, then more deeply, until he could feel his cock start to harden again. Only they didn’t have time to have sex again.

  “Vegas,” Amy said with a grin.

  “Vegas, what?” He rolled them onto their sides so he could slide out of her.

  “Is where we’ll be spending Christmas this year.”

  Cabe grinned. “I already promised Mom I’d be home. And I seem to recall your dad telling me that he wanted you home but that you’d already told him you might not be able to make it.”

  Amy scoffed, her eyes bright. “Only because I didn’t want him to get his hopes up if work called. But of course I want to go and see him, and Uncle Clive, and Valentina.”

  God, she really was … something. “Pretty” was too girlish, “beautiful” too … staid. “Hot” minimized her to something sexual. Amy. She was Amy. And she was his. And he was more than happy to hold her naked body up against his as they debated the logistics of Christmas.

  “Here’s my suggestion,” he said, kissing the tip of her nose. “Let’s plan for when you finally get off the boat … tonight, tomorrow, whenever that may be, we’ll get some sleep and then go on a date. Brunch. Somewhere we can open a bottle of wine. Near the surf. And we’ll make a list. Pros and cons.”

  Amy smiled. “I look forward to debating this issue with you, Captain Moss.”

  “The same, Agent Murray. Although if I were you, I would expect to lose.”