“I’m going to do my fucking job,” Marcus barked. So damn angry with himself and with the bureau for letting all of this get so out of hand. “Jones?” he spoke into the phone when his handler answered.
“Marinos! I’ve been trying to get ahold of you all morning!”
“I know, I know. Listen. I’ve got Iris and Owen Stanton here on Grand Bahama and Kutros moving in, apparently. I need back up and I need it now.”
“I already know all of that.”
“You’ve got eyes on me?”
“What kind of handler would I be if I didn’t know where my rogue agent was at all times?”
“Jones, I love you. Now tell me you’ve got men en route.”
“I’ve got men en route. Fifteen minutes tops. And I’m calling in a bomb threat to get the resort evacuated and on lockdown in about t minus 30 seconds. If you want to get your friends out of there, now’s the time.”
“What’s the resort’s safe room like?”
“Non-existent.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah. Send ‘em to the airport.”
“Done.”
“And Marinos?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t get yourself killed.”
He flicked off the phone call and turned to the group. “Eli and Jay. Do as I said. Don’t look back. And get them out of here.”
His two best friends nodded, finally realizing that this situation was way out of their hands. And that their parents and women were in mortal danger. Jay slapped Marcus once on the back, their eyes holding for a second, saying more than words ever could. He sprinted off in the direction of Mari and his mother. Eli grabbed Marcus into a hard hug. Too hard.
“Be smart,” he growled before he unhanded Marcus and jogged backwards for a few seconds. Marcus nodded to his best friend, watching him turn and sprint toward all the people he loved most in the world.
“Take care of them,” Marcus muttered to himself. And then he turned away. He couldn’t watch them go. There was no time. He had to trust Eli and Jay to get the job done. And considering they were the two people he trusted the most in the world, it only took one stubborn second to have him turning back toward Iris and Owen.
Again he grabbed them both and started sprinting toward the hotel. At that moment, an alarm started ringing out. A voice over the loudspeakers instructed patrons to evacuate the hotel. People, alarmed and muttering, started racing past them toward the exits.
“Listen to me. I need you both hidden. Separately.”
“No!” Iris insisted again. Marcus noted that her hands were shaking but her voice was not. “I’m not leaving Owen. Or you.”
“He’s right, Iris. We don’t want any two birds one stone shit, okay? We need to separate.”
Marcus scanned the hotel blueprints through his brain. He thanked the holy lord that he’d done his research in the days leading up to this vacation.
“Owen, you go to the restaurant on the second floor. There’s plenty of places to hide and only one entrance, though there’s a small employee exit out back if you need it. Iris, you take the stairwell to the fifth floor. There’s two different ballrooms. One of them has a stage. Find somewhere to hide backstage. Be as small as you can be. I’ll come find you when it’s safe. With any luck, they’ll think we evacuated with the rest of the patrons by the time backup gets here.”
The pool area was empty now as the last of the patrons poured through the building to get to the street side. Thoughts of Eli and Jay, Mari and Tia, Ryan and Kat, tore through Marcus’s mind and he forced them down without a second thought. This wasn’t the time. Focus.
“I won’t leave you,” Iris whispered. And Marcus realized there were tears in her eyes. “Don’t make me leave you.”
“Iris,” Marcus took a deep breath. “This is the only way I can take care of you right now. If you stay with me you’re going to be in the direct line of—”
His breath cut short when something caught his eye through the tall picket fence that lined the resort. A flash of something shiny and black through the jungle right on the other side of the fence. And then, sure enough, the sound of an engine grinding.
“Fuck!” Owen screamed as forty feet away from them, two headlights emerged from the foliage and a huge black Range Rover mowed down a ten-foot section of the fence. “Iris, run!”
Owen flung himself in the direction of the car, which had come to a screeching halt. He waved his hands in the air as if he were trying to distract or confuse the drivers. He was desperately trying to give himself up to let Iris get away, but Iris knew it was too late. It was way too late. They were all caught. She and Owen and Marcus too, she was sure. Because she knew in her heart that he would never leave her behind.
She knew, with blinding certainty, that he would die for her. Well. Then. It all became clear. She didn’t want to be alone. The thought of leaving Marcus was like trying to separate her soul from her heart. But she also knew that he couldn’t be the only one fighting for her life. She needed to fight too. For both of them. She was turning, halfway through her first running step when she felt Marcus grab her around the middle. He tossed her over his shoulder like she weighed nothing and Iris got a flashback to their first day in his apartment. He’d carried her the exact same way before.
“Hide in the waterfall,” he demanded before he strode toward the pool, planted the quickest kiss in the universe on her ass and tossed her in.
Iris desperately wanted to surface. She desperately wanted to see the source of all the loud shouts she could hear even from under the water. She needed, bone deep, to watch and make sure that her brother and her boyfriend were alright. Were surviving.
But she also needed to make sure that she wasn’t splitting Marcus’s attention right now. So she did the hardest thing she’d ever done and stayed underwater. She streaked like a fish along the bottom of the pool, her lungs screaming. She didn’t resurface until she’d gone underneath the waterfall. She came above water in the gloomy, manmade cave that separated the pool from the hot tub area. The waterfall pounded next to her and Iris could hear nothing. See nothing.
Ducking out toward the hot tub, Iris peeked out, saw no disturbances back that way and ducked back in. Looking around, she saw two possible hiding spots. It was small and dark this way and she didn’t think that anyone looking in would see her. Anyone swimming in would definitely see her. But she hoped that if that did happen she could slip into the water and swim away without them noticing.
Marcus wanted nothing more than to look back at the waterfall, to make sure Iris was safe. But he knew how much of a dead giveaway that would be. He trained his eyes on the idling Range Rover and ducked further behind the cabana-style bar area. He couldn’t be sure, but he didn’t think that they’d gotten a direct line of sight on him or Iris.
“This fucking guy,” Marcus muttered to himself as he watched Owen yell and wave his arms around in front of the car. He was on the fast track toward getting himself shot. Marcus tried to make his peace with that, but he knew how much it would destroy Iris if her dumbass brother got himself killed while trying to protect her. If only the dumbass brother hadn’t dragged her into this to begin with.
Regardless, Marcus had two people to protect right now. Three if he counted himself. Which he pretty much only did because he knew how much pain it would cause Iris if anything happened to him.
So here he was, being a Careful Caroline as he crept around one side of the bar, ducking behind all the perfectly lined up bottles and keeping one eye on the Range Rover.
Seconds later, the doors swung open and five men slid out of the car. Marcus instantly recognized two of them as having been in the warehouse where Iris had been kept. Her black eye flashed through his mind and Marcus’s blood boiled. His hand tightened on his gun and he held it, perfectly poised on the man in front who was brandishing his gun around like a toy. Marcus was ready, the second he pointed that gun at Owen, Marcus would fire. His heart was even and solid in his chest. H
e’d had to kill on the job before. To save his own life. Today he would kill on the job to save Iris’s life. He wasn’t sure if that would make a difference to his soul, but he suspected it would.
Marcus could tell that words were being said to Owen, who stood completely still, his hands in the air. Marcus was too far away to hear the words. But he wasn’t too far to see the sudden glint of a firearm of a man in the back. Marcus quickly shifted his hands to aim at the man in the back but his stomach dropped out and away when a bang sliced the afternoon in two and Owen’s head kicked back, and he fell like a sack of bricks to the ground.
Goddamn it. Marcus’s grip tightened on his gun.
The man in the front of the group turned and, without hesitating, shot the man who’d shot Owen. He screamed, writhing and cursing, to the ground.
“What the fuck!”
“You idiot!” the man in the front screamed. “You fucking idiot, we needed him!”
“We’ve got the girl!” the shot man hollered back, his voice sliced through with pain. He pointed toward the waterfall. “We didn’t need him anymore, we’ve got the girl.”
Marcus’s focus narrowed and became very, very clear. There wasn’t time for any more distractions.
The four mobile men jogged across the pool, toward the waterfall. Marcus ducked out from behind the bar and sprinted, silently, after them. The first two were easy. Just hired muscle. The butt of Marcus’s gun brought the first and then the second to the ground in less than five seconds. But they fell hard, and loud, to the ground.
The two men in front stopped and turned. They were the two Marines he hadn’t wanted to fight in the warehouse. One was stocky and blonde and the other was taller and dark. Well, Marcus thought as he rose up from the two men he’d just incapacitated. They might be Marines. But he was a trained FBI agent who was attempting to protect the woman he loved. He thought that might even the odds a little bit.
They charged him. The stocky one got to him first and Marcus was able to get in one good jab with the butt of his gun. The man stumbled back for just a moment before he landed a solid kick to Marcus’s hip. Marcus tripped on the lounger behind him, but he allowed his weight to roll him and he was jumping back over it a second later.
The darker man was there though, and his vice-like grip on Marcus’s arm had the gun slipping through his fingers. Not wanting the darker Marine to get to it first, Marcus kicked the gun behind him and heard it plop into the pool. Well, he couldn’t use it. But neither could they. There were at least two more guns to get rid of, though.
And Marcus went for the first one as the darker man took Marcus by the throat and slammed him on the ground. He saw stars but shook them away as he used one leg to kick the legs out from under the man and his other foot to stomp the shit out of the man’s wrist. His hand opened and Marcus co-opted the darker man’s gun.
The stocky man drew his own weapon and the two of them breathed heavily as they eyed one another, Marcus on the ground and the other leaning over him.
It was hard to say who moved first. But both dodged bullets and Marcus found himself rolling across the pool deck. He sprang to his feet like a cat. The stocky man charged him and Marcus feinted to one side, threw his weight to the other and brought his knee up straight into the stocky man’s gut. The darker man, sensing his opportunity, abandoned the hand-to-hand fight and sprinted around the side of the pool, right toward the waterfall.
Marcus picked his moment, knew it was costing him precious time with the stocky man, but he didn’t care. He aimed the weapon in his hand and fired. The darker Marine went down, but almost gracefully. The man caught himself on his hands and was back up in seconds, limping toward the waterfall. It wouldn’t hit Marcus until later that the man didn’t make a sound as he was shot in the leg.
Meanwhile, the stocky man took his opportunity. Marcus barely caught the glint of the blade in the sun before it was slicing through the air toward him. He nearly bent himself in two to avoid the blade that came, and came again, for his jugular. On the second swipe, Marcus wasn’t quite fast enough and he felt the knife slice across his chest. Marcus felt his flesh open, perhaps too deep for the pain to even register yet. Clinically, he noted the cracking thump of the blade, which meant that his ribs had stopped it from hitting anything vital.
For just a moment, Marcus’s vision swam. The darker one was getting closer to the waterfall. But Marcus knew there was very little he could do about that with stocky still in his way.
So he tore his heart in half and shoved Iris from his mind. He had to concentrate on one problem and then the next. Something in Stocky’s chest stuttered as Marcus straightened and assessed him. There was something horrifying burning in Marcus’s gaze. A full-body focus. Determination. The exact same thing that Iris loved most about Marcus was making the Marine in front of him re-evaluate his plan of attack.
The Marine barely had time to draw swing his gun around before Marcus had turned the man’s own knife back on him. Marcus grunted as the knife sunk solidly into the soft flesh at the man’s midsection. The man gasped, his eyes going wide, as Marcus cuffed him over the head with his gun and kicked the man sideways into the deep end of the pool. Red water swirled around the stocky man as he lamely struggled and Marcus thought for one second of Jaws.
And then it was just Iris in his mind as he leapt over two loungers and made his way for the darker man. The man who was just feet away from where Iris hid right that moment. Marcus didn’t think about the wound on his chest. He didn’t think about what other weapons the man might have on his body. He didn’t think of anything but Iris as he slammed his entire weight into the darker man.
They rolled and there was something maniacal in the Marine’s eyes as he spotted Marcus’s wound and slammed a fist into it, and then again, and again.
Marcus screamed through gritted teeth and then employed the exact same tactic on his opponent. The heel of Marcus’s foot was slammed into the upper thigh of the Marine and finally, finally the man showed some humanity as he howled and curled around the impact point.
The two men scuttled away from one another and Marcus was able to put himself between the man and the waterfall.
Marcus couldn’t help but glance behind him, make sure that Iris was out of harm’s way. And it was that split second that the Marine needed. All he needed to pull another gun from his waistband, point it at Marcus, and fire.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The roar of the waterfall was loud, but it wasn’t loud enough for Iris to ignore the gunshots that were ringing out just feet from her. She prayed for shouted words. She prayed to hear Marcus’s voice. She needed any indication at all that he was out there, alive.
She jumped out of her skin when she heard another gunshot, this one closer than the rest. Something thumped to the ground right on the other side of the waterfall. Everything in Iris’s body pulled tight. She scraped her fingers through her hair as she rose halfway from her hiding spot. She couldn’t wait here, she just couldn’t.
But then there was another noise, an unmistakable one. A helicopter. God, let that be the back-up. She held her breath and suddenly, there was another thump right outside the waterfall. And that one sounded unmistakably like a body falling. That was it. She had to see what was happening.
She slipped into the water and resurfaced just on one side of the waterfall. The first thing she saw was the helicopter land right next to the Range Rover. Another one circled the airspace above. Men in bulletproof vests jumped from the landed chopper and streamed toward the scattered, fallen men. She couldn’t see Owen or Marcus, but no one was left standing.
She heard the distant wail of an ambulance and she knew, with all her heart, that it was headed their way.
Please. Please. Please. Please. Please.
The words raced through her head and she wasn’t even sure what came next. What she was asking for. All she knew was that the two people she loved most in her life were somewhere, laying on the ground, maybe dead or dying and she
couldn’t see them.
Iris looked down in confusion at the pool water she was treading in and realized that it was slightly pink. She realized with a horrifying drop in her stomach that it was diluted from red. There was blood in the water.
Iris immediately saw who it came from as a stocky, blonde man that she recognized dragged himself from the shallow end, a knife jutting out from his gut. That was the man who’d given her the black eye. Iris watched in stunned horror and sick, disbelieving fascination as one of the men in the bulletproof vests charged the now crawling blonde man. The federal agent pointed a humongous gun at the man’s head and shouted something that Iris could hear, and she knew it was English, but she couldn’t make herself understand the words.
The world was going soupy and strangely colorful as Iris fought to keep her body above water. The blonde man fell to his back, his hands in the air and the knife sticking out from him like a fifth appendage.
Iris managed to drag herself to the edge of the pool and she was grateful. She felt as if her muscles were seizing up, like she wouldn’t be able to stay afloat much longer. She gripped the edge of the pool and turned toward it, clinging. Her eyes slammed shut as she heard more shouting, more men’s voices. She had no idea if they were shouting at her or not, but she couldn’t make herself understand the words.
Iris's eyes came open and focused on something right before her. Her body recognized it before her brain did. And a zipping shot of fear and adrenaline struck through her as Iris’s eyes focused on the hand that lay limply over the edge of the pool. She knew that hand. She’d know that hand anywhere. It was the hand of the man she loved.
A strength she would have sworn she didn’t have had her vaulting out of the pool and across the pool deck toward Marcus’s fallen body.
She didn’t notice that she scraped both of her legs to hell as she slid over to him. She didn’t notice the dead man lying just feet from Marcus, blood pooling around him from where the feds in the chopper had taken him out.
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