by Sybil Bartel
Flying across the water, the boat tipped hard and fast, then slammed into a wave.
Water sprayed over us, and Ty pulled the trigger three more times, then cut right.
The boat went airborne, my body left the deck, then we slammed back down on the surface of the water.
My tailbone smarted, and my teeth hit.
Still miraculously tucked between his legs, I gripped the edge of the captain’s chair.
He grabbed my hand and put it on his leg. “Hold on!”
He cut left again, then back to the right, fired two more times, then threw the gun overboard.
The boat alternately flew over the waves and slammed down into the wakes. My body took a beating being thrown up and down. Sea spray covered my skin. My heart pounded, my arm throbbed, and anger and fear mixed into a treacherous swell more dangerous than the open waters Ty was racing us over.
As the spotlight stayed on our backs and the night closed in around us, I didn’t know how we were going to live through this, but I did know one thing. I didn’t want to be in this situation with anyone else. Ty wasn’t my savior. He was a warrior.
And as soon as I thought it, I understood how very true it was. Everything he’d done to get us off the island, every kill, every move, every glance, it was all calculated and it was all for my safety. If you could fall in love with the principles of a man whose moral compass was slightly off kilter, I fell in love with Ty.
Glancing behind us, Ty grabbed my shoulder. “Up, up, up.” Holding my arm tight, he guided me to the seat next to his. “Sit, head down,” he clipped, glancing behind us again and swearing as he cut inland.
Suddenly the coastline appeared with a sea of twinkling lights.
Relief shot through my frayed nerves and hope soared… until he spoke.
“Can you swim?”
Alarm spreading, I looked at the man who was more handsome while driving a getaway boat than any other man I’d ever laid eyes on.
His biceps flexed, his thick thighs holding his body steady, his huge hands deftly handing the boat, his short hair whipping in the wind, he looked over his shoulder with fierce determination.
Wishing I could find my voice, I tapped his arm.
He glanced back at me.
I fumbled through signing. We’re too far out from shore.
“I’m coming in closer, baby.” He glanced at the yacht a fair distance behind us again. “But I’m gonna get them off your tail. Here’s the plan.”
My tail? I was already shaking my head.
“We’ve got less than a minute,” he warned. “So listen up.”
I started to tremble in the humid night air.
“I’m going in to the main marina, and I’m gonna drop you off. Then you’re gonna run like hell while I get them off your tail. Memorize this number.” He rattled off a number. “Say it back to me.”
I didn’t. I couldn’t.
He repeated the number. “That’s André Luna’s number. Call him. Borrow a phone, steal one, I don’t care, call him and tell him where you are. Then hide.”
My head was shaking an adamant no. I didn’t want to leave his side.
“I’ll come for you,” he promised, as if reading my mind. “But not until I get Dante off your six. Understand?” He repeated the number again. “Say it back to me.”
Panicked, I blinked.
“Say it back to me!” he barked.
I fumbled through signing the number.
He nodded then glanced toward the mainland before looking back at the huge yacht that was gaining on us. “It’s gonna be close,” he warned. “They’re closing in. If I can’t get you right up to the dock, you’re gonna jump and swim in.”
I vigorously shook my head. It was dark and there was God knew what in the water, and I didn’t want to jump over the side of a boat, but more and more, I didn’t want to be separated from him. Yes, he was my safety net, and he’d stood between me and bullets flying at us, and I didn’t want to leave him, but he was neglecting one crucial fact. Dante wouldn’t kill me, not yet, not until he got whatever he wanted from my father, but he would kill Ty. He wouldn’t hesitate to kill him, and if I wasn’t with Ty, I didn’t know what would happen to him, and I couldn’t leave him. Not now.
I started to sign that, but Ty grabbed one of my hands. “Stop. We have to do it this way. You’ll be fine.”
I pulled out of his grasp and quickly signed. What about you?
His glance at me was quick and sharp and held a thousand unspoken words. “I’ll be fine.” He pulled back on the throttle and cut right, easing toward the opposite side of a dock jutting out from the marina. “Get ready, baby, because this is gonna be quick. I don’t want them to see you getting off. Where’s your gun?”
I glanced around the deck and saw it under my feet. Quickly grabbing it, I sat back up and looked at him. Was it waterproof?
“Come here,” he demanded.
Holding on to my seat with one hand, I stepped toward him.
No warning, he yanked my dress up, took the gun, tucked it in the front of the boxers and pulled my dress back down. “Be strong.” He kissed my forehead.
It happened so fast, my breath caught and my heart faltered. My hand went to the bulge in the front of my dress, and I looked up at him.
That’s why I didn’t see it, not until it was too late.
But I heard it.
A red boat sped around the marina and came at us from the opposite side of the dock full throttle.
“Motherfucking shit, JUMP!”
I froze.
Ty didn’t.
Grasping me by the waist, lifting me up, he threw me overboard.
Instinct kicked in, and I grabbed my nose with one hand and held the gun to me with the other as I dropped into the shockingly cold ocean.
The water black as pitch, icy and deep, made sheer terror take hold, and I thrashed to get to the surface. Letting go of my nose, letting go of the gun, my heart threatening to stop, I flailed all my limbs in a desperate attempt to break the surface.
Something slimy slithered against my leg, and my head broke the surface as a scream caught in my throat. The roar of boat engines and the smell and taste of gas choking me worse than the vile smelling water, I brushed my hair back and scanned for both the speedboat and a way out of this hell.
My gaze landed on the yellow speedboat, and hell as I knew it compounded.
Before Ty could clear the marina, the red boat slammed into him.
The thud and crack of fiberglass colliding and breaking rushed across the surface of the water and split the night’s ignorant peace as the yellow boat crashed into the marina. Ty’s body slammed into the opposite side of the boat, his head snapped back and the whole boat tipped. Thrown against the dock, Ty bounced off like a rag doll.
Then he fell face-first into the water.
I opened my mouth to scream but nothing came out.
TIGHT PRESSURE SQUEEZED MY ARM.
It was instinctual.
My hand flew out, and my eyes popped open as I grabbed for the source. I was gripping some asshole’s neck, crushing his windpipe before I took in his uniform.
“Where is she?” I rasped.
The paramedic grabbed my wrist and dug his finger into the flesh between my thumb and forefinger.
The sharp pain made me let go of his neck. I pulled the oxygen mask off my face, and the blood pressure cuff off my arm. “Where is she?” I repeated, fucking panicked.
He tipped his chin. “She’s here.”
I turned my head.
Wrapped in a blanket, shivering, her hair wet, her eyes were even bigger on her face.
I held a hand out to her and pain shot up my side. “You okay, sweetheart?”
She nodded, but she didn’t look directly at me and she didn’t take my hand.
“Hey.” I grabbed her knee. “Look at me.”
At first she didn’t move, then slow and scared as fuck, she lifted her head and her eyes met mine.
&nbs
p; “You’re okay. We’re okay.” I didn’t know what the fuck we were. My ribs were killing me, and my head was pounding. I squeezed her knee once before I looked back the paramedic. “I need your cell.”
“I’m not authorized to—”
“It’s a matter of life and death. I’m Ty Asher with Luna and Associates, a personal protection firm based in Miami, and my client’s life is in danger. The second this ambulance stops, we’re gonna have a situation on our hands that neither of us will want. I need your phone to make a call.”
He pulled his cell out of his pocket and handed it over.
I dialed Luna’s personal cell.
One ring.
Two.
Three.
The ambulance started to slow down.
Fuck.
Four.
Luna picked up. “Yeah?”
“It’s me. Mercy and Nash?”
“Handled, they’re in one of the client apartments upstairs. But Jesu-fucking-cristo, what happened? You okay? His daughter? Preston said all the boats were gone from the island when they passed and bodies were on the dock.”
“Client secured.” No fucking thanks to me. I was so goddamn busy getting my mouth on her forehead that I’d missed the other boat coming at us from the opposite direction. “But I need backup STAT.”
Luna turned all business. “Location?”
I looked at the paramedic as the ambulance came to a stop. “Location?”
He rattled off the name of the small hospital in Key West. “We just pulled up.”
“I heard that,” Luna clipped. “Put him on the phone.”
I handed the phone over and swung my legs off the gurney. Pain lancing across my ribs, I held my side and sat up. With my free hand, I brushed the blanket off her shoulder to look at her arm, but she was still wearing my Henley. “Did you let them look at your arm?” I felt my makeshift bandage still on her under the damp shirt.
She pulled out of my grasp and said nothing.
“Still not talking?” I asked quietly so only she could hear me.
She didn’t nod, she didn’t even move. She stared at my hand on my ribs, and a tear slid down her face.
Shit. “Hey, hey, hey. None of that.” I forced a smile. “I’m good.” Not that I knew how the fuck I’d gotten out of the water. The last thing I remembered was taking a head dive after the collision.
Handing the phone back to me, the paramedic cut in. “I wouldn’t exactly say good. You have a concussion, possible rib fractures, and a laceration to your—”
“I’m fine,” I clipped, cutting him off, taking the phone. “How far out are you?” I asked Luna.
The paramedic glanced at the driver. “Hold here a second.”
The driver nodded.
“Too far,” Luna answered.
“I can’t go inside the hospital with her,” I warned. There was no way I could secure a whole damn hospital solo, and who knew how far-reaching Dante’s connections were.
“Concur,” Luna agreed. “You mobile?”
“Yeah.” I’d dealt with way worse than a few bruised ribs. “All good.”
Luna called me out. “The paramedic said you were pulled unconscious from the water.”
“Now I’m awake.”
Luna paused.
“I’m good, but I’m blind and naked.” No phone of my own, no wheels, no weapon in my holster. “I don’t know what followed us from the marina.”
“That’s where you landed?”
If you could call it that. “Yeah.”
“I’ll get some of the guys on it. We’ll check security cameras in the area. In the meantime, I’m heading down now, but I’m three hours out. Christensen and Preston are closer. They’re still in Marathon. They can get down to you in an hour.”
“I don’t have an hour, let alone three.” And I wasn’t fucking anxious to get back on a goddamn boat tonight. I wanted wheels under me, eating up pavement, but I wasn’t going to risk taking her back to Miami solo on a two-lane highway out of the Keys. If tonight taught me anything, it was that I needed fucking backup.
“Copy. Can you get to Roark’s?” Luna rattled off a local address. “He won’t be there, he’s flying a charter for me, but there’s a key on the back porch under a side table.”
“Hold on,” I told Luna as I looked at the paramedic. “You got your own ride?” No way was I calling a cab that could be traced or having an obvious as fuck ambulance drop us off.
He frowned. “Excuse me?”
“Car. Do you have one?”
The paramedic frowned. “Yeah.”
I fished my soaked wallet out of my pocket and took the two grand I kept for emergencies and tossed the wet bills on his lap. “I need to borrow it. If I wreck it, I’ll replace it.”
“It’s a new Charger,” the paramedic protested. “I’m not going to—”
“Vouch for me,” I told Luna, handing the paramedic his phone back and turning to Ludeviene. “Okay, listen, sweetheart. I’m going to send you inside the hospital with the paramedics.”
Her face, already pale, blanched.
“Just for a few minutes,” I explained. “I’m going to get us a ride, then pull right in front and pick you up.”
She was shaking her head before I’d finished talking.
Reading her anxiety, I took only a second to address it. “Only a few minutes, I promise.”
She looked at me for a beat, then she parted the blanket. In her trembling hands was the 9mm I’d given her.
Damn.
I smiled—no, I fucking grinned.
“Good girl.” I took the gun, put it in my back waistband, then I glanced at the paramedic who was pulling his keys out.
“It’s the black Charger on the south side of the lot.” He eyed my gun.
“Thanks, man.” I took the keys. “Take her inside, wait close, don’t leave her alone, but get her some dry clothes if you can. I’ll pull up to the emergency entrance.”
He stared at me a moment. “You okay to drive?”
I tipped my chin. “I’m good.”
He glanced at Ludeviene before leveling me with a look. “She saved your life. She was keeping your head above water until a few locals fished you out. Your boat’s totaled, and she’s not speaking. She’s pretty bruised up.” He said it like an accusation, like I was the fuck who did it to her. “She wouldn’t consent to me checking her over.”
After what she’d been through, I wouldn’t have wanted to be checked over either. “She’s good. I’ll take care of her. Wait till I tell you it’s clear.” I moved to the back doors of the ambulance and looked out the window. Opening one door, I scanned the loading zone and the parking lot beyond. No sign of Dante or any of his men, I stepped out and held the door. “Clear.”
THE PARAMEDIC USHERED ME INSIDE as Ty disappeared into the shadows of the parking lot. Cold, tired, and replaying every second of holding him in the water so his head didn’t go under, I shivered.
“Step over here, ma’am.” He indicated a small room where a nurse was behind a computer.
It looked like one of those holding rooms where they checked people in to the ER.
I wasn’t going in there.
I shook my head and turned my back on him.
The paramedic exhaled slowly as if fighting for patience. He seemed kind, but I didn’t want to be near him anymore than I wanted to be standing in this emergency room. Except I was torn. Less than a half hour ago, our boat was destroyed, Ty was unconscious, and I was sure the man I had thought was my uncle was going to run his boat over me as I held on to Ty’s neck with one arm and the side of the dock with the other. If it hadn’t been for the bystanders who saw the boat crash, helped pull Ty out and called 911, I didn’t know where we’d be.
And I didn’t know how Ty survived being thrown from the boat and hitting the dock as hard as he did…. Sucking in a breath, I shook my head to dispel the image replaying on repeat in my head and stared out the front windows of the emergency room.
/> “Ma’am?” the paramedic tried again to get my attention.
Again I ignored him.
“All right, wait here, and I’ll see if I can find you some dry clothes.”
Ty had told him not to leave me alone, but I didn’t bother mentioning that to him. There were people in the waiting area, nurses and hospital staff milling about, and I was sure security cameras all over. For the same reason Dante didn’t run me over back at the marina, he wouldn’t come in here to get me. There were too many witnesses.
I pulled the blanket tighter around me as Ty drove up in the borrowed car. I was about to walk out to meet him when he got out of the driver side and his intense gaze zeroed in on me. Shaking his head once, his hand on the gun, he scanned the loading zone and walked toward me.
In spite of everything, or maybe because of it, my stomach flipped—same as it did the first time I saw him walking toward me.
The paramedic came up beside me. “Ma’am, some clothes.” He held out a pair of scrubs.
I took them and nodded thanks as Ty walked in.
“Ready?” Scanning the waiting area, he held his arm out and made a come-here gesture with his hand.
I didn’t hesitate.
I moved to his side, and his arm wrapped around my shoulders.
He didn’t smell like him anymore. Ocean and gas and heat, he smelled like everything I wanted to forget about tonight, but he also smelled alive. I didn’t realize what I was doing until my head leaned into his chest.
Tightening his arm around me, his voice dropped. “You’re good. We’re good. Let’s get you in the car.” Walking me to the Charger, he tucked me inside and started to close my door, but the paramedic stopped him.
“When am I going to get my car back?”
“Few hours.” Ty shut my door.
I watched him exchange a few more words with the paramedic, who did not look happy, but he didn’t stop us from driving off when Ty got behind the wheel.
Constantly checking the review mirrors, Ty pulled out of the hospital’s parking lot and gunned the engine. Driving too fast, he wove in and out of the late-evening traffic.
I wanted to ask where we were going, but the words still hadn’t come, and if I couldn’t scream for help when I’d needed to most, I didn’t think I could make anything come out now, so I didn’t bother.