by Brynn Kelly
She filled her lungs, pulled herself underwater and followed the hull out in the direction of the men’s boat, coming up for air in the shelter of the yacht, blinking her stinging eyes clear. The inflatable’s bowline stretched above her head, tied alongside. She retrieved her knife and popped the blade.
Clinging to the yacht’s grab line, she hauled herself up as far as she dared. The yacht shifted with her weight. She froze. Deep voices murmured as the men searched. They’d find her in seconds. She stretched up. Moonlight winked off the blade. The line was inches out of her reach. Shit. Footsteps approached.
She dived and felt her way under the inflatable. The hull was metal and shaped into a deep V—no ordinary rubber boat. If she could steal it, she could get to the other end of the archipelago, at least. She’d passed a couple of inhabited islands that morning.
She popped up on the far side and clutched a cleat, forcing herself to suck in air as if through a straw. Could she sneak aboard and release the bowline before they got to her? She’d have to get in from the stern—the sides of the hull were too steep, and heaving herself up would draw attention.
Something brushed her bare calf. She gasped, drawing up her legs. Had Angry Birds found her? Nobody surfaced. Her heart thundered. If it wasn’t the man, what was—?
A nudge, then something rough skimmed her leg. Not human. A white-tipped dorsal fin sliced through the black water. Holy crap, a shark. One of the oceanic whitetips she’d seen earlier? It’d be testing her, trying to figure out if she was prey. Oh, God. She gripped the knife with one hand and the cleat with the other, forcing her legs to still. It’d expect prey to thrash, to swim away. Stillness would confuse it, right? She fought the urge to hyperventilate. From the port side of the yacht came splashing. Angry Birds. Doubly bad—he was closing in on her and baiting the shark. Her arm shook with the strain of holding herself steady.
A panicked shout burst from the yacht. Had they spotted the shark, or her? She caught movement to her left. Angry Birds slogged through the water with clumsy strokes. Blood trailed from his nose, where she’d clocked him with the winch. He flinched, and his gaze darted below. Was the whitetip scouting him out, too? Or were there more than one? She fought an urge to order him to be still.
He yelled, suddenly thrashing. Holy shit. Fast footfalls and shouts responded from the yacht. Didn’t they have a gun? The man’s body lurched downwards, his scream splitting the air. Her hand spasmed, her muscles burning. Ah, crap, she couldn’t just watch.
“Get a life preserver,” she shouted. “If he can grab it you can pull him up.”
“Where is it?” The capitaine’s tone was urgent, but not panicked, like a shark attack was a minor distraction.
“The stern, starboard side.”
She didn’t stay to watch. With shark and men occupied, she swam as smoothly as she could to the stern of the inflatable, fear clawing her stomach. She pocketed the knife and reached for the ladder, her arm still shaking. The boat swung away. Her fingers slipped off the rung, and she splattered into the water. Crap. Sandpapery skin brushed her sole. Her blood froze. A wave rocked the boat, smashing the outboard into her forehead. She swallowed the flare of pain. Ten yards away, the water churned. A feeding frenzy? The man had stopped screaming. A cry rang out, followed by a splash—too big to be the life preserver. Jesus, had another of the men gone in? Shouts echoed from everywhere—in the water, on the deck.
Another nudge on her leg, harder. She flailed for the ladder, forcing her eyes open against the water slapping her face. How many sharks were there—a whole school? Did they even travel in schools? Did it freaking matter?
A wave dunked her, sweeping her from the boat. She fought her way back, her lungs ready to burst. Her hand hit the rung and she caught it with one finger, lurched forward and clamped the palm over it. Roaring with effort, she anchored her thumb underneath and held on, the bitter burn of salt water in her throat. With the current dragging her away, she had no chance of hauling herself up. Her forearm strained near to snapping. The water swished with the force of something big shooting up underneath her. Her every muscle clenched. She hadn’t survived twenty-nine years of crap to die like this.
Chapter 2
Something tugged on Holly’s hand, then clamped under her arms. She thrashed, a scream ripping through her. No give. No pain, either. Maybe she’d die before it set in.
She flew into the air, weightless. What the hell? Below her an oval of ragged teeth crested the water and fell away into blackness. Still she soared. Her stomach dropped. Boof. Breath smacked from her lungs, pain shot through her nose. She’d landed, on something hard. A man’s chest—the capitaine, his arms wrapped tight around her, lying under her on the floor of the inflatable. The boat tilted to starboard. He threw them toward port, then to the center. The vessel wobbled and righted. Silence cloaked them. Holy crap. The shark hadn’t caught her. He had.
Something bumped the hull. She held her breath. A few dozen teeth on a few tubes and they’d be dessert. But everything stilled except the man’s heaving chest and his quick panting rustling her hair. She wheezed in relief, gulping in air. Her nose throbbed.
“Are you hurt?” he said.
Her jellied muscles begged for reprieve. No! You’re not giving up this fight. She took a steadying breath, raised a fist and slammed it into his stomach. Her arm bounced off, pain ripping up to her shoulder. He barely flinched. His arms tightened around her, jamming her nose into his chest. He hooked his legs around hers, pinning her with solid weight. She couldn’t even wriggle.
“I’ll take that as a no,” he said, huskily.
“Let me go.”
“Sure. We can’t lie here all night. But know that you can’t overpower me. Run and I’ll catch you, fight and I’ll win. You are coming with me tonight.”
“Why are you doing this?”
He paused. “Money. What else?” His tone was flat with bitterness. “Cooperate, and no harm will come to you. You have no choice but to trust me.”
Trust him? She’d never met a man she could trust and wasn’t about to start with a pirate. He released his grip, though his muscles remained tense. She coasted down his body and sat up. He sprang to his feet, towering over her. Just what was she up against? The balaclava shaded dark eyes. A tight black T-shirt outlined the taut chest she’d landed on. No wonder his stomach was impenetrable—even in the moonlight she could count the ridges of his six-pack. His sleeves cut across biceps that looked sculpted from granite. How the hell would she escape that?
“What happened to your friends?” she said.
“Gone to a better place than the shit hole they came from.”
“I’m sorry.” What a way to die.
“I doubt that.” He grabbed her wrists and yanked them behind her.
“Ow!”
“I do not trust you to cooperate.” He deftly tied a rope around her wrists, tighter than handcuffs and just as unyielding.
“I can see trust is going to be an issue between us.”
The odds were better now, one-on-one, but he was right—if it came down to a battle of force, he’d steamroller her. He was iron strong, icy calm. Military, probably—and proper military, not some amateur militia. Wasn’t capitaine French for captain? A battle of wits might be a more even fight.
He moved swiftly to her feet and bound them, then secured her to a railing, disturbingly practiced at restraining a human being. Could some foreign military be behind this? Was it a declaration of war, a political statement? Instinct told her he was lying about doing it for the money. He moved to the bow, surprisingly catlike for a man of his build. Definitely military.
“You have a satellite phone on the yacht? A laptop? GPS? Weapons?”
“If I had weapons would I be sitting here like this? But, yeah, sat phone, laptop, GPS. Knock yourself out.”
“Wh
ere are they? Tell me everything I need to grab so we can take them.”
We? A tense edge had crept into his voice. Should she answer? Her options numbered roughly zero. Besides, when she escaped she’d need the sat phone to make a rescue call. She gave him a rundown.
“What else should I pack for you?”
“Sorry?”
“What else do you want to take? You know I’m kidnapping you, yes?”
“I’d figured.”
“You’ll need some dry clothes. Ah, I’ll grab everything.”
“ChapStick,” she said, automatically. Two men just got eaten by sharks and you’re asking for ChapStick?
He paused. “This is some kind of lipstick?”
“Yeah, because that’s the first thing I’d think about when I’m getting kidnapped.” She jammed her salt-scoured lips together. Shut up. He’d expect her to be hysterical, not snarky. “Forget it. Get clothes, whatever. Why am I giving packing orders to a pirate? Or are you technically a terrorist?”
The inch of brown skin visible beside his eyes crinkled. Was he smiling? This had to be the most surreal night of her life. “Go with pirate.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“You’ll see. There’ll be no escape for either of us until your father pays.”
Either of us?
He checked her bindings, jumped from the bow onto the yacht’s stern and disappeared from her limited view. Agile as well as strong—a formidable opponent. His calmness chilled her as much as his strength. A sharp mind was more dangerous than a muscular body, and he evidently had both.
She shifted. Something pressed into her thigh. The knife.
This wasn’t over.
* * *
Rafe crept over the deck and dropped into the cabin. Feigning imbalance, he smashed his shoulder into the interior webcam, knocking it to the floor and stomping on the debris. Gabriel would be watching the heiress’s webcast. No need to let on that Rafe was taking all the equipment he could prize off the boat, now he was no longer guarded. Let him believe that once Rafe and the woman were stranded on the honeymoon island, they had no way to communicate with the world.
He snatched up a large backpack and tipped out the contents. He had a couple of hours at most before rescuers arrived, and he’d already lost a good half hour securing her.
He shoved in an armful of clothes, with more force than necessary. Two more Lost Boys gone tonight, their blood on his hands as much as Gabriel’s. He exhaled heavily. He’d seen too many of their kind meet death too early. Boys who grew up with no one to give a damn about them and died with no one to mourn them.
But Gabriel had survived, somehow. The aid workers must have lied about him dying in the firefight at Odeskia, to prevent Rafe running back in to find his only friend. Rafe narrowed his eyes. No use blaming them. They’d given him a chance to claw his humanity back after five years as a killing machine. Given the same mercy, Gabriel might also have become a different man.
He pulled a network of cords from the walls and shoved them in the bag. The woman had been more effort than he’d bargained for. Where did a society princess learn to scrap like that? That was dirty street fighting, not some rich girl’s martial arts hobby. And she was far prettier than the photos and videos he’d studied—a raw, strong natural beauty, not some delicate doll.
He scoffed. What had he expected? Only a fool underestimated his quarry. She’d survived three months alone at sea. And even someone as vain as Laura Hyland wouldn’t wear lipstick and stilettos on a solo sailing trip.
But she had said something about some lip thing. He swept a bunch of bottles and tubes into the bag. His heart twisted. The last time he’d packed up a woman’s things was a year after Simone’s death, when he’d finally forced himself to clear her belongings out of their villa on Corsica. The coconut scent of her shampoo still haunted him. Later, he’d found Theo sitting by the garbage bin. The kid had unpacked every bottle and tube and lined them up along the tiled floor, like miniature tombstones.
He zipped up the bag. Thinking about his wife wouldn’t help his son. Phase one was complete. Phase two was to get the heiress to the plane, then to the island. Phase three was a week guarding her—alone, now. Going by tonight’s events, that was likely to be more bruising than he’d anticipated.
The thought of phase four made his hands move faster—return the heiress unharmed and get his son back. Would Gabriel keep his end of the bargain? Rafe’s jaw tightened. He’d better. For all his vices, the Gabriel whom Rafe had known had an unshakeable sense of honor toward the brotherhood of the Lost Boys. Hopefully he still did—and still considered Rafe a part of it.
A clicking noise filtered into the cabin. He tensed. Merde. The RIB’s motor was about to start.
* * *
Come on, you piece of crap. Holly turned the key over. Nothing. Surely it didn’t need the choke—it was still warm. She couldn’t risk flooding the motor.
The capitaine bolted up onto the deck of the yacht, her backpack in hand. With the bowline untethered, the swell pulled the drifting inflatable away. He’d have to swim for it. As long as she got the damn motor started they’d be swapping boats tonight. He crouched, swinging the bag onto his back. Weird. Was he giving up that easily?
She flinched, as a thought struck. The kill switch—she hadn’t checked for one. She fumbled around and found a coiled lanyard at her feet. She must have knocked it out, in the darkness. Her hand trembled as she felt around the console. Calm down. You can do this. There. She clipped the cord onto the switch and flicked it on. The capitaine sprang up and sprinted down the yacht toward her, arms pumping like a bionic man’s. Dang, was he going to jump for it? Her heartbeat quickened. She turned the key. The motor chugged to life. Relief surged through her veins.
She reversed the throttle, just as he leaped from the yacht. Adieu, Capitaine. His large shadow flew toward her. Clonk. His skull smacked into her forehead, hurling her backward. No way. She thumped onto the deck, pain radiating out from her spine and consuming her head. Her vision fuzzed out. What was he—Superman? He had her pinned, again, his face an inch away.
He rolled off her, panting, and touched a palm to his balaclava-clad forehead. Her eyes came back into focus, zeroing in on the knife as it rolled away. She dove for it. As her hand closed, he caught her arm and spun her. In a microsecond, he was astride her, clamping her torso between his thighs. He calmly plucked the weapon from her fingers.
“What did I tell you about running, princess?” He pulled off the balaclava and sucked in a breath. “And fighting?”
Holy crap. The moonlight bounced off sharp cheekbones, tanned skin that plunged into a strong jaw shaded by stubble, and a black buzz cut glistening with sweat. His dark eyes glittered with adrenaline and his huge chest heaved. As pirates went, Johnny Depp had nothing on the capitaine.
She shook her head—the only body part she could move. He’s kidnapping you, you moron. It was far too soon to get Oslo Syndrome, or Stockholm Syndrome, or whatever was the name for loopy people who fell for their captors. She’d evidently gone too long without a good-looking man in her life. Or not long enough.
His gaze strayed to the frayed remains of the rope he’d bound her with. “Merde,” he whispered, his full lips twisting into an impressed smile. That good-looking, and he spoke French?
Focus. How long until he figured out she was an imposter? And then what? Feed her to the sharks? He’d be better off taking the yacht—fat chance the senator would pay to save her neck, with his precious daughter lying low in luxury.
“I see we need to set ground rules, princess.”
“You can get off me, for a start.”
His knees tightened against her waist. “When I say we need to set ground rules, I mean I need to set ground rules. I gather this is how a kidnapping works—the kidnapper gives the instructio
ns, the hostage follows them or suffers the consequences.”
He flicked open the knife and made a show of running his finger along the steel. The skin on the back of her neck crawled. She’d sharpened that blade just hours ago.
“You need me alive.”
“For now, yes.” He rested the blade against her ear, just lightly enough to avoid piercing the skin. “My job is to keep you alive until your father pays, but no one said anything about keeping you in one piece. That is your choice.”
Her mouth flooded with saliva, but she didn’t dare swallow. “Where are you taking me?”
“You’ll know when we’re there.” He ran his free hand around her waist and patted down her pockets. “Get up.”
He removed the blade and loosened the grip of his legs, giving her just enough leeway to wriggle away. He leaped to his feet, like the world’s largest gymnast. “You’re driving, princess.”
She pushed up to standing. She barely reached his bowling ball of a shoulder. Short of praying for a tsunami to tip him out of the boat, her options were limited. Forget coming clean. Then there’d be no reason to keep her in one piece. She had to play this out. Maybe on dry land she’d have more chance. “Aye, aye, Capitaine.”
His jaw tightened. So the title meant something to him? “We head northwest.”
To the next island? Could she escape and find a village, maybe track down an NGO? She needed to find a chink in this pirate’s well-muscled armor, and quickly.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, Holly counted two dark figures waiting on a beach ahead of the inflatable. Dense beech forest soared into a charcoal sky pinpricked with stars. No lights, buildings or vehicles, but plenty of cover. Could she grab the backpack and run, get out a message via the sat phone before they caught up?
One of the figures waded knee-deep into the water. One yank of the wheel and she could take him out.
“Keep it straight, princess.”
The capitaine slid up beside her, his voice a warning rumble, his right hand coasting down her arm to enclose her hand as she steered. Her fingers twitched, his grip tightened. She willed her breath to settle—he wouldn’t always be watching her, guessing her next move. There would be a chance for escape.