Across the room, Hunter released Viktor and the older man slumped to the floor. Unconscious? Dead? Axel dropped to his knees beside the senator to render his boss aid, while the bald man shoved Hunter back against the wall and held him pinned with a meaty hand around Hunter’s neck.
Adrenaline flooded Brianna’s blood as she divided her gaze between the two battles. She had to do something, had to help in some way. But what? Her hands were bound, her leg chained. But Hunter had gotten his legs free. Maybe she could...
She bent her head and started gnawing the plastic ties at her wrists. Please, please, she prayed. Help us!
The bomb timer continued counting down. 9:21, 9:20, 9:19...
While she chewed at the plastic strip with her teeth, she cut a wary gaze to the scuffle between Olaf and Chris. Olaf had stepped back from the fight and glared at Chris, his chest heaving from exertion. Moving across the room with long strides, Olaf seized his pistol from the bald man and stalked back to Chris.
The fine hair on the back of her neck rose. No!
Chris was squatting, his head down, wiggling his hands under his feet to bring his arms in front of him.
“Chris!” she screamed as Olaf raised the weapon.
Again, Chris stunned both her and his opponent with flash reflexes. In what seemed one smooth, controlled move, he surged to his feet, ramming the crown of his head against the man’s pistol grip. Olaf’s arm was knocked upward. The gun fired, but the bullet whizzed harmlessly into the ceiling.
As Olaf stepped back to take aim again, Chris swung his chained hands into Olaf’s chin and followed with a downward swipe across the thug’s gun hand. The gun clattered to the floor, and before Olaf could stoop to pick it up, Chris kicked it. To Brianna.
Her breath hitched as she scrambled to gather the gun with her cinched hands. Awkward as it was, she grabbed the weapon but couldn’t get a grip that allowed her to aim or fire.
She glanced toward Hunter just in time to see him raise his knee into the bald man’s groin. Axel had dragged the senator’s limp body outside onto the deck and rushed back into the cabin, sending an assessing gaze around the confined space. His gaze went to the cabinet where the bomb ticked down.
Brianna glanced that direction, as well—7:39 and counting. A spurt of fear slithered through her. If she, Hunter and Chris didn’t get free, didn’t stop the timer, it wouldn’t matter if they’d overpowered the senator’s thugs. Olaf shook off Chris’s last strike and turned, storming toward her. Her pulse scampered. There was no way she could keep Olaf from overpowering her and wrenching the weapon from her.
“Chris!” She flung the gun back to Chris, over Olaf’s head, in a deadly game of keep-away. Ben’s father stretched his chained hands out but fumbled the weapon. It fired as it bumped to the floor, and Chris howled in pain.
As Olaf lunged for the weapon on the floor, Chris snagged the gun up and fired. Olaf clutched his chest. Fell. A crimson stain spread on his chest.
Chris re-aimed the gun toward Axel, who flung himself back out the cabin door. Chris’s shot pocked the doorframe, splintering the wood. The gunfire so close to his head drew the attention of the bald man, who was taking Hunter on fist to fist. In the split second of his opponent’s distraction, Hunter drove his elbow into the bald man’s ribs and reared back so that his head smashed the man’s nose.
Staggering back, the bald man picked up a large, jagged-edged shard of wood from the door. Hunter was bent at the waist, gasping for a breath, when the bald man surged toward him with the sharp shard of wood raised.
“Hunter, look out!” Brianna screamed.
Hunter twisted, ducked.
And another ear-shattering gun blast echoed in the small cabin. The bald man’s head snapped back, a large hole in his face.
Brianna whipped her head toward Chris, who still held the smoking pistol.
From out on deck, she heard the voices of the other men coming back. Reinforcements. Damn it!
But in a surprise move, Axel shouted something in a foreign language and fled. The sound of the speedboat motor revving filtered up from the water, then faded as the surviving henchmen saved themselves. And why not retreat? she thought glumly, glancing at the bomb timer.
5:01. And they were still chained to the yacht.
Chapter 18
Hunter groaned and slid to the floor, holding his aching ribs. His entire body hurt, but at least he was alive. “Brianna?” he croaked. “Are you all right?”
“Y-yes,” she said, her voice full of tears.
He glanced at the dead man at his feet, then to Chris. “Nice shot. Thanks.”
The prince bobbed a nod, then slumped to the floor as well, clutching his foot, which bled profusely.
“Hunter.”
He turned his gaze back to Brianna, and she pointed across the room. “The C-4!”
Damn it. How could he have forgotten that? The timer said they had just under five minutes to get free and get off the boat. Or defuse the bomb. His army training gave him the know-how but...
He raised his chained hands, which were bloodied, shaking and starting to swell and stiffen. With his fine motor skills compromised, he was as likely to set the bomb off as defuse it. “We have to get off the boat,” he said, thinking aloud.
Cristoff snorted wryly. “Good idea.” He raised his chained hands. “How?”
Hunter’s feet were free even if his hands weren’t. He was Brianna’s and Chris’s best chance of getting free. He tried to push to his feet, but as his adrenaline level receded, his level of hurt grew. Baldy and Axel had done a number on him. As he shifted to stand, an agonizing pain shot through his ribs. He dropped back to the floor, harder than he intended, and fresh lightning bolts cracked in his skull. He bit out a curse and ground his teeth together. A sheen of sweat rose on his skin. He hurt so badly he thought he might vomit.
“Hunter?”
Brianna’s worried voice reached him through his fog of misery. He had to marshal his strength, block the pain somehow, at least until he could get Bri safely away from the yacht. He peered across the cabin, squinting as pain blurred his vision. The bomb timer read 3:47.
* * *
Hunter’s injuries were worse than Brianna had feared. He didn’t even appear fully coherent. If they were going to survive, she needed to shove her fear aside and think. Swallowing the taste of bile that rose in her throat, she forced her brain to settle, to focus. Her first task was to get her hands free. She bit harder on the plastic strips, desperate to get the bindings off.
“Brianna, pull your arms against your chest...as hard as you can.”
She glanced across the room at Chris, who was watching her vain attempts to gnaw free.
“What?”
“You have to break the straps. Pull both arms straight back, and jerk your wrists apart. You can snap the ties.”
“No...she’s not strong enough.” Hunter held out a set of keys. “Saw them off. With these.”
“We don’t have time for that!” Chris argued. “One quick thrust, and they’ll be off. Trust me, Brianna!”
She glanced at Hunter, wavering. What did she do? Could she even reach the keys Hunter was offering?
“At least try my way,” Chris pleaded. “We’re running out of time!”
His reminder of the literal ticking time bomb sent a spurt of tingling fear through her. Gritting her teeth and using the fear-induced adrenaline, Brianna held her bent arms in front of her as Chris demonstrated, then pulled her wrists to her chest in a quick, hard yank. Though the motion hurt like hell for a second, the ties snapped, freeing her hands. She gave a glad cry and rubbed feeling into her numb hands. “It worked!”
The joy over her small victory was short-lived. After all, her feet were still chained to the wall.
“Any thoughts on getting out
of the chains?” she asked, sharing a look between Chris and Hunter.
Hunter gave her a bleary-eyed look, then rolled to his hands and knees and threw up. Her pulse spiked seeing that he had blood in his vomit.
Chris held his bleeding foot and grimaced. “Find the key?”
She huffed. “Brilliant.”
Taking another calming breath, she closed her eyes. When Olaf had chained her feet, what had he done with the key? She exhaled slowly, conjuring the memory. His pants pocket.
Olaf’s dead body lay sprawled and leaking blood in the space between her and Chris. Again she stretched out on the floor and reached as far as she could. She could touch Olaf’s shoe, the cuff of his pants...
She strained against the metal shackle on her ankle, ignoring the bite as it dug into her skin. Her fingers inched closer to his pocket as she tugged on the leg of his pants. Finally she hooked a finger into his pocket, then another, until she had a better grip on the pants. Tugging with every ounce of her strength, she pulled at the pocket. If she couldn’t drag Olaf’s body closer, maybe she could rip the pants. In the end, she managed a combination. She dragged Olaf’s legs a couple of inches closer, but the seam of the pocket also tore. With a clink, a small silver key tumbled out onto the floor. Tears of relief filled her eyes, and she had to blink them back as she fumbled to grab the key.
“I got it!” she cried when her fingers closed around the means of their escape. She cut a glance to the timer on the bomb as she shimmied back across the floor. 2:28.
Please, God, help me work fast! Help me get Hunter and Chris away from the boat!
With trembling fingers, she keyed open the cuffs around her ankles. Kicking them off, she clambered to her feet. Knowing she’d likely need Chris’s help to drag Hunter to safety, she raced to him first and unlocked the cuffs on his wrists. The chains fell away and dangled from the hasp on the counter.
“Can you walk?” she asked, turning her attention to his injured foot.
“If not, I’ll hop. Go!”
Glancing at the bomb timer—now down to 1:55—she said, “You be our clock. Keep a countdown in your head.”
He nodded and started limping toward the door as she hurried over to Hunter.
Her gut knotted. Hunter was barely conscious. The senator’s henchmen had beaten him severely, and the blood he’d thrown up suggested internal injuries. When they jumped into the ocean, how was Hunter supposed to tread water, much less swim? And swim they must to get far enough from the yacht when it blew up.
“Come on, Hunter. I’ve got you. Can you get your legs under you?” She shoved a shoulder under his armpit and lifted.
When he tried to stand, his face blanched, and he moaned in agony. He waved her off and slumped back onto the floor. “Save yourself. Leave me.”
“Like hell I will.” She turned to Chris as he hobbled by. “Get his other arm. We need to get him up.”
Chris looked skeptical but moved into place. “One twenty-seven, one twenty-six...” he counted aloud.
With Chris under Hunter’s other arm and bracing his weight on his good foot and Brianna channeling the adrenaline swirling through her, they hoisted Hunter to his feet. He swayed but stayed upright with Chris and Brianna’s help. Taking small, shuffling steps, she guided Hunter from the yacht’s cabin out to the deck.
As they inched toward the railing, one painstaking step at a time, she put her brain on fast-forward. What else would they need in the water? How would they be rescued? Was there anything she’d need before the boat blew sky-high?
Some floatation device. A way to call help. Maybe a gun, in case Axel and the others returned to finish the job they’d started. Did she have time to get those things?
She cast her gaze around the deck in a sweeping glance as they staggered along, and she spotted the life-preserver ring mounted on the outside wall of the cabin. Below it in a box was a fire extinguisher and a flare gun. Bingo.
They reached the side of the yacht and helped Hunter sit on the bench seat along the railing. Until she could be in the water with Hunter to help buoy him, he needed to stay on the deck. Chris was another matter. “Time?”
“Forty-three seconds.”
A shudder raced through her. “Go! Get in the water!”
“But you—”
“We’re coming. But you have a country to lead. And if I don’t make it, our son will need you.” She pointed to the water, her face pleading, and shouted, “Go!”
Clearly the idea of leaving her, saving himself before her, bothered Chris, but to his credit, he didn’t waste precious time arguing. Frowning, he gave a tight nod, then kissed her mouth quick and hard. “Thirty-six seconds. Hurry!”
With that he climbed on the bench seat, swung a leg over the side of the yacht and dived into the water.
“Wait here,” she told Hunter, realizing how stupid it sounded as she dashed back across the deck. Where would he go?
She grabbed the life preserver and attached rope, then fumbled the glass box below it open. The fire extinguisher was no help she could imagine at this point, but she grabbed the flare gun.
Loading a flare, she fired it into the air as she rushed back to the other side of the deck. Already Hunter was struggling to crawl over the railing, grunting and gritting his teeth, clearly in tremendous pain.
“Twenty-five seconds!” Chris called from the water.
She tossed the life preserver into the water, then stuck her shoulder under Hunter’s arm again. “I know this will hurt. I’m sorry.”
“Do it,” he said through clenched teeth.
She shoved him up, and he struggled to swing his legs over the rail. Pushing off, he flopped more than dived into the water.
Nineteen...eighteen...seventeen, she counted in her head as she climbed up and clambered over the railing.
Chris had swum a good distance away from the yacht already and watched her with a tense face. “Hurry, Brianna!”
Gulping a deep breath, she jumped into the water. The cold Atlantic jolted her system, and she barely managed not to suck in a gasp of shock and a lungful of salt water with it. As she broke the surface, she quickly scanned the waves around her. Hunter was a few feet to her left, struggling to keep his head above the waves. “Hunter!”
She spotted the life preserver, bobbing a few yards in the opposite direction, and swam toward it. She snagged the rope and turned to swim the other way.
“Bri, get away from the yacht! Twelve seconds!” Chris yelled.
Her chest clenched. Her dunk in the frigid water sent a renewed spurt of energy through her. “Not without Hunter!”
She dug her arms into the water and pulled against the waves. Kicking as hard as she could, she glided through the water to Hunter in a few strokes.
In her head she heard a gruff male voice shouting at her, No wasted strokes, Coleman! Pull the water! Kick harder!
When she reached Hunter, he’d fought his aches and injuries enough to break the surface and gasp for a breath.
“Grab hold and don’t let go!” She flipped the life preserver over his head, then wrapped the rope under his arms and threaded the end through the center of the life preserver.
“Brianna!” Chris sounded panicked. “Six, five...”
She pulled hard on the water and poured every ounce of her strength into kicking her legs and swimming away from the yacht. She took up the count in her head as she tugged Hunter with her. Four...stroke, kick. Three...stroke, kick...
Suddenly Chris was beside her, tugging on the life-preserver ring, as well. His powerful arms helped propel Hunter and the life preserver faster, allowed Brianna’s efforts to go farther.
Two...
“Under!” Chris shouted.
Brianna released the ropes she clung to and dived under the waves. As she sank, she fisted her ha
nd in Hunter’s shirt and tugged him down, beneath the surface.
Boom!
Even beneath the ocean water, the concussion, the noise, the shock of the explosion rocked Brianna to the core. The pressure waves reverberated in her chest and made her ears pop.
Around them, chunks of fiery debris splashed into the ocean and sizzled as they were extinguished. When she thought the worst of the fallout was over, she kicked hard, pulling Hunter to the surface with her.
He shouted in agony as he fought his pain to grab the life preserver again and loop his arm through it.
Brianna searched the area around her, waiting for Chris to resurface. Chunks of splintered fiberglass, smoldering wood and broken furniture bobbed around her. But not Chris. Her heart lurched. “Chris!” She coughed as she took in a mouthful of seawater.
The sound of splashing called her attention to a large piece of wood decking to her right. A hand floundered toward the wood, then Chris’s head appeared, and as he seized the floating debris, he gasped for a breath. “Bri?”
“Over here! Are you all right?”
He swiped water from his face and winced. “Yes. It’s difficult to tread water with my injured foot, but...I’m making it. You?”
She grabbed a nondescript scrap of fiberglass, probably a piece of the destroyed yacht’s hull, as it floated by and threw her arm over it. “Shaken, but safe. I’m worried about Hunter, though.”
“I’m...okay,” Hunter rasped, coughing on some water after he spoke.
“Bull. You’re in pain, and the movement required to stay afloat has to be torture.” Clinging to her debris, she kicked to stay close to Hunter. She wrapped the rope from the life preserver around her hand so he wouldn’t drift too far.
“Better than...blowing up.” He tried to smile, but it was more of a grimace. “The cold water...is helping numb...the pain.”
Working as gently as she could, she fed the rope under his arms again, wrapped it through the life preserver, then knotted the ends. If Hunter did pass out, she prayed the rope would keep him from sinking.
Protecting Her Royal Baby Page 22