Just Another Day in Paradise

by Justine Davis

  The room was empty. He stepped inside, careful to keep the door under control and hang on to the handle until it snicked closed. The door leading into the central living room of the suite was standing open, and for a moment he just stood there, listening.

  Someone was there, moving around. He waited, listening for the silence that would indicate whoever it was had stopped or taken a seat. It didn’t come. The sound of movement continued, sometimes closer, sometimes fading slightly. It took him a moment to realize that someone was pacing, back and forth.

  He edged toward the door, then stopped dead when he heard a voice.

  Ares.

  He felt a spurt of grim satisfaction at having guessed right, that Ares would hide out here and send his men to do the dirty work. But who was he talking to? Taking on one armed man was one thing, but two, with one of them likely toting one of those AK-47s, was something else. Draven would do it, Rider was sure, and come out smelling like a rose. The man never put a foot wrong in situations like this. But Draven wasn’t here, he was. He was the top Redstone person on this island, which made this his problem.

  Not to mention that he wanted a crack at Ares. The image of the man beating Paige as she lay crumpled on the floor, while he sat there helplessly was not one that would leave him for a very long time. He wanted—

  The man was talking to himself.

  On some level, while his thoughts had been racing, Rider had finally registered that he was only hearing one voice.

  The guy’s giving a flipping speech, he thought as he heard bits and pieces of dogma and justification for terrorism. His entire operation is in danger of falling apart—I hope—and he’s spouting terrorist doctrine.

  Rider moved to the door quickly, waited until the voice seemed to fade slightly, risked a quick glance.

  Ares was alone and gesturing almost wildly as he paced, as if he were indeed giving a speech. He was armed, but only with the holstered sidearm he’d seen when the man had first come to the schoolroom.

  Next time you talk like that, I hope it’s in a courtroom, right before they sentence you, Rider thought.

  But before that could happen, he was going to have to do something. And fast, before something went sour down in the dining room. He had no choice.

  He counted off the seconds as Ares paced, trying to time when he turned his back to the doorway. Once, it was at twelve seconds, once at thirteen. He had to assume the man would realize he was there before he got to him. Had to assume his first move would be to grab his weapon.

  Rider had to get to him before he could shoot. He’d managed to get through this so far, he just had to hope his luck would hold a little while longer.

  On the next round Rider drew his knife. Waited. Thought of Paige, bruised, hurting and going on, anyway. Paige, worth so much more than these overarmed cowards.

  At thirteen seconds he looked. Saw Ares’s back.

  Now.

  He ran. As quietly as he could. But speed was more important now. When he was three strides away, Ares began to turn. His hand flashed toward the holster. Rider closed on him.

  He wasn’t going to make it. Rider launched himself in a headlong tackle. He grunted—or maybe it was Ares—when he hit. They both went down. He felt a stinging pain on his left bicep. Realized he’d nicked himself with his own blade. Realized Ares had his hand on the gun.

  Rider clawed at him with his left hand. Struggled to bring the knife up with his right. Ares pounded at him with a rock-hard fist. Rider wrenched himself around until he could power a kick to Ares’s gun arm. The weapon fell, barely a foot from the man’s outstretched hand.

  Ares abandoned his pummeling and rolled toward the gun. In the instant he reached it Rider was on him. From behind he grabbed the man’s chin. Forced his head back. He whipped the gleaming blade forward, making sure Ares saw it before it came to rest across his throat.

  “Both hands, out in front of you.” Ares hesitated, and Rider tightened his grip. “My life would be a lot simpler if you died right here.”

  To his surprise, for he’d never thought of himself as a particularly bloodthirsty man, he meant it. At least now, in this moment, with that image of Paige in his head, he did. And Ares must have sensed that, because he did as he was told.

  “Who are you?” Ares demanded.

  “Your worst nightmare,” Rider said, grinning recklessly even as he borrowed the movie phrase. “Just an ordinary citizen who’s had enough of your kind.”

  He reached over and picked up the blue steel automatic pistol, saw that it was a Beretta, a model 92. His dad had bought one after the army had switched to the M9 version. As Rider competently checked the load—if it was only a ten-round magazine rather than the older, now-banned in the U.S. fifteen, he figured he’d better know now—and released the safety. The frowning look he saw on Ares’s face was downright warming.

  “And now,” Rider said, pressing his knee over the man’s kidneys for emphasis, “you and I are going to take a little walk.”

  Just her luck, Paige thought, that Filipo would be one of the men Ares sent. He’d been furious with her even before they’d humiliated him by escaping. And now he was looking for revenge.

  When he’d first spotted her among the hostages, he’d simply stared, clearly dumbfounded. But his expression had quickly changed, to the pleased smile of a child given an unexpected gift.

  More like a cruel little boy who’s found a fly to pull the wings off, she thought grimly.

  As Rider had instructed, she’d helped calm the now rowdy group down when the guards threatened to start shooting. She’d spent the entire time they were following those instructions, causing as much noise and commotion as they could, trying not to think about where Noah was, or what he was doing.

  Or if he was still alive.

  He’d pulled off some near miracles, and she would be first in line to pin a medal on him. But he was not a soldier, or even a brawler, and face-to-face with a man like Ares…he was in over his head.

  But he’d gone, anyway. He’d gone because it had to be done, and he was the only one who could do it. Her heart ached with the sheer courage that had taken. And she prayed that she would get the chance to tell him. As well as the chance to finish what they’d begun.

  Heat had flooded her at the memory of those fleeting moments upstairs. For an instant she had been tempted, so very tempted, to ignore the reality of the nightmare they were living and pretend they were free to continue the hot, deep kisses, the tentative-but-so-very-arousing caresses.

  And it was at that moment, with her face flushed with an undeniably sexual heat, that she’d seen Filipo. And the heat had turned to an immediate chill.

  When the other two men who had come with him began to herd the hostages into a corner of the room, forcing them to pick up the chairs that had been thrown and tables that had been upended as they went, Filipo had zeroed in on her. By the time he reached her his eyes were lit with a dark eagerness that made her shudder inwardly.

  “So, little bitch, you have come back to me.”

  “Only to see them take you away.” Something flickered in his eyes, and Paige wanted very much to believe it was fear. “They’re on the way, and soon you’ll be rotting in prison. I hope they throw away the key.”

  He swore in some language she didn’t understand, but there was little doubt of the crudity of whatever he’d said. It was written all over his face. He yanked his rifle around and dug the barrel into her throat.

  “No!” someone cried out, Paige thought it was Miranda.

  “Filipo!” one of the other men yelled.

  “She is mine,” Filipo hissed. “And I will make her wish she was already dead before I kill her.”

  He lifted the rifle to the right side of her head. Then he leaned forward, whispering to her, telling her in ugly, lascivious and lurid detail what he was going to do to her and make her do to him before he put a bullet through her brain.

  “And they will all watch, all of your friends here, to sh
ow them what happens to those who—”

  A commotion at the main doors stopped him midtirade. Every head turned to look. And Paige, even with the barrel of an automatic rifle gouging her temple, couldn’t help but smile joyously.

  Noah was here. And he had Ares. With a gun barrel pressed to his head.

  “Tell them to drop their weapons,” she heard Noah order the terrorist leader.

  Ares did it, clearly convinced Noah would shoot if he had to. The men hesitated. Noah moved his thumb to the pistol’s hammer, which was already partly back, and levered it back all the way.

  “It’s off safety now, and I’m real nervous,” he said.

  Ares shouted the order this time. And the men obeyed.

  Except for Filipo.

  He twisted in place, pulling Paige with him. “I have the teacher,” he exclaimed. “If you don’t let him go, I will kill her!”

  “Then I kill your boss here,” Noah said, so coolly that if she hadn’t been able to see the tightness of his jaw and the wire-drawn tension of his body, she would have thought this was his everyday business.

  “You won’t let her die,” Filipo insisted.

  Paige saw the change in Ares then, as he registered the probable truth in Filipo’s words. And as he looked at her, she saw in Noah’s eyes that he saw it, too. He had been in control, but now the entire atmosphere in the room seemed to shift.

  She glanced for a split second at Filipo. He was watching Ares, as if looking for some sign. She looked back at Noah. And her son’s eager question echoed in her mind now, along with Noah’s answer:

  How good a shot?

  Very.

  She began to lift her right hand, praying Filipo was so intent on his leader that he wouldn’t notice.

  But Ares noticed. He opened his mouth, Paige was sure to call out a warning. She snapped her hand up and forward, hitting at the rifle barrel, shoving it upward.

  The sound of the shots echoed off the walls.

  Her last coherent thought as she sank to the floor was that now she knew what automatic rifle fire sounded like.

  Chapter 18

  “Girlfriend, I will never forget that as long as I live,” Miranda said with a visible shudder as she knelt beside Paige. “I felt sure that man was going to kill you, and the next thing I know there’s Mr. Rider, cool as can be, shooting clear across the room without turning a hair.”

  Paige smiled weakly at her friend. Her ears were still ringing, and her knees weren’t steady enough to hold her yet. But she knew that she, too, had an image seared into her brain that she would never, ever forget. Noah, hanging on to a struggling Ares with one arm while he aimed and fired at Filipo, taking him out with a single shot whose sound hadn’t even died away before he had Ares back under control.

  “A very good shot indeed,” she whispered.

  It was only after the hostages had thoroughly and happily tied up their former captors including Ares—with tablecloths Rudy cheerfully ripped into strips for the cause—that Noah got to her. She was standing by then, albeit not steadily.

  “You’re all right?” he asked anxiously, looking her over.

  “Fine,” she said. “At least, I will be as soon as my ears stop ringing.”

  “That blood—”

  “Is his,” she assured him. Filipo wouldn’t be terrorizing anybody again, for a very long time. Then her eyes narrowed as she spotted a dark stain spreading on his left shirt-sleeve. “What about you?”

  He glanced down at his arm as if he’d forgotten. “Oh, that.”

  “Yes, that! You’re hurt.”

  “Not really. It’s just a little nick.” He let out a sigh and admitted sheepishly, “I did it to myself, rolling around with our friend Ares.”

  She didn’t think she was up to any more details of that encounter just now. “Let me look at it for you. There must be a first-aid kit or something around here.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I’m a teacher, I do it all the time.”

  “Okay, but later. We need to figure out what to do next.”

  “Wait for the cavalry?” she suggested.

  He chuckled, but the sound faded quickly. “Damn, you scared me,” he said, “when I realized what you were going to do.”

  “You said you were a good shot.”

  “Not against a man with an assault rifle!”

  “Wrong.”

  “What?”

  “You’re just as good against a man with an assault rifle as anywhere else. You just proved it.”

  He blinked. Then slowly he gave her a lopsided smile as he shook his head. “You never cease to amaze me.”

  “Oh?” she said. “My jaw has dropped a few times over you, too.”

  “Mr. Rider? I hear people coming,” Miranda called almost apologetically from the doorway Noah had shot from.

  Noah swore. “One or the other of those platoons must be back. Damn, I thought we’d have longer.” He looked at the handgun he held, then at her. “Can you use this?”

  She grimaced, but nodded. “If I have to.”

  He gave it to her. “Safety’s off and it’s ready to fire. I only had to shoot once, to convince Ares I was serious, so you should have fourteen more rounds.”

  He turned then, and went to the small pile of weapons the now-free hostages had made on the floor. Paige followed as he picked up one of the automatic rifles and another handgun that he stuck in his belt. He straightened and looked at her.

  “If they get past me—”

  “You can’t go out there alone,” Paige exclaimed. “I’m coming with you.”

  “No, somebody needs to—”

  “I’ll go, too,” Rudy volunteered unexpectedly. “I’m no sharpshooter like you, but I’ve shot my share of sharks who were after my mahi mahi.”

  “I’ve shot a snake or two back home,” someone else offered. “Guess I could do it here, too.”

  “Me, too!”

  Noah looked a bit bemused at the sudden wealth of assistance. But before anyone was put to the test, Miranda called out excitedly, “Hey! It’s not them, it’s somebody who’s got them!”

  Paige and Noah both ran to the door, followed by most of the rest of the staff.

  “Keep an eye on them,” Noah said, indicating their prisoners.

  Then he stepped out into the hallway. It was possible to see into the courtyard from here, through the glass wall at the front of the lobby, but not well. He watched for a minute, and Paige could feel his tension. Then suddenly he seemed to spot something or someone. And a wide smile spread across his face.

  “Draven,” he breathed, and the world of relief she heard in his voice told Paige this was very good news.

  He turned his head to look at her. “It’s Redstone. John Draven, the head of security. They must have gotten Kyle’s message.”

  Paige stared at the approaching group. She’d never again expected to be grateful to see armed, uniformed men coming at her. It was easy to separate them out: the newcomers wore all black, while the rest were in the too-familiar green camouflage. She did a quick count and saw that they had apparently rounded up all the unaccounted-for terrorists.

  A little stunned at the realization that it was really over, Paige just stood there, watching as the man Noah had indicated spotted him and waved. The man was about Noah’s size, but somehow he seemed even bigger. Paige could see that he moved with that same powerful grace, the kind of effortless motion she’d seen Noah exhibit when they were trying to move quietly.

  But as Draven got closer, she could see that that was where the resemblance ended. It wasn’t just the fact that his hair was longer and darker than Noah’s—nearly black—or that he had a wicked-looking scar down the left side of his face, or that this man’s eyes were green not Noah’s piercing blue. The real difference was that Draven’s eyes were shadowed, with more than a touch of cynicism, as if this was his everyday business. As she supposed it could well be.

  “Hey, Rider,” the leader said with
a grin, “nice shiner! And thanks for the trip to paradise.”

  Noah muttered something she couldn’t hear, but the two men shook hands heartily. As the rest of the security team herded the last captives into the dining room with the rest, another man stopped beside Draven.

  “Where’s Sam?” he asked.

  “On the way,” Draven said.

  The second man pulled off a knit cap, revealing thick, nearly platinum-blond hair, and grinned at Noah, revealing a deep dimple that belied the tough, competent demeanor.

  “What’s with you? It’s not like you to stir up all this trouble.”

  “Quiet, Singleton. I wasn’t stirring, I was in the pot with everybody else, just trying to stay afloat.”

  “Nice try.” Paige was startled to hear a feminine voice coming from behind John Draven. When the source of the voice reached them, she was even more surprised to see a tall, long-legged woman with a striking sort of beauty and hair as blond as the man Noah had called Singleton. In fact, there was a definite resemblance between them.

  The woman saw Paige’s glance flick to the man and back to her, and her nose crinkled. “Yeah, yeah, I know. But we’re not related. Hi,” she said to Paige, “I’m Sam.”

  This was Sam? Paige was beginning to feel a bit woozy.

  “What did you mean, nice try?” Draven asked the woman called Sam.

  “I meant Rider here, trying to be modest.” She winked at him. “But the kid who called us told us what you’ve been up to.”

  “Kyle?” Paige asked urgently. “Is he all right?”

  The woman looked at her. “This is Paige Cooper,” Noah said. “Paige, Samantha Beckett and Rand Singleton. Kyle’s her son,” he explained.

  Sam nodded in understanding. “He’s fine. They’re just waiting for word to come back to shore.”

  “Which we should give them now, come to think of it,” Draven said. He glanced at the blond man, who nodded, said a quick “see you later,” and took off at a trot back the way they had come. Someone called out to Sam, and she tossed a salute to Rider and headed toward the hotel.

  Draven looked back at Paige.