by Anna Hackett
Boy, he’d picked a really bad time to tell her.
“How sweet,” Diana sneered.
Darcy glowered at the woman. “You don’t know anything about love, or sacrifice, or caring.”
“My family is everything to me!”
Darcy shook her head. “You care about nothing but yourself and power. That’s selfish. Love is never selfish.”
Darcy turned her head and smiled at Alastair. “I think I love you back.”
His brows drew together. “You think?”
“I still need a little more convincing. I know you can be very persuasive when it suits you.” She looked around the room. “I also need a trip to the beach after this. Somewhere with no bad guys. Somewhere I can get wet.” She looked into his face and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. She mentally urged him to understand her words.
“You’ll be dead after this.” Diana raised the knife again.
“I don’t think so.” Darcy pressed on her tablet screen. Please be the right command.
The overhead fire sprinklers flared to life, dousing the room with water.
The guards shouted and Darcy kicked out. She broke free and swung off the table.
She charged at Diana, slamming into the woman and knocking her over. Darcy snatched up the diamond case and rushed across the room to Alastair.
She saw he was free of his cuffs. How the hell had he done that? He rammed the final guard into the wall, and she heard the man’s skull thud on the plaster. His body slid down the wall to the floor.
“Alastair!”
He grabbed her hand. “Come on.” He grabbed the overturned chair, dragging it behind them. Once they moved into the hall, he slammed the door closed, and wedged the chair under the door handle.
“How’d you get free of the cuffs?”
“I always carry a spare handcuff key. I like to be prepared.” He pulled her shirt closed and tied it. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. Your leg?” There was a lot of blood.
“It’ll hold. Now move.”
“So bossy.” They moved down the hall. Alastair was limping badly. His trouser leg was soaked with blood and worry nipped at her.
“Keep moving,” he said.
They came out in a casual living area filled with cream-colored couches. At the far end was a pair of sliding doors that opened onto another deck.
They were sailing down the Potomac. God, the river was huge.
“Let’s look for some sort of escape raft or speedboat—”
“Darcy.” Alastair collapsed against the back of a couch, smearing blood on the fabric. “I can’t go any farther.”
“No.”
“You need to go. Get to safety.”
Her heart lodged in her throat. “No!”
Chapter Fifteen
“You get up, Burke.” Darcy raced over to a cabinet, yanking out drawers.
Alastair watched her, breathing through the pain. She came back with a kitchen towel and wadded it against his leg.
Just making his way down the hall had taken it out of him. His leg was pure torture.
“Get out, Darcy. Find a boat, and go and get help.”
She shook her head, her dark hair brushing her jaw. “You know I’m bad with orders. I’m not leaving the man I love to die.”
His heart filled with electric warmth. Darcy loved him. But terror followed. She wasn’t going to leave.
He looked at the blood staining her white shirt. She looked like an extra from a horror movie. If he lost her, he wouldn’t survive. Watching that woman torture Darcy while there was nothing he could do… It had almost broken him.
“Hey.” Darcy cupped his cheeks. “Stay with me.”
He nodded.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said. “Together. I guess if you can’t go any farther, then I’ll just have to rescue you.”
“You already have.”
Her head snapped up, warmth suffusing her face. She leaned forward and kissed him.
“I’m going to spend a lot more time kissing you later. Now, let’s go.” She looked around, then she rushed over to the sliding doors.
Steeling himself against the pain, Alastair limped over to join her.
But before she could open the doors more than a few inches, the main door to the room burst open.
“Give me my diamonds!” Diana strode across the space, several guards flanking her.
Gunfire sprayed the walls.
Alastair tackled Darcy to the floor, knocking his injured leg in the process. The pain was outrageous and his vision blurred. He breathed through his mouth, praying he wouldn’t puke.
Then, the hard muzzle of a gun pressed to the back of his head.
When he looked up, he saw another guard holding a gun to Darcy’s temple. Her face was pale.
No. It couldn’t end like this.
Diana snatched the case out of Darcy’s hands and opened it.
“These are mine.”
The lights went out. Daylight from outside was the only source of light. Alastair glanced at Darcy.
She shook her head. “That wasn’t me.”
Suddenly, a small, silver ball flew in from outside. It hit the floor, then rolled. A high-pitched sound filled the room.
Everyone started screaming. Fuck. Alastair gritted his teeth. It was like an ice pick being driven into his ears. He clapped his hands over his ears, trying to block the sound. He saw Darcy doing the same, her face contorted with pain.
Suddenly, the sliding glass doors shattered.
Alastair glanced up. Outside, ropes dropped from the sky and black-clad soldiers rappelled onto the deck. As soon as their boots hit wood, they unclipped and strode into the room.
The newcomers wore black scarves over the bottom half of their faces and carried futuristic-looking assault rifles.
They engaged the Silk Road guards, hard and fast.
Alastair knew instantly who they were. Team 52.
The piercing sound suddenly stopped. Alastair turned his head and recognized the tall form of Lachlan Hunter, the leader of Team 52. He was holding the silver ball in the palm of his hand.
The man’s hand was made of silver metal, as well.
“Darcy.” Dec stepped into the room, crouching down in front of them. He slung his rifle onto his back. The rest of the THS team appeared as well.
“No one left to shoot?” Morgan said, clearly disappointed.
“These fuckers hogged the action.” Logan glared at the Team 52 members.
Darcy was shaking her head to clear it. “Dec, I’m okay. But they shot Alastair. Bullet wound to his thigh.”
Alastair groaned as he put his back to the wall. Blood was smeared all over him and the floor. Darcy gripped his arm.
“Kimura,” Hunter bit out.
A black-clad man dropped down beside Alastair and he looked up. Not a man, a woman. Gray eyes looked at him over her scarf. She was opening a backpack.
“I’m a medic.” She reached out to touch his gunshot wound.
“Her first.” He nodded at Darcy.
Darcy’s chin lifted. “No.” She rose to her knees.
Dec and Cal hissed.
“What the fuck, Darcy!” Dec ground out.
Everyone now had an unobstructed view of her shirt. It was soaked in blood.
“Tell me that isn’t yours,” Cal said.
“Um, I have a few cuts courtesy of the Collector, but it isn’t as bad as it looks.”
“Here.” The Team 52 medic pressed a wad of gauze to her belly. “Keep the pressure on.” Then the woman turned back to Alastair’s leg. She tore his trouser leg open.
Darcy nudged her brothers back and leaned against Alastair’s side. She reached up and kissed him. “I love you.”
Cal groaned. “Shit.”
Dec groaned as well.
From nearby, Alastair noticed Morgan and Logan grinning. Ronin and Hale were shaking their heads, looking amused.
“Hunter,” Alastair called out.
The Team 52 leader inclined his head.
“How the hell did you get here?”
“I thought you might need some help.”
“The Collector,” Alastair said. “It’s Diana Acton, Henry Acton’s daughter.”
Darcy scanned the room, her eyes widening. “Where did she go?”
“She can’t have gone far,” Dec said. “The yacht is surrounded by FBI and—” he glanced at Team 52 “—others.”
“She has a collection,” Alastair continued. “Artifacts you need to know about.”
Hunter’s scary-flat gold eyes flashed. “We’ll take care of it.”
Dec picked up the diamond case and opened it. “Fuck.”
The Black Orlov was missing.
Alastair looked at the medic. “You got any drugs in there to get me on my feet?”
The woman tilted her head. “Maybe.”
“Give some to me and someone help me up,” Alastair barked.
“He has a hard time with his manners,” Darcy said.
“We have to find Acton,” Alastair said. “Now!”
Darcy watched her brothers helping Alastair hobble along the corridor.
Beside them, the Team 52 leader, Hunter, touched his ear. “She’s on the roof.”
Their small group continued onward and moved up the stairs leading to the top deck. Darcy bit her lip, seeing the pain in Alastair’s face with each step he took. She glanced at Hunter, and he looked back at her with golden eyes that nearly made her shiver. Like a tiger’s eyes…just before he attacked you.
They pushed through a door and out into the sunshine.
As they spilled out onto the top deck, she spotted Diana Acton. The woman was up on the roof of the bridge, clinging to an antenna.
What the hell?
The Black Orlov necklace was around her neck.
“What is she doing?” Darcy asked.
“She’s lost it,” Dec muttered.
“You can’t stop me!” Diana called out. “Silk Road will be the most powerful group in the world.”
Alastair pushed away from Dec and Cal, and limped forward. He stood tall beside Hunter.
“It’s over, Diana.”
“Never!”
“We have your son in custody.”
“My lawyers will have him free in just a few hours.”
Hunter shifted. “Actually, he’s been taken into custody by my team. We plan to interrogate him about the contents and location of your collection.”
The woman shook her head. “He’ll never talk.”
“We have our ways.” Hunter cocked his head. “We’re a black ops team, Ms. Acton. Off the books, with our own set of rules. No lawyer will ever find him.”
The woman clutched at the necklace. “I have the Black Orlov. I’ll use it to defeat you all.”
“It’s a diamond. It has no powers.” Alastair stared at the woman. “It’s time to give up.”
“I won’t,” the woman whispered. “My father never did.”
“You’ve hurt too many people.” Alastair’s tone was hard. “You’ve destroyed too many families, and stolen pieces of history that belong to everyone in this world. It ends today.”
“No.”
“You left other children with no fathers, no mothers. You did the very thing you were trying to avenge.”
A look crossed the woman’s face and she shook her head.
Darcy saw Alastair waver on his leg. She moved to him and pressed in close to his side. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, looked down at her and put a little bit of his weight on her. She smiled.
“No more mothers will die,” Darcy said. “After today, Silk Road won’t hurt anyone else.”
Alastair nodded. “Everyone on this deck will work tirelessly to dismantle Silk Road, piece by piece. Until there’s nothing left. Until it’s just an ugly, forgotten footnote in a dusty file. And you’ll be wasting away in a prison cell for the rest of your life.”
“No.” Now the woman sounded horrified, her face pale.
She pushed away from the antenna and moved shakily toward the edge of the roof.
“Shit,” Alastair muttered.
Darcy could see the woman’s face had gone slack, her eyes staring off into the distance.
The men on the deck started moving, but before they even had a chance to get close, Diana jumped.
She didn’t make it to the water. And to Darcy, it looked like she wasn’t even aiming for it.
Darcy turned away, the thump of Diana’s body hitting the deck a horrifying sound.
Alastair pulled Darcy close, pressed her face against his chest.
“Oh, God.”
“Don’t look.” He ran a hand up her back.
A moment later, Hunter and his medic appeared.
“She’s dead.” Hunter held the Black Orlov in his gloved hand.
“You giving that back to me?” Alastair asked.
“No. I think it’s safer if I hold on to it.”
Darcy looked up and gasped. “It really is ancient technology?”
Hunter’s eyes crinkled and she guessed the man was smiling. What he didn’t do was answer her question. “And don’t think I’ve forgotten about the tracker you placed on the diamond.”
Darcy wrinkled her nose. “I assume you know how to remove it.”
“I think we can figure it out.” Then he turned, calling for his team.
“Well, he’s Mr. Mysterious, isn’t he?” she muttered.
“That’s his job.”
“He scares me.”
Alastair nodded. “He scares me, too.”
As Team 52 moved away, Darcy let out a shaky breath. “It’s over.”
Alastair tipped her face up to his. “Silk Road is over.” He glanced along the length of the ship. “I think my mom would be happy.”
Darcy gripped his shoulders. “She would be. And she’d be proud of you. I am.”
He pressed his forehead to hers. “I couldn’t have done it without you. I think she’d mostly be happy as hell that I found a woman as amazing as you.”
Darcy shot him a sassy smile. “Well, of course.”
Alastair barked out a laugh and her smile widened. It was starting to sound a little less rusty.
“Want to get out of here?” he asked.
She tightened her hold on him. “Well, since you asked so nicely…”
Chapter Sixteen
As they walked into the Dashwood, the director hurried over.
“Oh, thank the Lord.” The harried-looking man took the diamond case from Alastair and opened it.
He gasped at the empty space and looked up. “The Black Orlov?”
“You’ll be contacted about it, Mr. Monroe,” Alastair told the man. “It’s in safe hands, and the museum will be compensated.”
The director pursed his lips, but he nodded.
Alastair tightened his arm around Darcy. They’d both had a trip to the hospital, courtesy of her brothers. His leg wound, and Darcy’s cuts, had been treated and bandaged. But they hadn’t had a chance to change and they still looked like hell.
“Darcy,” a voice called out.
In seconds, they were surrounded by people. He watched as Darcy was engulfed by her parents, sisters-in-law, and friends. Dec and the rest of the THS gang watched and smiled.
“We’re fine.” Darcy stepped back to Alastair’s side. “And the best thing of all, Silk Road is done.”
Cheers went up.
“It’s true?” Elin appeared beside Alastair. “They’re done?”
He nodded. The group had killed Elin’s father, and destroyed her mother’s art restoration career. Elin had been searching for justice, just like Alastair.
“Really. The Collector was a woman named Diana Acton. She’s dead.”
“Suicide,” Darcy said.
Elin gasped.
“She was wearing the Black Orlov,” Darcy added.
Layne leaned forward. “Do you think—?”
Darcy shrugged and lowered her voi
ce. “Team 52 confiscated the necklace.”
From behind Elin, Hale scowled. “I do not like those guys.”
Elin patted his chest. “So they screwed up in Africa. You have to let it go, Hale.”
“I hate them too,” Logan said.
Morgan rolled her eyes. “You hate everything.”
“He doesn’t hate me.” Sydney was grinning, and Logan pulled her up on her toes for a wet kiss.
Click.
Alastair turned his head at the sound. Dani Ward was taking photos.
“To mark the occasion,” the photographer said. “The end of Silk Road.”
“Drinks tonight,” Morgan called out.
From beside Morgan, Zach shook his head, a smile on his handsome face. “Pretty sure there’ll be some hangovers on the flight home tomorrow.”
Darcy smiled. “I can’t believe it. Silk Road is gone.”
Alastair tightened his arm around her. “Believe it.”
Their gazes met and he felt need stir. He’d come close to losing her today, and he’d learned just how much she meant to him.
Love. The one thing he’d guarded himself against, and Darcy Ward had plowed through all his well-built walls. He really wanted to drag her back to his place and have her all to himself.
He pulled her up on her toes, and she eagerly met his mouth with her own.
Alastair tried to keep the kiss respectable, but her hands slid into his hair, and she kissed him back eagerly.
All around, cheers and whistles broke out.
He pulled back. Everyone was grinning at them… Except for Dec and Cal, who both looked pained.
Logan scowled. “I thought you hated him, Darcy?”
Darcy smoothed a hand over Alastair’s shoulder. “I changed my mind. I love him.”
More cheers.
“About time,” Sydney said.
Layne bumped a hip against Dani. “You owe me fifty bucks.”
Alastair pressed his lips to Darcy’s ear. “I love you too, baby.”
“So…” Her face changed, and for the first time since he’d known Darcy Ward, she looked nervous.
His gut tightened. “What?”
She fiddled with a button on his shirt. “Well, you live and work in DC, and I live and work in Denver…”
Alastair had already thought that problem through. Seeing the woman he loved being tortured in front of him sure put things in perspective.