Wicked Intentions: The Wicked Games Series, Book 3

by Geissinger, J. T.

Mariana

  A deafening bang, a blinding flash of light, and a violent recoil jolting up my arm are the three things that happen simultaneously when I shoot Vincent Moreno at point-blank range in the chest.

  He staggers back, arms flung wide, eyes bulging. He lands on his back with a whump that shakes the floor. Blood flowers from the hole in the center of his chest, quickly seeping crimson through his pristine white shirt.

  Reynard is frozen, staring blankly at his son. I don’t know if his shock is due to finding himself standing when only seconds before my gun was pointed at him, or if he’s still trying to understand what happened.

  In case it’s the latter, I provide him with an explanation. “He lunged. It was instinct.”

  Reynard shifts his gaze to me. His eyes are so wide, they show white all around the irises. His face is the color of the marble floor.

  I stand slowly and face him. My body feels like it’s a thousand years old. As if the words are coming from someone else, I speak in a hollow voice. “Only blood can pay for blood?” I gesture to Vincent, still alive but gasping for air, his hands fluttering uselessly at his sides. “Consider us even.”

  Alerted by the sound of a gunshot, four assassins slam through the closed doors. They see Vincent on the floor and me standing there with a gun, and all of them pull up short, draw their weapons, and point them at me.

  “Stop!” shouts Reynard in Italian, holding out a hand. “Don’t shoot! This is my daughter! You will not hurt her!”

  They freeze. They glance at each other, then at me, then at Vincent, who’s making awful gurgling noises, desperately trying to suck air into lungs that are most likely collapsed.

  I can tell by the expression on Vincent’s face—past the pain and panic—that he’s unhappy with this development.

  The men slowly lower their weapons. Reynard turns his attention back to me.

  “You were the son I should have had,” he says, his voice shaking with emotion. “You were always the strong one. The dedicated one. The one without the sickness in the head.” He gestures to Vincent, who wheezes in outrage.

  Blood seeps from one corner of his mouth, and has gathered in a slick, shining pool under his body. His eyes are like a rabid dog’s, rolling viciously in his head. Even fighting death, he’s full of rage.

  “You were always the one I intended to pass everything to, Mariana,” Reynard says. “You are my true heir.”

  I blink, the assassins gasp, and Vincent roars like a wounded lion.

  Then everything takes on the quality of a dream. It all seems to happen in slow motion. I see Vincent reach into his jacket. I see him withdraw his silver pistol. I see him point it at his father. I smell the acrid stench of gunpowder in the air, still lingering from the shot that took him down. I see another burst of brilliant light, hear another bang, and a crack like thunder.

  Reynard’s head explodes like a pumpkin. He spins a fast half circle, then crumples facedown to the floor.

  An eerie stillness follows. I’m untouchable, inside a cocoon of unreality that’s softening all the hard edges of things, keeping my pulse even and my mind clear, removed from it all, like I’m a spectator watching a movie, serene and safe behind a gauzy screen.

  Vincent takes one last, ragged breath, shudders, then closes his eyes. The gun drops from his hand and clatters against the floor. After that, he doesn’t move, his chest stops rising, and I gather from all the evidence that he’s dead.

  I feel nothing.

  I feel nothing when I look at the mangled pulp that was Reynard. I’m aware I must be deeply in shock, that my body is responding to severe trauma by instinctively defending itself with psychological detachment, and that later I’ll probably develop PTSD, but right now, I don’t care.

  When I look at the armed men standing frozen and gaping at the doors, I still don’t care. My utter lack of fear or feeling must show in my face, because they stare back at me in obvious trepidation.

  Then one of them whispers, “Capo di tutti capi,” and slowly takes a knee.

  He isn’t looking at Vincent or Reynard, lying there motionless.

  He’s looking at me.

  One by one, the other assassins sink to their knees.

  Then they bow their heads, paying their respects to the new leader of the empire.

  Thirty-Three

  Ryan

  “Which one is it?” I shout over the roar of the engines as I stare though the Cessna’s window at the ocean, fourteen thousand feet below me.

  And the three fucking megayachts floating within a mile of each other off the coast of Vis.

  This was as far as the GPS got us before the final working tracker blinked offline. One mile of ocean, not five feet.

  Serves me right for only attaching four trackers to Mariana’s clothing.

  When I get my woman back, she’s not going anywhere without a dozen.

  “We can’t dial down tight enough on the satellite images to get the hull identifiers to see who owns them, but there’s a huge heat signature coming from the one farthest west,” Connor says in my ear. Our connection is shitty, and his voice is cutting in and out, but I can still hear him when he says, “There’s gotta be hundreds of people on that craft.”

  Which would make sense if your business is trafficking bodies.

  Imagining a ship full of scared little girls in addition to Mariana, I seethe with anger. I can’t wait to bury a bullet in this sick motherfucker’s skull.

  “Copy that. Out.”

  I hang up the sat phone before Connor can say anything else. At this point, there’s nothing else that can be said. Except maybe good luck.

  Or sayonara.

  I zip the phone into a pocket in my jacket, shove a pair of tactical goggles on my face, and give the thumbs-up to the skinny guy with the dreads from Skydive Italia. He was more than happy to take me up solo when I gave him five thousand cash, plus another few thousand for the chute and rig he won’t get back, but he isn’t too happy now, after watching me pull a shit ton of guns and ammo from my ruck and strap ’em all over my body.

  He’ll get over it.

  He yanks open the door and steps aside. Freezing wind slaps my face. The roar of the engines becomes deafening. At this altitude, I don’t need supplemental oxygen, but breathing’s still gonna be a bitch until I’m under canopy. I sit on the overhanging platform and scooch all the way to the edge, then arch my body and kick my feet back as I jump.

  This shit is way more fun when you’re running out the back of a C-130 with your buddies.

  Within seconds, I’m falling at terminal velocity. The force and roar of the wind is enormous, but the fall itself is peaceful. I lie on my belly in the void of the sky, the earth a huge blue crescent below, curving at the horizon, the sun a brilliant white gleam above. The sound of freefall is like an everlasting, crashing wave.

  And all I can think is Mariana. Mariana. Mariana.

  She’s a pulse in my blood. Knowing that I’m this close to her, that I’m almost there, is a kind of madness. I force myself to focus and count the seconds until my altimeter tells me it’s time to pull my chute.

  Once I do, the noise level drops. The roar of the wind abates and there’s only a whistle through the lines of the canopy. Breathing is easier, and everything is peaceful.

  And now I’m a sitting duck.

  If there are antiaircraft missiles on Moreno’s yacht, this is when I’ll find out.

  As I rush closer to the yacht, I see how massive it is, longer than a football field and wider, too. No one is in view on any of the decks, which is a stroke of good luck.

  With the handles on the chute, I steer toward the aft deck. It rises up fast underneath me. As soon as my feet touch down, I’m out of the harness, dropping it over the side of the ship so the chute sails away, drifting down toward the surface of the water. Crouching low, I run to the back of a massive teak bar and take cover behind it. I’ve instantly got my Glock in hand and my ear trained for warning shouts.

&nb
sp; They never come.

  The first niggle of worry crosses my mind, but I shove it aside.

  Keeping low, with my Glock at the ready, I run inside the first deck. The doors are wide open. The interior is just as luxurious as the exterior, but there’s no one here, either.

  Where is everyone? Where are the armed guards?

  I sprint through a living area—bypassing a huge dining room and media room—and head toward the spiral-glass staircase toward the back. I’m on security cameras somewhere by now, but nobody’s coming out to meet me. This ship is as quiet as a graveyard.

  Find the master suite.

  I don’t allow myself to think about why I assume Moreno will have taken Mariana to his bedroom, I only know that’s where I’m headed next.

  The top deck is obviously the helm, encased in glass and deserted, so I’ve got four other decks to clear. I silently ascend the staircase, every sense trained for noise or movement, but I move unhindered through the ship.

  Until I reach the fourth level. Then my heart drops like a rock to my feet.

  The entire deck is a huge nightclub, running the length of the ship, fore to aft. There’s an enormous white dance floor, two bars, sofas lining all the mirrored walls, stripper poles dotting the perimeter, disco balls glittering from the ceiling, a DJ booth on a riser in one corner, and a dozen or more suspended metal cages I have to assume hold dancers.

  And there are bodies everywhere.

  Naked, half-dressed, in bikinis and miniskirts and thongs, young, well-endowed women lie together in sleeping piles, tanned limbs entangled like snakes. There are men as well, but far fewer. Young men in loud, tropical print shirts and board shorts, baby-faced but muscular, college-aged.

  In between all the dozing frat boys and the army of passed-out Playmates are empty bottles—literally hundreds of them—champagne and tequila and wine strewn all over the place, obviously dropped wherever they were emptied. Beneath the bodies and bottles, the floor sparkles with confetti.

  This isn’t a human trafficking operation.

  It’s a fucking bachelor party.

  The point is driven home like a stake through my heart when a guy, not even thirty, wearing nothing but tan cargo shorts and holding an orange drink with an umbrella in it, wanders into the room. He sees me standing there in camouflage, gun drawn, bristling with weapons, and stops in his tracks.

  “Uh, hey, man,” he says, eyeing me. “You part of the show?”

  “FUCK!” I bellow.

  He jumps. A few of the girls stir, yawning and mumbling, but go right back to sleep.

  This is a fucking nightmare. I’m having a nightmare, and a heart attack, and a fucking mental breakdown, all at once.

  I stride over to the guy, point my gun at his nose, and snarl. “Who owns this boat?”

  He peeps out a name, not Moreno’s.

  “Take me to him!”

  He spins around so fast, the umbrella flies out of his drink. Then he runs to the door he came through with little skittering steps, like a mouse. I follow on his heels, a volcano erupting from the top of my head.

  He takes me to a large bedroom decorated all in white, where the hairiest man I’ve ever seen is lounging in a big leather chair, smoking a cigar, and playing Grand Theft Auto on a huge TV. His chest hair is like a bear’s pelt. On the bed are two naked girls, gently snoring. A fat Burmese cat wearing a diamond collar lounges between them, licking its tail.

  When we come in, the hairy guy glances at me, at my Glock, then presses a button on a remote that pauses his game.

  “That a .40 cal or a nine millimeter?” he asks.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I say.

  The kid in the cargo shorts blurts nervously, “Armin, this dude was just standing there in the middle of the disco—”

  “Shut up, Kenny. The reason I ask is ’cause I got a few nines, but I’m thinking about adding the .40 cal to the collection.” Armin calmly smokes his cigar.

  “I’ll give you this one if you let me borrow your tender to get to the yacht next door,” I tell him.

  Armin’s brows lift. He’s Middle Eastern, Turkish maybe, built like a wall and completely unfazed by my presence. I’m not sure if he’s nuts or if I should offer him a job. Maybe all that hair doubles as body armor.

  He assesses my state of agitation and my outfit of deadly weapons. “Why, you got somebody to kill over there?”

  Kenny draws in a horrified breath and shrinks away from me.

  “Nope, I got somebody to save, and I don’t have time to dick around with conversation.”

  “The ship next door belongs to the Oracle software guy, Larry Ellison. Came in last night with his family. We cruise the same waters lotta the time, recognized his yacht.”

  “Thanks for the intel. You just saved me from crashin’ another bachelor party. You gonna let me borrow your tender or what?”

  “Oh, this wasn’t a bachelor thing,” Kenny meekly chimes in. “Armin gets paid to party by all these different brands. Like, to post pictures on Instagram with all the girls while he’s wearing expensive watches and drinking top-shelf tequila and stuff. He’s totally famous, I can’t believe you don’t recognize him—”

  “Shut up, Kenny!” Armin and I say in unison.

  Kenny shuts up. Armin scratches his bushy beard. “I got a sub on board if you’d rather take that. You look like a guy who likes to take people by surprise.”

  I’m liking this guy more and more with every word coming out of his mouth. “Yes. That’s fuckin’ brilliant. Thank you.”

  Armin smiles. “Cool. But I’m driving.”

  Thirty-Four

  Mariana

  In my cocoon of shock, it doesn’t seem at all strange to order the kneeling assassins to rise. They do, holstering their weapons and clasping their hands in front of their waists as I’ve seen them do countless times before, but never for me. Then they stand there, waiting for my command.

  “Salvatore,” I say quietly, addressing the only one I know by name.

  His gaze cuts to me. “Si, Capo?”

  Capo. I swallow the sick laugh tickling my throat. If I start laughing, I might never stop. “How many other people are on this boat?”

  “Fourteen crew, the captain, and us.” He makes a gesture to encompass his companions, me, and the bodies on the floor.

  “Will the tender hold that many?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see.” I stand there trying to think for a moment, forcing my thoughts around the cotton candy of my mind.

  Salvatore clears his throat, and I focus on him again. He obviously wants to speak.

  “Yes?”

  With surprising dignity, holding himself tall, he says, “I disrespected you earlier, Capo, on the flight. I didn’t know who you were. We weren’t told…” He thinks better of whatever he was going to say and falls silent for a moment. Then he continues in Italian. “It would be my honor to end my life in payment for this disrespect.”

  An aria plays in the background, a pair of soaring sopranos singing about betrayal and heartbreak, their love for the same man. I never would have guessed opera would be the soundtrack in hell.

  “That won’t be necessary. We’ve had enough bloodshed this morning. Thank you, Salvatore.” After a beat, I add, “Your loyalty is appreciated.”

  I feel his pride at that statement, that I’ve said it in front of the other men. I can sense his chest swelling with it, and the urge to laugh returns tenfold.

  I’m losing my sanity. Perhaps I’ve already lost it.

  Perhaps I never had it at all.

  “I want you to take everyone except the captain and get on the tender,” I instruct, walking slowly to Vincent’s body. In my gauzy dream, I bend down, fish the Hope Diamond from his jacket pocket, and curl my fingers around the stone as I gaze down at his lifeless face.

  There’s blood and spittle in the corners of his lips. He didn’t shave this morning. His chest is still warm.

  I straighten and direct
my gaze to Salvatore again. “Everyone who’s alive, I mean. Get on the tender and go to the nearest island. Do it now. Take nothing with you. Before you go, tell the captain to come to me here.”

  His brow creases, but he doesn’t contradict me or ask for clarification. He simply murmurs, “Si, Capo.”

  He turns and leaves the room, the other men right behind him. I’m left alone with four dead bodies and the muggy chaos of my thoughts.

  I walk to the outside deck and raise my face to the morning sun. It’s warm and sunny, the smell of the ocean strong. A light breeze plays with my hair. I don’t know how long I stand like that, in a trance, but when I hear an engine roar to life, I look down. There on the surface of the white-capped water below is a boat with four men in black suits, and fourteen others in navy-and-white uniforms.

  Salvatore is at the helm. He guns the throttle and makes a heading for the island in the far distance, not turning to look over his shoulder even once.

  Absolute power corrupts absolutely, said Lord Acton. Now, for the first time, I have a true idea of what he means.

  I head inside to wait for the captain.

  Thirty-Five

  Ryan

  Armin and I are trotting out of his bedroom when we hear the explosion.

  It’s huge and somewhere not far away, judging by the concussion that rattles all the windows a second later.

  We look at each other at the same instant. “That doesn’t sound good,” he says.

  My heart stops. Mariana.

  I shove past Armin and run through the yacht the way I came in until I reach an outside deck and see what caused all the noise.

  On the eastern horizon, a big orange fireball illuminates the sky.

  It’s not the sun.

  “Get us over there!” I scream at Armin when he appears on deck. He pulls a cell phone from his pocket, touches a number, lifts the phone to his ear.

  “Let’s go check out that explosion, Captain. Somebody’s gonna need help. Full steam ahead.” He listens for a moment. “All right, as close as you can.” He clicks off, then stands looking at the fire in the distance with his arms folded across his chest. “She can do thirty knots when she’s up to speed. We’ll be there in under ten minutes.”