Xander King BoxSet

by Bradley Wright

  “You okay, Sam?”

  “No idea.” She shivered as she spoke. “I’m bloody frozen.”

  “Almost there.”

  The boat was only about a football field away now. Xander thought about all of the people who were in Paris to help him. People who had zero skin in the game. They were just there to see that he was okay, and to make sure that justice was done to those who had harmed him and Natalie, whom they didn’t even know. The fact that Sarah was willing to come all this way to help spoke volumes about her. He knew how hard this must be for her. To have feelings for him and watch him risk it all for another woman. A woman who, no matter how Xander tried to spin it, was the only one for him. As the boat approached, he made a vow to himself in that moment, that after he saved Natalie, she would never doubt that notion again.

  25

  Saved by the Belle

  Sarah and Kyle stood on the street by the SUV, with the Wanderlust nightclub just down on the corner. Sarah finished helping Kyle adjust the earpiece in his ear, brushed a piece of lint off the shoulder of his new button-up shirt, and gave him a smile. She thought the powder blue he chose was a good look against his tanned skin.

  Kyle grinned. “Well?”

  “You clean up nice, Kyle Hamilton.”

  “These jeans aren’t too tight?”

  Sarah looked down, shrugged her shoulders, and widened her smile. “Maybe. But they look good on you. Besides, skinny jeans are on trend right now.”

  “You sure you don’t want to grab a drink with me?” Kyle asked. Playful.

  Sarah rolled her eyes. “Are you ever serious?”

  “Um . . . No. Not really. What fun is that?”

  Zhanna closed the door of the SUV and joined the conversation. “You look good, Kyle. I’ve seen lots of pretty young girls walk by. You are not going to get distracted, are you?”

  “No, I know what this means. I’m going to find Adeline and, after I make her feel comfortable, try to get her to leave.”

  Sarah put her hands on her hips. “So he can be serious.”

  “Don’t get used to it.” Kyle wagged his index finger at her. “So, while I’m in here finding Adeline, you guys are going to, what, be looking for a bomb?”

  “Yes. That, and anyone looking suspicious. We’re going to be checking behind the club by the river as well. Make sure nothing fishy is going on.”

  Kyle looked shocked. “Sarah Gilbright has a sense of humor? You sure I can’t buy you a drink?”

  Another eye roll. “Just get in and out of there as quick as you can. I’ll be in your ear to let you know if we find anything. Hopefully we won’t, but Marv texted me while you were in the store and said his team saw a lot of suspicious movement on the river side of the club earlier. Be careful in there. The good thing is, if Khatib’s men are here, they won’t recognize you. So you shouldn’t set off any alarm bells for them when you approach the President’s daughter.” Sarah let a wry smile grow across her face. “Any idea what line you’ll use? Don’t make it something cheesy.”

  Kyle smiled. “Hello has always worked pretty well for me.”

  Zhanna started down the sidewalk. “Oh please. Gag me with spoon.”

  Sarah and Kyle laughed. Sarah patted him on the arm. “Good luck. Hopefully by the time you walk out of here with Adeline and her friend, Xander and Sam will have found Natalie. Then we can all get the hell out of this place.”

  “Your lips to God’s ears.”

  Sarah started toward Zhanna but walked backward to look at Kyle. “No matter what you hear in that earpiece, stay with Adeline. Okay? No matter what.”

  “Got it. Be careful,” Kyle said.

  “You too.”

  * * *

  Kyle began his walk down the street toward the large, open patio area where people were eating and drinking out in front of the nightclub. For the first time, the weight of the situation began to dawn on him. Here he was, alone, in Paris, the first line of defense against the terrorists trying to kidnap the President’s daughter.

  Terrorists trying to kidnap the President’s daughter.

  He stopped for a moment and took a deep breath. It didn’t come easy. He felt he was way out of his league. He was happy to have Sarah and Zhanna with him, but they weren’t really with him. Intel from Marv made it seem like the enemy was already here watching, and here Kyle doesn’t even have a gun. All he was armed with was his charm. How the hell was that supposed to save him once they converged on him, even if he was lucky enough to convince Adeline Williams that she and her friend should leave with him. Highly unlikely. Maybe at the end of the night, after a few drinks and quite a few dances. But that would be too long. He had to think of something and he had to do it fast. But what? Sure, he had convinced women as gorgeous as Adeline to do a lot of crazy things, but not in a strange country, without a wingman, and without a place to take her to.

  “Kyle, you’re fine.” Sarah’s voice came in through his earpiece. “You look great, and I could tell by the conversation in the car that you are going to know exactly what to say.”

  Kyle took a deep breath. “Thanks, Sarah.” It was exactly what he needed in that moment.

  “Go get ‘em. We won’t be far. I’ll be listening and we’ll be right here around you if you need us.”

  Kyle felt his confidence returning to him. “I’ll be fine. Just make sure you find out what else they’re planning.”

  “Got it.”

  Kyle smiled. “Hey, Sarah? You ever see the movie Four Christmases. The one with Vince Vaughn?”

  Sarah hesitated, not so sure where this was headed. Then she figured it out. “Uh, yeah . . . You want a safeword, don’t you?”

  “Ha-ha, yes. Yes I do.”

  Sarah laughed. “I don’t think mistletoe will work in the middle of the summer.”

  Kyle smiled and began to walk onto the crowded patio full of young partiers. “Yeah, I was thinking . . . menage a trois.”

  “You’re incorrigible.”

  “You love it.”

  Sarah ignored him. Kyle walked onto the plaza, adjusted his shirt, and did a quick scan. Out front there were a smattering of four-top tables, all full. A DJ stage at the back at the back of the plaza was situated by the large, bright-green, tunnel-like awning at the entrance to the club. Between the tables and the DJ stand encased by a long bar on either side was a crowd of dancers. As he walked to his left, around the tables and toward one of the bars, he had to fight his instinct to search the crowd for women he would want to take home with him. It wasn’t easy to break a ten-year habit in only ten minutes.

  What would Xander be looking for?

  Kyle closed his eyes to clear his mind, and when he opened them, he saw the crowd in a completely different way. Almost everyone in the crowd was younger than he was. Twenty-nine wasn’t old, but it was for this type of place. A young crowd was always a good thing in Kyle’s mind, but especially good right now, because he figured if there were some of Khatib’s men here, they would have to be older. Or at least the same age as Kyle. This would make them much easier to spot. There was always that crowd of drinkers who were just holding on too long, the sad ones who thought it was still cool for them to be in this type of environment. He would have to overlook them, but he figured that would be easy. The men who would be working for Khatib would be hard men. Killers. And usually that is a thing you wear on your face, whether you want to or not.

  At the same time he was looking for possible enemies, he had to keep an eye out for Adeline—which was much more in his wheelhouse. But the first thing he needed to do was get a drink. It was like a weapon in a crowd like this. Without one, it was hard to feel confident in that intersexual battle. The line wasn’t long, so he propped himself up against the bar and ordered a Vodka Red Bull.

  After a moment, his drink arrived and he took a sip. It immediately made him think of Xander and all the times he and his friend had cheers’d these drinks and tore through bars together. The first sip went down cold, and it made hi
m think of what Xander and Sam were doing at the moment. His heart jumped to his throat and began to beat as fast as the bass from the speakers around him. He knew he had to come through for his friend, because he knew Xander was going to come through for Natalie. He just wanted Xander to be proud of him.

  “Hello, handsome.”

  Kyle nearly jumped out of his skin. He hadn’t expected someone to approach him. He tried to recover quickly, but his mind was still divided.

  “Hey—hey, how are you?” Kyle said to the brunette. She was tall, hair down below her shoulders, a bright-blue, tight-fitting bodycon dress, and if looks could kill, she would have been a shotgun. Normally, he would be ecstatic about her approaching him. But of course it happened when he had to stay focused. And there was no way he could stay focused if she remained standing in front of him. He needed an exit.

  “I’m good. Better now,” the woman said with a coy smile, her French accent thick.

  Damn it.

  Kyle took a sip. “Yeah? Listen, you are beautiful, but I’m so sorry, I am here with my girlfriend.”

  It was all he could come up with.

  The woman squinted her eyes and gave him a suspicious look. “That’s strange, because I saw you walk in from the street and you were alone. And here you are, only buying the one drink.”

  Shit.

  She wasn’t going to let him walk away.

  He was going to have to be a dick.

  “Listen—”

  “There you are, baby!” Kyle heard a woman say, then he felt an arm slip around his waist. “I was looking everywhere for you!” Then he felt a kiss on his cheek. When he looked over, he was too shocked to form words. So the woman who had just wrapped her arm around him spoke to the dark-haired woman for him. “Who’s your friend, baby?”

  Before Kyle could speak, the dark-haired woman made a disgusted face, scoffed, and walked away in a fury.

  Kyle turned to face the woman who had just saved him.

  Adeline Williams.

  26

  All Aboard

  Xander propelled his upper body up out of the water with a powerful kick of his legs, stretched his right arm as high as it would go, and wrapped his hand around the chrome guardrail. Before she could react, he snatched Sam by the back of the shirt and lifted her with his free hand until she too could reach the rail.

  “Chivalry isn’t dead,” she quipped.

  By the light shining on her from the top of the boat, Xander could see that her lips were blue and her face was pale. Yet her sense of humor remained. On the float to the middle of the boat, Xander had not seen anyone lurking. No shadowy figures with guns on the bow. It seemed odd. Sam pulled herself up and over the rail, then crouched down on the walkway to stay below the bottom of the window. Xander watched her do it but couldn’t hear it due to the rushing of the water and the gurgle of the engine. That was a good thing. He pulled himself up and over, and crouched beside Sam.

  Over the hum of the engine that rattled at the back of the long dinner boat, Sam whispered, “You see anyone?”

  “Nobody.”

  Sam frowned. “I don’t like this.”

  “No shit.”

  She glanced up to the top of the boat. “I’m going to make my way up there as you move inside from the back. I’ll check the wheelhouse and see if there is anything suspicious. If it’s just the captain, I’ll move my way on over to the rooftop deck. We don’t want the captain to alert anyone that we are here if we don’t have to. I’ll be able to cover you from the top.”

  Xander unzipped his go bag and handed Sam the SAT phone. “Take this. If something happens to me, call Sarah and get her to send a boat out here.”

  “If something happens to you, something happens to me.”

  “No, Sam.” Xander took her forearm in his hand. “Not this time. If something happens to me, you have to get Natalie out of here. Promise me.”

  “Xan—”

  He squeezed. “Sam, I can’t have her get hurt. I can’t let something happen to her because of me.”

  Xander watched Sam study his face. He could see her weighing the thought. “Fine. But, Xander?”

  Xander just stared, waiting.

  “This is the last time we do this to save a woman.”

  Xander didn’t smile, and he didn’t make a joke. His face was dead serious. “Sam . . . this is the last time we do this, period.”

  Xander let go of her arm and strapped the go bag back onto his back. As they parted ways, not another word was spoken.

  * * *

  Sam walked away toward the bow of the dinner boat. Xander duckwalked his way toward the stern. He stayed low in case there was an ambush waiting. He didn’t want to alert them if they hadn’t been already. Everything inside of him wanted to stand and see what he could through the window. But it was heavily tinted, and he didn’t think it worth the risk. With each step closer to the back entrance to the dining room, his burning desire to catch a glimpse of Natalie seared through his being like a terrible itch that had to be scratched.

  He came to the corner of the wall of windows at the back. He paused for a moment to listen. He couldn’t hear a thing over the motor purring just below him now. He figured the boat was just about to come to the spot where Jack and Viktor were set up. It was time to make a move, but he didn’t want to go in blind. Slowly, he inched the bend in his legs straighter as he gripped the bottom of the window. What he saw through that dark, tinted window felt like someone hitting him in the stomach with a tire iron. Though it was dark and she was at the far end of the room, Xander could see the dirty-blonde curl of Natalie’s hair covering her face over the top of the restraint. Anger roared through Xander like a train through a tunnel. There she was, strapped to the wall, spears circling toward her head, just like he had seen on the live feed.

  Only they were much closer now.

  Xander swung the go bag around and unzipped it. He pulled out his Glock and a smoke grenade, then zipped the bag closed. He felt for the knife in his pocket. And with a deep breath he rounded the corner and bolted for the entrance.

  * * *

  Sam jumped and grabbed hold of the edge of the roof that covered the front of the dining room below. She did a pull-up and swung her legs around behind her so she was lying flat on the top. Several feet away, the roof ended and the wheelhouse jutted out from the top of it. She stayed on her stomach and slithered her way toward the back of it. The windows were tinted much the same there as they were below, making it nearly impossible to see inside. She was careful, because she knew it would be much easier for the captain to see out. As she came to the first window, she held her left eye as close as she could without touching the glass, then cupped her hand over her right eyebrow to block any light she could. Like looking through a darkened filter, she could see the captain on the other side of the wheelhouse, with what looked like a coffee carafe in his hand. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. She didn’t know if that was good or bad. Could it be possible that the captain didn’t know what was going on inside his own boat? She supposed so, especially if he was paid not to look; anything was possible.

  Sam was about to slither back from the window when she noticed what looked like a monitor glowing on the right side of the captain. It had the four-quadrant video feed, where video of various spots of the boat should be, but instead the squares were all black; only the white line that separated them was glowing. It felt to Sam like the captain of this boat had no idea what he was carrying. Money has a way of eliminating questions.

  Sam backed away and took in the rest of the top of the dinner boat behind her. The captain’s view was blocked on the backside, so the rooftop deck would only be visible from the camera that she noticed on the back of the wheelhouse—the camera that was not currently broadcasting to the captain. A feeling crawled up Sam’s spine, and it wasn’t a good one. Something was off. She duckwalked along the roof and then hopped the rail onto the deck. It spanned from the middle of the boat all the way to the stern. She pull
ed her Glock and walked along the rail to ensure no one would be interrupting Xander.

  27

  Out of His League

  Sarah and Zhanna walked around the block. The oversized nightclub and plaza encompassed the entire block and overlooked the river on the backside. The bright-green lighted roof covered the entire top of the club. It was glowing, and hideous—somewhat like a space-age, futuristic structure—but Sarah supposed it served its purpose of standing out. It matched the style of electronic music that was spilling out of the back deck of the place. When Sarah leaned over the railing, the smell of damp earth and mold greeted her. Below her there were quite a few boats tethered to a concrete walkway. Down that walkway toward the club, there was an entrance that boaters could use directly from their boats. A small dinner cruise boat looked like it had just docked, and young partiers filed out of it and headed up into the club.

  “What are we looking for?” Zhanna asked Sarah.

  “Anything out of place.”

  “Everything is out of place. This whole club is strangest thing I have ever seen.”

  Sarah couldn’t disagree with that. Most people, at least back in the States, didn’t come to a place like Wanderlust from a boat. Mostly because this club was for younger adults. And most people who owned boats were older because it took a lot of money to keep up with a boat. But it made a little more sense seeing the partiers file out of the “party boat” down below them. The river did leave Wanderlust uniquely vulnerable. If you wanted to hurt a lot of people, you wouldn’t even have to get inside the club. A boat full of explosives would do the trick.