“Too confused. Woozy,” she mumbled with numb lips. It was as if she were coming off anesthesia only much worse. Waking up from surgery after she’d been stabbed in the abdomen in Cartagena three years ago had nothing on this.
“The yacht is sinking. We’re taking on water.” Relief shot through her when she suddenly recognized Chris’s voice.
Yacht? No, that can’t be right. She had to get her eyes to stay open. For him, she’d do it. “Wh-what?”
“I gotta move you again. Can’t stay here any longer.” His tone was deep, insistent.
Again?
She combed the area overhead as he lifted her from a soft surface, and she glimpsed down to see she’d been on a couch beneath an overhang with a too-bright spotlight.
When she turned her head as if in slow motion, she saw the sheets of rain surrounding the vessel.
Chris clutched her tightly as they walked by the wraparound gangways leading to the fore-deck of the yacht, and it was then Rory felt the intensity of the rain. It struck them hard, but he never lost his hold of her.
“You’ll be okay.” Chris’s words pulled her focus to his face, and she blinked, trying to keep her eyes open in the rain.
“We found the emergency boat. It’s got a motor, but the water is choppy. I don’t know if we’ll make it to the island.” Was that Harper?
Rory twisted her neck to follow the voice and saw Harper in a bright yellow rain jacket, hood covering her dark hair.
Emergency boat? “Where are we?”
“We’re in the Caribbean,” Chris said quickly as if that weren’t shocking news. “Somewhere off the coast of Puerto Rico according to the radar.”
“Puerto Rico? We were just in D.C.” Rory finally managed to wrap her hands around the back of Chris’s neck as he sidestepped a body.
Wait, a body? There was a man lying on his side, unmoving in the downpour, but was he dead?
She strained her eyes, trying to make out the tattoo circling his neck. A green serpent.
A jagged scar shaped like the number seven, next to his right eye, had a memory trying to surface, but it never materialized.
“D.C. was yesterday.” Another voice. Roman?
Oh . . . the elevator. It hadn’t been smoke. Gas! We were knocked out. But, no. Oh, God. Her thoughts were sluggish. Drugs had to be in her system and still affecting her, but she was starting to put two and two together.
They’d been gassed and taken out of the hotel, hadn’t they?
We shouldn’t have gotten into that elevator. This is my fault.
“The yacht is going down. This piece of garbage they probably chartered is worthless, which is why I’m guessing the owners have on board a top-notch emergency boat,” Roman yelled out over the thunder, which rolled overhead like bowling pins scattering after a strike.
Standing strong against the wind and rain pounding them, Chris glimpsed down at her. “We gotta get off. No choice. I got you, I promise.”
She nodded, giving him her trust. “I think I can walk now.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah,” she said, and he slowly set her down but held on to her hip, waiting to see if she had her balance.
“Gotta get to the stern.” He looped an arm around her back as they made their way to the lower deck to get to the back of the yacht to disembark.
“What about whoever took us? Anyone alive?” Rory tossed a look over her shoulder and nearly slipped and lost her balance, but Chris stopped her from falling.
“They’re all dead now.” Chris tipped his chin, signaling to the dark sky, the cracks of lightning in the distance. “The emergency boat won’t have a chance of making it to shore if we don’t get the hell off this yacht right now. We’re anchored not too far from an island.”
“You help Roman. I’ve got her.” Harper motioned for Chris to get a move on, and he looked to Rory for permission.
“Go,” Rory mouthed.
Harper helped Rory into an oversized raincoat, then offered her a life jacket. “These won’t do much good if we wind up in these waters, but better than nothing, I suppose.”
Rory clutched Harper’s forearms when the boat suddenly pitched and nearly sent them careening into the wall.
“You good?” Harper asked, and it was all so strange. Rory was usually the calm and collected one. The fighter who ensured everyone else was solid.
Her head was spinning while her body swayed softly side to side with the force of the waves striking the yacht like God himself had dipped his hand down and was swirling the sea around.
She wasn’t sure the time of day given the storm-darkened sky, but she’d venture to guess it was evening.
Damn drugs or whatever they gave me.
“It’s a six-seater,” she overheard Roman saying when Harper helped Rory get to the lowest deck. “And it has an Intex trolling motor.” If the boat was similar to those Rory had used in the past, it would auto-inflate using carbon dioxide or nitrogen. “Should give us a better shot at getting to shore.”
“Let’s hope so.” Chris stole a look at Rory and reached for her. “Roman’s going to get in the boat first, and we’ll help you both in next.” Chris gave Rory’s arm a gentle squeeze. Why didn’t the guys have on life jackets or vests?
Based on the rickety-looking yacht, and given it couldn’t endure the storm, it clearly wasn’t up to code.
“We’ve got this, okay?” Chris held her eyes as the rain tapped at her hood. “We focus on what we can control.”
Roman reached through the rounded opening of the canopy he’d already attached to the bright yellow lifeboat, securing his hands around Rory’s hips and helped her board. The canopy would shield them from the harsh environment, which was a plus. And most emergency lifeboats were equipped with water, food, oars, a knife, and a flare gun.
Rory scooted to the other side of the boat and hugged her legs to her chest as Roman helped Harper on board. Chris came on next, and Roman pushed off, the hum of the motor barely audible over the cracks of thunder.
She couldn’t stop shivering as shock tore through her. And it was only then she was coherent enough to realize she and Harper were no longer in their evening wear.
Before she could put her thoughts together to ask about her clothes, Chris distracted her by opening a small silver package. He unfolded the emergency blanket, which looked like a piece of aluminum foil. These blankets had saved her ass from freezing to death on multiple occasions in the past. “Thank you,” she whispered as he covered her, teeth still clicking as she shared the blanket with Harper.
“We’ll be okay.” Harper’s warm tone was almost comforting.
Rory glimpsed at Roman. His gaze was fixed out of the canopy entrance as he navigated the trolling motor. The oars wouldn’t do much good right now, but the last thing she saw from aboard the yacht was land—assuming she hadn’t been hallucinating.
“We’re not far.” Chris held a GPS device in his palm and pointed to a small island. “I was one of the best trackers on my SEAL Team. We’ve got this.” He reached beneath the emergency blanket and squeezed Rory’s leg with his free hand, trying to reassure her despite the hellish conditions.
“He wasn’t nicknamed The Hunter while in the Navy just because of his last name,” Roman commented, and had Rory not been so nervous, she would’ve smiled.
“Did you manage to grab anything of use off the vessel before I woke up?” And how the hell did y’all escape?
“A few cell phones, but they’re not working right now. No signal. Maybe when we reach the island, we’ll have better luck. The radio was shot to hell,” Chris explained. “I didn’t have time to search for our belongings, though.”
“And how’d you escape?” She peered around at everyone, still shocked at what went down while she’d been Sleeping Beauty.
“Roman and I regained consciousness around the same time.” Chris’s eyes fell closed for a brief moment, and he expelled a deep breath. “You and Harper weren’t with us. I thought . . .”
She pulled her arm free from the blanket and reached for his cheek as a reminder whatever he thought hadn’t happened. She was there and alive thanks to him.
“We overtook one of the guards,” Chris went on. “Used my tie to put him to sleep.”
That tie . . .
She’d had plans for that tie last night, plans that involved sharing her life, her past, her everything with him before they lost themselves in each other for the rest of the night where that tie would’ve had a starring role. Yeah, they would have most likely made love before she’d spilled her truth, unable to resist their desire any longer than absolutely necessary.
Now it was too late. And it was her fault.
She’d jeopardized his life. Roman’s and Harper’s lives as well. All because she hadn’t come clean, foolishly thought that remaining silent would keep those she loved and cared about safe.
“Harper took out her guard before we got to you two,” Roman added, “but she couldn’t wake you up.”
“The two men we knocked out and locked up in the storage room were freed before we could get back to them. They put up a fight.” Chris didn’t describe what happened next, and she imagined he didn’t want to elaborate on how he killed those men. “Shit went sideways when the storm hit. We made it to the bridge, and between the huge waves and an issue with the battery, the bilge pump stopped working, and the hull took on water. We were on the verge of going into Davy Jones’ Locker.”
She raised a brow, and he smirked. A joke even now.
“What? Sailors use some pirate lingo, too.” He gently placed her arm back beneath the blanket. “But, um, we had no choice but to take everyone out even though we would have preferred to keep a few alive for questioning.”
“Would’ve had a hard time bringing one on board this boat, though. Surely they’d have been a problem,” Roman pointed out.
“I understand,” Rory said with a nod, letting them know she wasn’t judging their life-or-death decisions. “Anything distinguishable about them?”
She thought back to the snake tattoo of the man lying on the deck of the yacht, who she now realized was most likely dead. The inkling of recognition hung around in her mind, but it was still too wispy to make the connection.
“First guy spoke English. No accent,” Chris said. “And the other five guys, no clue other than I’m pretty sure all continents were represented in our abduction aside from Antarctica.”
“What he’s saying,” Harper went on as they rocked with the waves, the engine fighting against the current, “is we overheard several languages spoken, and nothing stood out that would help us identify anything about them. The phones are disposable. Not helpful in determining info. Not even a wallet or ID card on any guy. They probably had their passports locked in a safe box or something.”
“Shit. I just . . .” Guilt. Waves like the ones crashing their little boat hit her with relentless force. “What island are we near?” She needed a distraction. Needed hope.
“Mona, which looks to be about forty-five miles from mainland Puerto Rico.” Chris tucked the GPS into a dry pocket of the boat.
“Mona?” Better than a deserted island, but their hope of using one of those cell phones was now gone.
“Have you been there before?” Chris peered at her, soaking wet in his white dress shirt. His tie was gone. Shoes still on, unlike her.
She still had to ask about the clothing situation, but . . . “Yeah, and Mona Island can be a paradise if you’re looking for an exotic vacation without potable water or cell service.”
“Fuck, okay.” Chris shook his head.
“It’s also not for the faint of heart. Uninhabited aside from one ranger.” She considered her time there. It’d been the summer, and chartered excursions from Puerto Rico were regular. But they wouldn’t allow visitors to the island at a time like this. “With the storm, I don’t think many, if any, will be visiting the island. It’s hard enough to travel there on a sunny day.”
Chris stared quietly at her as if contemplating her response and probably wondering why she’d been to the island in the past. They needed to make it to safety before she unraveled her memories and pieced together why this was all her fault. Besides, her thoughts were still diluted and unfocused from whatever shit her abductors had injected into her veins.
She would regroup once the symptoms from the drugs wore off, then figure out what in the hell happened and how to save them.
“What else do you know about the island?” Chris asked a moment later. “We should all be prepared. What kind of animals?”
Rory thought back to when she’d tracked an antiquities smuggler to Mona. Her first and only time there. “No venomous snakes, but some boas. Goats and pigs. Iguanas. Nothing particularly dangerous. The place is a safe haven for sea turtles and seabirds. But there are a lot of poisonous plants. Not many navigational signs, so it’s easy to get lost. And depending on where we land, it might be a good idea to head for the caves. There’s fresh water accessible in some.”
“Caves? Okay, that could be good,” Harper said with a nod, sounding optimistic when everything felt as though it were falling apart as their little boat moved with the waves. A tiny toothpick in the sea.
“Okay, yeah, I’ve heard of this place. I remember now,” Roman spoke up. “Twenty or so miles of tunnels. Mona Island is actually home to one of the largest coastal caverns in the world. Right?”
Rory stared at him in surprise. “Yeah,” she returned softly.
“I was kind of hoping we were done with caves for the year after Budapest,” Chris said in a low tone, and Rory had no idea what he was talking about. “Long story,” he casually tossed out as if their world wasn’t rocking. Literally. “Anything else we should know?”
Rory swallowed the lump in her throat and let go of a deep breath. “If there is anyone there on a weekend during a storm, well, they won’t be friendly.”
“Meaning?” Roman twisted back to look her way, his dark eyes pinning her with a curious gaze.
“Smugglers. Traffickers.” Rory lifted her shoulders, the blanket moving with her. “Modern-day pirates.”
Little drumming sounds had Rory opening her eyes. The rain was coming down harder on the canopy top, but . . .
She shifted upright, realizing she’d dozed off. They weren’t on the water anymore.
Shit, she’d nearly forgotten—they’d made it to shore and slept overnight in the lifeboat.
Land, I’m on land. She peered around to see Harper asleep, her head resting on Roman’s chest, his arm draped around her body. A second emergency blanket was on their lower half.
But where was Chris?
Rory shifted to her knees and unzipped the canopy to peer outside.
No sign of him.
Once she stepped out of the safety of the shelter, she was greeted by a dark bluish-purple sky and the sight of Chris standing near a line of trees, his back to her. He was probably trying to get his bearings.
The guys had pulled the boat far enough up on the white sand to prevent any chance of drifting back into the ocean while they’d slept, and thank God for the canopy that protected them from the rain, but they wouldn’t be able to stay in there forever.
Rory zipped the opening closed again, careful not to wake Harper or Roman, tightened her hood against the rain, and walked across the wet sand toward Chris.
He turned and spotted her, then met her halfway and pulled her into his arms as if it’d been weeks since he’d seen her.
She pointed to the wooded area twenty feet away for cover since he didn’t have a rain jacket and gasped in surprise when he hoisted her into his arms.
“You don’t have shoes. Don’t want you getting hurt.”
She wanted to protest, but he was stubborn. So, she looped her arms over his shoulders, clasped her hands behind his neck, and let him help her, knowing it’d make him feel better.
Whoever had taken them captive must have tossed her heels for some reason. But whatever happen
ed to the red dress Ella made for her? And oh, Ella, she’d be a mess when she learned Rory was gone.
Chris made his way to the trees Rory had pointed out and gently set her down on a soft bed of fallen leaves, then leaned his back against the bark and encircled her waist with his arms, pulling her close.
The canopy of branches and leaves overhead provided some cover from the rain, but a few drops still trickled through, providing a gentle rhythm to the chaos of the past twenty-four hours.
She dropped her gaze to take in the sight of her new ensemble—a rain jacket over a pale blue tee, paired with black drawstring shorts that were a bit too short. She searched her memory for who’d changed her but came up empty. Harper was wearing a replica of Rory’s outfit, except her shirt was light pink.
“Harper,” he said as if reading her thoughts. “We found some clothes in a bag on the yacht. And by yacht, I mean rust bucket. There was some stuff thrown together. Two shirts, two pairs of shorts, and a toothbrush and toothpaste.”
“And how’d you know I was thinking that?”
“I figured once the shock wore off, you’d wonder, and I didn’t want you to think some asshole had put his hands on you.”
But someone’s hands had been on all of them. And more than once. The four of them were taken from that hotel without raising any alarms.
She looked down at her feet. “They didn’t pack me any flip-flops, huh?”
“Unfortunately not.”
“I think I know one of those men on the yacht,” she told him when a memory of the inked man crowded her mind again. “But I can’t remember how, or who he was.”
“Shit, Rory, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for everything.”
“What do you have to be sorry about? This is all my fault. I’m sure we were taken because of me.”
“We don’t know that for sure. I told you my work is dangerous.” But he was just being nice—not wanting her to accept blame.
“We were at an event connected to me,” she pointed out. “And it can’t be a coincidence we woke up on a yacht in the Caribbean off the coast of an uninhabited island that I’ve been to, either. Plus, a bag of women’s clothes conveniently on board? Sounds like they planned to just grab me, and y’all got pulled along for the ride.”
Chasing Fortune (Stealth Ops Book 8) Page 19
