by Gwyn McNamee
What if they can’t do that within forty-eight hours?
More thunder, this time cracking so close, it makes me yelp.
Shit.
The water shuts off, and I hold my breath.
It has to be Warwick.
But then again, it could be any one of these goons, including the Hulk. For all I know, Warwick stashed me in the Hulk’s room so he can keep an eye on me and break me in half if I try to escape.
My heart thuds against my ribs, and my blood rushes loudly in my ears, echoing the torrential rain hitting the roof above me.
What the hell do I do when he comes out of there?
I clench my fists and frantically survey the room for any sort of weapon.
Nothing of any use.
Dammit.
Just a bookshelf along one wall, stacked and overflowing with books, a small desk in the corner, and a dresser with a single picture on top. I can’t quite make it out from over here, but it looks like a family photo of a mom and a dad and a small boy. It’s so normal, so human…yet this room belongs to a man who steals, who threatens, who hurts people…
The door clicks open, and I hold my breath. Warwick steps out, and all the air whooshes out of me.
Coal-dark hair glistens in the lights from the bathroom and water droplets trickle down the angel etched on one side of his neck and the anchor on the other, over his massive exposed ink-covered chest and arms, and between his defined abs to disappear beneath the small white towel wrapped around his trim waist.
Holy hell.
The myriad of artwork covering his skin is breathtaking. Scrawled words…hauntingly beautiful figures and images more like you’d see in a museum instead of on a man like this. It would take hours to explore them all.
His gray eyes flick over to mine and widen slightly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”
He’s apologizing?
I’m not quite sure what to make of that.
What badass pirate apologizes for waking up his captive?
I run my hands back through my disheveled hair.
Christ, I must look like a fucking mess. I sure as hell feel like one.
The heat in his gaze as it roams over me gives me pause. Maybe I don’t look so bad.
Why the hell do I care, though?
I clear the sleep from my throat. “You didn’t. I woke up a few minutes ago.”
It may have been the storm that did it. The pounding rain and thunder booming every few minutes mean it’s a real mess out there.
He presses his lips together in a thin line and gives me a curt nod before he crosses the room and gives me his back to dig into the drawers of the dresser.
Tattoos cover his skin there too. There’s barely an inch where there isn’t some black-and-white or color swirling into words or images. I shouldn’t care so much what they say…what they mean. Yet, something tells me each and every letter and drop of ink on his body means something very special to him. That makes me all the more curious.
Strong muscles ripple and bulge with every one of his movements, and I have to force myself to look away rather than be caught staring if he turned around.
Totally inappropriate, Grace.
Instead of ogling him some more, I focus on the wall of old windows in the odd room. “How did I get off the boat? Where are we?”
And how do I get out of here?
He pauses and turns around to face me. His penetrating gaze rakes over me for a moment, though I’m not sure what he’s looking for.
“You can’t hold your liquor and passed out. I had to throw you over my shoulder and carry you in here. And where we are doesn’t matter. If you try to escape, there’s nowhere to go, and you’ll only be sealing the death warrants for your crew. You’re not going to be here for long.”
Relief floods my system, and some of the tension in my shoulders relaxes. “Does that mean you’re going to release me?”
He scoffs and scrubs his hands over his stubbled jaw and then back through his hair before he returns his attention to me. “Frankly, I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. We only got half of what we needed, and we need to figure that out. But I have no intention of keeping you here longer than I need to.”
Longer than I need to…
Those words don’t exactly instill any great confidence I’ll be heading home anytime soon. After our interaction on the yacht, I knew this was foreign territory for him—the whole “taking a hostage” thing—but I never ever expected him to be still winging it. He had to have come up with a plan while we were on our way here, wherever here is.
Whatever mess he got himself into, he had to have figured out a way out of it…
Right?
I bite my lip and wait for him to say something. Anything. He just watches me and waits. I squirm under his stare. The heat in his eyes isn’t anything I’ve experienced in a very long time. And even then, it was under much different circumstances.
This man is an enigma. One with a clear dark side, yet there’s softness in his gaze at times. A juxtaposition that throws my whole sense of right and wrong off in a way I don’t want to analyze.
What I do know is…he raided my ship. And I need to know why.
“I don’t understand what you wanted from the ship. There wasn’t anything worth stealing on there. We were shipping machine parts. Nothing that would be of any use to you.”
A deep, cynical chuckle rumbles from his lips, and he crosses his immense arms over his chest and leans back against the dresser. “If you really think what was in the box is what was on the manifests, then you are far more naïve than I thought, and I’ve been giving you far too much credit.”
Thunder cracks, along with my temper.
“I’m not naïve.” My snapped response comes out sharp and a little more forceful than I probably should have said it, considering this man is armed and could kill me at any second.
And while I don’t see any sign of the gun he had earlier, not knowing where it might be is almost worse than having it pointed at me.
“You are naïve. I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I can tell you that maybe twenty percent of the time what I’m stealing is actually what should be in there.”
But…
“How is that possible?” Probably a naïve question that only plays into what he already thinks of me, but I know the process that’s required to ship cargo and get things loaded onto those ships. “Things are inspected. I don’t understand how anybody could swap anything out.”
He flashes me a devilish grin. Electricity crackles in the air of the room—either brought on by the storm or the way he’s looking at me…I’m not sure which. The heat of a flush spreading up my neck and across my cheeks might as well be a “come and get me” flag. Not exactly the sign you want to be sending to the man who literally took you captive.
“There are a dozen ways to get things into a box and onto a ship. Drugs and other illicit cargo are either hidden in secret compartments or packed inside other items. Most of the time, the captain doesn’t know, and even the shipping company doesn’t know what gets loaded by exporters. You may have a manifest that tells you what’s supposed to be in there, but it’s damn easy to pay off someone if you need to send something you shouldn’t be, pretty much anywhere in the world. The people we are dealing with have so much money, they don’t even know what to do with it. And what we get them only makes them more.”
Money equals power.
And what I overheard earlier made it clear there’s someone with more power pulling the strings here.
“Is that why you’re so afraid of him?”
He recoils slightly before his entire body goes stiff, and he straightens his back and shoulders.
Shit.
His eyes darken to an almost black, and a quiver of fear runs through me. This is the dangerous Warwick, the one who will stop at nothing to protect himself and his men, like he’s warned me.
“I’m not afraid of them.” The low, menacing tone chills
the air in the room. Thunder shakes the room.
Shit. I wish I could take the question back.
He didn’t know I overheard his conversation with the Hulk, and his narrowed dark brows tell me he’s now wondering where the question came from.
Pointing out a weakness to the man holding you hostage probably isn’t wise.
“Sorry, I wasn’t trying to imply—”
He pushes off the dresser and towers over me at his full, neck-craning height. “I don’t care what you were trying to imply. You don’t ask questions.”
With a low growl, he whips around and pulls something from the drawer. He tugs on a T-shirt before he grabs a pair of boxers and a pair of jeans and stalks back to the bathroom. The door slamming shut behind him makes me jump and has my heart racing.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Don’t antagonize your captor. Isn’t that another one of those don’t do it rules when you get taken hostage?” The question is asked to the empty room, and not shockingly, I get no reply.
I must have a fucking death wish. My mouth seems to open and words come out before I can even process them mentally. Part of it is a learned response growing up with Leo as an older brother. Constantly defending myself against him and his friends gave me thick skin and an attitude that’s gotten me into trouble more than once. It’s one of the reasons I stay away from people and would much rather spend my time holed up in my office crunching numbers.
Numbers don’t argue. Numbers don’t get offended by my comments or observations. Numbers can’t look at me like I have a second head when I open my big, fat mouth.
Get up. Get the lay of the land.
The more I know about where we are and what’s going on, the better a position I’ll be in to decide what to do. This storm could be a blessing or a curse. It could make getting away easier or harder, depending on where we are.
I wipe my hands over my face and climb from the bed. The chilly air of the room raises goose bumps on my flesh, and I rub my bare arms and wander over to the corner with the desk and the bookshelf.
Moby Dick. To Kill a Mockingbird. The Complete Works of Shakespeare. War and Peace. 1984. The Great Gatsby. Wuthering Heights. Catcher in the Rye…and too many more to even read the names off the spines.
Not what I expected to find in the bedroom of a heartless pirate.
I’m surprised he can even read.
I turn to the desk, and my eyes land on a leather-bound book sitting on top with a pen wedged in the center, opening it to one of the pages. A glance back at the bathroom door assures me it’s closed, and I make my way over to the desk, unable to fight my curiosity.
The cover is blank, simple brownish leather, but it’s clearly well-used and worn. I flip to the page the pen is marking, and my heart stills.
We have to get out of this. I can’t keep doing this anymore. Living my life every day wondering if it’s going to be my last. He’s going to kill me one of these days. Kill us all. As soon as we’re of no use to him, we’re gone. He’s never going to let us go, no matter what the original deal was. He’s never going to let us go. We know too much, and now we fucked this up.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Another crack of thunder rattles the windows.
Fuck.
I jerk away from the book and whip around to face him. His dark eyes burn into me, and I shift away from the desk and what is clearly his journal. Something he definitely didn’t want me to see. Being caught snooping is pretty fucking dumb.
I’ll add that to the list.
“I’m sorry. I was just—”
He bares his teeth and charges over to grab the journal. He shoves it in the back of his pants and pulls his shirt down over it. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stop asking questions and snooping around. Don’t make me regret promising to let you go.”
Cold fingers of dread wrap around my spine, and I nod mutely.
“Stay here. Don’t touch anything. Don’t try to sneak out. There’s nowhere for you to go.”
Fear tightens those fingers, and I shiver despite my best efforts to remain calm and in control. I can’t sit here thinking about what’s next—whether that’s life or death. I’ll go crazy considering the possibilities, wondering if I’ll ever see Mom or Leo again…
I need a distraction.
My eyes drift over to the bookshelf, and I point to it with a shaky hand. “Can I at least grab something to read?”
Those hard eyes soften from almost black to a soft gray—a momentary flash of humanity on an otherwise cold and unfeeling mask of anger. He nods.
“Don’t touch anything else.” He storms out of the room and slams the door behind him.
The old glass vibrates in the doorframe as do all the windows on the side of the room.
Jesus Christ.
That man is fury, and danger, and everything wrong in this world.
Who would have thought that would be so damn attractive?
5
War
For such a tiny thing, that girl sure has a big mouth on her.
Where the fuck does she get off asking me questions like that? Where did that even come from?
I stomp down the staircase to the warehouse floor. She must’ve overheard my conversation with Rion on the Calista. It’s the only way she would have asked that.
How else would she know that our taking the cargo had anything to do with anyone else and that it wasn’t just for our benefit?
Her nosy nature could be troublesome. And we already have enough trouble to go around.
Thunder rumbles outside, shaking the warehouse. Rain pelts the metal roof, sending rapid pings echoing through the vast space. This system is hammering us and hasn’t let up since we arrived back at the warehouse late last night. It’s only making what we need to do harder.
Rion stands leaning over the giant makeshift table in the middle of the warehouse floor we use to plan our missions. Milo lies at his feet, his big, wrinkly head resting on Rion’s boot. He lifts it and assesses my approach before he rises to his stubby legs, shakes, and wanders toward me. Rion takes a drink from a bottle of beer and looks up at me.
“Where’s the girl?”
I hitch my thumb over my shoulder to the loft office that now serves as my bedroom. “She’s still up there.”
Milo rubs against my leg, and I lean down and scratch between his ears. The damn dog is always so desperate for attention.
Rion glances at my room again. “She asleep?”
Ha. I wish.
I shake my head. “No, she’s awake.”
And already prying into things that aren’t any of her business. But I won’t tell Rion that. He’s already worried she’ll make trouble for us, even more than she already has. If he knew she was snooping around my room and listening in on the boat, things could get ugly fast.
She just doesn’t seem to know what’s good for her. She couldn’t help herself from reading what I wrote. I need to lock my journal in the safe, where it can’t be accessed anymore by the nosy redhead and keep my thoughts to myself.
Rion leans over the table and studies the papers spread out on top.
I step to the opposite side of the table, with Milo close at my heels. “What are you looking at?”
He nods to the charts laid out in front of him. “Preacher and I’ve been trying to reach The Destiny, but neither Cutter nor E are responding. I don’t know if it’s the storm or what, but something is interfering.”
Shit.
And they have all the cargo. Well, not all of it. We didn’t even get half of what we are supposed to and therein lies the major issue. Even if I could explain a delay to the Marconis…I sure as hell can’t explain half a missing shipment of whatever is in those boxes.
They don’t tell me, and I never ask. It’s better not to know.
I squeeze my eyes shut and fight the need to smash something. “They should be here by now.”
It’s been over twelve hours since we left Neptune’s
Daughter, and even with the violence of the storm that hit, they should have been able to make it back by now.
Unless something went wrong…
We were lucky to make it back in one piece ourselves.
He nods his agreement. “I was thinking the same thing. I’m trying to determine where else they could have gone to shelter from the storm that may have delayed them so they aren’t back by now. Preacher is back in his cave, trying to contact them and scanning the radios for anything from the Coast Guard or police we should be worried about.”
Alarm flashes red in my vision. Anything could’ve happened. The Coast Guard could’ve picked them up. They could have capsized. We don’t even know if they are alive.
I let out a long sigh. “Have you guys tried the SAT phones and the radio?”
He nods. “Yeah, and nothing is getting through.”
The storm is a real bitch. So is the woman upstairs.
Though, to be fair, I haven’t put her in the best of circumstances. Had we met somewhere else—in a different place, a different time, when I didn’t hijack her ship and kidnap her—things might’ve been very different between us.
There’s definitely an attraction. A spark of something more than disdain between us. I felt the way her eyes roamed over me when I boarded the ship, before she knew my intent. I saw the way she licked her lips, probably without even realizing it. And even after I took her, after she knew how dangerous I could be, the look in her eyes when she straddled me in the cabin of the Calista, and again upstairs, when I walked out of the bathroom, was unmistakable.
It doesn’t matter. She’s our enemy, for all intents and purposes, and I am hers.
But the way her pale skin flushes when she gets angry, the way her every thought is visible in those green eyes, the way she isn’t afraid to stand up to me even given the circumstances…
God knows it does something totally unexpected to me.
I’m fucking impressed with her despite how intrusive and annoying her questions and demands can be. This woman can’t weigh more than one hundred pounds and was captaining a cargo ship—something most men would find intimidating.
