Cabe grabbed Amy as she collapsed onto his chest, breathless and spent, just like he was. Watching her ride him, watching her take what she needed, had brought him to the point where he’d detonated deep inside her, making him wish they didn’t need condoms. He wanted to feel the sensation of her coming around him without any barriers. But conversations about testing and birth control would have to be added to the things-we’ll-do-when-this-is-over list.
He knew they shouldn’t be in her apartment, but the idea of her getting hooked up at Eagle with her security kit and heading out on that damn boat without him seeing her one more time alone was unbearable. When she’d agreed to his meeting her here before they went in, he’d been thrilled. Plus hard. All the time fucking hard for her, like he’d never had sex before. She only needed to look at him out of the corner of her eye and he would remember her looking at him the exact same way when he’d taken her from behind.
“Just when I think it can’t get any better,” Amy muttered against his shoulder, and he laughed as he rubbed his palms up and down her back.
“I was just thinking the same thing,” he said as he turned to kiss the damp skin by her temple.
Amy raised her chin to face him. “I love this. I love being with you. But I’m also looking forward to being able to go outside, to walk to the market holding hands, or take a hike or a trip, maybe.”
She sounded hopeful, a little wistful, and—Cabe realized—a little uncertain. A line creased between her eyebrows, and he hated seeing it there. Maybe the wait-until-it’s-over-list couldn’t wait.
“You know there is an after, right. After all this? Where we do all that? Where we argue over where we are going to spend Christmas, and make love on a tropical beach, and forget to put the toilet seat down, and decide to get tested and forgo contraception so I can do all of this all over again and feel skin on skin,” he said as he pushed inside, making them both groan. He kissed her gently, then more deeply, until he could feel his cock start to harden again. Only they didn’t have time to have sex again.
“Vegas,” Amy said with a grin.
“Vegas, what?” He rolled them onto their sides so he could slide out of her.
“Is where we’ll be spending Christmas this year.”
Cabe grinned. “I already promised Mom I’d be home. And I seem to recall your dad telling me that he wanted you home but that you’d already told him you might not be able to make it.”
Amy scoffed, her eyes bright. “Only because I didn’t want him to get his hopes up if work called. But of course I want to go and see him, and Uncle Clive, and Valentina.”
God, she really was … something. “Pretty” was too girlish, “beautiful” too … staid. “Hot” minimized her to something sexual. Amy. She was Amy. And she was his. And he was more than happy to hold her naked body up against his as they debated the logistics of Christmas.
“Here’s my suggestion,” he said, kissing the tip of her nose. “Let’s plan for when you finally get off the boat … tonight, tomorrow, whenever that may be, we’ll get some sleep and then go on a date. Brunch. Somewhere we can open a bottle of wine. Near the surf. And we’ll make a list. Pros and cons.”
Amy smiled. “I look forward to debating this issue with you, Captain Moss.”
“The same, Agent Murray. Although if I were you, I would expect to lose.”
He thought about their conversation four hours later, when, for the forty-second time that week, he was running through every possible way to keep Amy from getting on that boat.
They could stop the men in port, but they would have no proof of wrongdoing if the women were boarding voluntarily.
They could try running the op without Amy on it, but without a dealer there might not be any gambling. And they couldn’t be certain there was a backup dealer. Plus, Amy had balked at that. She was most definitely not down with the idea that someone else, someone less trained, would take her place.
His third idea was that if he was unable to prevent her climbing on board, he should climb on board too–sneak on and hide somewhere. Except there was nowhere to hide on a serviced yacht that was being prepped for a big game.
It had also occurred to him on more than one occasion that he should pack her up into the back of his truck and drive off somewhere safe until this was all over. As if she’d let him.
By now Eagle was a hub of activity. Members of the FBI, the Coast Guard, and the Navy were all involved with plans that ensured coverage for the three miles of U.S. waters off shore, and the twelve miles of territorial waters beyond that. Different rules for engagement were required for each. Even though they had been planning for days, they were still trying to iron out the last-minute details. Everyone’s best guess was that the boat would leave the harbor and go south, heading straight down the coast to Mexico. The sooner the boat hit Mexican water, the harder it would become for the team to do anything without creating a political incident.
Plus, as the representative from the Coast Guard had said, despite the current president’s claims, all the deadliest stuff headed south from the United States to Mexico. Weapons and sex-traded women.
Six was on the phone to his contact over on Coronado, who was currently watching the twenty-eight-foot-long, rigid-hulled inflatable they were going to use to trail the boat.
Their airborne intel showed that the boat, Katie, was a hive of activity, being readied for the night’s event.
Amy slipped out of the room, and Cabe looked at the clock. She was going to get changed, having spent the afternoon in jeans and a blue hoodie she’d stolen from him that simply said Navy in white letters. It had made it even more impossible to stay away from her, but it was nondescript enough so no one need know it was his. Except Six and Mac, who’d hidden their smirks when Amy had arrived in it ten minutes after Cabe had made his entrance.
He checked his phone, hoping he’d get a call from Sokolov to join the game, but it appeared he’d failed to build a strong enough relationship with the guy to make it into his inner circle. Cabe pushed away the feeling of failure and gave her a minute to get ahead of him before he grabbed her security kit and followed. He heard the patter of her footsteps across the concrete floors of the main training space. She must be headed for the medical room, where she’d laid out her clothes.
After she disappeared inside, he looked over his shoulder to make sure nobody saw him, then dipped into the room after her, closing the door behind him and locking it in one swift move. His heart calmed at the smile she sent him. It reached her eyes, eyes that told him she was pleased to see him without her having to utter a word, and the panic that had cycled through him periodically throughout the day stilled.
Without saying a word, he slipped his arms around her waist and pulled her to him. “I like you in my hoodie.”
“It smells of you, of your detergent,” she said, bringing the cuff to her nose and inhaling deeply.
Trying to ignore his fear at the thought of her leaving, he leaned in and kissed her. “We need to get you ready.”
Amy stepped away and smiled. “Did you volunteer?”
Cabe raised an eyebrow in humor. “You wanted one of the other guys to see you semi-naked while they strapped you up?”
She slapped his arm playfully. “Of course not,” she said as she slipped his hoodie over her head to reveal a white lace bra.
It would take nothing to slide the strap down her arm, reveal those perfectly pink nipples of hers and—
“You going to tape my GPS on?” Amy asked with her hands on her hips. Both of her eyebrows were raised, but she grinned.
“Does that mean I have to stop thinking about how good those breasts of yours would feel in my hands right about now?”
Her mouth opened. “Cabe,” she gasped.
He laughed and began the process of taping the credit-card-sized GPS to her hip. When he was satisfied that there was no way anybody would feel it, even if they patted her down, he slipped a second device into the cup of her bra. The skin above the lace flashed with goose bumps, and he ran his fingertips across her skin. “Be careful, Ames. Don’t go looking for trouble.”
Amy placed her hands on his wrist and gripped tightly, the action grounding him. “I have three tracking devices on me … and I know whatever happens you’ll find me.”
Cabe sighed. “I need you alive when I do, Ames. I need…” Doubt crowded his mind. He hadn’t been fast enough to save Brock, his childhood friend, from drowning. He hadn’t been able to save Jess. The thought of losing Amy was—
“We’ve got this,” Amy said resolutely.
Taking courage from her words, he kissed her. Kissed her like it was the first time. Kissed her like it was the last time. Kissed her … until he felt strong enough to stop. And when he was done kissing her, when her lips were red from their moment of intimacy, he held her while their heartbeats slowed.
Hours later, sitting in the foggy water off the coast of Coronado with six of his team members, listening to Buddha’s update, he had an uneasy feeling. There was something they hadn’t considered, a piece they hadn’t planned for. But he didn’t know what it was.
On his phone, he watched the live feed of Amy leaving the building and driving to the meet-up point. Every twist and turn she took once she left the highway took her farther away from him, an extra mile from his reach, but he pushed back against the negative thoughts creeping in.
There was a car and a van, lights on, in the parking lot as she pulled in. A woman stepped out of the car as Amy came to a stop. Cabe recognized the hair … she looked familiar, but he couldn’t quite place her.
“You seeing this, Noah?” Cabe asked through his comms unit. The SDPD were patched into the feed. “Who is she?”
The woman smiled at Amy, and the two of them shook hands. From her body language, Amy didn’t seem to be in any kind of distress.
“We’ve captured her face, running it through the system now,” Noah replied. “But, bro, I got news you’re going to like.”
“What is it?”
“You were right. There is a link between Woods and Sokolov. But it’s deeper than you know. Woods Senior divorced his first wife, Woods Junior’s mom, because she had an affair … with Sokolov’s father.”
That snapped Cabe’s attention into focus. “They’re related? Tell me they’re brothers.”
“Not that we can tell. Birth certificates claim different, but we’re trying to find the first wife now to confirm. But there was a period from the age of eight until the age of ten, when Woods Junior would have spent time with Sokolov.”
Fuck.
The knowledge yielded three times more questions than it answered, but he tucked the information away for when the night was over.
Faulkner Woods stepped out of the van and waved to the women. Two men followed him. Damn. What he wouldn’t give to be able to hear what they were saying. But a bug on Amy had been too risky, they were too bulky. Thank fuck for the GPS and the emergency beacon which were well hidden. Otherwise, he’d lose his mind.
Amy and the woman each handed something over to Woods, their car keys most likely. Woods handed them to the men who then walked toward the two cars.
If they were abducting the women, they’d need to get rid of the vehicles. Thankfully, Amy’s car was tagged. “Buddha, you’ve got to tell us where those cars go,” Cabe instructed.
“The GPS is active,” Buddha responded.
“We can get SDPD vehicles mobile immediately,” Noah added.
Cabe breathed deeply.
They had everything covered. He needed to chill out. Years of practice had him exhaling as he rolled his neck from left to right. “Keep the drone on the car with Agent Murray in it,” he told Buddha.
“You know we’ve got this,” said Mac from the opposite side of the twenty-eight-foot rigid inflatable. They’d picked it for its seventy-knot top speed, which could easily catch the Katie’s thirty-knot maximum.
Cabe nodded curtly as he watched the van pull out of the parking lot. Any minute now she’d be on her way to the harbor and … damn it. Something was off. He looked at the screen as the van pulled toward the exit onto the highway.
“We’ve got a problem,” Cabe said, his voice cold and calm.
“What is it?” Mac replied.
“They’ve headed north. They aren’t going to the marina.”
* * *
“Can you believe we get to do this?” Sonya, a leggy brunette who’d started work in hospitality on the casino day shift two weeks previously, said as the van headed out of the city. She applied her lip gloss in a small mirror before dropping it back into her purse.
Amy forced a smile on to her face, but it was an almost impossible feat, given they should have headed south on the I-5 but were now heading north. There was no way this path led to the Katie. She reminded herself that Cabe knew where she was and that she had three GPS trackers on her. Well, two that were active now plus the personal locator beacon tucked into her bra. “I know, right? It should be a lot of fun.”
Sonya leaned toward her while glancing forward to the front of the car. When she slid her long hair behind her ear, Amy caught a better look at her. Up close, she looked much younger than the makeup and clothing would suggest. “I only moved here a month ago. My mom said I was stupid to try and make this work, and I only had enough savings for a few months. I thought I’d lucked out getting a job at the casino, but this kind of money will definitely help me stay here.”
Amy was torn. She needed to keep up the act—excitement, energy, enthusiasm, and curiosity a young woman offered a large sum of money would have. But she couldn’t. She knew Sonya’d be crushed to find out when this was over that there wasn’t going to be a single cent paid out, but hopefully what they’d saved her from would more than make up for it.
Woods sat in the front with a driver she didn’t recognize. In the rear of the van were two large leather overnight bags. They were filled to capacity, their zippers stretched by what was inside. Everyone was acting completely normally. No sideways glances, no body language that signaled lying and subterfuge.
Her hands rested steady in her lap while her heart raced and thoughts rushed through her brain. Had they drawn the right conclusions from the information they had? Did they have the strongest plan in place? Would the backup plans be effective? Details they’d spent hours poring over started to slip away from her.
She took a deep breath.
They were fine. She was fine.
After twenty minutes, the car pulled off the highway and entered a private marina where a large boat of similar size to the Katie was waiting. When she opened the car door, the cool damp air hit her. Though the midnight blue water was smooth as glass, there was a soft sound of ripples lapping the edges of the boat. The lights of the lower deck were off, but the upper deck was fully illuminated and a handful of people milled about. Two men stood guard on the dock, one of whom she could see was blatantly armed with what looked horrifyingly like an M16. No wonder the boat was in a private dock.
She so badly wanted to look up to confirm that the drone was still above her or search back along the coastline to find a second pair of headlights, but she didn’t. Not least because Cabe’s men were experts and wouldn’t leave headlights on to draw any attention.
Two men hurried over to the vehicle. “Mr. Woods,” one of them said. “We’ll be leaving shortly and should get you and the ladies on board.” They grabbed the bags from the back and carried them toward the boat.
Amy plastered a smile on her face. “It’s a beautiful yacht. Is it Mr. Sokolov’s?”
Woods turned to her. “It isn’t. This is a last-minute replacement. His usual boat was incapacitated. Engine problems or something.”
They stepped onto the wooden deck and were submitted to a pat-down. Woods first, then Sonya, whose purse they also checked. The excitement that had been so apparent in Sonya’s eyes in the van had been replaced with apprehension. On autopilot, Amy formulated a joke to ease Sonya’s obvious fear, something about how there had been no mention of guns and pat-downs in the non-disclosure, but then kept it to herself. If she was closer, she’d reach for Sonya’s hand. Amy’s heart raced, and she thought about the flat beacon taped to her hip. What if they found it? What would she do?
Again, she forced herself to breathe.
A large bald man with heavy-set eyes motioned for her to step forward, and she did as he requested, opening her arms out to her sides as if passing through airport security. The man’s hands were rough, paying too much attention to the flat of her stomach. His palms, closed in prayer, slid between her breasts. She prayed the device in her bra stayed exactly where it was. He had the audacity to wink at her when he was done, and she bit down on the urge to jab three fingers into his throat.
A chill wrapped around her the way the low fog crawled through the reeds opposite the dock.
Voices sounded from the deck above as they walked into the main lounge. It was opulent. She’d expected it to be gaudy like Sokolov’s home, but the ivory leather and soft gray fabrics furnishings were classy. Splashes of teal in the form of cushions and modern art paintings brightened the space. Carefully, she watched Woods’s reactions. There seemed to be an air of uncertainty she couldn’t quite put her finger on. His eyes had scanned the room to find the poker table. If she had to guess, they usually used the Katie, and this was a new boat for him too.
She didn’t believe the engine-failure excuse. Cabe and the team had been fired at. That meant Sokolov knew the boat had been made. It made sense that they’d switch. It had always been a risk for the op. And Sokolov was a savvy criminal.
But she knew, with all the surveillance eyes on her, that they knew where she was.
“Sonya,” he said, pointing over to the contemporary bar area with a bowl of lemons and limes on the counter. “Please go and set yourself up. I’m sure our guests are getting thirsty.”
Something felt off. If they were there to provide hospitality, why would the guests arrive before the staff? And why was food still being brought on board? How long ago had they decided to make the switch in boats? Perhaps that was why things were still being set up.
“Okay,” Woods said. “Let’s get the table set up, Ms. Reynard.”
Maybe it was from her jitters about the op, or maybe her senses were on the fritz, but the way he drew out her last name felt ominous.
Within another thirty minutes, the boat lifted its anchor and the steady drone of the engine kicked in as they steered out of the harbor. Amy watched from her position by the table, trying to keep herself oriented in the dark and fog as to which direction the boat was heading, but it was impossible.
Woods lifted one of the bags from the car onto the table. “Does it need to be explained to you, Ms. Reynard, that this isn’t completely legal?”
Amy shook her head. “The non-disclosure and paycheck made it pretty obvious.”
Woods slid his finger down the side of her face, and nodded before opening the bag to reveal it was filled with cash, stacks of money she could only assume had come from the casino. He tugged on a pair of cotton gloves before he began to pull the pre-bundled hundred-dollar bills onto the table.
Men began to filter into the room. She recognized two of them, from the night at Sokolov’s; the other four she didn’t. One carried an equally large bag and handed it Sokolov, who opened it and began to speak in Russian. She had no idea what they were saying, but it was obviously something positive by the way the men would in turn slap each other on the back and cheer. Sokolov handed each of the men a bundle of bills from the bag and then gestured to Amy.
“You are going to count them,” Woods said. “Verify the amount, and then I will replace those bills with these bills.”
Amy looked away from Sokolov quickly to face Woods. This was how they were doing it. Bringing in dirty money and using Woods’s access to clean funds to switch them out. She had questions, a million of them. Was Woods being forced into this? Did his father know? Was Woods receiving a cut?
By the time she had finished counting, over one and a half million dollars had passed through her hands. No wonder the men were so happy. She wondered why Sokolov and Woods didn’t just trade the bills and then have Sokolov hand out clean ones, but then she realized counting the bills in both bags was necessary to ensure that neither Sokolov nor Woods had screwed each other. While Amy had worked, Sonya had provided the men drinks and a woman in a fitted black dress had brought around hors d’oeuvres that had smelled good at first, but soon left her feeling ill.
She was disoriented and was no longer certain of their direction. With the boat swaying gently in the night breeze, Amy dealt the first hand of blackjack.
Focus on the details, Ames.
Calling herself Cabe’s nickname grounded her. It was as if she could hear his voice in her head. She looked around the room, searching for things she could use as a weapon, but her options were limited to bottles of alcohol and lamps she wasn’t completely sure weren’t bolted to the furniture they stood on.
She made a point to take in every detail of the men around her who talked in Russian and consumed too much vodka. Eye color, a tattoo, a scar. The make of watch, a wedding ring, an ear piercing. Names and locations mentioned … words she could pick up among the Russian. All while keeping the count of the table.
The details were necessary. Things could go wrong. People could get away. She couldn’t necessarily rely on Cabe and his team to save her. Despite every best effort, nobody had been able to save her mom, and while she had faith in Cabe and his men, she needed a plan of her own if things went down that way.
After the first hour, they switched from blackjack to tournament-style poker.
“Gentlemen,” Sokolov said, clinking the side of his glass with a pearl-handled caviar spoon when the table was down to the last three players. He placed it down on the table and removed a handgun from his inside pocket before nodding at the man who had searched her when she boarded the boat.
Amy heart raced. She considered her exits, even overboard. How long could she last in open water? In the dark? Would her beacon even work in water? Then she remembered Cabe telling her it was waterproof.
“Our handover is a little premature,” he said, continuing in English and looking straight at her. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the man who’d searched her making his way over.
Shit. “Handover”? Of what? How long had they been sailing? Definitely under two hours. How far out had Cabe said the contiguous zone was, the boundary to international waters? Twenty-four nautical miles. The boat had a top speed of thirty knots, but it hadn’t been cruising that fast. She’d have felt it. They must be closing in on the meet-up.
“We have some preparation to do, so we need to pause for a moment.” Sokolov walked toward her and smiled. “You have done well tonight, Ms. Reynard. I believe you’ll bring a good price.” He lifted her shirt roughly and ripped off the patch that held the sensor to her side. She gasped as his fingers dug into her bicep.
Her heart beat so quickly that she began to see stars in her peripheral vision. “A good price?” she asked, attempting to remain in character while her mouth completely dried up.
Sokolov laughed, handing her GPS to one of his henchmen. She watched as he walked outside and tossed it over the stern. “You can cut the crap, Agent Murray.”
Any control she had over her pulse evaporated at his words, and her ability to form sentences disappeared. The threats she wanted to yell wouldn’t come.
Sonya screamed, and Amy turned to see her dragged away and carried down the stairs, still attempting to kick and punch.
A click by her ear gained her full attention. She’d been around guns enough to know the sound. Cool metal pressed against her temple. All she could hope was that while she stalled Sokolov, Cabe and the team would somehow realize she was in distress.
Woods reached into the bag that had held the money. He pulled out the Casino Management magazine she’d seen on his desk. It was open to page four. There was a candid photo, one she hadn’t realized was being taken, of her father grinning at her after his last tour win.
“Take her downstairs,” Sokolov said as the boat began to speed up. Her gut told her they were making their break for international water.
The man who’d disappeared with Sonya reappeared with another man who was armed with a small rifle. While part of her was ready to fight in panic, her brain kicked in long enough to know that was a bad idea. She was unarmed, and outmanned.
Bastards.
They led her down the stairs onto the lower level. Dim lighting revealed a long corridor flanked by cabin doors. A man stood guard by the third door on the port side. He offered the thug behind her a cable tie, which he used to secure her hands in front of her.
Finally, a break. Cable ties were a rookie mistake, and easy to get out of. She made a token gesture of resistance while they checked that the tie was tight. The door was yanked open, and she was thrown inside, the impact reverberating through her spine as her knees hit the floor. The door closed behind her, thrusting her into darkness.
“Hello?” she whispered as she blinked rapidly, hoping her eyes would adjust to the darkness quickly. “Sonya?”
“Amy,” she sobbed. “What are they going to do to us?”
“They’re going to kill us,” a second voice said.
“Or sell us,” a third said quietly.
More women.
Not while I’m still breathing.
She processed where they were. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw a bed with dark linens. Climbing to her feet, Amy made sure the locking feature of the cable tie was in the middle of her two hands and, using her teeth, tightened it. It was counterintuitive, but the tighter the clasp, the easier it was to snap. She raised her hands into the air, remembering what her instructor had told her. It’s like making a chicken wing, Murray. She yanked her hands down, pulling them to either side of her waist, snapping the cable tie. Escape 101 that so few people knew about. And given Sokolov’s propensity for surrounding himself with thugs, they probably had no clue they could be broken so easily. Now they needed light, but not enough to alert the man in the corridor.
She ripped the dark pillowcase off the pillow and threw it over the lamp before she turned it on, dimming the brightness. Sonya sat at the foot of the bed. There were two women sitting on the floor, their backs to the wall opposite the doorway. Eve Canallis and Alison Berry.
“I’m Agent Murray with the FBI,” Amy whispered. “Everybody up.” Once they were on their feet, she proceeded to show them how she had snapped the cable ties and waited for them to execute the move. She curled her finger at Sonya, gesturing for her to take the spot next to the lamp. “Can you do this? Can you use the lamp to make an SOS that can be seen outside the ship?” she whispered as she used the switch to turn the lamp on and off three times quickly, three times slowly, then three times quickly. Dot, dot, dot … dash, dash, dash … dot, dot, dot.
The Morse code SOS. Totally old school. It felt like something Cabe would understand.
She could only hope Cabe was watching.
But in case he wasn’t, she needed to find a way to get the women out herself.
* * *
“What do you mean one of her trackers stopped moving?” Cabe shouted through his comms unit as the rigid inflatable raced through the water. The ice-cold spray stung his face like a thousand bees as they chased the yacht that had suddenly sped up after eighty-two minutes of lingering on anchor. There was a swell, and the G-force had him holding on for dear life as they smashed through the waves.
“Exactly what I said,” Buddha shouted, though it was almost impossible to hear him over the racing engines on the back of the boat. “One of her GPS trackers is stationary; the other two are still moving.”
“I want the fucking Coast Guard airborne now to check the stationary GPS.”
For the first time in his life, he felt nauseated on a boat. Truth be told, he’d felt ill since the car had gone north instead of south, leading them to an unnamed vessel in an unnamed dock, but when he’d realized what was happening, he’d locked his feelings down tight. They were gaining on the boat. Thanks to Amy’s GPS, they’d known exactly where it was heading.
“On it.” Buddha would make sure it happened. Cabe knew that.
He hoped the fact that the other two beacons were on the boat meant Amy was on there too, and not dead. The idea caused a wave of panic like he’d never experienced. If they had, on the other hand, thrown her overboard alive, there was still time to save her. The water wasn’t cold enough to kill her, though swimming alone in the dark was as terrifying as it could be liberating. Plus shit, even though it was rare, great white sharks had been sighted off San Onofre State Beach, which they were closing in on.
“Bearing adjusted,” Buddha said through the comms unit. “Target heading straight for international water.”
Gaz, an expert at steering the inflatable, turned the boat to a bearing of three-fifteen degrees. “We’ll cut it off.”
Now it was simple math. The yacht had to travel the shorter distance at a slower speed. And they had to power through the longer distance to intercept it, but at the faster speed. And he didn’t actually have the patience to do the math. He just had to pray that the team had it covered, which for a man who hated being out of control at the best of times was a new level of agony with Amy’s life on the line.
“Three miles to international waters,” Buddha said.
The boat hit the top of a wave, Gaz knowing to come off the throttle before hammering it again as they hit the water. Cabe tightened his abs, bending slightly forward, knowing from years of experience that the landings would hurt but ignoring the discomfort. His thoughts centered on Amy.
I’m coming for you, Ames.
He repeated the words over and over as they closed in on the vessel. Nobody would ever see them. The boat was black, and they were dressed in black. The yacht’s engines would make enough noise to hide the sound of their approach. And when they got close enough, Gaz would bring the boat in behind the yacht. One thing about civilian sailors, they rarely looked behind. The captain would have his attention forward, as would the majority of the crew. The passengers might be looking port or starboard. But rarely did anyone look back into the wake of the yacht at night, a cool night at that.
“Two miles to international water,” Buddha announced. “With an incoming boat just over one nautical out and closing, bearing ninety.”
That must be the rendezvous boat. In their black inflatable, dressed in all black, they blended into the darkness, but he wanted to be on the back of Sokolov’s boat moments before the two boats met. He, Six, and Jackson were going to take control of the boat Amy was on, and then Gaz would circle the boat around to get Mac, Harley, and Lite onto the rendezvous boat while using the inflatable to block any exit attempt.
Salt and wind burned the small part of his face that was exposed as he hung on, like the rest of them, for dear life. Approaching through the wake of the yacht made for an even bumpier arrival. As he squinted into the wind, Cabe noticed a subdued burst of light from one of the lower cabins. At first glance, it looked like a light bulb on the fritz. But none of the other lights were on. Nor was the flashing consistent. It was …
Holy shit!
“There’s an SOS from the port side lower deck,” he said, finding the place of calm he needed before he set foot on the boat. Torn between love and duty, Cabe wanted to blow off the plan and head straight for whichever cabin the light came from, even though he knew taking out their assailants first meant a better chance of success.
Gaz was able to bring the inflatable alongside the rear deck as the boat began to slow for the meet. Cabe was the first to climb between the two boats, landing with a thud against his ribs. He rolled out of the way, aiming his weapon at the stairs and then the upper deck. So far, nobody had noticed, but it wouldn’t be long. Six followed, as did Jackson. Once situated, they proceeded to work their way along the boat.
A member of Sokolov’s security team was looking toward the front of the boat, and with stealth that came with years of training, Jackson grabbed him and gagged him while Six continued to push forward. The mission statement was clear. Apprehend Sokolov and his business partners. Extract the hostages. Minimum force. And he’d adhere to that … for now. Because as soon as it became clear Amy was in mortal danger, all bets were off.
“One mile to international water,” Buddha said through his earpiece.
Jesus Christ, they needed to stop the frigging boat before it hit the boundary. Jackson caught up with them, signaling that the man was now tied up on the lower deck. Cabe signaled in the direction of the bridge. On a yacht this size, there was likely a captain and a first mate, and probably a chief and a second engineer. Four people to secure, but their priority was the men in the main salon.
He glanced over the bow and saw Gaz line the boat up to the rear of the incoming vessel.
Cabe, Jackson, and Six rounded the salon, where two more men stood with weapons. With his fingers, he signed. Three, two, one. He burst forward from his crouched position and took down his target, feeling a sense of satisfaction at the crunch that occurred when the guy’s nose collided with the deck floor. He let out a grunt.
Six’s target yelled out a shout of warning, but Cabe couldn’t worry about that now. Disarm, disable, move on. That was his focus. He tied the man’s hands behind his back.
“Coast Guard has checked location of beacon. No sign of Amy. Nothing on thermal imaging,” Buddha said.
Relief raged through him, a torrent of it. So much of his mental energy had been tied up with that single concern.
Another man rushed out of the double doors of the upper saloon and tried to fire his weapon down onto them, a bullet splintering the deck not an arm’s length away. Cabe scrambled back, making the angle too difficult, but it was only a matter of time before he and his men were surrounded.
Cabe and Six kept their backs to the wall as they approached the main salon from the port side, Jackson from starboard. He’d take their three trained guns against any number of thugs any day of the week. Plus, it was Six. The guy had one of the longest confirmed kills in history, and had had his back since kindergarten. And Jackson could beat anybody down at the gun range.
Six crouched beneath the window line of the main salon. The fiberglass walls of the boat wouldn’t stop a bullet, but they provided enough cover so Cabe could lean forward and pull the door open.
“Mac, position?”
“On board. Ready to press forward.”
“On three. One, two, three.”
They charged the room, Six yelling loudly for everyone to put their weapons on the ground. Shots were fired. One hit Cabe’s bulletproof vest, winding him as he pushed forward, his eyes scanning for danger. And for Amy.
Sokolov was behind the bar. Cabe had seen him dive there—happy to hide behind the thick mahogany and the bodies of his men—when the second set of shots were fired. With his weapon raised, Cabe ran through the room, relying on Six and Jackson to cover his tracks. Take out the leader, and the lower levels of the organization would crumble. And there was no doubt in his mind that Sokolov was the top.
A bullet skimmed Cabe’s hip as Sokolov attempted to take a shot, but Cabe returned fire, three quick taps on the trigger to ensure Sokolov was crouched low and off-balance by the time Cabe reached him. When they were within a foot of each other, Cabe threw his weapon over his shoulder and crashed down on top of Sokolov.
“I’ll kill you,” Sokolov yelled as he attempted to push Cabe off his chest.
Space was limited behind the bar as the two of them grappled on the floor, but Cabe managed to get the upper hand just as an array of bullets hit the glass bottles on the bar above them, showering them both in shards.
“You think you can get away from me? You think you can do this to me and not get what is coming to you?” Sokolov raged.
With all his gear on, Cabe was well protected, and he knew there was no way Sokolov could tell who he was. The temptation was strong to rip off his headgear and let the fucker know exactly who had him flat on his back, but he resisted it.
Ignoring the injury the broken glass would cause to Sokolov’s face, Cabe flipped him onto his front and tied his wrists. For good measure, Cabe also tied his ankles.
Keeping low, Cabe crawled to the edge of the bar. Six was providing cover for Jackson to move forward, tying up people as he went. Three men were down, notably Ivan Popov, who was lying painfully contorted by Six’s feet.
Faulkner Woods was hiding beneath the poker table. Relying on Six and Jackson to lock everyone down in the main salon, Cabe ran to the other side of the room. He fell to the ground and put a knee into Faulkner’s back.
“I’m innocent. I’m a victim too,” he whimpered.
Cabe ignored his pleas and used the ties to bind Woods’s arms behind his back. “Where are the women?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Woods stammered.
“You don’t want to mess with me right now,” he grounded out through clenched teeth. “Where. The fuck. Are they?”
The man had gone gray, as if he was about to pass out, but right now, Cabe didn’t give a shit. He needed to know Amy was safe. He heard footsteps run along the deck but couldn’t look up. His teammates had everybody covered. Cabe pressed the nozzle of his gun to Woods’s temple. “One last chance, Woods,” he said. “Where are they?”
“They’re down in one of the staff bedrooms.” The smell of urine filled the air. Cabe stood and raced for the staircase, weapon at the ready. “They’re on the lower floor. Six?”
“Right behind you.”
While Cabe wasn’t sure exactly where those rooms were, he knew they were down. With the sounds of Six’s footsteps following him down the stairs, he skipped the first deck he came to, assuming those rooms would be the more luxurious suites. Woods had said “staff rooms.”
When he reached the next floor, he heard voices. The nervous ramblings of a scared man. “We need to get out of here.”
“And do what? Go where?” a voice replied.
“The jet skis. Man, we could cut through the storage area and—”
“Fucking jet skis? And how far do you think we’ll get on those. Sokolov will kill us himself if we let her—”
“Down on the ground,” Cabe shouted as he turned the corner. What Sokolov would do to them was nothing compared to the icy fury that ran through his veins.
If they’d hurt Amy, there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do to them.
* * *
Amy could hear the earth-shattering gunfire on the floors above. Her heart pounded with fear and with frustration over not being able to think through a way out of this.
They were unarmed and up against an unknown number of assailants. A part of her thought it might be best to barricade themselves in until help arrived, but she couldn’t be certain that the shots fired above were from Cabe’s team. She was certain their weapons would have silencers.
Though she was relatively sure it was Cabe and his team, she needed to remain cautious on the off chance that something had gone wrong in the meet-up and that the gunfire was, in fact, between Sokolov’s men and whomever they were meeting.
“Start looking for anything we could use as weapons,” Amy said to the others, a little louder now. With the commotion on the upper level, she was less concerned about being heard. She checked the door. It was still locked from the outside. “Anything you can use. What are your names?” she asked, yanking open the wardrobe in the small cabin bedroom. She knew who the women were, but she needed them active and alert. Thinking even. Names were innocuous, but having the women identify themselves would bring them into the here and now. There was nothing inside the closet except a couple of wooden coat hangers. She grabbed them. Anything was better than nothing.
“I’m Alison Berry,” the slender blonde said, crawling on her knees to look under the bed.
“I’m Eve Canallis,” the taller redhead replied, rubbing her wrists, which were red and raw. She’d obviously tried to pull the ties off. “Please tell me that’s backup.” Eve flinched as another round of gunfire went off above them.
“Hopefully it is. If it isn’t, they are most definitely on their way. I’m going to need you to move. Check the drawers over there,” Amy instructed.
“There are slats supporting the bed,” Alison said. “A couple of them are loose, if we could just lift the mattress.”
Sonya stepped in to help as Amy checked the bathroom. There was a hairdryer on the sink. One of them could swing it, or they could use the cable to tie someone up. They were pathetic weapons choices, household appliances and pieces of wood, but they’d serve a purpose. Plus, looking for them was keeping the women busy and calming them down. Two of the women, she corrected herself as she stepped out of the bathroom. Eve still hadn’t moved, her eyes trained on the ceiling as if the bullets might actually come through the floor.
“Eve, drawers,” Amy said firmly. Panic and urgency were two different things, and all the women needed to show the latter. The gunfire was getting louder, sounding as if it had hit their hallway. “Stay away from the door,” she instructed. The last thing the op needed was a stray bullet taking one of the women out.
“Ames,” Cabe shouted from the hallway. It was faint, but she could hear him.
Thank God.
She raced to the door she’d just told the women to avoid and hammered on it. “Over here!”
“Ames?” His voice was getting louder, as were his footsteps on the wood floor of the corridor.
She pounded her palm against the door, ignoring the sting and pain that flashed along her forearm. “In here, but it’s locked.”
The handle turned as if being rattled on the outside. “Get everybody out of the way. Get back against the wall.”
Amy pushed the three women into the bathroom. They stumbled and tripped over one another, but she had no time to be concerned. “Clear!” she yelled.
The frame of the door began to splinter, as did the area around the lock. The women behind her screamed, holding on to one another. Suddenly, the door burst open, obviously by Cabe having thrown himself at it. He tore into the room, weapon raised. She tried to imagine how the women must feel. What little she could see of Cabe’s face was fierce, his all-black outfit intimidating, and his raised weapon terrifying.
He passed straight by her, and she noticed Six, a flash of blond hair from beneath his uniform giving him away, standing guard.
“Clear!” he shouted as he returned to stand in front of her. Swiftly, he bent and pulled a weapon from his thigh and thrust it into her hands. “Let’s take the women up the stairs at the end of the hallway and—” He pressed his hand to his ear, the one with his earpiece. “Got it, Mac. We aren’t clear over here. Leave Harley and Lite and make your way back over here.” He paused again. “On it.… Sorry,” he said, returning his attention to her. “We’re going to take the stairs at the end of the hall, Jackson has the salon secure. Six’ll give us cover, I’ve got your back.” He pressed his fingertips to her cheek for a millisecond and then yelled for her to go.
“Quick,” she shouted to Eve, Alison, and Sonya, who was now in tears. “We need to go.” She ushered them out of the room and waved them in the direction of the stairs. She briefly wished she could take a moment to thank Cabe, to kiss him, to tell him what he meant to her. But they both had jobs to do, and he needed her to do her thing so he could do his, though her cheek still burned with his touch.
The women ahead of her scrambled up the stairs. Alison tripped at the top, but Eve helped her to her feet.
Woods was seated up against a wall, hands tied behind his back, as were all the men. His eyes were red and his pants were strained. She’d put money on him being the first to flip. Sokolov yelled at one of the other men in Russian, who yelled back.
She encouraged the women to move to the other side of the salon, behind the safety of a low dividing wall. All three of them sat down on a two-seater sofa, clinging to one another for what she imagined was a mix of safety and comfort. “We’ll take your stories down once we get off the boat,” she told them. “I’m not sure what the strategy is yet, whether you’ll be airlifted off or whether the Coast Guard will come out and sail the ship back into the harbor.”
Sonya reached for her hand, squeezing it hard. “Thank you.” She jumped as they heard gunfire again, this time from beneath them.
Icy cold fear trickled down her spine. Six was still down there, and the idea that Cabe’s men could still get hurt froze her to the bone. “You’re welcome.”
Once she was certain the women were at least comfortable if not calm, she headed over to Cabe, who had switched with Jackson to guard the targets. Sokolov looked in her direction and sneered, but she held his gaze.
Yeah, asshole, regardless of what comes next, you’re going away.
He muttered something in Russian.
She leaned over to Cabe. “I wish we knew what they were saying,” she muttered.
“You don’t want to know, Ames,” Cabe whispered, never taking his eyes, or his weapon, off the men. “But if he keeps it up, my finger might just slip on this trigger.”
Despite the fear and worry for Cabe and Six below, Amy raised an eyebrow. “Don’t do anything stupid,” she said, although the words held no heat. She knew he wouldn’t do anything that wasn’t aboveboard. “Words don’t hurt, Cabe. You know that.”
He looked her way for a millisecond, then returned his focus to the targets. “I know. Doesn’t mean I can’t imagine taking the bastard down though, right?”
Footsteps came from outside and she swung around, her weapon aimed at the doors out onto the deck. Mac pushed the doors open, and she let go of a deep breath she’d been holding. He ignored her and Cabe, running straight down the stairs as she assumed Cabe had told him to.
Goddamn, what where they up to? Why hadn’t they locked it down yet?
“Steady, Agent Murray,” Cabe murmured. “They’ve got this.”
He looked so indifferent, so casual, yet she didn’t doubt his focus for a second. He was made for this.
Was she?
She’d gone into this for her mother. To somehow give back, to feel useful, to move on. And she loved her work with the FBI. But was undercover work what she was meant to do with the rest of her life? She watched as Jackson, Six, and Mac brought the remaining men to the main floor. What would it mean for her relationship with Cabe? Huge periods out of contact. Could she do it? Or would it be better to go back to general fieldwork? At least with fieldwork she had contact with the victims, people she could identify with, had empathy with. Like the women on the sofa.
The thought remained with her as they waited for the Coast Guard, as she watched the suspects moved from the other boat to theirs. It didn’t leave her as she saw the casual slap on the back and squeeze of the shoulder between the men on Cabe’s team. They were meant to do this. She could tell that. They’d never panicked. And she’d place money on it that their hands had never shaken.
When Cabe climbed into the Coast Guard helicopter right after her, ditching his military equipment to pull her in his arms, she knew she’d need to talk to him about it at some point. But tonight was not the night.
“Shit, Ames. When the car went north instead of south, I—”
She pressed her lips to his, cutting him off, stopping the overwhelming display of emotion that had him on edge.
“I knew you’d come,” she whispered fiercely. “It’s what got me through. I knew you’d find me.”
“A thousand times over,” he replied, studying her eyes for just a moment. “I’d come for you wherever you were. The ends of the earth if I had to.”
“I love you,” she replied.
He had her back as much as she had his. “I love you too.”
And he didn’t let her go until they were home. In his apartment. In his bed.
Where she knew she belonged.