Charlie studied the mooring line tied to the front of the Leslie. Stone had lost his bloody mind—or he’d taken up comedy. But one look at the former SEAL confirmed that there still wasn’t much of a funny bone in the man’s well-toned body.
Scaling a mooring line almost thicker than her waist went on her list of firsts. After securing the semiautomatic on her back, she followed Stone. Gripping the heavy links with her gloved hands, she swung her legs up to lock around the line and then, hand over hand, climbed steadily up to the boat’s deck.
Stone motioned for her to drop low the second her feet touched down. Keeping to the dark corners, he moved while she covered him, and then vice versa. The fact that the guards hadn’t yet made their pass on this side of the boat was a bit unsettling.
Where the hell were they? They’d been on the camera feed, heavily armed and looking obvious, and now…nothing.
As if he’d read her mind, Logan’s voice chimed through their comm-links, “You got a bogie on the upper deck coming right up on your eleven, Stone Cold.”
Charlie immediately spotted the armed man nearly two stories up and gestured to Stone to give him the position.
“Got him,” Stone murmured. “Let’s try and get by without sounding the alarm. Where are my frogs?”
“Frogs made landfall. Stowing gear and heading to first point,” Vince’s voice announced.
With time ticking, Charlie and Stone needed to get to the first point too. By approaching both ends of the freighter and meeting somewhere in the middle, the teams hoped to clear, locate, and extract Tina and the others without being spotted. With seven of them and a lot of ground to cover, it would be difficult but not impossible.
“The guard’s heading your way, Loverboy,” Stone warned Rafe as the lookout circled back around.
“Got eyes on him,” Rafe confirmed.
Charlie took point this time as she and Stone reached the hatch that would lead them into the belly of the boat. Two familiar black camo’d bodies rounded the corner, guns poised and ready for action at a moment’s notice.
Vince’s eyes locked on her, nodding in support. Standing next to him on an op, literally and figuratively, felt…right. Normal. Like this was how they’d always been meant to interact—with some occasional good ribbing.
Jitters gone, Charlie took second in line through the door, immediately at Stone’s rear. With Vince at hers and Chase at his, they stepped into the first long corridor. Rooms lined each side, almost reminding her of a water-bound dorm.
“Frog-jump it by teams,” Stone murmured. “We’ll clear each room as we go.”
Like an adult version of the leapfrog—but without the jumping over each other’s backs—they hopped from room to room, each pair providing cover for the other as they systematically cleared the main corridor. They worked in synch, barely muttering a word. After the fourth set of rooms, Vince flashed her a quick wink that shifted the world beneath her feet.
“What the fuck was that?” Brock, from the other end of the boat, cursed through the comm.
A deep rumble echoed through the hall, vibrating the floor beneath Charlie’s feet. Okay, so maybe Vince’s machismo hadn’t moved the earth. “Are those—”
“Engines.” Vince said what Charlie had already guessed. “They’re taking us out to fucking sea.”
“Fucking-A,” Stone cursed. “Eric, we need a back-up extraction set up if these assholes peel away from the dock.”
“On it.” Eric, from the comfort of their informal command center back at the hotel, started sending out the Bat Signal. “All right, DHS and the U.S. Coast Guard are on alert. They’ll stay far enough back so as not to make anyone nervous, but be close enough if we need them.”
“Good. Let’s keep it moving,” Stone ordered, then addressed everyone. “Plans haven’t changed, guys. Let’s put some hustle in it.”
They picked up the pace, the pressure turned up. Charlie, temporarily focused on speed, forgot to check around the corner before stepping into the corridor. Movement flashed in her periphery, and she swallowed a curse, plastering herself to the wall.
“Shit.” She prayed the guard hadn’t seen her. “I got a guard coming from my nine o’clock. Fifteen yards and counting.”
“Let’s make sure he’s by himself,” Vince murmured from the comm-link. He appeared inside the entryway of the room across the corridor, giving her a hand signal—hold.
Charlie held her breath—even though that wasn’t what he meant—and counted footsteps. One set at ten yards…at five…
Three. Two. One.
They waited until the guard was one step past them, and then they moved together, Vince wrapping a muscled arm around his neck while Charlie focused on the gun. She twisted his fingers, making him involuntarily release his hold on his weapon.
“Where’d your boss stash the girls?” Vince growled low.
The guard’s face began changing to an unflattering shade of purple. “If I tell you anything, I’m a dead man,” he rasped.
“That’s going to be your fate if you don’t tell us. At least if you talk, you’ll have a slightly better chance at living after we throw your boss’s ass in jail. Pick your odds.”
Stone stood sentry, his gaze shifting back and forth to each end of the corridor. “Let’s hurry it the hell up, kids.”
Vince flexed his arm and practically hauled Anthony’s man to his toes. “Running out of time here. What’s it going to be?”
“Th-third sublevel,” the guard gasped. “Next to the engine room.”
“English?”
Charlie stood in front of an emergency map mounted on the wall and studied it with a critical eye. “That’s three flights directly below us.”
Vince tucked his mouth against the man’s ear. “You better be telling us the truth, or I’m going to come back and give you more than a fucking nap.”
One pressure point later and the guard slumped to the ground, unmoving and unconscious.
Charlie watched in awe. One minute standing, the next, asleep. “You really need to teach me how to do that.”
Vince snorted. “Sure. If Logan volunteers to be the guinea pig.”
“Like hell,” Logan chuckled from the comm. “And it’s not your ability I’m questioning, darlin’. It’s what these assholes would do to me when I’m passed the hell out. I’d come-to without eyebrows or wearing eyeliner or some shit.”
“Chicken,” Vince murmured playfully.
Chase grabbed his plastic ties and bound their sleeping asshole. “I’ll stand behind with our squealer and make sure he doesn’t wake up prematurely and sound off the alarm.”
Stone clapped him on the back as they took the stairwell and carefully maneuvered one level lower. After clearing that corridor, too, they went down another flight. At the third sublevel, the bloody boat shifted again.
“Fucking hell.” Vince caught Charlie’s elbow as her balance teetered. “The bastards started the propellers. They’re moving us away from the dock.”
In case their sleeping friend had lied, Stone directed the other pairs to continue their search. But Charlie’s gut told her that wouldn’t be the case. The girls would be there. She just didn’t know if they’d be there alone.
* * *
As Charlie led the charge down the stairwell, Vince became painfully aware they’d still left a lot of things unsaid. Back at the hotel, he’d been about to try and put into words how he felt. But then Eric had called out, and one thing had led to another.
No way in fucking hell could he tell her now and risk distracting her. Not to mention that she’d kick his ass for doing it while they stood in the middle of a steel coffin. He’d wait, and the longer he did, the more certain he was of his feelings. Somehow, without him knowing, Charlie’d slipped into his heart and planted roots.
And that’s where she was going to stay—permanently.
Breaching the third sublevel was child’s play, right up until a rapid-fire string of curses bombarded them from their mics.
“We’ve been spotted,” Rafe warned from above deck. “Fucking-A. If you guys are close to the hostages, make it closer and fucking quick. We’ll try and hold them off, but I don’t know how many are already heading your way to check out the merchandise.”
“Got it.” Stone turned toward Vince and Charlie. “Go. I’ll keep the corridor clear while the two of you sweep the area. We don’t have time to do it room by room. Hustle.”
Vince nodded. “Tight on my six, English.”
He didn’t have to look over his shoulder to know she followed. He felt her at his flank, covering their asses while he focused dead ahead. Two rooms came back clear before they hit the engine room.
Nothing.
No girls. No Anthony.
“That little prick lied through his teeth,” Vince growled.
“Wait.” Charlie grabbed his arm and pointed to a door hatch deeper into the room, behind the main furnace. “Back there.”
With Charlie covering their six, Vince tugged on the handle. Fucking stuck. “Give me a hand.”
They both shouldered their weapons and tag-teamed the rusty door.
“On three,” Vince started the countdown. “One. Two. Pull.”
“Bloody hell,” Charlie grunted, her face turning red from exertion.
“Just need a little more…” Finally, it gave way. Metal grinded on metal as the latch opened with a loud screech. Vince stepped through—and what he saw curdled his stomach.
Four cages lined the far back wall—and they were occupied. Dirty and crammed-in, three to a crate, twelve young women damn near cowered like scared pups.
Charlie came up next to him and froze in place. Her face turned almost green as she took in the sight. “Sweet Jesus. How can any human being do this to another human being?”
Vince’s jaw clenched. “Easy. He’s not a fucking human being.”
Charlie stepped closer to the girls and they rattled, trying to scramble as far away as possible. She lifted her hands, showing them she meant no harm. “I’m not here to hurt you. See? We’re here to take you home.”
One of the younger girls, her fingers gripping the metal bars, trembled and sobbed. “H-he s-said we’re never going h-home.”
A heavy dose of sorrow softened Charlie’s words as she crouched down to the young woman’s eye level. “He didn’t take into account that we weren’t going to stop before you were.”
Vince grabbed a bolt cutter hanging on the far wall and started breaking locks. Four cages. Twelve young women. And each time a new trio was released, Charlie found herself in the center of another hug.
“Gee,” Vince joked, “I do the heavy lifting, and you get the credit.”
Charlie chuckled, and when everyone was out, the girls still remained huddled close, eyeing Vince warily. Reading their discomfort, Charlie started off introductions. “This is my…Navy. He’s one of the many good guys flooding this ship right now. I know he’s a little intimidating, but he’s got a lot of heart to go along with all that brawn. We’re going to get you out of here, but you all need to do everything we say—and I mean everything, okay? Friends of ours are dealing with the bad guys right now, but that doesn’t mean we don’t still need to be careful.”
Charlie scanned the group of girls. “Tina’s not here.”
“You mean the other girl?” The first girl who’d spoken cradled her sobbing friend. “That old man came and took her. He said she was too mouthy.”
“Well, that definitely sounds like my cousin,” Charlie said dryly.
“How long ago was this?” Vince asked.
“Not long. I thought you guys were him coming back for the rest of us.”
Fear plastered itself all over Charlie’s face as she snapped her attention to him. “If Anthony knows we’re here, there’s no telling what he’ll do to gain leverage.”
Vince gripped her hand and squeezed. “One good thing about being on a boat that’s out at sea? There’s no place to fucking go. He’s like a rat in a barrel.”
“Unless he has metal teeth—or a life raft.”
Charlie’s eyes locked on his.
“Fuck,” Vince cursed. Speaking into his mic, he alerted the team. “Anthony’s in the wind with Tina. He knows we’re on to him. Look alive.” He turned toward the group of young women. “Everyone stays between me and Charlie, got it? No noise. No crying. You follow every direction we give you. Understood?”
“Is he always this bossy?” one of the girls murmured.
“Yeah”—Charlie nodded, smirking—“but it kind of grows on you.”
Vince tossed a glare over his shoulder, and Charlie gave him a wink. “Lead the way, Navy.”
They retraced their movements back through the engine room. Just as they reached the hatch to step back into the corridor, a gunshot rang out. Metal clanged as Stone shouted for them to take cover. The former SEAL released a round from his own AK before hissing out a string of profanities.
Vince poked his head into the corridor, gun raised and ready to intervene, and inspected the two unmoving bodies. With a red pool blossoming beneath him, the one lying facedown was thankfully one of Anthony’s men. But Stone, slouched against the wall as if he’d been hit by a semi, wasn’t faring much better.
“Stone’s hit. Cover me,” Vince hurled back at Charlie as he made a dodge for Stone. He took a knee in front of his boss, wincing at the wetness soaking his right shoulder—but hell, he was breathing. “How bad is it?”
“I’ll live. Help me up,” Stone ordered through gritted teeth.
Forearms clasped, Vince hauled him to his feet. “Anthony’s in the wind.”
“I heard.” Stone grimaced, his good hand clutching his shoulder.
“I’d like permission to go after him while Charlie gets you and the girls off this fucking floating shit can.”
Charlie was right there, girls in tow. If looks could kill, he’d have been a dead man walking. “Like bloody hell.”
“Stone can’t get them out of here on his own. He’s damaged fucking goods.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Stone grumbled.
Without taking his eyes off Charlie’s murderous gaze, Vince pushed a finger into his boss’s bullet-torn shoulder, making the man howl out a few profanities. Thankfully, following the groan came a low chuckle. “Point fucking made. Asshole.”
“See.” Vince didn’t blink. “Helpless as a kitten. How’s he going to aim his fucking gun when that’s his shooting shoulder? Someone needs to help him get these girls out, and honey, it’s going to be you.”
Charlie looked like she wanted to argue, but she glanced at Stone, then at the girls cowering behind her. “Fine,” she said, her voice strained. “But I swear to God, Navy, if you—”
“I’m not letting anything happen to anybody.”
“What do you have going on up there, Rafe?” Stone asked.
“We’ve rounded up all of Anthony’s men, but we’re minus the man himself. And we’ve got a ride inbound on the starboard side.”
“Copy. Coming up with the precious cargo. Leave one as guard and fan out to look for Anthony and the last hostage. Remember, our ultimate goal is the hostage, so if you come across the Franconi girl first, the mission ends. We’ll let the law enforcement worry about Anthony.”
“Will do, boss.”
Vince slipped his hand into Charlie’s hair, pulling her close. His mouth brushed against hers, wrestling her attention away from Stone. “You need to be up there when the Coast Guard shows up, English.”
Charlie swallowed, forcing down a large lump. “Please be careful. I need someone’s ass to kick in training, and I can’t do that if you get yourself killed. I mean, I could kick someone else’s, but it’s not as fun.”
He chuckled at her attempt to lighten the mood. “There’s nothing I like more than getting my ass handed to me by the woman I love. You can kick it anytime, babe.”
He reined her in for a quick, hard kiss, and released her with a firm swat on the ass. Before she could retaliate, he jogged off toward the stairs, looking back when he took the first step.
Charlie’s gaze stayed on him, fierce and worried—and shocked. It wasn’t until Vince hit the open air that he realized what he’d admitted aloud—and so fucking easily.