Chapter 15

Logan

I marched back down the hall, anger welling in the pit of my stomach. I’d checked the perimeter of the bungalow, but there’d been nothing. No sight of Marino’s men. A quick walk down the path toward the main resort building had revealed nothing either.

Literally, nothing.

There were no people manning the front desk. The lights were on but nobody was home, so to speak. The entire time I’d been out there, I’d been on edge, waiting for the gunshot, the men to rise from the shadows and take aim, fire. But nothing had happened.

The island was dead.

I made for the safe room, silently raging. Fuck, if I’d known this would happen I would’ve set myself up in the safe room early. I would have… what? Not saved Katie? That was out of the question.

Even when I’d been out there, trying to assess the situation, my thoughts had been back here, on her, waiting for me. Scared. I shouldn’t care. I shouldn’t want to be around her, but I couldn’t fucking help myself.

I entered the bedroom and walked toward the closet, but froze, halfway there. The safe room door was open. Hadn’t I closed it on the way out?

“Katie?” I called out, her name on my lips bringing back images of us together, bending toward each other, around each other. I shoved those thoughts aside and strode through the closet into the room. It was empty. “Katie?” I yelled again and hurried to the small attached bathroom.

I knocked on the closed door, anger turning to nerves. The first I’d had in fucking years. Actual nerves. Christ! Everything had changed because of this woman, and I’d met her a couple days ago.

“Katie! Open the door or I’ll—” I turned the knob and the door swung inward. The bathroom was totally empty. Lights off. Fuck. She wasn’t in here, which meant she was either somewhere in the bungalow, or she had left.

A cellphone ringtone traveled from the other room—“Congratulations” by Post Malone—and I jumped. Shit, I’d forgotten about the charging second phone I’d left in here. I’d switched it on before I’d run out, leaving it to charge.

If it was ringing, it had enough juice to make a call. I rushed over to it and snatched it up, dragging my thumb across the screen and answered. “Who’s this?” I asked.

Heavy breathing answered me.

“Speak, goddammit. I don’t have time for this.” I had to find her before it was too late. Before she did something equal parts idiotic and brave.

“How are you this evening, Mr. Wright?” Marino’s throaty wheeze crackled down the line.

“Fuck you,” I said, because why not? He’d already sent his goons after me. Why not cuss the dick out?

“Very bold for a man who’s about to give it all away.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I snapped. I’d reached the end of my rope with this fucker. He’d sent a woman my way who’d totally disarmed me. Who’d showed me that I wasn’t totally in control of everything going on in my life. That annoyed me to no end. “Well?”

“I have her,” Marino said.

The world stopped spinning. “What did you just say?”

“I have the girl. That sweet piece of ass you’ve been basting for the past couple days? I have her safe and sound—for now.”

How was this possible? I’d had this place on lockdown. Unless she’d actually left the safe room or the bungalow itself. Shit, I wouldn’t put it past her. She’d run toward danger before. “What do you want?” I asked.

“I think you know what I want,” Marino said. “You’ll meet me on the beach tomorrow morning at 6 a.m., nice and bright and early. Don’t bother trying to call for help from the authorities. I own this island now. You make one wrong move, and I’ll know. I’ll kill her before you get to see her again. And I’ll make it nice and slow and painful.”

“Six a.m.,” I repeated. “Where on the beach?”

“How about at that cute little cabana where you two lovebirds tied the knot?”

“Motherfucker!” I growled. “What makes you think I care what happens to her, huh? She was one of yours.” It was a bald-faced bluff, but I had to try. I could sneak up on Marino, find Katie, and free her instead of meeting with his demands.

“Oh, you don’t? How about I go in there right now and say ‘hello’ to her?” Footsteps, a thud of a door.

“Marino!” I shouted.

“Logan?” Katie’s voice came through the phone and solidified my panic. Those nerves screamed and writhed for me to get to her. To save her before it was too late.

“Jinx,” I said. “Are you all right? What have they done to you?” I couldn’t keep up the pretense of not caring, now.

“I’m as well as can be expected,” she said, her voice even. “They’ve tied me up, and they’re threatening to kill me… Mom… you.”

“Just hang in there, all right? I’ll get you outta there.” And I meant it, because those nerves had steeled over again, replaced, instead, by molten fucking rage. I’d rip Marino’s head off his shoulders and shit down his throat for this. I’d destroy him. I’d make him regret the day he’d come into this world.

“No,” Katie said. “They want me to scream and cry and act like a baby. Don’t give these people what they want, Logan. Don’t give him what he wants.”

“Bitch!” Marino interrupted. There was a scuffle of noise, then heavy breathing again. “Deal with her,” the mafioso said.

“Hey! You touch her and I’ll kill you, understand me? With my bare fucking hands!”

“Six a.m. at the cabana, or she dies.” The phone went silent.

“Fuck.” I closed my fist around the cell, resisting the urge to throw it across the room and smash it into a million fragments. This was my tie to the world right now. Marino wanted to use her against me? He’d get more than he’d expected.

I loosened my grip, then pulled up the only number on the phone, labeled “Emergency.” I hit it and pressed the phone to my ear.

“Mr. Wright,” Jessica answered. “What the hell is going on?”

“Six a.m. at the cabana on the beach,” I said. “Tell them. It’s the only shot we have. Tell them!” I hung up and dropped the phone on the desk. I couldn’t trust that Marino wouldn’t listen in if I spent any longer speaking on it.

That short of a call was safe enough. Hopefully.

I hurried to the bed, bent down, and brought a bag out from underneath it. I rifled through the contents quickly and checked to see that everything was in order. Money, passport, extra clothes, med-kit, ammunition, snake bite kit, water, protein bars. If I needed anything during this time, I’d have it.

I couldn’t sit still and wait for this meeting. I had to act now, to do something before it was too late, before Katie died because of my stupidity. I slung the bag over my shoulder, then walked to the desk and collected the phone.

It rang in my hand. Another private number. I dragged my finger over the green phone icon and rammed the cell to my ear. “Who is it?”

“Mr. Wright, this is Agent Sanders. We’re speaking to you on a secure line. The probability of this call being tapped or recorded is minimal. You can speak freely.”

“You got my message,” I said. “What more is there to speak about?”

“Mr. Wright, I understand that this is a difficult scenario for you to deal with, but I must urge you to refrain from doing anything rash. Do you understand me?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t understand you. I won’t sit back while Marino does whatever the fuck he wants with my woman.” The words burst from me. Christ, that evil son of a bitch had started all of this. He’d brought this down on all of us, on her too, and I’d been too much of a fool to believe it.

I’d assumed she was part of his plan, when, really, he’d manipulated her just as he’d tried to manipulate me months ago.

“You cannot leave your bungalow, Mr. Wright. Trust me, the situation is under control. We’ll take it from here.”

“I don’t accept that,” I replied.

“Sir, do you understand that if you don’t arrive at that beach tomorrow at the specified meeting time, Marino will kill her and her family members?”

“Yes. And I also understand that he won’t have anyone to kill if I save her before that meeting time.”

“Marino has shut down the entire island. There’s no ingoing or outgoing traffic. His lackeys are on every corner, and you would be waltzing into a highly secure and secret compound, with only a peashooter and a burning wrath. With all due respect, Mr. Wright, it’s a fool’s errand, and you should know better.”

That gave me pause. “How are you going to get your operatives here if he’s already shut everything down?”

“Our operatives have been there, planning and preparing, for the past month.”

“I— Fuck.”

“We believe that Marino planned on using the girl against you from the start. If you go after him now, you’ll be giving him exactly what he wants,” Sanders said. “This is a trap. Don’t walk into it.”

I dropped the bag from my shoulder and lowered myself to the bed, running my fingers through my hair. “Fuck,” I muttered again. “Fuck!”

“Leave this to us, Mr. Wright. All you need to do is attend that meeting tomorrow morning. We’ll take care of the rest.”

“Fine,” I managed.

“Stay out of trouble.” Once again, the phone went dead. I placed it on the bed beside me, held my breath, and counted to ten.

I couldn’t let the anger, the need to do something, anything, to get control of this situation, get the better of me. If I didn’t control my reaction, I didn’t have any power at all. That had always been my forte in the past.

Big men crumbled easily under pressure, but I had retained my cool head and identified problems, fixed them, and at all times maintaining control. But Katie had made me lose sight of that in the best and worst ways.

She needed me now. She needed my calm, my control.

Her voice had seemed so sure over the phone. She hadn’t collapsed under pressure, either.

“Good,” I said. “Good. I swear I’ll get you out of there. I swear it. No matter the cost.”