Chapter One
Before we start... Be sure to – you’ll get three free stories right away, and you’ll be the first to hear about new releases, special deals, and exclusive bonus content.
***
“No!”
Nina screamed and flailed, but that didn’t stop the thick arms that grappled with her.
“Finish her off already,” one man barked as she was flung across a narrow space.
Her head thumped against something hard, and she slumped to the ground. Everything went dim as the voices closed in around her.
“Is she dead?” Someone prodded her shoulder.
Her head spun from the blow, and bile rose in her throat. Where was she? What was happening? How had she gotten to this dark, wet place?
“She’s still breathing,” a man said above the ringing in her ears. He was close enough to engulf her with his vile breath, but she couldn’t move.
“Well, she won’t be alive much longer. I need her dead. But it needs to look like an accident,” the first man said in a strangely familiar voice. Moments ago, she’d recognized him. Now, nothing made sense. The blow to her head had rattled her memories around. Nothing fit into place.
“Accidental drowning, if they find her body at all. Come on. You get her feet,” the second man said, and they lifted her.
She flexed her fingers and moaned.
“On three,” the man said, swinging her body through the air.
She already felt sick, but the motion only made things worse. She blinked, desperate to pull herself together before it was too late.
“Two…”
A gnawing sense of dread spread through her bones. Why were her limbs so slow to react? Why was she so confused?
“Three,” the man grunted, and she was airborne.
She flailed helplessly before hitting the water, closing her mouth too late. Salt water choked her, and an invisible weight yanked her body into the depths of the Pacific. Terror gripped her — enough to jolt her halfway to her senses. She kicked toward the moonlight, desperate for air.
When she broke through the surface, gulping wildly, her long brown hair covered her face. She pushed at the tangles and coughed so hard it hurt.
“Wait! Help!” she managed to scream.
A bad idea — attracting the attention of the men who’d just thrown her off a boat. They wanted her dead, but she couldn’t quite process that thought. Why would anyone want to kill her? What had she done?
“Shit, she’s not dead,” one of the men grunted.
“Not yet, she isn’t,” the other replied.
Bang! Something flat and solid smashed the water right beside her head.
Move it, fast! a voice in the back of her mind cried. Those men were swatting at her with an oar — and aiming for her head. They want you dead. Get away!
She paddled frantically. How was she supposed to get away? The lights that dotted the shoreline — Maui’s shoreline; that much she knew — were faint and distant. The only boat in sight was the sleek white motor yacht she’d just been shoved off. Angel’s something — she could see the name embossed across the stern in gold.
She kicked backward as the oar hit the water again and again, thrusting at her like a club. It glanced off her arm, and she choked in pain.
“Hurry up,” one man urged the other.
The oar slammed into her shoulder. It grazed the side of her head when they pulled it back, and her vision blurred.
“Get her!” she heard the man yell again, but his voice was distant and fading away.
If you black out now, you will die, the inner voice screamed. Dive! Now! Go!
Nina didn’t dive so much as sink. The water muffled all sound, and salt stung in her eyes. Which way was up? Which way was down?
Moonlight filtered through the water, and though instinct told her to kick toward it, she paddled sideways before surfacing again. The breath she inhaled drew in as much water as air, and she sputtered wildly.
“She’s over there!” one of the men shouted.
She wanted to scream, to cry. There had to be some mistake. But she could barely breathe, let alone speak, so all she managed was a garbled moan.
“Forget it,” the other muttered. “No way will she make it all the way to shore. We’re three miles out.”
He was right, and she knew it. The ocean was relatively still, but land was miles away. Her clothes were soaked, her limbs stiff. Her head throbbed, and her vision was blurry.
Do something! Now! instinct screamed as the motorboat powered up and sped away.
She yanked one shoe off, then the other. Her legs kept tangling in her skirt, so she shed that, too, and let the ocean swallow the fabric up.
The ocean will swallow you too, if you don’t get moving. Go!
She turned in a slow circle, wondering which way to go. Wondering why she even bothered. Maybe she should let death take her quickly instead of fighting it.
You’re not a quitter. You can’t be. Just like Mom. She wasn’t a quitter.
Nina sobbed at the thought of her mother. So sick, so frail, yet refusing to give up the fight. That single memory was clear in the foggy landscape of her mind.
Come on, make her proud.
She slapped the water, as if the ocean were to blame for the cancer that had stolen her mother away. Then the sound of the motorboat’s engine changed, and she spun around, seeing it turn back.
“Finish her off!” the man shouted.
The engine revved to a roar, and the boat accelerated, kicking a plume of water in its wake as it sliced through the water, heading her way.
“No!”
She couldn’t see into the deckhouse, but she could imagine two men hunched over the controls, grinning madly.
Move! Swim! Now!
Frantically, she paddled right. The engine throbbed, filling the air and the water with its brute force. The water around her lifted with the bow wave, and she swam for her life, high on a sudden rush of adrenaline.
Faster! Go! Go!
Water frothed all around her, making her tumble and turn as if caught in a breaker off a beach. There was a deafening hiss, a hammering throb. The terrifying sense of a mighty hulk slicing the water behind her.
And, zoom! The motor yacht zipped past. Nina bobbed to the surface just in time to see the bow carve through the water an arm’s length away. She kicked backward, desperate to clear the propellers, hacking and coughing the whole time.
Alive. She was alive. Her lungs cried, and her body ached, but she was alive. She heaved and sputtered, watching the yacht buzz toward the distant shore.
She treaded water, trying to catch her breath — and to make sense of it all. But her mind was hazy, and her memories were a jumbled mess. Where was she? What happened?
The loose shirt she’d been wearing floated around her, restricting her arms, so she pulled it over her head and cast it aside. Floating was easier without it, but still, it was an awfully long way to land.
So swim. Just swim. One easy stroke after another.
She wanted to protest, but her arms were already obeying the inner command, as if that were her mother begging her.
Don’t think, honey. Just swim.
The moon rippled over the water. The hum of the yacht’s engine faded away, and an eerie peace settled over the ocean.
Swim, honey. The way you used to go all the way across the lake.
That lake, wherever it was, was little more than a faint memory. And heck, this was no lake.
You can do this. One stroke at a time.
The ocean rose and fell with the long, lazy rhythm of the swell, and she imagined that it was cheering for her, too.
You can do it. One stroke at a time.