23

The Extraction

Much to my dismay, I make it through the night with all my body parts—and the tiara—intact. Not once during the long night did anyone attempt to break in and rob me; at no point did I feel the need to flee to the safety of my father’s side.

It sounds strange, I know, but I’d been half hoping someone would use the key to try and take the Luxor. At least then I’d know who had it, feel the relief of knowing the worst had already happened.

As it is, I’m forced to accept the possibility that the key simply fell out of my bra during the scuffle. Maybe it got kicked to a dark corner. Perhaps someone threw it overboard. And if someone does still have it, hoping they can strike tonight…well, they’re going to be disappointed.

By tonight, I have every intention of being as far away from this ship as possible.

In honor of the final seven sitting down to play the last game of the tournament, the cabaret lounge is teeming with spectators settling down on the severe metal bleachers. While the suspicious glances they send my way aren’t what you’d call welcoming, my plan’s success hinges on as public a spectacle as possible, so I can only be glad to see that so many people have come out to witness this final game.

Extra seating has been put in the empty spaces where the seven tables used to sit; this time, a lone table is set up in the middle of the room for gameplay. The names are clearly marked on the chairs so we all know our places. I, naturally, am at the head of the table—a position chosen by Peter to ensure that everyone will be able to keep an eye on me at all times.

From there, most of the names are familiar ones: Warren Blue, Tara Lewis, Riker Smith, Kit O’Kelly, Peter Sanchez. If this wasn’t a matter of life or death, and if I didn’t fear that every bite of food I’ve eaten over the past few days is poisoned, this would have been an ideal outcome. The game is strongly stacked in favor of my friends and family—I like the odds of one of us actually being able to win this thing.

“Good morning, everyone,” Peter says as we approach the table. In honor of the day’s events, he’s worn his whitest, crispest linen suit. “I’m happy to see you looking well rested. The day promises to be an eventful one.”

His comments are spot-on. With the exception of Riker, who’s scowling and smells of fuel, we all look incredibly calm at the prospect of one of the most intense, challenging games of poker ever to be played. If Peter knew us better, he’d be aware that nothing is more alarming than this particular group sitting down amicably together. Most of the time, not even Grant and I can sit down to dinner without one of us turning the meal into a competition.

“How’s my tiara this morning?” Peter sends a questioning look my way.

“She had a difficult time waking up, but I bathed her in coffee, so she should be perking up any time now,” I say. “Oh, and a man tried jostling me as I left breakfast, but the man behind him was carrying a fork and stabbed him in the forearm. I suggest plasticware the next time you do this. People are getting desperate.”

The story isn’t exaggerated—that really did happen. From the look of it, the stab went all the way down to the bone.

Peter chuckles. “With any luck, we’ll wrap things up either today or tomorrow, and we’ll get that tiara in safer hands. I can’t thank you enough for volunteering to wear it in my little Lola’s place.”

“Anytime,” I say with a grand smile.

Next to me, Grant is so angry, I can feel his emanations reaching out to strangle me. He didn’t try to make contact with me at all yesterday, and my towels have been sadly message-free, but he’s walking easier today. If nothing else, at least I have that to be grateful for.

“Are we going to stand around and chat all day, or are we getting this game going?” Tara asks as my father pulls out her chair and hands her into it. He also leans down and murmurs something in her ear, which causes her to fall into a trill of laughter.

I have to hand it to him. Never, in all my life, have I seen my father give in to public displays of affection. That he’s willing to play the role of provocative lover for my husband’s sake imbues me with some much-needed confidence. Together, we can do this. We have to.

“That’s my spot,” Riker says as my dad begins to lower himself into the chair next to Tara. “You’re on the other side.”

My father’s brows raise a fraction. “Why, so I am. How remiss of me not to have noticed.” He turns his attention to Tara. “Do you need anything else before the game gets started?”

She lifts a fond hand to his cheek. “Aren’t you sweet? Just send me a few extra aces, and I should be fine.”

“I’ve had more than enough cheating for one tournament, thank you very much,” Riker mutters as he drops jerkily to his chair.

Peter pulls a similar routine with me, helping me to my chair and making sure I’m comfortable before taking his own seat. Nothing could be more catastrophic in upsetting Grant, who bristles to see me on good terms with the man trying to kill us all. He sits in mute anger, watching my every movement as though I’m going to run away with the tiara at any second.

I’m not—at least, not for a few hours—so I sit back in my seat and wait for the game to begin.

It becomes clear after about twenty minutes that I’m outpaced and outplayed on every hand. If there was any doubt that Peter cheated me into the finals before, there are no more questions on that now. There’s no way I’m even close to the same caliber of player as the rest of the table—I’m being systematically destroyed by all those I love. In fact, Grant is more intent on getting me out than all the rest, betting heavily and taking the pot almost every time. He must assume that any plans I have require that I be in the game and is therefore trying to remove me from it as fast as possible.

The poor man. If he knew how close we are to things getting underway.

“You’re playing awfully conservatively, Warren,” Tara says in her sultriest, most cloying voice. “I thought you were planning on going bold or going home. I was counting on you.”

“Were you, my dear?” he asks mildly. “My apologies. Let’s double this bet.”

Riker watches their proceedings with a deepening frown. Only the playful light in his eyes indicates that he’s not nearly as annoyed as he’s letting on, and he’s keeping his gaze concentrated on his cards for that very reason.

Next to me, Grant stiffens even more.

“Wonderful!” Tara says as I toss my cards down in disgust. I actually have a nice pair of kings and would like to see if they can stand on their own legs, but that’s not part of the plan.

“Oh, great. So now you two are going to ruin the poker game, too,” Riker says in a disgusted voice. “How nice for the rest of us.”

My dad lifts a cold brow. “Is this too steep for you? I should have warned you that I play to keep. Maybe you should fold while you still have a chance.”

Riker sets the line of his mouth. “I call.”

“Your mistake,” my dad tuts. “I have a straight.”

Tara laughs as my father takes the hand. “Sorry, Riker. You should have seen that one coming.”

It’s the first of many such interactions to come. With each hand, Riker postures more and more, challenging my father and coming up short every time. Tara and I feign indifference, but both Grant and Peter Sanchez have taken note of the table dynamics with rising alarm. In fact, after Riker enjoys a lengthy outburst on the wisdom of allowing traitorous, lying women at the table in the first place, Peter decides to call an impromptu break to defuse tensions.

There’s a dark look on his face that makes me fear for my own safety—he knows I’m up to no good. I see it, Grant sees it, and most importantly, Riker and my father see it.

It’s showtime.

No one is able to say exactly how the altercation starts. One moment, we’re all getting up from the table, stretching our limbs and discussing what we intend to do with our luxurious thirty minutes of freedom. The next, Riker is up in my dad’s face, telling him to step down or risk his fury.

“She’s made her decision, young man,” my father replies. “I suggest you step away before you make this situation any worse than it is.”

“And I suggest you stop colluding. Has that been your goal all along—the two of you working together so one of you wins? Whatever happened to fair play?”

My dad stares at Riker with a look that would have any man, woman, or child trembling in fear. “Did you just call me a cheater?”

“Why not?” Riker laughs bitterly. “You’re no better than Two-Finger Tommy. The wonder isn’t that you cheat. It’s that Peter Sanchez would allow this kind of thing to go on under his roof.”

That barb has the power of being true, since Peter did know of Two-Finger’s tendency to cheat and did nothing about it. Peter is drawn into the argument against his will, and with that, all attention is fixated on them.

Well, all the attention except for a select few. Although I try very hard not to watch as Jordan slips through the side passage and out into the relative safety of the hallway, I’m happy to see her making her rounds.

The flames start about thirty seconds later. I’m not one hundred percent sure how she does it, but she gave me a long, rambling explanation yesterday about the ethanol she was cooking up in her stateroom from—I kid you not—the sugarcane she confiscated from the kitchen. Apparently, ethanol is the one fuel that has no real scent, so you can slip it in an air-conditioning unit and spread it throughout the ventilation system without detection. It also burns very hot and very fast, which means that as soon as she lights the fuse, flames begin spouting out the vents in the ceiling in a way that reminds me strongly of a rock concert with an overly enthusiastic pyrotechnician.

It’s not strictly a bomb made from her dinner, but it’s close enough to count. Oh, how I love that woman.

Jordan’s fire ends up being quite beautiful in that dangerous, people-are-going-to-trample-each-other-to-death sort of way. I enjoy a moment of calm stillness, a silent appreciation for the wonders of her chemist’s brain, before I see the panic begin in earnest. There’s also a moment in which I hear a deep groan and Grant says, “Goddammit, Penelope. You and I are going to have a serious talk when we get home.”

My husband has me behind his back in a matter of seconds.

It’s a lovely gesture, but it’s not what I need to happen just yet. The plan is definitely not for me to get caught in the middle of the mass hysteria with the tiara still on my head. Oz is supposed to be around here somewhere, ready for the grab that will get this rock as far away from me as possible.

“Stay behind me, and don’t say a word,” Grant says as he begins to back up toward the far wall. “And I hope you’re prepared to swim, because that’s the only way we’re getting out of here now.”

On the contrary, I have no intention of leaving this boat along with everyone else. I’m rather looking forward to staying behind, actually.

See, that’s the whole point of this exercise. Sitting in that infirmary with Peter the other day was one of the most frightening experiences of my life, yes, but it was also one of the most illuminating. It was when Peter mocked Grant for putting my safety first that he showed me his one true weakness, the one thing that no amount of money and no amount of power can buy.

Loyalty. Affection. Love.

Peter Sanchez can hire all the bodyguards he wants, surround himself with criminals he can manipulate into fighting one another, but as he walked out the door and left his daughter behind, he also showed me the chink in his armor.

Without the tiara, without his boat of criminals, he has nothing. He is nothing.

Unlike me. He could take literally everything I own, rip the tiara from my head, and I would still be surrounded by the most valuable possessions in the world. They go by the names of Grant and Riker, Warren and Tara, Jordan and Oz. And Lola.

Which is why I’m doing all this. I’m going to take everything away from him and let him see how it feels to be truly alone. We’ll see who has the power then.

“Not now, Grant,” I say, knowing full well he won’t listen. If there’s one thing I can count on from that man, it’s that he won’t leave this ship without me in tow. Unconditionally loving your wife might make a man vulnerable, but it also makes him predictable.

And valuable. So much more valuable than anything Peter Sanchez has to offer.

“I have one more thing to do first, and then you can come find me.” Without waiting for a response, I duck underneath his arm and make my escape.

“Penelope—” he calls, but it’s too late. I’m using the distraction of licking flames and panicked people to get the hell out of here.

As expected, I’m a target the moment I step away from Grant’s protection. Two men notice me and step forward, cracking their knuckles and tilting their heads in an ominously foreboding way. I dart to my right, but a woman is waiting there with her shoes in hand, which she chucks with so much force, I barely manage to duck in time. As Grant is also hot on my tail, I’m not left with many choices for retreat.

So I don’t. I don’t need to.

In all my preparation, only two names popped out as people I genuinely feared might try to wrest the tiara from me in the aftermath: Eden St. James and Two-Finger Tommy. The former because she’s evil incarnate, and the latter because he’s just plain mean. So far today, I haven’t seen Eden at all, which is a circumstance I find both unusual and alarming. However, as much as I’d like to guess where she is and who she might be pushing overboard to get to safety, Two-Finger is the more immediate threat.

He spies me almost at once. He also does me the favor of disposing of the two men cracking their knuckles, shoving one into the side of the bleachers and tossing the other at the woman with the shoes. His path thus cleared, he nods once. It’s an oddly generous gesture, this declaration of intent, but the extra second he takes is a mistake.

Riker makes a sudden appearance twenty feet to my right, just as we planned. It was too risky to have him walking around, goading Two-Finger into revenge, so he hid out in the engine room until today’s game. From the look of him—and the smell of him—it can’t have been a comfortable night, but the outcome is well worth it. All he has to do is stand there, looking like the handsome, cocky bastard that he is, and Two-Finger halts. His craggy face turns back and forth between us, the decision he faces an unenviable one. He can go after me and maybe get his hands on the tiara, but he has to know that I’m small and quick and won’t make his pursuit easy. Or, should he so choose, he can attack Riker, the man who cheated him out of a win and made him look like a fool.

I have no way of knowing for sure which path Two-Finger will take, but I’ve got a pretty good guess. Warring sensations of greed and revenge will do funny things to people, pit two dark sides against one another in an epic internal battle. However, if there’s one thing I’ve learned on this trip, it’s that for criminals like us, reputation is all the currency we have.

After all, the great Penelope Blue might not be anything but a figment of Peter Sanchez’s imagination, but just look at what she’s been able to accomplish with a little fear and admiration on her side.

Predictably, he chooses revenge.

The second I see Two-Finger head in Riker’s direction with a muttered curse, I’m off and running. I don’t need to look over to know that my father is making a timely intervention on Riker’s behalf—if intervention you can call it. My dad intends to claim precedence over Two-Finger, falling back on the age-old rights of a man to avenge himself on his not-yet-ex-wife’s lover. It has a very Peter Sanchez flair to it, if you ask me. Of course, my father’s not actually going to murder Riker, but he’s going to make a convincing case for it. Not even Two-Finger can pretend that cheating at one game of poker trumps that kind of betrayal.

With any luck, my dad and Riker will take their argument—and themselves—as far away from this room as possible. They’ll do it with Tara and Jordan and Lola in tow and head for the extra lifeboat waiting for them at the ship’s stern. I had Tara do a little more flirting with the captain, and it turns out the rules for a fire evacuation require the captain to stop the ship and ensure everyone is safely unloaded before they can try and investigate the cause.

If all goes according to plan, Peter will be so busy trying to catch me that the entire lot of them will make for the nearest coast with Oz and the tiara, free and clear.

Speaking of… I move along the edge of the room, where I’ve pressed myself as flat and small as possible. Scanning for any sign of my dear old friend, I nudge the tiara off my head and prepare for the handoff.

Oz turns out to be an officiously loud employee directing people to the nearest exit. He pauses in his duties just long enough to take the tiara from me and tuck it under his uniformed cap before resuming his post and continuing the evacuation. To look at him, you’d think he’d never so much as heard of a diamond before. I don’t doubt that he’ll remain in place until every last person is off the ship—though whether he’s doing it because he genuinely cares about the safety of the passengers or because no one commits to a cover story like he does, I’ll never know.

Nor do I particularly care right now. The tiara is as good as gone. I’m free.

Well, almost. Despite Oz’s best intentions, the evacuation isn’t an orderly one. Because ethanol offers a smoke-free burn, the sprinkler systems aren’t coming into effect. Everywhere I turn is mass hysteria and none of the regular security protocols are falling into place—all the things my friends and I love in a heist.

In fact, instead of an orderly progression in which the weakest are encouraged to lead the way, people push and shove their way to the lifeboats. Even several of the crew members and Peter’s private bodyguards are caught up in the swell, forgoing their duties to save their own skins.

I’m happy to see them go, since the fewer scary people with guns there are on the Shady Lady, the better, but I also hope they don’t get too violent in their eagerness to evacuate. Yes, almost all the people on this boat are criminals, but that doesn’t mean I want to see them get caught in the crossfire.

There is one person in my plan who isn’t a criminal, however, and keeping him out of the crossfire is the entire purpose of this. My escape was too good, though, and I can’t seem to find him. I scan the crowd trying to catch a glimpse of the familiar wide shoulders, but my short stature isn’t doing me any favors. I crawl up onto the cabaret lounge stage to get a better view. I find him almost immediately—or, rather, I should say that he finds me. Grant is behind me just as I get one leg up on the stage.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” he says and catches me around the waist. “You’re staying right where I can see you.”

“There you are,” I reply, unmoved by the way he holds me aloft, my legs suspended in midair. “Come on. We don’t have much time before Peter descends upon us in all his wrath.”

“Oh, good. You do realize that you’ve just pissed off one of the most dangerous men in the entire world.”

I smile sweetly down at him—my husband, my love, my favorite highly dangerous man to anger. “Of course I do. One might say it’s my true calling.”

“Penelope…” he warns in that tone I know so well. It’s fifty percent outrage and fifty percent laughter. And, most importantly, one hundred percent on my side.

“I’m sorry,” I say and mean it. “I know you wanted to get Johnny Francis, and I respect that—I really do—but I can’t allow you to do it at the cost of your own safety. Don’t worry. I have a plan to get us out of here, but I need you to—”

I don’t get an opportunity to tell him what I need. Just as Grant finally lowers me to my feet, one of Peter Sanchez’s two main bodyguards comes up on him from behind. I shout a warning, but it’s too late. A loud, sickening blow to the back of my husband’s head has him crumpling in a heap at my feet.

“Grant!” I fall to my knees to try and catch him, but it’s no use. Before I even manage to wrap my arms around him, trying to shield him from another strike, the second bodyguard leaps down from the wings.

After that, I know there’s nothing more for me to do. We’re caught. We’re trapped. The plan now rests in Peter’s hands. With a sharp breath and a wince for what I know is coming, I wait for the second punch to land.

Thank goodness I’m not wearing the tiara anymore, I think as the back of a gun catches me behind my ear. Better my skull than that horrible, ungainly, twenty-million-dollar masterpiece.