Chapter Eight

It took nearly an hour for his temper to cool, an hour in which he paced the halls and barked orders at anyone he passed.

James hated that she’d gotten to him. He hated that he’d allowed her opinion to crawl beneath his skin. As if he didn’t know the difference between abuse and teaching a lesson. He wasn’t that much of a monster, despite what she may think.

He left the bridge and made his way towards the officer’s lounge. He’d release Nicholas from babysitting duties, take the girl back to her room, enlist Presley to take watch, and check on the engines.

That was his plan.

That was what he knew needed to be done.

Instead, he pushed open the lounge door to find Nicholas gone and the girl bundled up on the sofa while Indiana Jones sprinted through a hoard of Nazi tents. The sight brought him up short. His gaze darted over the space a second time, half expecting his second in command to be hiding in some corner. But the man was gone. The girl was there, and sleeping.

He could leave her there, he mused. No one but he and Nicholas used the room. No one had a reason to go in.

But for the same reason why he couldn’t have her in a proper room, he couldn’t leave her there.

It was too close to the crew.

It was too far from his quarters.

It was too open.

It was too hard to keep an eye on her.

Plus, it locked from the inside.

All the things he’d taken into account when deciding to stick her in the storage in the first place. It wasn’t lavish or homey, but it would keep her safe. Not that she seemed to understand that. In her eyes, he was a monster keeping her caged. She had no idea the kind of monsters that actually lived on that ship.

It didn’t matter, he told himself. Her thoughts, her opinions meant nothing to him. Once he heard back from Bishop, he would decide what to do with her.

In the meantime...

He stalked forward and took her shoulder. He shook her lightly as an explosion erupted on the screen behind him. She came awake with a grunt and a sound smack of her hand shoving his away.

“Hey!”

One eye opened, barely, and glowered up at him. “Are we sinking?”

“Not yet.” He straightened. “Get up.”

She sat up reluctantly. The throw slipped down her body and pooled in her lap.

“Where are we going?”

“Your quarters.”

That had her attention. Her expression was one of irritation.

“You mean that storage room with no windows and the possibility of being crushed by an avalanche of wooden crates?”

“The crates are properly secured. You’ll be fine.”

“And do what?” she cried. “Sit there? Sleep all day? Wait for someone to bring me food and occasionally remember I need the bathroom?”

“Sweetheart, you seem to be forgetting you’re a prisoner, not a fucking duchess. The fact that you’ve got a bed and a place to shit is more than most get.”

“Oh, how lovely for me,” she shot back. “What’s next? I get hauled out once a night and brought to your bed so you can assault me in my sleep again?”

That stopped him. He stared at her a long while before answering.

“Is that what you think an assault looks like?”

To her credit, she almost concealed her grimace with a defiant tilt of her chin. “What do you call it when your captor strips you naked in your sleep and...” she broke off, embarrassment burning up her throat.

“And eats you?” he finished lazily, amused by the bright glow in her cheeks. “Licks your pussy? Fingers—”

“Stop it!” She couldn’t even look him in the eye anymore. “You know what you did.”

“Oh, I know exactly what I did.” He dropped his voice to a gravely purr, caught up in the way she shifted in her seat. “I gave you the best orgasm of your life.”

Cora sputtered. “Excuse me? You’re not nearly qualified to determine that.”

James smirked. “You think I don’t know when a woman’s had her first real orgasm?”

“I’ve had plenty of orgasms!”

One eyebrow arched. “Like that?”

The hard mashing of her lips answered even before her nose crinkled and she huffed. “You’re ... you’re vile,” she stammered.

“Yet you couldn’t get my tongue in deep enough.”

She shot to her feet. “I’d like to return to my cell now,” she demanded.

He wisely concealed his grin when motioning her to the door. But badly. It all but radiated in his eyes and in the lips he couldn’t stop from twitching. Cora ignored it, ignored him as she stalked out. In the foyer, she paused only long enough to wait for him to lead the way before following. Neither of them said a word the entire way down. She walked alongside him, stiffly and with an expression of an irate woman. She looked adorable, not that he would say as much out loud.

They reached her quarters and he yanked open the door for her. She stepped inside and turned to face him.

“It won’t happen again,” she stated firmly. “You caught me off guard and I was momentarily disoriented, but I fully intended to stop you next time.”

James considered that a moment. He checked his watch, and was disappointed by the lack of time he had to take her up on that.

“If I didn’t have a ship to run, I would take you up on that challenge.”

“It wasn’t a challenge.”

“We’ll see.”

With that, he shut her door and left her.

James went in search of his first mate. He walked the full length of the ship, checking all of Nicholas’s usual places until he found the Romanian leaning against the railings overlooking an angry ocean, but not nearly as angry as the man himself. He stood with his arms folded and his stance wide like he was personally challenging the sea god. A lit cigarette hung from his fingers, soggy from the mist.

“You left the girl.” James crossed to his desk and lowered himself into the chair. “She’d made herself at home in the lounge, watching Indiana Jones.”

“Temple?”

“Raiders.”

The other man clicked his tongue. “Temple is better.”

James rolled his eyes. “You’re missing the point. Why weren’t my orders followed?”

Nicholas never faltered under the venomous glower. “Maybe they weren’t sure you meant it.”

James frowned. “I gave an order.”

“Perhaps you should be more clear, sir.”

“No one touches the girl wasn’t clear?”

“Maybe it was your actions,” he mused. “Like having her naked in your quarters a day later ... sir.”

“Is that what this is?”

Brown eyes rose and fixed on him through wet lashes. He didn’t say anything, but James knew.

“She got to you.”

Nicholas looked away. The cigarette was brought to his lips.

“Not like that.”

James closed the distance and leaned into the barrier next to his friend. “I didn’t sleep with her.”

A plume of smoke leached into the air. “I told you.” He glowered through the smoke. “Not like that. Do you really think I’m capable of letting a woman come between us? We’re not children.”

James chewed that over carefully before responding, “Okay? What then?”

Nicholas flicked ashes into the ocean. “Annie.”

The quiet murmur of her name lanced down James’s spine, taking strips of skin with it.

“What about her?”

“She reminds me of Annie.” He raked his teeth over his bottom lip. “She shouldn’t be here, James.”

“Despite what she says, I wouldn’t hurt her, or let anyone else—”

“What do you think Bishop wants with her?” Nicholas interrupted sharply. “Tea party? You don’t get pirates to kidnap a girl unless...” he broke off but his implication continued to resonate between them. “I’ve done a lot of things with you, I’ve stood by your side through some of the worst humanity has to offer, but I...” Nicholas scrubbed the tips of his fingers over his brow. “I won’t hurt a woman. Not even for you.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to.”

His quiet murmur was met with self-depreciation.

“That’s it.” Nicholas finished the rest of his smoke and flicked the bud into the churning waves. “You wouldn’t have to.” He pushed off the post and straightened. The Romanian squinted at the middle distance over James’s shoulder. “De Marco took Annie from her bed, kept her for weeks, hurt her, then brought her back like nothing happened.” His gaze shifted to James. “Doesn’t sound too different, does it? We’re just waiting for the order.”

“That won’t happen.”

“No? You think Bishop’ll just return her, unscathed, unharmed? You think this is a test to see how good we are at what we do? You don’t take a man’s most prized possession for nothing. You send a message. You break the possession and send pieces back.”

“Look at me.” He met his friend’s murderous glower with one of his own. “I’m telling you, that will not happen.”

Nicholas must have seen it in James’s eyes, because his features lost some of its edges. “I never trusted him. He won’t keep his word. He has another plan and it will end with all of us dead.”

James said nothing as the other man stepped around him and headed back. The residual remains of the storm sprayed around him in a freezing mist of rain and ocean. Yet it wasn’t enough to stifle Nicholas’s echoing indignation. He felt each one with equal brutality.

He wasn’t ignorant to the situation. Despite his hunger to bathe in De Marco’s blood, he wasn’t blind to the man Bishop was behind that glossy exterior. He could pretend all he wanted that taking Cora was for the good of national security. No security required the kidnapping of a woman, an essentially innocent woman. That was the power trip of an over inflated ego.

Nevertheless, Nicholas had planted a barb James couldn’t shake. It nagged him all the way below deck to the engineer’s quarters.

Michael yelped in fright when James charged into his work station.

“Where the hell is my phone?”

The boy shot out of his chair and bolted to the cabinets in the corner. The doors were thrown open to a row of neatly stacked dishes, and James’s sat phone.

“Sorry, Captain.” Panting slightly, Michael returned with the device and a guilty expression. “I was making a sandwich...”

James took it. “Fixed?”

Michael nodded. “Yes sir.”

He turned it over in his hand, examining its hard, black plastic. It looked like any regular satellite phone, but it had been given to him by Bishop and he was told to only use that device when contacting the British special intelligence agent.

“Did you figure out why it was clicking?”

“That’s the thing, sir. It all looks normal in there.”

Humming, James nodded. “Thanks, kid.”

Leaving the lower deck, James made his way to the bridge, dialing out as he went.

“Bishop.” The response was almost immediate, like he’d been waiting for the call, or expecting it.

“Crow here.” James lowered himself into his chair behind his Captain’s desk.

“Captain.” Even through static and miles of land and ocean, the hint of mockery in the statement didn’t go unnoticed. “I was beginning to worry. Have you got the package?”

“If by package you mean a five foot brunette with a homicidal father, then yes. I have her.”

“Excellent. Where are you? I will have a chopper—”

“Not so fast, Jarvis,” James cut in, using the name for Iron Man’s computerized man servant. “First tell me the plan. What are you going to do with her?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your concern.”

“On the contrary. She’s on my ship. She’s my problem. She’s not going anywhere until I know what’s going to happen to her.”

There was silence on the other end where James couldn’t help wondering if MI5 was calling the head of the CIA for advice on how to proceed. Or maybe he was simply counting to ten.

“That is classified information,” Bishop said at least. “I’m not authorized to—”

“Then I’m not authorized to give you the girl.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Crow! That wasn’t part of our plan.”

“Why can’t you answer the question?”

“We have plans to utilize Ms. Harris in infiltrating De Marco’s circle.”

James raised an eyebrow the other man couldn’t see. “Four years and this is what you come up with? You boys over at MI5 sure know how to put your heads together.”

“This isn’t the time for games,”

“I agree, which is why I’m giving you an hour to tell me the truth before I decide the girl’s fate for you.”

He shut off the phone and set it on the desk.

James had every confidence that Bishop would call back. He had no choice. James had his insurance policy. But it was gratifying to make the man sweat for a bit.

He pushed to his feet and padded to where Laimure stood navigating the waters. The waves weren’t as high, but their gray ting mirrored the clouds still swirling above them. James knew they’d passed the worst of the storm, but he wouldn’t be satisfied until they’d ported.

“How’s our path?”

“Another half day and we’ll hit calmer waters,” said his deck officer.

“Call Nicholas to switch with you in an hour. I’ll be in the engine room.”

Nicholas was on the bridge when James made his way back from hunting down Presley and checking the engine room. The Romanian barely glanced away from the wide expanse of ocean gleaming outside the windows.

“Your phone rang,” he said before James could open his mouth.

The sat phone sat exactly where James had tossed it earlier. He eyed it, determining the wisdom of calling back and the patience it would require to deal with Bishop, but he knew it needed to be done.

He dialed.

“Crow.”

No Captain this time, James noted with mild amusement.

“Have you decided?”

“This is highly classified,” the man insisted in what James could only deduce was his urgent, agent voice. “It could jeopardize the life of our asset.”

“Asset, that’s spy talk for undercover agent, isn’t it?”

Bishop hesitated. It was clear enough that James took it as an affirmation.

“The girl is part of a very crucial, years in the making operation, Mr. Crow. Everything must go per the plan or we may lose our window.”

James ignored the mister jab.

“I can appreciate that, but you have yet to tell me what you’re going to do with her and what my involvement in all this is, because you promised me a pivotal role, Mr. Bishop. You promised me revenge. I have waited patiently for four years for you to keep your word. When you do finally grace us with your call, it’s to take the girl. Nothing more. Well, I did my part. I got the girl. Now it’s time for you to hold up your end.”

“I understand you’re upset, but I explained to you that matters like this don’t happen overnight. There are steps, critical and unavoidable markers that we must cross. Infiltrating, creating inside men, creating trust, this takes years. With the girl, we will now have our foot right inside De Marco’s enterprise.”

“And how do you plan to do that?”

Bishop sighed. “Have you ever heard of a hero complex, Mr. Crow?”

James gritted his jaw, but wisely remained mute.

“A grateful father being brought back his treasured daughter, unharmed, will get you just about anything you ask for.”

James drummed the tips of his fingers on the desk. “So, you kidnapped the girl just to take her back and be the hero? That’s your plan?”

“Essentially. There are other matters—”

“I’ll get back to you.”

James hung up before another word could be exchanged. He tossed the phone down on the desk with a noisy, and possibly damaging, clatter. The sound had Nicholas turning, but his question died on his lips when James placed a finger against his own mouth, silencing him. He rose to his feet, took the phone and walked out with it onto the catwalk. He pitched it into the ocean.

“What are you doing?” Nicholas stood in the doorway to the bridge, arms folded.

“It was bugged.” James stepped back inside, shouldering past the other man when he didn’t move right away. “Or maybe it wasn’t, not entirely sure.”

“What?” His second was eyeing him like he’d lost his mind.

“It’s part of the plan.” James regained his chair. “We take the girl, MI5 gets her from us, returns her to De Marco. But a plan like that needs a scapegoat, someone to take the fall, someone to blame. That’s us. Only Bishop can’t afford witnesses.”

Nicholas cursed in Romanian. “I knew we couldn’t trust him.”

“I never did.” James rubbed a hand over his jaw. “But that doesn’t change the fact that we need to prepare. If my assumptions are correct, that clicking I’ve been hearing through the sat phone was him bugging us, tracking our every movement. He just lost element of surprise. But he still knows our last position.”

“What’s the plan?”

James sucked in a breath and made an instinctive leap. “Turn us around. We’re heading back.”