The guy was closer than I’d thought when the missile hit his craft and exploded on impact. I knew Cat wouldn’t risk our lives unless she thought we were already in danger.
I had the watercraft at the maximum speed skirting over the waves that were still wild and angry, despite the storm having passed. When I saw Cat launch the attack, I leaned forward to try and cover Erica to keep her safe. I didn’t expect either of us would be thrown into the air, and then pulled down into the water.
My body hurt from the impact, but I quickly popped above the surface, spitting out water, and looking frantically for any sign of Erica. I looked back at the boat and saw Cat pointing toward an area, where I saw Erica’s dark golden main bobbing in the distance, but her face was down in the water, and her body was limp.
Damn it! I took off swimming against the strength of the ocean’s waves, trying to reach her. I heard a boat engine turn over and something coming through the water toward us.
It took some doing, but I finally reached her and flipped her over onto her back, thankful the backpacks doubled as a floatation device; otherwise, she would’ve been pulled under, and I might never have found her.
Reaching my hand out to her carotid artery, I began to feel for a pulse. Nothing. “Damn it, Erica. Don’t you give up on me now. We’ve come too far, baby, you and I. I’m not going to lose you.”
Just then the boat, yacht, or whatever you want to call it, pulled up alongside us and pulled us in. As soon as Erica was on deck, I kneeled down, ripped the backpack off of her, and began giving her mouth-to-mouth while Cat began chest compressions.
“Don’t do this to us, Erica. Your family needs you, and from what I’ve heard, this big lug, Jonas, needs you too.” Cat argued.
We kept up a rhythm of chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth until she finally began to cough and spit up water. With Cat’s assistance, I quickly turned Erica onto her side and let the water drain from her mouth until she was breathing on her own.
I sat down on the deck and pulled her onto my lap. She looked up at me, “Did we get away? Did he get blown to smithereens?”
“Yes, princess, we got away, and that guy will never bother us again.” I leaned down pressing my lips against her forehead. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again.”
Her brows furrowed, “Like what?”
Needing affirmation that she was alive, I held her closer to me, and then began to explain. “The explosion threw us from the jet-ski. The impact must’ve knocked you unconscious. You were floating face down in the water and didn’t have a pulse when I reached you.”
Cat knelt down in front of us and reached her hand out to Erica’s arm. “I’m so sorry, hun. I never intended for either of you to get hurt, but that man was in range to shoot and kill if I hadn’t acted fast.”
Erica moved her hand over Cat’s. “You did what you had to do. Sometimes life is a risk, and in this case,” she looked up at me, before continuing, “it was worth the gamble.”
We didn’t end up going to a safe house after all; instead, we stuck to the comforts the yacht provided. There were limited rooms, but with Cat and Jasper able to double up as a couple and Erica and I in another room, we made it work.
We’d been brought up to speed on the findings. The men the Coast Guard had arrested had been hired to kill Erica and anyone around her. They’d been bought and paid by Victor Yoknovich to leave no witnesses and had been offered a bonus of three million dollars if they could recover the phone and the video it held.
As for Victor’s whereabouts? He’d been tracked down to Orlando, where he awaited word of Erica’s demise.
Victor had been able to skirt our every move. He had been hiding from us and, especially, from Nickolai, who had a huge bounty on Victor’s head. Titan had a rule of not allowing harm to come to any human being in their care unless it was a matter of life and death, but for this guy, some of us had been ready to let Nickolai’s team have him.
Erica’s parents had called, and I’d left the room, standing guard out in the hall so they could talk in private. After a while, I’d heard her arguing, “But Papa, we need to draw him out in the open, let him believe he has a chance to…” Her voice had lowered, so I hadn’t been able to hear the rest. I’d figured that if it had been important, she would have told me.
Two days later, I found out what her conversation was about. Rick had us on video conference from the boat. The team in Orlando had gone over every possible scenario to make this whole debacle come to an end. Turns out, Erica had the plan to make it happen.
Cat, Japer, and I all threw questionable looks her way. Erica just shrugged her shoulders and acted all nonchalant over the whole thing.
Ivan—her father—moved in front of the camera, his face pained. “I want you to know I’m still against this plan, but I realize it’s the only option we have. Erica wants to create the impression she’s willing to turn over her phone as evidence to the local FBI office in Orlando. We’ll allow some information to slip as to when this will happen and what entrance she’ll use, setting herself up as bait for him to come after her directly.”
I could feel my jaw tightening and my teeth clenching at the idea of her doing this. “How are we to know he hasn’t hired another hitman to come and take her out and steal the phone? Why not use Cat or someone else as a decoy?”
Ivan smiled, “Good questions, Jonas, but my friend Nickolai is ensuring another hit won’t happen. He’s passed word through the various brotherhoods that anyone attempting to do Victor’s bidding will find themselves with a huge bounty on his head.” Ivan shook his head and sighed. “It’s not the scenario I’d like, but it’s quite effective. My friend, he’s one of the highest members of not only the family but the entire bratva as a whole. Essentially, his word is law if you catch my drift.
“As for Cat running interference as a decoy, I prefer that scenario too, but Victor is a sharp man. He’s had his hands on some facial recognition software for a while, using it to identify the men he needed to deal with on behalf of the family he worked for, as well as who’s who in the FBI. So trying to pull a fast one would be impossible.” Ivan laughed before adding, “Of course it’s the only piece of advanced technology the fool has used; otherwise, he prefers everything old school,” Ivan’s words made sense. If Victor felt threatened or toyed with, he might cause more damage, but I still didn’t agree with the risks to my woman.
We continued to discuss the plan, with everyone putting their thoughts in to help tweak things to the point it would go off, we all hoped, without a hitch. I couldn’t help myself; I slammed my hand down against the table so hard it made everyone jump, including Erica. I looked over at her, and then to the screen her father was on. “I don’t like this one damned bit. If she’s going in, I want to be only a few steps behind, ready to be her shield if needed.”
Erica’s eyes were filled with tears as she locked onto mine. “You can’t do this, Jonas.”
“Neither can you, but if you’re not going to back down nor will I.” I stood my ground knowing in my heart I was right.
She started to argue with me, begging me to back down, but her father silenced her. “I see you value my daughter’s life over your own.” I didn’t reply out loud, only nodded. “Then I agree: you should be there beside her.”
I knew I’d just outed our relationship to her father, but I didn’t give a shit. Her life meant everything to me. I might have to put up with her being used as bait, but it didn’t mean I had to sit back and do nothing in the process.
My emotions started to jumble my thoughts. I needed time alone to sort through everything, so when the meeting adjourned, I spent my time in the workout room on the yacht. I was surprised to see a fully-loaded gym on board, but thankful I could bang out my frustrations on a punching bag and lift some weights.
I spent my days keeping busy on the ship and only my nights in Erica’s presence. I shared her bed but only for sleep. If I could’ve slept somewhere else, I would have. I still cared about her and wanted to reach out and feel her beneath me, but I couldn’t further attach myself knowing that she was willing to risk her life on a stupid plan.
Hell, she’d already scared me once. Seeing her dead in the water…she had no pulse…I felt all the anxiety of being abandoned by my mother rise to the surface, once again proving that everything I come in contact with, I ruin.
The yacht pulled into a marina off Cocoa Beach a few hours ago. A few town cars were there to pick us up from the dock and transport us back to Orlando.
Erica’s mom, Sophia, had been monitoring the bank accounts of the local FBI agents to see if anyone received a huge transfer to their account. It didn’t take long to get a hit. We definitely had a mole in the local office feeding Victor information. Though, of course, he didn’t know we’d supplied some of his trusted “friends” with bogus information to set things up.
Rick had a team of snipers atop the buildings surrounding the downtown FBI office. There were plain-clothed officers, agents, and enough people on the sidewalks and streets to look like an ordinary day, especially with the basketball game going on at the sports arena just a few blocks away.
The car dropped me off a couple blocks back where I began walking at a normal pace while pretending to keep time to music I didn’t really have playing in my earbuds. In actuality, it was a two-way radio, which linked me directly to Erica and Rick.
I got in position and watched as Erica climbed out of the car and stepped onto the sidewalk. As the car pulled away, she looked around before walking toward the front of the building. I could tell she was a little nervous by the way she held her purse close to her chest.
Things were going too well, which gave me an unpleasant feeling. No one had tried to grab her outside. Hell, no one even came close to walking past her. I think the closest anyone got was a man, and he was ten feet away. What gives?
A delivery person was walking up the side ramp with a package in his hands. Erica reached for the door and stepped back to let the driver inside, but it wasn’t a driver; it was Victor. I watched as if the scene were playing out in slow motion. He threw the package onto the ground and smoke began to pour out of it causing chaos and forcing people to run.
While everyone outside ran one direction, I ran the other, gaining on Victor and Erica. She was struggling to break free from his hold as he had a knife held to her side. I yelled out, “Stop right there, Victor,” which caught him off guard and caused him to spin around to look at me, cutting the edge of Erica’s arm in the process.
The moment I saw her face fill with pain and the spread of red drip down over her arm, I shut out everything around me. I hadn’t felt this trance since I took on so many rebel fighters on the outskirts of Kunar.
My body propelled forward and kicked the knife from his hold. Victor moved his hand toward his waistband, probably reaching for a gun, but I tackled him, forcing him down on the ground. I patted every inch of him and tossed the gun to the side.
I looked into his face—all smug and determined to beat me. He’d hurt my woman, probably wanted to get her alone to kill her, but hell hath no fury like a man protecting the woman he loves.
I reared back my fist and punched the smirk right off of his face. The pleasure running through my system felt damn good. Going into a blind rage, I continued to punch Victor again and again.
I heard shouts around me, but I ignored them. The Titan agents formed a circle around me, blocking me from everyone else’s view. I knew they didn’t approve of what I was doing, but given the innocent young woman he killed, the two he tried to kill, and the fact that he scared one of our own family members…damn straight no one would stop me. No one but Erica.
Her voice was the first to break through to me. “Jonas, stop. You can’t do this.”
Of course my automatic response was, “Watch me.”
She moved into my line of sight, and then knelt down and held out her hand to me as I reared back for one more punch to this demon’s face. “If you still care for me, Jonas, you’ll stop this right now.”
I moved back a few inches, my vision finally coming back into play. Looking down, I realized I’d nearly beaten this man to a pulp. He was still breathing, but his nose was broken, a few teeth were missing, and he was begging for his life, “Please, let me live.”
Shaking my head, I countered him, “Like you wanted to let those young girls live, the one’s you’ve fucked up for life? You already took one innocent life and destroyed a family, before trying to repeat it again and again. You don’t deserve a trial, you don’t deserve a chance, what you deserve is death.”
Erica gasped at my words, but they were the truth, and everyone from Titan was nodding in agreement. However, the only opinion that mattered to me was hers. I looked down at my hands, bloodied and beginning to swell. Once again, everything I touch, I ruin.
The Titan crew pulled Victor back and cuffed his hands while they waited for an FBI agent to come out and read him his rights. Erica, leaning forward, put her hand on my face and forced me to focus my attention on her. “Thank you for saving me, for being my protector and my hero. This man doesn’t deserve justice for what he’s done, but I won’t stoop to his level, and I won’t allow you to either. Death for him would be too simple, too finite. No,” she shook her head contemplating her next words, “I want this man to suffer and wait and rot away in prison, wondering if he’ll wake up to see another day. He probably forced several of his own to go to jail for crimes he committed. I’m sure he’ll get his just deserts behind bars, and if he doesn’t, the list of crimes my father says he has against him should be enough to keep him there until he dies.”
My head slumped forward, and I felt her arms circle round me, hugging me, until some other agents came and walked me inside. She tried to follow but I looked to Ivan to take over, while I dealt with the debriefing process with Rick, Cat, and Jasper following close behind.