Chapter Thirty-Eight

Seth had walked halfway along the porch when he’d caught sight of the black sedan rolling toward the motel. Ducking into the first available room, he’d watched while Sly had climbed out of that sedan and entered the same room Seth was headed for.

But once Cord hit the other end of the boardwalk, their plan to meet in the middle went ape shit. He’d seen Sly drive up, too. Fired up and stupid, he’d closed in on door four without coordinating with Seth. Before Seth could get his attention, Cord had entered room four alone, the dumbass. He’d no more than crossed the doorjamb when a shot rang out, but Jesus H. Christ! Yet another car had advanced on the motel by then, this one a sleek silver BMW. What was this place? Fuckin’ Grand Central Station?

It was Giselle, the dominatrix from the bar, who had unfolded her long legs from the second car. Smoothing her hands over her short black skirt, she’d drawn a pistol from beneath her creamy white suit jacket, and like the rabid dominatrix she was, Giselle followed Cord’s dumb ass into room four.

Seth waited, certain Cord had to have fired that shot, that he’d put up a decent fight and that he’d come busting out of that door with Devereaux before Giselle got to him. But when the door closed without so much as a whimper… When things went incredibly quiet…

Damn that Marine! He’d just made everything ten times worse with that pigheaded stunt! Who’d he think he was, John Wayne? Seth would’ve given anything if a different former Marine had his six at that moment, but the guy he needed was in far-off Virginia, and Shit! Seth was stuck with Cord.

Down to one man, this operation was seriously compromised, but that meant squat. Seth wasn’t leaving without Devereaux. Not without Cord now, either.

“Why the hell couldn’t you listen? Just once, you pig-headed Marine? Would it have killed you?” Seth muttered as he advanced on room four, his eye on the road in case anyone else decided to show up. Why not? Everyone else had. “I said we’d meet in the middle, but noooooooooo…”

Shit! He was pissed that Cord had just blown their one and only advantage—surprise. Sucking up a breath of patience and fortitude, Seth steeled himself at room four’s door, his weapon ready, his heart locked and loaded.

He’d been down this road more times than he cared to remember. People would die the second he breached the entry. The slightest error at his hand could and would change everything. Things could still go terribly wrong. He could die. Worse, Devereaux could die. He had to time this precisely or—

Devereaux screamed, and to hell with last second strategizing. Cocking his knee, Seth kicked the door open and charged inside. Cord lay flat on his back at Seth’s right. Out cold. Bagani looked up from his chair in surprise. Sly and Giselle stood to the right of the bed with Giselle leaning over Devereaux with, of all damned things, a taser in her hand.

No way! Seth asked no questions as—BLAM!—muscle training took over. Down Giselle went, one to the head.

The blade in Sly’s hand flashed, but only once. Seth made sure of that, firing automatically as Sly joined the dominatrix beside the bed where Devereaux lay crying.

The poor thing was spread-eagled, bloodied, and half-dressed in metal underwear on the plastic-covered bed at his right. Her one breast was a mound of bloody hamburger. Both wrists and her ankles bled profusely. God, what’d they do to her?

“Seth,” she begged, her face mottled red and tearstained, her pretty white hair clumped with sweat and blood.

“I’m here, babe,” he told her.

At her side the olive-skinned, arrogant prick of a man in a pristine white dress shirt sat on a wooden chair, one ankle crossed over his knee, and his nose in the air. Had to be his royal bastard highness, Prince Bagani.

Seth wanted to shoot the guy’s head off, and he would have if Alex hadn’t warned him that the world was watching. Would’ve shot this dirtbag and walked over his dead body to get to Devereaux. Instead, Seth zeroed down on the asshole behind this dirty business and roared, “Get down! On the floor! Do it! Now! Now! Now!” like he’d done when breaching Taliban strongholds in Afghanistan.

Screaming tended to disorient civilians. Not this guy. The prince dared to stay seated and that just wasn’t going to fly. Seth jerked the bastard off the chair by his collar and shoved him to his knees. “I said down!” he roared at the pompous ass.

“I think not,” Bagani answered calmly as he sat on his haunches and dusted the single strand of hair that had fallen out of place, off his brow. “You’re an American. You have no power over me.”

“Like hell I don’t! I’ll show you power!” Seth spat as he pressed the business end of his pistol to the man’s forehead, aching to end this bastard once and for all. “I own your ass, Bagani, don’t think I don’t. You’re a known rapist and murderer. Stay the fuck down!”

“You own nothing,” the prince chided, his tone rife with pithy tolerance that Seth had no patience for. “I am royalty, and as such, I have diplomatic immunity. Check with my embassy. Better yet, check with yours. They’ll tell you. I. Am. Untouchable.” He lifted to his feet, still too damned calm, but, shit—right.

Seth huffed through his nose, pissed at the politics that let this bastard roam free. “Sit your worthless ass down, or so help me—”

“No,” Bagani stated, his chin up, his shoulders and back stiff. “My work is done here. Get out of my way. I have a plane to catch.”

“Your work!” Seth jerked his head at the bed. “You call that work, you asshat?” It took all of his control to not knock Bagani to the floor and kick his ass. He’d hurt Devereaux. He needed to pay and pay hard. In blood!

But when she whimpered from that frightful bed of horrors, and Cord moaned from the floor, the law of triage demanded Seth get his head back in the game. They needed to live more than Bagani needed to die.

If not for that and Alex’s warning, Bagani would never see the light of day. He’d just cleared the doorway on his way to freedom. Seth still had him in his sights, and his heart ached to put the son-of-a-bitch down like the cur he was. But Bagani kept walking, his head held high as if he knew damned well he’d just gotten away with kidnapping, torture, and attempted murder.

Seth kept his red laser dot square on the back of Bagani’s skull until the man slid into the Maserati. This was the hardest thing Seth had ever done. The asshole was getting away.

“Seth,” Devereaux cried, and Seth lost the war between doing what he knew was right and what he wanted to do. He sent the son-of-a-bitch Bagani one last hate-filled glare before he holstered his weapon and went to her. In no time at all, he jimmied the locked cuffs and pulled her off the disgusting sticky plastic.

“Ow, ow,” she cried, cradling one arm over her poor savaged breast.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured as she collapsed against him, crying and shaking so hard that it broke his heart. “Hey, it’s over. I’ve got you and we’re going home.”

“Scottie,” she whimpered. “They said they’d hurt Scottie if I didn’t…”

“Shush,” he soothed even as he avoided telling her that he had no idea where Scottie was at the moment. First things first.

Seth carried her into the bathroom, where it appeared one helluva fight had taken place. Blood smeared the floor and the walls near the doorjamb. The shower curtain lay half in the toilet, half in the tub. The mirror over the sink was shattered and glass shards were everywhere. Jerking what looked like a clean hand towel off the towel bar, he soaked it in cold water, wrung it out one-handed, then carefully, so as not to hurt her any worse, laid it over her breast.

She shuddered as the cloth met her poor mangled flesh.

“Hang on,” he murmured, stepping through the glass and back into the bedroom. The scene in the bathroom explained Devereaux’s bloodied feet. “You fought those guys, didn’t you?”

Her head bumped under his chin. “Y-yeah. I-I wasn’t going easy,” she said, shivering so much she could barely speak.

It took a second to dial 9-1-1, give them his location, tell dispatch he needed an ambulance and to step on it. Just then Bagani’s vehicle started up. The asshat was getting away and none of this was fair, but Seth had hold of what he treasured most. Let Alex have Bagani. He was welcome to the bastard.

Next, Seth called his boss, thankful this day was almost over. “I’ve got her,” he breathed into the satphone, even as he nuzzled the top of Devereaux’s damp head while she clung to him, weeping and hurt and so damned sad that Seth could’ve cried with her.

“How is she?” Alex asked, his voice soft with uncharacteristic tenderness.

“Alive,” Seth answered, the oddest pinch flaring inside his chest. He’d come so close to losing her, so close he could barely breathe now that it was finally done. He couldn’t go through that again, not losing the woman he loved. He wouldn’t survive. He had to tell her.

“And Bagani?” Alex asked quietly.

“Gone, Boss. I let him go like you said. Man, he’s an arrogant—”

BOOM! The too close shockwave of a damned big gun vibrated the air. Even Alex heard it. “What the hell was that?”

“Not sure,” Seth muttered as he carried Devereaux with him to find out. “Honey, I’ve got to set you down while I go check something. Will you be okay outside here on the porch?” he asked her.

Alex chuckled. “Sure hope you aren’t talking to me. I like you, son, but not that much.”

What an odd thing for Alex to say, but Seth had bigger things on his mind than his boss’s uncharacteristic teasing. Bagani’s car was still rolling forward, but it had veered into the tall grasses along the right side of the road.

Settling Devereaux against the outside wall of the motel room, Seth ran toward the Maserati to investigate. Holy hell. Bagani sat slouched behind the wheel, his seatbelt on, but his eyes wide open, and a neater-than-shit hole in the center of his forehead. Brain matter and blood painted the leather upholstery behind him. Spider webbing decorated the entire rear window, centered around one sure as shit bullet hole.

“Um, Boss?” Seth asked as he looked over his shoulder, sure he’d spy the bad-assed man he worked for standing off in the not too far distance with the butt stock of his sniper rifle on his hip. But there was no one out there, anywhere. Not Alex. Not anyone.

“Where are you?” Seth had to know.

“At my office,” Alex replied without one twinge of snark in his tone, which in and of itself was odd considering Seth had asked a rather dumb question, the kind Alex had no use for. “You’re the one who called me, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I did, but…” But calls could be forwarded to anywhere on the planet, even to a cellphone or satphone in the middle of the Florida Keys. “But someone just offed Prince Bagani. Head shot, Boss. That’s what that noise was.”

Canting his head, Seth closed one eye to block the glare of the rising sun, as he looked southward. “Whoever did it is a damned good shot. One to the middle of Bagani’s head. Through a darkly tinted windshield, no less. Spot on. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Well, damn,” Alex muttered, though he didn’t sound upset. “I guess that means I’m your alibi, huh?”

Seth’s gaze strayed to Devereaux, still sitting on the porch where he’d left her with the wet towel, now stained red, pressed against her chest. “I’ve actually got two, Boss. Devereaux and you, but…” But this was just plain weird. A sniper had just sniped a member of the Arabian royal family from one helluva long ways off. “I’ve got to call this into the police. There’ll be an uproar, and the press will be all over me and…”

“You do that, Seth. I’m on my way with irrefutable evidence that we were speaking on the phone when Bagani went down. Sit tight. The police can’t hold you for a crime you didn’t commit. Talk to you soon.”

Seth disconnected, still dazed at the turn of events. Bagani was finally dead. Killed by a sniper. If not Alex, then who?