MERCILESS (The Mermen Trilogy #3) (11 page)

Roen looked at her. “Not sure. I’ll have to think about it. When did you talk to Phil?”

“I don’t know—yesterday sometime—and by the way? You’re taking back your company. I don’t want your money or your empire. And what were you thinking signing over your assets to a mermaid?” Because in Roen’s mind, she was that maid in the tank when he’d done this.

“I thought you had a better chance of surviving than me. I still do.” He paused for a moment, thinking. “So what else did Phil say?”

“He asked me to sign a very big check to influence the Russians.”

His interest seemed to pique. “Phil did it, then?”

“That’s what it sounded like. Yet another reason for you to take back your stuff—this is the last place on earth I want to own.” What she really wanted to add was that she would die here. Soon. There was no point in her owning anything.

That particular thought started leading her brain down a bumpy road full of sadness—how her family would react, what would happen to Roen…

Don’t, Liv. You’ve been to this rodeo before. There’s no time or room for sulking. Just doing.
And doing meant knocking down the closest hurdles. One at a time. For the moment, she’d staved off Roen’s death. Now they suspected that the men couldn’t survive without the water, so it was fortunate that Dr. Fuller had just landed. She knew quite a bit about the sacred water, so she might be able to come up with a solution.
Because you won’t be here.
But she’d tell Dr. Fuller to start working on it. They had a lab, several scientists—mermen, of course—and a Harvard doctor on the island, all of whom probably knew more than anyone but were too weak to work. At a minimum, Dr. Fuller could coordinate.

“That’s a discussion for another day.” Roen began to get up, wincing as he moved.

“Dammit, merman. You will stay here. You will rest. You will do as you are told,” she barked.

Roen blinked at her, seemingly shocked. Not that she wasn’t normally an opinionated and moderately stubborn sort of woman, but she was no Miss Bossy Britches either.
Well, today I fucking am.

“Fine,” he grumbled, “but don’t go anywhere near that ocean and those maids, you understand? And when you get back, we’re going to have a long talk about everything—including what happened to Shane, how we’re going to deal with this island, and how we’re going to build a life together. Is that clear?”

Her heartstrings wound tightly together. He had no clue how much it pained her that they wouldn’t get the chance to really be together.

He added, “And then we’re going to foke. Hard. I don’t care if a goddamned hurricane is on our heads, it’s happening.”

You bet your sweet manly ass it is
. “I need a flashlight.”

He jerked his head toward the walk-in closet. “In the dresser—bottom drawer.”

She gave him a warm smile and then bolted inside the closet. She grabbed the flashlight and headed out of the room, resisting the urge to just stay there with him and kiss his soft lips for another ten minutes.

She hurried downstairs and out the front door. As she hiked along the dark trail, she started berating herself
. You’re being naïve, Liv. You’ve already given up. You’re just assuming there’s no way out.
It wasn’t like her one little bit. She was a fighter. She was…

She approached the long dirt runway where the plane sat idle, the lights on the wings blinking away. The stairwell was extended, but there was no one going in or coming out.

The hair on the back of her neck stood straight up.
Something is wrong.
Cautiously, she approached the stairs and was about to climb when she heard a woman scream, and it was a voice she recognized.

“Dana?”

Liv bolted up into the plane.

CHAPTER TEN

Liv wondered if perhaps she’d never survived that storm all those months ago and went down with the fishing boat, somehow landing in hell, where she was being forced to live through one impossible nightmare after another.

Yes, this is definitely hell.

Liv stood in the front of the jet, her back to the open doorway.

To the right, Dana lay cowering in the front seat, blood trickling down her forehead from a small cut. She held an unconscious man wrapped partially in a blanket in her arms. His face was covered with those giant charcoal black splotches, and his arms hung limp to his sides. In the row behind Dana, Dr. Fuller sat shaking like a leaf.

Okay. How the hell did Dana get on this plane?
Liv didn’t know if she wanted to weep with joy because Dana was alive and sitting just a few feet away, or scream hysterically because, obviously, Dana was on the fucking plane.

With two strange men pointing guns at everyone.

Where the hell did they come from?

Liv’s sat phone buzzed in her pocket, reminding her she hadn’t spoken with Phil again. Phil, who’d been trying to warn her of…

Well, of this, obviously.
But these were not tourists. And fuckingshithell. Hadn’t Phil said something about there being one hundred of them?

Okay. Stay calm. Pretend you knew they were coming, put them on their guard.

“You must be some of the assholes from that ship. We’ve been expecting you,” Liv said to the guy standing in the cockpit to her left, pointing an automatic weapon at one of the pilot’s heads.

The middle-aged bald man—husky, sweaty, and dirty—flashed his yellow teeth, giving her a vicious smile. Toward the back galley, another man—wiry frame, dark skin, and even darker eyes—held a gun.

Her mind quickly went to work, trying to pull a solution together. These men had gotten past one of the beaches, which meant the maids were either too weak to fight or they had been no match for guns. Second, they had mermen on this island. Two hundred weak mermen. Most weren’t fit to stand, let alone fight. Not without food, more water, and more time. Third, they had about sixty ex-mermaids who were fiercely protective of their men, but they were weak, too. No one had eaten. No one had been sleeping. Their only weapons were knives and machetes.

Dammit.
They had only one good option: get these intruders to leave.

“I know why you’re here,” she said. “But you’ve come at a bad time. There’s an illness going around on the island.” She looked at the man in Dana’s arms—likely Roen’s other pilot, Ed or Eddie or something—to prove her point.

“He ain’t come from the island,” the bald guy said.

“He was here a couple of days ago. That’s how he caught it,” Liv argued, hoping to convince the man that staying was not a good choice.

“Guess it’s a nice thing you’ve got that special water here on the island.”

Liv laughed. “You don’t really believe that crap, do you?”

The man scowled at her. “I seen it in my dreams. I seen it. The island told me to come and take it.”

Liv blinked at him. It was just like with Dr. Fuller.
Just like with you. Just like with Roen.
The island wanted all of this to happen. She’d lured these men here. But why?

“Don’t you look at me like that,” he growled. “I know this place is special. I know that water is worth a lot of money. It’s mine now. The island said so.”

Fuck.
What the hell was happening?

“Okay,” Liv said. “You can have it. But I’m the only one who knows where the water is now.”

He pointed his weapon at Liv. “Then you best be tellin’ me, lady.”

Liv raised her hands in the air a little higher. “I will. For a price,” she added. “Let me get the food and medicine off the plane and to all of the sick people.”

“You’ll take me to that water or you will fucking die.”

Liv smiled at him, letting him know that she wasn’t afraid. If anything, he should know she was a woman of different cloth. One who didn’t back down from bullies and wasn’t afraid to die. He had no choice but to negotiate with her.

“This island,” she said, “and the people who live here are all connected. If they die, she dies. No more water. It’s in your best interest to let this doctor try to help them.”

A gunshot echoed off in the distance, jolting Liv in her skin.

The man smiled sadistically. “Better hurry. I think one of your patients just bit the bullet.”

Oh no
. These guys were going to pick off the mermen in their bungalows one by one.

Another gunshot rang through the air off in the distance.

“Another one bites the dust.” The man smiled.

“Fine, Freddie Mercury,” Liv blurted out. “I’ll take you.”

The man gave her a strange, irritated look.

Not a Queen fan, huh?

He looked back at his men. “One of you start going through the cargo hold and see what’s down there. We’ll be setting up camp here, so we’ll be needing any supplies they brought. And kill these people if I’m not back in an hour.” He turned his attention to Liv. “Lead the way.”

With a gun to her back, Liv glanced over her shoulder and gave Dana a comforting smile.
How the hell had she ended up on the plane?

It was as if the island had carefully orchestrated this entire event, like a tragic Shakespearean play. Maybe the island wanted revenge on those who’d wronged or disobeyed her, so she’d brought these depraved criminals to torture and kill everyone. But then why had the island made a deal with her? The island asked for her life in return for the water to save the men. And why the hell would the island tell this man about the place, but not tell him where to find the water?
I mean, why stop at just leading him to the shore?

They were being played and manipulated. There was no doubt.

“Move it, lady,” the bald man said.

Liv looked up at the sky—just for a moment—praying for strength and some help. She noticed the sun just coming up. This would make it harder for her to get away and warn everyone. But Amelia knew the plane was here.
Maybe she saw the men.

“I said move!” The bald man turned his gun around and hit Liv between the shoulder blades, causing her to stumble her way down the stairs.

Wow. I didn’t think there could be anything worse than mermen.
But for all of their vile, archaic, and ruthless ways, at least they behaved according to
some
rules. They believed that their natural advantages—strength, looks, endurance, and the natural attraction women had for them—were fair play, like a tiger had a right to use its teeth and claws. Yes, that made them opportunistic assholes. But these men were a completely different breed. Monsters. They lived by no codes, they didn’t care about anything but their own greed, and they were the sort of men who preyed on the weak. Working in a battered women’s shelter had taught her to spot them a mile away.

There would be no persuading them to leave or behave reasonably. She got that now.

“You touch me again,” she growled, “and I’ll personally feed you to the maids.”

He laughed. “And the butlers, too? How about the chauffeur?”

“I’m talking about those creatures on the beach,” Liv clarified.

The man laughed. “Yes, those little hermit crabs were scary. Now move your ass,” the man said, “or I’ll shoot you in the stomach so you die slowly.”

They hadn’t seen the maids?
Strange.

Without a word, she turned toward the Great Hall, and it suddenly dawned on her. If Amelia got away, she would go straight to Roen. And Roen would come running, too weak to fight and definitely outnumbered. There were over a hundred of these assholes somewhere on the island.

Shit.
She had to do something. Quickly. This was going to be up to her to settle.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“Where the fuck is the water?” The bald man slapped Liv across the cheek, sending her flying onto the cold stone floor of the Great Hall.

Liv wiped the blood off her mouth with the back of her hand.
Asshole!
“I told you,” she said, “the island is sick. There is no more water.” These men would see no reason to let anyone live once they had what they wanted, so she wasn’t about to tell them jack.

He picked her up by the collar of her T-shirt and slapped her again. She flew back, nearly hitting the carved wood throne.
Motherfucker.

Leaning forward on both hands, trying to stop the room from spinning, Liv opened her eyes and that was when she noticed a rusty machete lying underneath the chair.
Oh my God
. It was just one reach away. But if she rushed this guy, he could easily stop her.

Get him closer, Liv.
If she could surprise him, she could land a blow.

She twisted her body onto her butt with her legs straight out and her arms extended behind her. Her right hand was now only a foot from the machete. “Well, since you seem to want me on the floor, I’ll just stay here.”

The rage in the man’s face was nothing shy of lethal. “You said you’d take me to the water,” he growled.

“This is where the water comes out. But we have an island full of sick men. Don’t you think that would be different if we had the water?”

The man’s eyes shifted a bit. He wasn’t a smart one, but that was usually the case for men who beat women—they used their muscles because their brains were too small to get what they wanted any other way.

Liv looked up at him. “If you think hitting me some more will do any good, be my guest. But if you want water, you’ll have to talk to the island.”

The man approached and squatted in front of her but was too far for her to make a move and not have him see it coming.
Get closer, asshole.

“Oh no,” she taunted, “what’s the matter? Island doesn’t want to tell you? I bet your men think you’re an idiot. I bet you promised them they’d be millionaires if they just trusted you. You’re all a bunch of fucking idiots.”

Another gunshot went off somewhere just outside.

The man looked away for a split second, and Liv took her chance, gripping the machete and lunging. She struck him in the shoulder, and he fell back, wailing. She raised the machete and struck him again at the base of his neck. Blood came from the wound as he screamed and pointed his gun at her. She quickly swung again, hitting him in the arm. The gun skidded across the floor.