Surrender (25 page)

Chapter Forty-one

P
owell slam
med into the basem
ent area, his eyes snapping with anger. He was big, still in shape from his SEAL and S8 days. He wouldn’t go down easily, but Dare was primed for this fight.

The last guy Dare had taken out had managed to stick a hypodermic into his side first. Dare had gotten it out before the guy had been able to push all the medicine through, but at least a quarter was in Dare’s system. It made him unsteady, but he had adrenaline and anger fueling him.

“I’m taking Grace and my father off this island, Powell,” he said.

“On this island, only my fantasies come true,” Powell told him. “And Grace is doing well upstairs. I think the island’s really bringing out her gift again. Or maybe it’s just spending time with me that’s helping. And feel free to call me Rip, just like Grace.”

“I’m not calling you shit, and this isn’t exactly my idea of fantasy island,” Dare spat. The chains were cutting into his wrists, but he’d managed to get the ones off his legs before Powell walked in.

Key was gone on his own steam, disappeared into the wildness of the island, prepared to disable some alarm systems.

They both knew Powell wasn’t worried about finding Key, really only cared about Dare—about pitting father against son, maybe . . . or just shooting both to watch them bleed out. The clock was ticking. Powell just didn’t realize that Dare was the ticking time bomb in this case.

Dare watched Powell carefully. The man was doing the same to him, checking for weaknesses, cracks in the system.

“Fight me like a goddamned man,” Dare said through clenched teeth. “Or did you forget how to fight?”

Powell smiled then. “I’ve never forgotten how to fight, Dare. Never will. And when you go down, I’m going to put this hood on you and leave you here. My men have their orders to kill you once that happens.”

They began to circle each other. The bulb sputtered, dimmed for a second, and Powell chose that moment to charge. The man still had the young foster child inside of him, remembered what it was like to fight for his food, his pride, his life.

Dare went at him like he was fighting the goddamned devil and didn’t want to give him the chance to get the upper hand. Powell was on him, trying to pin him to the ground, and Dare used the chains to press against his neck.

Powell grunted and Dare was able to get him off balance. Powell stumbled to the side, didn’t fall down completely, but it gave Dare enough time to get to his feet, despite the pain.

Powell got to his feet then and shoved Dare. He was off balance, the goddamned drugs wreaking havoc on his system, the chains weighing him down. But he was taking Powell down, no matter what it took.

Just as the lights went off completely, he hauled off and slammed Powell in the cheek, knocking him senseless for a moment. And just when he prepared to grab him by the neck and demand to see Grace, generator power kicked in and a hand gripped his arm and hauled him to his feet.

He was unsteady, but the hold was strong, basically held him up. When he glanced behind him to assess where to place the blow, he stilled.

Gunner. Still damp from having swum to the island.

Gunner. This was good. Except the hold tightened as Powell got to his feet and smiled at them.

It was a hold Dare would have a problem breaking at the moment, which normally wouldn’t be an issue. But the way Gunner looked at Powell and Powell looked at Gunner . . .

What the fuck was going on?

“Last I heard, you were dead,” Powell said.

“You heard wrong,” Gunner told him.

“Well, it’s still nice to see you, James,” Powell said.

“You too, Dad.”

Dad.

Dare whipped his head to stare between Gunner and Powell. The men didn’t look at all alike—Gunner had that cool Nordic coloring, while Powell was darker. “You’re . . .”

“You didn’t know,” Powell answered for Gunner. He looked amused, and Gunner wasn’t making eye contact with Dare any longer. Dare swallowed hard and fucking prayed this was going to somehow work out in his favor.

He didn’t see how, though. Because if they truly had been herded toward Gunner, Dare had been focusing on the wrong sibling being the problem. While he was watching Grace . . . it was really Gunner he should’ve been watching.

* * *

Tied up and gagged, Grace watched the sec
urity cameras helplessly. Darius lay so still in one cell. Another was bloody but bare—Key.

And the third . . . my God, the third showed Dare, in chains. And Rip was in front of him.

She couldn’t hear a word they were saying, but she saw the fighting. She swore she could hear bones crunching, saw the blood. She wanted to turn away but couldn’t. She willed Dare to take Rip down, once and for all.

But Dare wouldn’t be the one to kill him, not according to her visions. And those same visions hadn’t told her shit about what kind of outcome Dare had in all of this.

Please, no . . . let Dare win this one. Let me be wrong if that’s necessary.

But she’d promised she’d trust what she saw. And when she saw Gunner, her heart beat faster. The cavalry was there . . .

Until she watched as Gunner pointed the gun at Dare’s head instead of Rip’s.

No—that couldn’t be. How could all of them have been so wrong about Gunner? Had he been working for Rip the entire time?

She fought to keep the tears from her eyes as she strained to see what was happening. She tried to move the chair forward as the lights went out. When the generator kicked on maybe two minutes later, all she saw on the monitor was Dare, with a hood over his head, being dragged away by Rip’s men.

They were beating him. She broke out in a cold sweat . . . and then she breathed deeply as the gag was taken off and Dare was behind her.

She looked back at the camera—saw the man struggling as Dare untied her.

“Dare.” She let him gather her in his arms. “I knew it wasn’t you. I knew it.”

Her gift had worked just when she’d needed it most.

“I’m sorry if you had to think it for a single goddamned second,” he told her. “Come on, we’re getting the hell off fantasy island.”

* * *

The helo was waiting on the landing pad. Grace and Avery
ran as Gunner and Dare carried Darius on the stretcher and Key covered them with the rifle.

He herded them inside, ready to cover them with fire, but none came. It wouldn’t, until the bodyguards realized they’d killed their own boss.

Grace could think of nothing but the pure poetic justice in that act.

“Hang on,” Jem called, and the chopper rose, fast and furious, and left behind the island Grace never wanted to see again.

But Darius, he was dying, even as Dare and Gunner furiously worked on him. She didn’t have the horrible, painful vision the way she’d had it in Rip’s office, but a peaceful feeling settled over her, like Darius was going to pass into a good place.

She bit her bottom lip as Avery clutched her hand. And then the chopper started to descend and she realized that Jem was landing on another island in order to allow them to work on Darius, to talk to him.

He cut the motor, and there was silence, except for Darius’s harsh breaths.

“Go to him,” she urged Avery. “Go now—hold his hand.”

There was something in Grace’s tone . . . and after a long moment, Avery uncurled her hand from Grace’s and did just that.

* * *

Avery sank to her knees next to Dare, who was holding a towe
l to try to stop the bleeding. Gunner was running blood, but it seemed to be going out as fast as it was going in, and Darius was breathing fast, but his eyes were wide open.

Maybe he was in shock, she thought.
How could anyone be this close to death and still be awake and trying to talk?

She grabbed his hand, held it up to her heart.

“I’m your . . .” Darius didn’t finish his sentence. Didn’t have to. The dying man saw eyes that were a mirror image of his. “Guess . . . there’s no . . . getting around it.”

She smiled. “I’m Avery.”

“I know . . . baby. Your eyes . . . much prettier . . . than mine,” Darius told her, his words slow and labored. “You’re . . . spitting image . . . of your mother.”

“She’s—”

“I know . . . I’m sorry.” He turned his head then, coughed hard, and she saw him spit out blood before taking a breath and turning back to her.

Almost superhuman.
This is your legacy.

“I’m glad you . . . Dare found each other. You . . . take care of him. I know . . . a lot to ask.”

“I will.” No hesitation. She wouldn’t lose any more family. “I understand why you left us.”

“Forgive . . . me?”

She couldn’t find her voice, and so she nodded, because she could forgive him, even though it would take more time. But Darius had done the best he could, tried to save Dare. Had saved Grace and countless other people during his
S8 tenure.

He smiled at that. Looked up at Dare and seemed to be asking the same of him.

“I already did,” Dare told his father quietly. Darius smiled at that. Looked at the group gathered around him. “Family . . . born . . . and . . . chosen.”

He closed his eyes and took a last shuddering breath. Avery felt like she lost hers, found Dare holding her, and she cried her eyes out on her brother’s shoulder until the helo started up again to take them away.

Chapter Forty-two

D
are
hadn’t spoken to
Gunner about what had happened at Powell’s, hadn’t had the chance once the power went out and Gunner slipped him the keys to his chains.

It had all happened in a blur, Gunner shoving him out of the room in the dark. He stripped his clothes, passed them to Gunner. When the lights came on, Gunner had Powell on the ground, dressed in Dare’s clothes, a gun to his head. He’d knocked Powell out after whispering something to him that Dare hadn’t been able to make out.

And then Gunner had tossed him Powell’s pants, which Dare yanked on. Gunner had pushed Dare to hide in Darius’s cell and disappeared himself when the bodyguards Gunner must’ve called for came charging in. He heard the orders come over their walkie-talkies. Powell’s voice—or Gunner’s best imitation of it.

“Kill him. Don’t call me again until there’s no pulse,” came the order, and at that moment, a high-pitched wail came from under Powell’s hood.

Dare snuck out just as the beating started. Untied Grace and got her to the helo.

Now, they all stood together on the tarmac from where Jem had taken off. The ride had been quiet and tense, with no one speaking much.

They’d all seen what happened between Gunner and Powell from one camera or another. Now they all stared at him, until Dare breathed, “Gunner . . . fuck.”

“Yeah, that about sums it up,” Gunner said. “Thanks for taking care of that for me.”

He sounded calm, but he looked shaken as he referenced Dare getting Powell alone so Gunner could have him killed.

“Gunner, what the hell?” Jem asked, but Gunner shook his head.

“Can’t get into that now,” he told them. He got no argument. Whatever the story was, it would be huge.

Grace stepped forward and hugged Gunner hard. Gunner hugged her back, and Dare assured him, “It’s over.”

“Not for me, no,” Gunner said. “But this—this was necessary before I could fix everything. I was going to leave it alone, be content with what I had.”

“And now?”

“I’m done with the status quo.”

“What about the team?” Avery asked him, and he shrugged noncommittally.

“Some things I have to do first. I’m not ruling it out.”

“So we’ve got a broken psychic, Powell’s son, a bounty hunter turned murderer, a discharged Ranger, and fucked-up SEAL,” Jem said.

“Former,” Dare said. “And a mental patient.”

“Not a bad start for a team,” Jem said.

“This isn’t a team,” Dare muttered.

“Smells like one to me,” Key said with a smile. “And pay up, because I won our bet.”

* * *

Dare held Grace back whil
e the others climbed into the waiting truck. Darius’s body would be transported back from the private airport separately, to be cremated in the bayou that he’d loved so much.

It was an ending—and a beginning.

“You saved me,” she said.

“And you saved me,” he told her. “I can’t believe you went there, put yourself in that kind of danger for me.”

“That’s what you do when you love somebody, Dare.”

“I want to strangle you for doing it, so you’re damned lucky I love you too.”

She smiled at that, and he tried not to worry about the bruise on her cheek or the cut on her arm. Even though Darius didn’t make it through, he’d helped put them all together, and Dare couldn’t ever properly thank the man for that as long as he lived.

He figured the best way to do so would be to live up to Darius’s legacy—and surpass it. Because they wouldn’t work for anyone but themselves—they’d need to trust only one another.

“Dare, I have something to tell you,” she murmured.

“You already did.”

“No, there’s more.” She looked troubled. “I knew . . . about Darius. I knew he would die today. And when I see things like that, I can’t change them. There was nothing I could do.”

“Ah, baby, I know. There’s nothing you could’ve done. I hate that you have to see things like that sometimes.”

She gave a small, wan smile. “I wish I could see good things.”

“Maybe you don’t need to be psychic to see the good. It’s all right here,” he told her, and she gave him a fierce hug.

“To fresh starts.”

“That’s the best offer I’ve heard all damned day.” He paused. “When I think of what we almost lost . . .”

“Sometimes, maybe you have to lose everything to gain anything,” she said.

“I think you’re a very smart woman, Grace O’Rourke.”

“I don’t remember getting married.”

“Small detail. You’ve been mine from the moment I met you.”

She wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Acknowledgments

Writing a book i
s never a solitary venture. I have to thank my editor, Danielle Perez, for her patience and help. For Kara Welsh and Claire Zion, for their support. For the art department and their simply amazing cover.

For the wonderful readers who buy my books, chat about them on Facebook and Twitter and send me terrific e-mails. I couldn’t do this job without your support.

And as always, I have to thank my family—Zoo, Lily, Chance and Gus—for their constant, unwavering faith in me.