Vortex (Cutter Cay) (29 page)

“I could go and talk to Wes. What do you think?” He was in her old cabin next door. But it was two in the morning, and he was probably sleeping. She could get up and go and peep in the open door …

Preternaturally awake, Daniela pulled the light blanket up around her shoulders, and willed herself to relax. Eyes gritty, she was too wired. Her heart pounded for absolutely no reason, and she had a jittery sensation in the pit of her stomach. The kind she’d had as a child when she had to get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. That sliding-her-feet-to-the-floor-even-though-she-knew-a-monster-hid-under-the-bed bad feeling.

Victor was somewhere out there in the dark. Not literally—God, she prayed not—but symbolically. She could almost hear him breathing. “That’s just the air conditioner,” she told Dog, who was oblivious to her flights of fancy.

She felt foolish, lying there, frozen in place, held there by named and unnamed fears. She was the cause of her own anxieties. She had to stop it. She’d get up and turn on more lights. She’d take a cool shower. She’d jog in place. Write a novel. Compose a sonnet. God.

How girly and ridiculously, annoyingly codependent. She wanted Logan to come back. She wanted the feel of his hard, strong body hugging her close. This time, she swore, she wouldn’t be embarrassed that there was a man just a few feet away who might turn and glance through the closed slider and see them. This time, she’d savor the closeness and sleep.

The cabin was surprisingly quiet but for the faint throb of the generator deep in the bowels of the ship and the faint noise of the air conditioner.

Suddenly all the lights blazed on, and a siren split the quiet, the sharp sound reverberating in her ears and resonating through her bones. Daniela shot upright, her hand over her manic heart. Dog stood over her extended legs, lip curled back, ruff up, growling low in his throat, head down.

Dear God …

There was a loud
thwack
over her left shoulder, and when she swiveled her head to see what it was, she saw a small black hole in the upholstered headboard. Frantically, Daniela scrambled to get untangled from the blanket and Dog, and at the same time fumbled under the pillow for the gun.

“We—” she stared to scream for Wes, when the sliding door from the balcony was shoved aside with a bang, and the black-garbed man raced into the room. With the door open she could hear gunshots and running footsteps as he let in an assault of loud noises, and the smell of—she had no idea, but her nose wrinkled as she stared uncomprehendingly at him.

To make the noise worse, Dog went ballistic, barking and lunging. “It’s okay, it’s okay.” She was saying it more for herself then the animal. “What’s happening?”

“Ma’am, we’ve been breached,” the man yelled, leaning over the mattress to grab her wrist and violently yank her over the other edge of the bed. He cuffed Dog aside as the animal tried to grab his black jacket in his sharp teeth. “Gotta get you outa here! Come on! Hurry.”

There was something—in the chaos she couldn’t pinpoint what was off. But she resisted his inexorable pull on her wrist. “Logan said to stay here, no matter what!”

The siren was so loud they had to yell to be heard. Poor Dog, confused by the noise and yelling, was barking and trying to bite the guy. “You’re
both
taking care of me, boy. It’s okay. It’s okay.” But it wasn’t.

The security guy jerked her roughly, pulling her to her feet. His hold was painfully tight, and the angle at which he held her arm hurt; he was almost wrenching it from the socket.

Dog, who’d been knocked several feet away, came out of nowhere, flying at him across the rumpled bed. His teeth sank into the man’s shoulder. That was good enough for Daniela. She screamed blue bloody murder at the top of her lungs, struggling to get the man’s hand off her arm. She clawed at his fingers with her nails, and when that didn’t work, brought a knee up sharply to his groin. He turned quickly, and her strike deflected off his thigh. He cursed and slapped her so hard her head jerked back from the flat-handed blow.

She went for his eyes, but he was taller and much, much stronger. He planted his elbow in the middle of her chest to hold her back, and at the same time wrenched her arm behind her. She screamed out her rage as Dog came charging, yellow eyes feral, teeth bared.

The man’s leg shot out and he kicked Dog in the head with his heavy boot. “Noooo!” The dog dropped like a rock and lay still, out of sight at the foot of the bed.

Daniela’s body sagged, so he had to support her just by the cruel grip he had on her wrist. Red-hot pain shot up her arm, but she used the weight of her body and writhed and twisted until she broke his hold and fell on all fours to the carpet.

She was already on the floor, but the bed had drawers. No crawl space. She crawled until she managed to stumble to her feet. He had her blocked in. He was between her and—everything. She was between the bed and the open slider. The gun was still under the pillow.

“What the fuck—!” Wes came charging into Logan’s cabin, a gun in his hand, and took in everything at a glance, rage on his face. “Get down! Get down!” He fired several shots. One slammed into the sliding door several feet away. Glass shattered, showered the carpet with glittering shards.

He dropped to one knee, and his gun fell from his hand as blood poured from his shoulder. “Run!” he yelled, then toppled over on his side and lay still. Daniela jumped up on the bed and bolted across the mattress, only to be pulled back by a hard grip to the back of her shorts. She fell, and the man grabbed her by her hair, dragging her to his side of the bed. “On your feet.”

She dug her nails into the backs of his hands and screamed at the top of her lungs.

“You’re lucky I was told not to mess up your face.” His features distorted with fury, and he fumbled inside his jacket. For a gun? She went even colder. “Bitch, if you don’t shut the fuck up, there are other ways of making you cooperate.” He took a small bag out of an inner pocket, flipping it open on the bed.

“Then you better use
all
of them, you son of a bitch,” she yelled, fighting him. “I’m no … t go … in … anywh—mff!”

He slapped a soft cloth,
hard,
over her mouth and nose, held it there, cutting off her erratic breathing. Daniela held her breath until the room spun and her lungs burned. He twisted her arm behind her back between them, yanking her against him.

The desperate need for air compelled her aching lungs to suck in a breath. Just a small breath. She fought him like a wild woman, but her intent and fury wilted as the edges of the room, and the sounds of the siren and shouts rapidly imploded.

Logan …

Weightless. Darkness edged out light. Knees liquefying.

Help.

Body dissolving into shadows.

Dimly she heard boots crunch over broken glass. Felt the cool night air on her face. Had a sensation of flying. And then experienced nothing at all.

Sixteen

The clanging of the ship’s emergency alarm bells cut through the din like a blunt surgical blade. No one gave a second’s pause. Oblivious, the men kept going. Punches. The crack of gunshots. Screams and grunts. It was a fucking cage fight without the damn cage.

Sharp, rapid-fire barking carried across the din, catching Logan’s attention. Fear gripped him by the throat as he absorbed the facts. Dog’s bark was frantic.

Dog was supposed to be with Daniela.

Logan spun around just as Dog leapt from the dive platform, landing on the deck on all fours, soaking wet. How the hell had he gotten from the locked cabin into the water? His ruff was up, his lip curled to reveal white teeth as he continued to bark ferociously.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Daniela!

Logan called for Dog, who ate up the deck between them in long bounding strides. The animal leapt from six feet away, body slamming Logan so he had to stagger to maintain his balance. Clamping his hands around Dog’s neck, he eased him back on all fours. “Let’s go get her,” he yelled, because if Dog was out here, something had—

Fuck.

This bloodbath was nothing more than a goddamned diversion. A costly one.

He turned and ran like a wide receiver going for the end zone, Dog hard on his heels, barking as if warning everyone to get the fuck out of their way.

“Little help here?!” Jed yelled, arm twisted behind his back by some dude in a water-beaded wet suit as they scrabbled on the landing at the foot of the stairs. A second man pulled back his arm to punch Jed in the belly. Blood poured from Jed’s swollen nose, and he was trying to make eye contact from his one open eye.

Logan closed the gap, grabbed the puncher by the shoulder, spun him around and slammed his elbow up into
his
nose. Dog danced around them, barking and biting. Logan heard the satisfying crunch, then warm blood splattered onto his bare chest as the man shrieked like a girl. As he doubled over, Logan jerked up his knee, and had the satisfaction of hearing bone and cartilage crunch. The man went down without a peep.

“You good?” he yelled at Jed, who now had the other guy in a headlock.

“Yeah. Go get her.”
Daniela. Jesus. Daniela.
He started running again, Dog glued to his side. Flat out, legs and lungs pumping. Heartbeat manic. Fear tasted metallic in his dry mouth. He jumped the sprawled, upside-down guy on the stairs whose throat was cut, then passed three men locked in hand-to-hand combat. Logan vaulted over the legs of a guy barely conscious and attempting to claw the smooth teak wall for purchase.

Three stairs at a time. One flight. Two. Heart pounding. Vision focused, legs pistoning. He saw more men up on the upper decks, some dead, some fighting. He passed those he could, and paused barely long enough to interact when he couldn’t. When he fought, Dog circled, barking and snapping, urging him to hurry.

As he ran, he prayed like never before.

At last they reached the long corridor to his cabin. Key card in hand, he saw that one of Wright’s men was sprawled across the doorway, facedown. A giant fucking hole in the back of his neck. Blood pooled obscenely on the floor around him. The other man was gone. Logan bent to grab the guy’s gun out of his cold dead hand. Dog was going ballistic, barking and body slamming the door.

Logan yelled her name even as he unlocked and wrenched open the door. Barking, Dog dashed inside, racing across the cabin.

Logan took in the room at a glance. The shattered door, the glass on the carpet, and the shredded sheer curtains blowing in the wind. “Daniela!”

His heartbeat stumbled, a hard, painful knock inside his chest. It took seconds to start again. “Daniela?! Oh, Christ. Wes!” His friend lay sprawled near the door connecting the two cabins. He’d been shot in the shoulder. Logan’s gaze darted about the room searching for any sign of Daniela even as he crouched beside his unconscious friend. He pressed two fingers on the pulse under Wes’s jaw. Alive. Thank God.

He activated the comm in his ear. “In my cabin. Wes has been shot,” he told Piet, his voice eerily calm to his own ears. Inside, he was filled with fear and an awful sense of foreboding “Daniela’s gone.” He disconnected, not waiting for a response. Piet would send help ASAP.

The bed was a rumpled mess. The sheets tossed on the floor. A small, obscene black hole had been drilled in the white leather headboard, causing his already erratic heartbeat to stop and then roar back at full speed. A marksman with uncanny skill had made the shot.

It felt as though a fist grabbed him by the balls and squeezed. “No sign of blood,” he told himself. “That’s good. That’s really good.” He laid his hand on Wes’s massive shoulder. “Hang on buddy. Help’s on its way. I need a minute.”

Running to the door, he yanked it open, fastening it in the open position, then he raced into the bathroom. Empty. Ran into the cabin next door, then went back to his own cabin to stand beside Wes, head lowered.

Logan felt gutted, his vital organs scooped out and left trailing. He hadn’t expected to find her, but God, he’d—

Dog barked from the open doorway to the balcony. He ran.

Another of Wright’s men, dead, slumped in the corner. An obscene dark hole between his eyes. Someone had scaled the side of the ship, shot him, and entered through the slider to grab Daniela.

“Quiet!” he instructed the frantically barking dog as he curled his fingers over the wood topping the Plexi, and scanned the water with burning eyes.

Pleasepleaseplease.

He saw nothing but moonlight dancing on agitated black water.

*   *   *

What the invading bad guys couldn’t know was that Derek Wright had more than one group of T-FLAC operatives on standby. A group that was patrolling the coastal waters, so that when the attackers fled
Sea Wolf,
they were scooped up before their boats hit land.

Daniela hadn’t been with them.

Dawn broke in a display of coral streaks against a purple and yellow sky, similar to the bruising to be seen on the men on board. One of the counterterrorists was a doctor, and he was still busy in
Sea Wolf
’s small infirmary, tending Wes and the other men injured in the fracas.

Piet made some order out the chaos left behind by giving the men clear instructions. The authorities were already on the way to retrieve the bodies and take statements. The crew had the ship cleaned in record time, and Hipolito and the stewards kept fresh hot coffee and hearty foods replenished as the men limped into the common room, which was being used as a war room and command center.

The atmosphere on board was grim. Logan couldn’t sit, so he paced until Jed took him by the shoulder and shoved him into a chair. “Listen, and we’ll go from there,” he instructed his friend, not without sympathy.

“As nonexistent as my imagination is, I can’t help but—”