Undefeated, page 13
“No,” I answer quickly.
“Honey?”
“I am not sweet.”
“But you didn’t mind sweetheart?”
“I do. And I did. But you’re exhausting.”
“So you’ll accept sweetheart?”
“No.”
“Buttercup?”
I cough out another laugh against my will. Robert’s smile grows into something almost boyish. “How about love?” His voice drops an octave into something more serious, not so much teasing as testing. “My love.”
Our gazes meet and there is no humor in his now. The crinkles around his eyes settle and the dangerous blue-green depth of them seems to call to me. Begging me to see him…or to admit, finally, that I can see him. And that he…sees me.
My head shakes a no, my body answering for me. I’m not ready for that. Because that would mean…I couldn’t keep pushing him away if we saw each other. If we were no longer playing chess and instead were actually trying to be together. That…wouldn’t work for me.
My son shifts inside of me, reminding me in his own subtle way that what’s worked in the past won’t work in the future. I drop my eyes, the coward in me pulling my gaze to Blue’s head in my lap.
“Sir,” Brock’s voice comes back online. “Our team is en route.”
“Excellent,” Robert says. “My wife and I are eager to return to our vacation.”
I glance up to see Brock’s jaw tighten—I wonder how he feels about this romantic, tropical idyll while there are mercenaries afoot.
The helicopter banks hard and I tip against Robert. His hands come around my waist to steady me. All I can see out the window next to Robert is the too-close sea.
I force myself to take a slow, deep breath. We are not crashing. This is just how Brock flies helicopters. Badly. But then I see the black speedboat and I realize why Brock pulled that stunt. The fuckers are shooting at us. I can’t hear the discharge of weapons because of the ear protection, noise of the helicopter, and distance, but I know what it looks like when a giant freaking machine gun is mounted on a speedboat and aimed at me.
The helicopter climbs, gaining altitude and distance from the mercenaries. We pass through a cloud and are surrounded in wispy white. “Our men have engaged them,” Brock says in my headset.
“Let’s return to The Sensation,” Robert says.
“The what?” I ask.
“It’s the name of the yacht,” Robert explains. Of course it is.
We pass through the cloud and the sea is visible far below us again. Two little black boats spit fire at each other. Men are dying—fighting a war they have no stake in beyond a paycheck. Yet lives will be lost because of it.
If that isn’t fucked up, I don’t know what is.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Sensation comes back into view. “That thing is obscenely big,” I say.
Robert, engrossed in his phone again, makes no comment. We land, steadily, because Brock is not actually a terrible helicopter pilot. A uniformed crew member rushes to open my door. “Thank you,” I say, accepting the offered hand to climb down.
Blue leaps out after me. The blades still spin above my head so I stay low as I move away from the helicopter. Robert joins me at the edge of the pad and puts his arm around my waist. “They are dead,” he says close to my ear, sending a shiver over my skin.
“How many?” I ask.
“All four of them.”
“Did any of your men die?”
“Just one,” he answers.
I shake my head, grief clouding my vision for a moment. “Did he have a family?” I ask. My hand comes to my stomach.
“Sydney,” Robert says, his head still bent so that he is speaking softly against my hair. “I take care of all the men who work for me. They know the risks. His family will be compensated.”
“As if there is anything that can replace someone we love,” I whisper almost to myself.
But Robert pulls me into a hug. I don’t like it. I don’t like the way his scent fills my senses, the way his arms lock around me, the way he manages to make me feel better when I don’t want to…I don’t want to just go on with my life as if pain and suffering isn’t just writhing all around me all the time.
“And you’re sure now that we are safe here.”
Robert shakes his head. “Of course not, Sydney, we are never safe.” I look up at him but Robert’s focus is on the sea, the horizon line in the distance, frothy with waves. “But that is why we have such good security. So that we can relax.”
“You want to go back to the hotel?”
He looks down at me then, his glasses back in place so I can’t see his eyes. “Where do you want to go?”
“The whole reason I agreed to meet you was so that you’d tell me about why you’re buying up cryptocurrency. You said you’d do so over dinner.” My gaze tracks to the sky. The sun is slipping down the west side of the world and in an hour or so the gauzy pink of sunset will arrive. “So when do we eat?” I turn back to Robert and his jaw ticks once before he reaches to take off his sunglasses.
“I want to eat now.”
Blue taps my hip with his nose and I reach out to touch him, grounding myself in his presence. “So back to the hotel then?” I say, my voice coming out all kinds of weird and high. Shit. I clear my throat and drop my gaze, but before I can try to speak again—in a normal fucking way—Robert has his hand on my chin and he’s tilting it up toward him, forcing me to meet his gaze.
We are standing on the top deck, the sky arching above us, the sun glinting off the ocean and making this tropical paradise sparkle like a freaking postcard. Making Robert look like a freaking…I don’t even know what. With the wind tousling his hair and…
I step back but Robert’s arm tightens around me so that I don’t get away. My jaw tightens and my eyes narrow. “Let me go,” I say, my voice coming out just fine this time. His smile comes fast and wicked. We stare at each other, his hand still on my chin. My arms hang by my sides and my fingers twitch, ready…
He releases me and I step back. “Dinner,” he says. “At the hotel or here…?”
“I want to go back to the hotel,” I say.
“We can dine in our suite,” Robert suggests, as he starts down the stairs.
I follow him. “Our suite?” I ask. “Didn’t you get your own?”
“They were sold out,” Robert says, his back to me. I could push him… He stops and turns to me, as if he can read my mind. I’m more than a head above him because of the angle of the steps and I could kick him easily in the chest. “I tried to get us a room with two beds but,” he shrugs, then moves up a step, coming into my personal space. Our heads are now even with him standing one step below me, still facing in. “I thought, we are married, we could share a room…no?”
“I’m not sleeping with you, I made that clear.”
“It wasn’t so clear when we were in the water before Brock arrived. But we could stay here,” Robert says, waving his arm at the palatial yacht. “There are plenty of suites available.”
“Why does this feel like a trap?” I ask.
“Because you are paranoid,” Robert says. “It’s one of the many charming traits we share.”
I huff a laugh. “How do I know you won’t sail off in the middle of the night, imprisoning me on this boat?”
“Because you’d kill me and force Brock to be your new humble servant.” Robert raises one brow as I laugh again. “And I would never do that to Brock.”
I shake my head. “You’re…”
“Wonderful, I know, we’ve been over this before.” Robert smiles at me as I laugh yet again. “Listen, baby, I’m happy to sleep on the floor at the hotel.”
“One, don’t call me baby. For real. Two, there is a couch; it’s in front of the coffee table which is glass and open to the ocean. Not sure if you noticed that.”
“I notice everything,” Robert says. I roll my eyes. “I would sleep anywhere you asked of me…”
“Don’t start with this again,” I say, trying to push past him, stepping to the side, down onto the same step as him, but Robert doesn’t move and I get that itchy feeling again. The one of being trapped…and not hating it.
“Sydney, when will you believe me?”
I look up at him, our bodies almost even on the step, him taller again. “Never,” I answer honestly. “I’ll never trust you.”
He shakes his head slowly. “No, that’s not true. You trust me. With your life. Even with your heart. But you don’t believe me that I trust you…” Is he right? I blink up at him, lost in his words for a long moment. “I will humble myself for you, Sydney. Anything for you.”
He holds my gaze and I can’t swallow. I’m trapped in the moment. Then I’m rising on my toes, pressing my lips to his, and I don’t even know I’m doing it until it’s done. Until his lips are against mine, warm and on their way to being familiar.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
When raising a puppy, it is important to look for signs of aggression—it almost always comes from fear.
Afraid food will be stolen, toys taken, territory encroached. An aggressive puppy is a scared puppy. And it is the owner’s job to train them, calm their minds, show them that they are the boss and that the puppy has nothing to fear because they can trust in the strength of their human’s leadership.
When I first adopted Blue, he feared children. Who knows what happened in the months before he became mine? Did kids tie cans to his tail, throw rocks at him? I’ll never know. But after he was shot, and I was almost killed. After I changed so dramatically from a normal woman to one hell-bent on revenge. After my heart broke and grief flooded my veins. After all that, Blue believed in me enough not to fear children or anything else.
He became aggressive in a new way—once Merl worked with us, he became attuned to what dangers lurked around us. What we should fear.
Not children. Not loss of territory. Just our own bloodshed.
So when Blue growls right behind me, as Robert’s hands spread across my back to pull me tight, I turn to look at my dog. He’s still a few steps up so our faces are almost even. Robert nips at my jaw, bending himself to kiss my neck.
Blue looks past me and raises his lip, exposing long sharp canines. Following his gaze, I see a crew member disappearing inside. We stand in the middle of the staircase on the outside of the ship, the top deck above us and what I’m guessing is a living room below. Tinted glass hides the interior, but large French doors lead into it and the entry is off a major passage—so I’m guessing living space rather than bedroom.
“Robert,” I say. He hums against my throat. “How well do you trust the owner of this yacht?”
His lips stop moving and he leans back so he can look into my face. “Enough to count on it as an escape with my pregnant wife. Why?”
“Because Blue just growled at a crew member…who was watching us.”
Robert’s eyes narrow with thought. The fact that he is considering Blue’s opinion widens the opening he’s cracked in my heart. “We should go,” he says.
“To the hotel?” I ask.
Footsteps above draw my attention. Brock appears at the top of the stairs and halts when he sees us—Robert still has his arms around me and our faces are close. We look…busy.
“Sir,” Brock says and then turns as if to leave us.
“Brock, wait,” Robert calls to him.
He releases my body but takes my hand, and I don’t hate it. I don’t hate that he wants to keep touching me…because I want to keep touching him. Shit. This is not good.
We head back up the steps to the top deck where Brock waits. His dark shades are back on and he has a gun case in each hand. My bag is strung across his body. The Hawaiian shirt flutters in the breeze. “We have suspicions about a crew member,” Robert says.
Brock’s brows twitch up in a moment of surprise that he quickly recovers from, returning to his stoic mask. “Which one?”
Robert turns to me for the answer.
“A man; I didn’t see much of him, but Blue growled at him.”
Brock looks at Blue, who stands by my side, then back up to my face. “I see,” he says, apparently taking Blue’s suspicions as seriously as Robert. “But would you recognize this crew member again?”
“No. I saw dark hair and wide shoulders, but that’s it. He disappeared inside.”
“Could Blue have just been warning you?” Robert asks me. “That someone was there. You were not…” he smiles at me and raises one brow, “totally aware of your surroundings.”
“That’s what I have Blue for,” I say. “But he wouldn’t warn me of anyone who I didn’t need warning about. He got a vibe from the guy.”
“Perhaps we should evacuate, sir, leave the area entirely.” Brock says. Robert’s fingers tighten on mine and he shakes his head. The man is not leaving. “We could go to the Palms, then, sir,” Brock suggests. “It’s a new location, they have excellent security. And we have no reservation, so no link. However, I believe the safest course of action is to return home.” Brock stops speaking and the two men stare at each other.
“I just want to get to the part of the party where you tell me about your crypto purchases,” I say, tilting my chin up. “That’s what I came here for.”
Robert squeezes my hand—which he is still holding, and has been since I kissed him on the steps back there. He turns to meet my gaze, his expression turning playful and almost giddy. As if he’s won a tennis match and is hoping to carry on until he wins the trophy.
When I narrow my gaze and stare daggers at him, he laughs. Laughs. And then tugs me forward. I fall against him and he wraps me in a hug, laying a kiss on my hair. “Come, Mrs. Maxim, we will head to the Palms, and I will give you everything you desire.”
I pull back, untangling myself from him and huffing. Somehow he still has my hand though, and Robert starts down the steps again, pulling me behind him. Blue follows and then Brock.
We are halfway down the steps when Blue resumes growling. I stop, my body chilling. Robert turns to look up at me. “Hold on,” I say. Blue growls again. Robert drops my hand and pulls his pistol from his pocket.
I do the same. Brock lays his cases down and unholsters a pistol from his low back.
He pushes past us to take the lead, his jaw tight, and movements practiced. A crew member steps out onto the deck and, spotting us, freezes. He quickly raises his hands, eyes wide, face pale with fear.
Brock doesn’t lower his weapon.
“Can I help?” the crew member asks in accented English.
“Were you alone in there?” Brock asks.
The man looks back at the doorway he just passed through. “No, there are two other crew members inside, sir. We were cleaning the salon. Can I help with something?” His voice is shaking.
He stands in a passage only wide enough for one person with the tinted glass windows on his left and the railing on his right. The black glass hides the interior from our view. But I peer at it anyway, seeing only the reflection of Brock and the crew member. Brock stands on the steps and the crew member still has his hands up.
The window cracks, Brock grunts, and the sound of a gun firing all happen in the same instant.
Robert and I both crouch low, hidden in the stairwell from the windows. The crew member drops to the ground, covering his head with his hands and lets out a scream.
“Brock!” I yell.
“Stay put!” Robert growls at me, blocking me with his arm. He then slides down the steps, still protected by the sides of the stairwell—though if we popped our heads up, we’d be in the line of fire from inside the salon.
The question is…how many of the crew are trying to kill us? Are we in enemy territory? Or is this a rogue actor?
I turn to look up—checking our backs. Blue stands behind me, his focus already on our unprotected rear. A crew member appears. They don’t have a gun, just a confused expression. But I center my weapon on his chest. The man yelps and turns, running away, out of my line of fire.
So not everyone is in on it…
“How is Brock?” I ask, keeping my focus on the upper deck.
“Fine,” comes his gruff voice. “Just a little flesh wound.”
“How many do you think there are?” I ask.
“No idea,” Robert answers. “You,” he says, his voice loud and commanding as he addresses the uniformed man lying on the deck with his hands over his head. “Who is inside that salon?”
I don’t turn to look, keeping my focus on the deck above us. “There are just two crew members,” he says, his accent thickened with emotion. “I don’t know why they are shooting at us!”
“We should move back to the helicopter, sir,” Brock suggests.
“Yes,” Robert agrees. I glance over my shoulder. Brock and Robert move up the stairs, their backs to me and guns focused on the salon’s door.
“Let me go first,” Robert says when he reaches me. Not waiting for an answer, he pushes past me.
I glance at Brock—there is blood streaming down his face from a gash across his forehead. I jerk a little at the sight and he smiles at me. “Head wounds bleed like a bitch but it’s not deep. I promise, Mrs. Maxim.”
I just nod. “I’ll take the rear,” I say.
“No,” Brock answers.
I press my lips together but don’t argue. Robert starts up, I follow, my head swiveling back and forth from the broken salon window to the deck above. Brock’s back is to me as he climbs the steps, trusting that Robert and I will cover him as he covers us. Robert picks up one of the gun cases Brock laid down. I pick up the other. It’s heavy and awkward so I hold it lightly. Ready to release it if need be. Blue presses tight to my side.
The crew member who flattened himself to the deck when the shot came starts to belly crawl toward the stern of the boat—away from us and the salon. Not everyone is involved or this guy deserves an Oscar.
Robert reaches the top deck. Wind plays with his hair as he stays low. A shot fires behind me and glass shatters. I jerk to look. The salon door is gone. Brock swipes at the blood on his face with his forearm—smearing a long streak of red.
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