Protector in Disguise, page 14
“To avoid this very confrontation. You want to make up for your own bad ideas. Instead of looking inward, you’ve decided to lash out at the only survivor of the raid that you set in motion. I never hurt your son. I can honestly say I never even saw him. I’d been knocked out in the IED blast that you set on my unit before any of your men arrived at the scene. My handgun was still in its holster when I woke up in the back room of someone’s shop. I didn’t hurt anyone that day, but I sure as hell lost all of my colleagues.” The memories of the slaughter swarmed through him, crashing loss and pain over his body as icy as the sea below him. If Andres thought he’d get an apology from Jason for merely being at the wrong place, he was wrong. Jason would never forgive that bastard for the senseless murder of so many. That Andres lost his own son in the raid should rest on his shoulders alone, although now was not the time to antagonize him. Not until he knew Matt was safe.
He looked around the deck and found him. Matt, on the floor by the bar, was tied at the hands by duct tape. Otherwise, he seemed unharmed so far. Jason’s emotions welled. “Matt!” he shouted and stepped toward him but was immediately blocked.
Andres rose, his pale tan pants and loose white shirt giving off Caribbean vibes. With an easy wave of his hand, he called off his men. “First, we talk.” His every word hung heavy in the salty air.
A mental battle waged in Jason’s head. The trained soldier in him needed to focus on the enemy, but the father in him could only see the stoic face of his thirteen-year-old son and want to reassure him that everything would be okay, not that he knew what the future held for either of them.
Andres chuckled, the sound hollow. “He’s a strong boy. Got in a few good swings at Alex before taking a long nap. Perhaps I shouldn’t kill him at all, just take him and raise him as my own. He’d fall into line quickly with the right motivation.” He gestured to where Matt was bound.
Matt’s eyes burned through Andres. It would take a lot to break that spirit and Matt would either die or lose a significant part of himself in the process.
Jason’s voice broke, “Let him go, Andres. This is between us.”
Andres leaned forward, eyes sharp. “My family and yours are bound together. My son David’s death tied our fates. You could have put an end to this a long, long time ago, but you chose to hide. Luckily, Montana was a fan of your wife’s books. Intriguing plots, but nothing that affected me, until her last book. She gave me something I haven’t had in a long time. Hope. And here you are. I must thank your wife in person someday.”
The considerable implications of Andres’s words lingered, a cloud of what-ifs and philosophical meanderings. But the sudden drone of another engine broke their standoff.
Jason walked to the edge, unsure if it was too late to wave them off. Even if it wasn’t anyone on his team, anyone innocent caught up in this nightmare would be at risk. Two men shoved him to the ground and secured his hands behind him around a post with mooring line. Matt was seated across the deck, against the edge of a bar.
An urgent shout from the front of the yacht confirmed Jason’s worst fear. “Boss! Boat approaching!”
Through the darkness, the faint hum of an engine grew closer. His heart raced, a single thought consuming him: Fiona.
Andres smirked. “Expecting company? I told you to come alone.”
Jason met Andres’s gaze and tried as hard as he could to contain his alarm. “I don’t know who that is.” Every fiber in him tensed, thoughts of Fiona dominating his mind. Her safety, her tenacity. Would she attempt to board? He knew damn well she would, and she’d have the whole team supporting her decision. Hell, if they continued like this, she’d be running his whole company before the end of this fiasco.
Andres, with an uncanny ability to read him, raised an eyebrow. “Your backup, perhaps? Or something...more?”
Summoning every ounce of control, Jason met Andres’s stare, voice steady. “I told you, I came alone.”
Andres smirked, an unsettling blend of amusement and malice. “Then you don’t care if I eliminate them.” He gestured, and three armed men walked over to the side of the yacht and pointed their rifles in the direction of the sound of the engine.
* * *
Fiona’s grip tightened on the edge of the boat, her fingers damp with salt water and anxiety. Beside her, Meaghan’s face was taut. Fiona could see the police training that had honed her abilities and felt foolish to think Meaghan had ever worked a desk job.
The radio buzzed to life, casting a pale light over Meaghan’s face. “Communications to Boat Two. Target located and we have visuals on both Jason and Matt. They’re on the main deck by a hot tub. So far, we have confirmed six men, one woman, and Andres are with them.” Sam’s voice crackled through the speaker.
A pang of fear punched into Fiona. The mere name of Andres Porras and all the violence he’d committed in the name of profit was enough to send shivers down her spine. She tried to picture Jason and Matt held by such predators. The urge to swim toward the yacht and board it rushed through her, but there was no easy way up the sides of such a large vessel and she didn’t want to risk Meaghan’s life. They were supposed to be following at a distance in an observation role, allowing Steve and Sam to stay far enough away to avoid any aggression or any panicked moves by the crew to get rid of their victims quickly.
Her grip on the sides of the boat loosened as she went through some of the gear they carried. She slipped a small knife into the pocket of her life vest. The roar of the larger craft’s engine sounded as though it would drown out their small engine’s noise, but if they moved too close, the occupants of the yacht would hear them. “Are they okay?” she asked.
“There’s no sign of physical harm, but be ca—” Before Sam could finish, the unmistakable sound of gunfire interrupted the transmission. The bullets struck the water around the boat, sending plumes of water into the air.
“Meaghan, get out!” Fiona yelled.
Without hesitation, Meaghan swung herself over the side, clinging to the boat’s edge, the side facing away from the yacht. Fiona needed to pull the gunfire away from Meaghan, so she took a deep breath and dove into the chilling water. She could feel adrenaline pumping through her veins, numbing the cold bite of the ocean. Her life vest fought her body from descending too deep into the water. Her lungs screamed for air as she swam. When she finally broke the surface, the yacht was within arm’s reach. From the rifle barrels pointed in her direction, she knew she’d successfully drawn the attention away from the small boat and Meaghan. She glanced back at it. The boat seemed powered by a ghost, motoring away from her in a large curve. Meaghan needed to stay hidden until she was out of sight and everyone on the boat focused more on her. Fiona assured herself that Meaghan would be fine. She had the right mindset to survive anything. There was nothing else Fiona could do for her.
Reaching the yacht, Fiona hoisted herself up the ladder, her movements driven more by urgency than strength. Her body ached from the cold, but she focused on seeing her husband and son and making sure she was able to do something to help them. Standing back in the basement of a storage facility would never have been an acceptable role for her to play in this. Not when so much could go wrong and so much already had. She was still annoyed that Jason had thought he was helping anyone by going at this alone. He had to see that being part of a team was always preferable to being the lone wolf. Even when she’d been sent out on her own to finish her assignments, she’d always had someone looking out for her interests, at least from afar. Without ten other people on the ground around her, she’d never have been able to accomplish all she had.
Two guards greeted her as she arrived on the main deck, their rifles aimed at her, expressions unreadable.
One of the men, attired like a fraternity brother in shorts and a blue linen shirt who had overstayed his welcome on campus by ten years, pointed the cold metal of an AK-15 in her face. “Stop there.” He was a bit overcautious. She wasn’t going anywhere with so many weapons trained on her.
Another casually dressed man stood next to him. He frisked her and located the knife she’d slipped into the pocket of her life vest. The presence of a weapon, even one only a few inches long, seemed to make them all the more paranoid. They stripped her of the life vest and let her remain standing in dripping wet clothes.
Above them stood a woman dressed in a pale yellow maxi dress with a straw hat over loosely braided hair. She watched silently, her slim figure wrapped in a shawl. Standing to the side, she had a storm brewing behind her eyes. Fiona could tell she was unhappy with the direction things had taken, but there was a resigned set to her shoulders that suggested she wouldn’t dare challenge Andres. Without knowing her role in all of this, Fiona couldn’t decide how to leverage that emotion. The man behind her, cruelty etched onto his face, caught Fiona’s attention. Andres. He was the only man who could stop this. He held up his hand, signaling the others to hold their fire. His piercing eyes assessed Fiona, scanning over her wet hair and drenched clothes.
The yacht’s engine roared to life. Meaghan would be safe in the water. Fiona wasn’t sure if she’d just signed her own death certificate, but she never second-guessed decisions she’d already made as that wouldn’t change them. It was time to understand the situation and bend it toward her will.
“Fiona Stirling,” Andres said with the confidence of someone who had stalked her whole family.
She ignored him for a moment while she turned around in a circle, looking for Jason and Matt. She squared her shoulders when she found Matt across the deck. His hands were secured by tape, but otherwise, he had no restraints on him. If she needed him to run across the deck to hide, he’d be able to. He looked scared but determined. She gave him a small wink, a silent promise that she would do everything in her power to make things right.
Jason, on the other hand, wasn’t going anywhere. His hands were tied together behind his back, attached to a column for the upper deck. Two burly guards stood on each side of him. They certainly weren’t underestimating him, but maybe they’d underestimate her. Jason wasn’t too welcoming toward her presence. His whole body was coiled tight, ready to explode at any moment. More anger radiated toward her from him than toward the actual enemy.
She faced her husband’s incensed gaze.
“Damn it, Fiona.” Jason hissed, a mixture of relief and anger on his face. He’d expected her to remain a safe distance away, but he should know she’d never leave him and Matt at risk. “Why would you put yourself at risk?”
She met his eyes with a fierce determination. “I lost you once already. I won’t lose you again.”
Andres, leaning against the ship’s railing, eyed them both. “Such passion,” he mused. “I’ve watched couples sacrifice each other for nothing but a few thousand dollars. But you two... There’s a fire there. It’s...touching.”
“Honestly, your admiration means zero to me. Just let Jason and Matt go. If you need someone to kill for your little revenge, kill me.” If she died saving Matt and Jason, she’d die, not a happy person, but satisfied she did the best she could.
Matt, however, wasn’t feeling grateful for her sacrifice. He looked between his parents, torn between his loyalty to them and fear of Andres. She could see his slow, even attempts at pulling apart the duct tape holding his hands together.
Jason’s face reddened at her words. “What the hell, Fiona?”
Andres chuckled. “This has become much more interesting. What will Captain Jason Stirling do to save his wife and son? What would happen if he had to choose between them? That would be a very interesting question. And how much love would you two have for each other if your son dies while you both watched? The bond you two share... It’s your greatest strength and your most profound weakness.” He paused, looking thoughtfully at Jason. “It’s like Christmas in September.”
“Let them go, Andres. They have nothing to do with this,” the woman said. An Instagram perfect beauty, the kind men killed for, she watched Fiona as though she could read the future and it was bloody and bleak.
“And yet, here they are, Montana,” Andres retorted with a smirk. He considered Fiona for a long moment, his eyes narrowing. The silence was almost unbearable. Finally, he shook his head. “Sorry, Mrs. Stirling. No deal.”
Fiona squared her shoulders. “Jason abandoned us for five years. I doubt losing us now will have an effect on his life. Perhaps you can take one of his colleagues. He was much more attached to them.” And not one of them were there to be harmed.
Andres tilted his head with an air of malicious amusement. “Oh, I think you will be more than sufficient for what I have in store for him. Because, as you said, you’d do anything for family and I’m sure he would too.” He let the words hang in the air.
The weight of her decision to board pressed down on her, but she wouldn’t let Andres see her falter. She met his gaze, unyielding. “Good luck with that.”
From the side, Montana spoke up again. “Let her family go, Andres. We’ve made our point. We have so many bigger issues to deal with back in Bogotá.”
Andres frowned, clearly irritated by the interruption. “This is not your business, Montana.”
She shook her head and turned away, walking down the stairs to the interior of the boat. Fiona hated seeing her go. She seemed to have a conscience and might have been able to prevent harm from coming to them. It seemed that Andres’s obsession with revenge for his son made him blind to everything else around him. He was taking a lot of chances lingering so close to shore. This was not international waters. Regretfully, he didn’t seem to have a decent set of advisors with him. He was commanding the crew with his ego and leading himself along with his heartbreak.
One of the Abercrombie henchmen pushed Fiona next to Matt and wrapped her hands with duct tape in front of her, as they’d done with Matt. Matt had been moving the tape back and forth until the ends twisted over and stuck together, a nightmare to get apart. She’d need a knife to help him.
“Leave it alone,” she whispered to him. “You’re making it harder to break.”
His fidgeting hands froze and from the look on his face, his thought that he would be free vanished and panic rolled in.
She received a sharp smack on the right ear by the idiot closest to her for talking. “Shut up.”
She tried to appear apologetic so they’d let her remain there, but another guy walked over and dragged her about fifteen feet from Matt. Now they were all separated. She tried to stay in the moment, but Jason seemed about to blow his top, and Matt was fading under the stress of it all.
Chapter 15
Jason had never been hypnotized by wealth. Once he’d lost his wife and son, nothing seemed to matter except keeping them safe. Now he was trapped in this floating prison, waiting for some super wealthy villain to destroy them all. The dimly lit deck cast long, undulating shadows that melded with the steady rocking of the boat. The silence outside of the clanging of pans from the kitchen and the heavy footsteps of their guards added to the chilling tension aboard the ship.
Jason couldn’t pull his hands free. They were tied together behind a thick pole, its cold, unyielding surface pressing against his back. The rough rope dug into his skin with every futile movement he made.
Fiona seemed downright content to sit there and wait for the worst to happen. His anger at her simmered under the dread of what could happen to her. Matt’s breathing had become more shallow since his mother appeared. Jason would do anything to prevent them both from being harmed. If the team had followed the plan, they might have backup soon enough.
“Andres,” he said, his voice hoarse, “there has to be something, anything, you need. Is it money? Assets? Influence? Just name it.”
But Andres, a silhouette against the dim light, smiled at Jason’s offer. “You think this is about material wealth, Jason? What did you make last year? Two hundred thousand? How adorable. How much can you offer to me? A used Range Rover or that burned-out house you called home?” He laughed, a hollow, mocking sound that echoed over the waves. “I have riches beyond what you can comprehend. I just need closure on this part of my life so my son will have a sense of closure in the afterlife.”
“Hurting my family will never bring closure to this. You sent your son to his death. I had nothing to do with it. Perhaps you need counseling. I can’t pay for a private jet, but I’ll buy you some therapy sessions. Imagine learning to understand how your own actions affect the world.”
Andres stepped over to him. Jason expected an argument—instead, he received a kick in the face. The toe of the leather boat shoe hit the side of his mouth, crushing his teeth into his cheek. He spit out blood onto the shiny deck. He took the injury, thankful it had been focused on him and not on Matt. Time and distance, however, were their enemy. If they went too far out to sea, their chances of rescue would decrease.
A few feet away, Matt stared at Jason’s face. No doubt the violence brought the danger they were in to the forefront of his thoughts. His muscles tensed and he tried to slip his hands out of his bindings. Matt’s subtle efforts to escape caught the eye of one of the guards, a man no more than in his mid-twenties. With a swift, almost casual move, he kicked Matt sharply in the shin, no doubt spurred on by the violence of his boss. The force of the blow and the sharp pain made Matt cry out. Jason, a person who had held to a very tight code of behavior in the military, wanted to kill that man. After the shock of the attack settled, Matt’s eyes narrowed, the intensity almost asking the guard for another blow.
Fiona’s eyes, usually so soft and full of warmth, ignited with a fierce protectiveness. Her chest heaved with suppressed emotion, her hands clenched despite being wrapped together in duct tape. Yet, she treaded carefully—any sign of an escape attempt or insubordination would get her beaten up as well.
