Wicked Intentions(50)

They never come.

The first niggle of worry crosses my mind, but I shove it aside.

Keeping low, with my Glock at the ready, I run inside the first deck. The doors are wide open. The interior is just as luxurious as the exterior, but there’s no one here, either.

Where is everyone? Where are the armed guards?

I sprint through a living area—bypassing a huge dining room and media room—and head toward the spiral-glass staircase toward the back. I’m on security cameras somewhere by now, but nobody’s coming out to meet me. This ship is as quiet as a graveyard.

Find the master suite.

I don’t allow myself to think about why I assume Moreno will have taken Mariana to his bedroom, I only know that’s where I’m headed next.

The top deck is obviously the helm, encased in glass and deserted, so I’ve got four other decks to clear. I silently ascend the staircase, every sense trained for noise or movement, but I move unhindered through the ship.

Until I reach the fourth level. Then my heart drops like a rock to my feet.

The entire deck is a huge nightclub, running the length of the ship, fore to aft. There’s an enormous white dance floor, two bars, sofas lining all the mirrored walls, stripper poles dotting the perimeter, disco balls glittering from the ceiling, a DJ booth on a riser in one corner, and a dozen or more suspended metal cages I have to assume hold dancers.

And there are bodies everywhere.

Naked, half-dressed, in bikinis and miniskirts and thongs, young, well-endowed women lie together in sleeping piles, tanned limbs entangled like snakes. There are men as well, but far fewer. Young men in loud, tropical print shirts and board shorts, baby-faced but muscular, college-aged.

In between all the dozing frat boys and the army of passed-out Playmates are empty bottles—literally hundreds of them—champagne and tequila and wine strewn all over the place, obviously dropped wherever they were emptied. Beneath the bodies and bottles, the floor sparkles with confetti.

This isn’t a human trafficking operation.

It’s a fucking bachelor party.

The point is driven home like a stake through my heart when a guy, not even thirty, wearing nothing but tan cargo shorts and holding an orange drink with an umbrella in it, wanders into the room. He sees me standing there in camouflage, gun drawn, bristling with weapons, and stops in his tracks.

“Uh, hey, man,” he says, eyeing me. “You part of the show?”

“FUCK!” I bellow.

He jumps. A few of the girls stir, yawning and mumbling, but go right back to sleep.

This is a fucking nightmare. I’m having a nightmare, and a heart attack, and a fucking mental breakdown, all at once.

I stride over to the guy, point my gun at his nose, and snarl. “Who owns this boat?”

He peeps out a name, not Moreno’s.

“Take me to him!”

He spins around so fast, the umbrella flies out of his drink. Then he runs to the door he came through with little skittering steps, like a mouse. I follow on his heels, a volcano erupting from the top of my head.

He takes me to a large bedroom decorated all in white, where the hairiest man I’ve ever seen is lounging in a big leather chair, smoking a cigar, and playing Grand Theft Auto on a huge TV. His chest hair is like a bear’s pelt. On the bed are two naked girls, gently snoring. A fat Burmese cat wearing a diamond collar lounges between them, licking its tail.

When we come in, the hairy guy glances at me, at my Glock, then presses a button on a remote that pauses his game.

“That a .40 cal or a nine millimeter?” he asks.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I say.

The kid in the cargo shorts blurts nervously, “Armin, this dude was just standing there in the middle of the disco—”

“Shut up, Kenny. The reason I ask is ’cause I got a few nines, but I’m thinking about adding the .40 cal to the collection.” Armin calmly smokes his cigar.

“I’ll give you this one if you let me borrow your tender to get to the yacht next door,” I tell him.

Armin’s brows lift. He’s Middle Eastern, Turkish maybe, built like a wall and completely unfazed by my presence. I’m not sure if he’s nuts or if I should offer him a job. Maybe all that hair doubles as body armor.

He assesses my state of agitation and my outfit of deadly weapons. “Why, you got somebody to kill over there?”

Kenny draws in a horrified breath and shrinks away from me.

“Nope, I got somebody to save, and I don’t have time to dick around with conversation.”

“The ship next door belongs to the Oracle software guy, Larry Ellison. Came in last night with his family. We cruise the same waters lotta the time, recognized his yacht.”

“Thanks for the intel. You just saved me from crashin’ another bachelor party. You gonna let me borrow your tender or what?”

“Oh, this wasn’t a bachelor thing,” Kenny meekly chimes in. “Armin gets paid to party by all these different brands. Like, to post pictures on Instagram with all the girls while he’s wearing expensive watches and drinking top-shelf tequila and stuff. He’s totally famous, I can’t believe you don’t recognize him—”

“Shut up, Kenny!” Armin and I say in unison.

Kenny shuts up. Armin scratches his bushy beard. “I got a sub on board if you’d rather take that. You look like a guy who likes to take people by surprise.”

I’m liking this guy more and more with every word coming out of his mouth. “Yes. That’s fuckin’ brilliant. Thank you.”

Armin smiles. “Cool. But I’m driving.”





Thirty-Four





Mariana




In my cocoon of shock, it doesn’t seem at all strange to order the kneeling assassins to rise. They do, holstering their weapons and clasping their hands in front of their waists as I’ve seen them do countless times before, but never for me. Then they stand there, waiting for my command.

“Salvatore,” I say quietly, addressing the only one I know by name.

His gaze cuts to me. “Si, Capo?”

Capo. I swallow the sick laugh tickling my throat. If I start laughing, I might never stop. “How many other people are on this boat?”

“Fourteen crew, the captain, and us.” He makes a gesture to encompass his companions, me, and the bodies on the floor.

“Will the tender hold that many?”

“Yes.”

“I see.” I stand there trying to think for a moment, forcing my thoughts around the cotton candy of my mind.

Salvatore clears his throat, and I focus on him again. He obviously wants to speak.

“Yes?”

With surprising dignity, holding himself tall, he says, “I disrespected you earlier, Capo, on the flight. I didn’t know who you were. We weren’t told…” He thinks better of whatever he was going to say and falls silent for a moment. Then he continues in Italian. “It would be my honor to end my life in payment for this disrespect.”

An aria plays in the background, a pair of soaring sopranos singing about betrayal and heartbreak, their love for the same man. I never would have guessed opera would be the soundtrack in hell.

“That won’t be necessary. We’ve had enough bloodshed this morning. Thank you, Salvatore.” After a beat, I add, “Your loyalty is appreciated.”

I feel his pride at that statement, that I’ve said it in front of the other men. I can sense his chest swelling with it, and the urge to laugh returns tenfold.

I’m losing my sanity. Perhaps I’ve already lost it.

Perhaps I never had it at all.

“I want you to take everyone except the captain and get on the tender,” I instruct, walking slowly to Vincent’s body. In my gauzy dream, I bend down, fish the Hope Diamond from his jacket pocket, and curl my fingers around the stone as I gaze down at his lifeless face.

There’s blood and spittle in the corners of his lips. He didn’t shave this morning. His chest is still warm.

I straighten and direct my gaze to Salvatore again. “Everyone who’s alive, I mean. Get on the tender and go to the nearest island. Do it now. Take nothing with you. Before you go, tell the captain to come to me here.”

His brow creases, but he doesn’t contradict me or ask for clarification. He simply murmurs, “Si, Capo.”

He turns and leaves the room, the other men right behind him. I’m left alone with four dead bodies and the muggy chaos of my thoughts.

I walk to the outside deck and raise my face to the morning sun. It’s warm and sunny, the smell of the ocean strong. A light breeze plays with my hair. I don’t know how long I stand like that, in a trance, but when I hear an engine roar to life, I look down. There on the surface of the white-capped water below is a boat with four men in black suits, and fourteen others in navy-and-white uniforms.

Salvatore is at the helm. He guns the throttle and makes a heading for the island in the far distance, not turning to look over his shoulder even once.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely, said Lord Acton. Now, for the first time, I have a true idea of what he means.

I head inside to wait for the captain.





Thirty-Five





Ryan




Armin and I are trotting out of his bedroom when we hear the explosion.

It’s huge and somewhere not far away, judging by the concussion that rattles all the windows a second later.

We look at each other at the same instant. “That doesn’t sound good,” he says.