Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 73225 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73225 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
I hesitate. Then, say, “Yes.”
It’s the only thing keeping me from falling apart completely. If I stop believing Asher knows, if I stop believing he’s looking, I’ll lose whatever fragile hold I have left.
Melanie sniffles. “I hope you’re right.”
I glance toward the tiny porthole. It’s locked tight, covered with grime. No view of the outside world. No stars. No land. Just endless dark.
The door opens suddenly. We both freeze, sitting upright.
Felix Castillo steps inside—composed, unhurried, a faint smile curving his lips. His guards linger just outside the door, silent and watchful.
I steel my spine. My voice is steady, but every word takes effort.
“Where are you taking us?”
Felix’s smile deepens. “Far from anyone who can find you.”
My heart pounds. “You can ransom us. My family will pay anything. You don’t have to do this.”
He chuckles softly, shaking his head. “Your family’s money is of no interest to me anymore, Miss Lane. The transaction is already complete. You both have been purchased by a very wealthy client—one who prefers not to be inconvenienced by family negotiations.”
The blood drains from my face. My grip tightens on Melanie’s hand.
“Please,” I whisper. “You don’t have to do this. You can still stop it.”
Felix tilts his head, regarding me almost with curiosity. “You’re brave. I admire that. But it won’t change what’s coming.”
He steps back toward the door. “Get some rest. You’ll need your strength.”
The door closes with a soft click.
I collapse back onto the bunk, chest heaving. Melanie lets out a broken sob, and I pull her into my arms again.
I want to be brave. I want to fight.
But the cold truth presses in… we’re running out of time.
And for the first time since this nightmare began, the fear starts to win.
40
Asher
Cold salt wind slices across the cutter’s deck, prying at every exposed seam in my gear. I taste metal in the air—diesel exhaust, seawater, the tang of adrenaline that’s been flooding my bloodstream for thirty-six hours. Out in the ocean, the night is an ink-black void, but through night-vision goggles Sea Dreamer glows a soft, spectral green, a single moving speck on an endless grid of coordinates.
We’ve been shadowing her for forty agonizing minutes, running dark along a south-southeast vector. Coast Guard sensors keep pinging the same three warm bodies on her bridge, two more on the aft deck, and—faint, mid-ship, motionless—two tightly clustered heat signatures that have to be Charlotte and Melanie. They’re alive. That knowledge is the only thing holding the fury in my chest together so it can be used.
I pace the rail, steadying my breathing. My plate carrier feels ten kilos heavier than usual; every oiled pivot in my M4 sounds like thunder in my ears. This will be a hard, fast hit—no time to negotiate, no room for errors. Diego’s crew is small but professional, cartel-trained. If they panic, they’ll push those women below deck, hit international water, vanish into the trade lanes, and we may never find them again.
The coxswain’s voice crackles over my headset. “Sixty seconds to intercept.”
I glance at the men beside me—two Maritime Security Response Team operators and a DEA tactical agent. They’re calm, focused, nodding once. They know the stakes. Dean’s voice cuts in from the command net, tone clipped but edged with something that almost sounds like hope. “Drone overhead confirms course. No hostile radar emissions. Window’s open, Hawke.”
“Copy,” I answer. My pulse kicks once, steadying as training takes over. I catalog the plan a final time: fast-boat approach on the starboard quarter, grapples up, breach at the stern service ladder, secure the bridge, medical extraction of the hostages. Ten minutes door-to-door, if we do it right.
The cutter throttles down. Our RHIB jolts as it’s lowered into black water. Engines catch with a volcanic snarl, then we’re skimming the swell, hull slapping foam. The wind tears at my exposed skin, the sprays needling my face. Twenty knots, then thirty, the silhouette of Sea Dreamer fills my goggles—sleek lines, gleaming hull lights reflecting off rolling waves.
“Boarding team, radios to whisper,” the lead Coastie mutters. I thumb mine to low. The yacht’s stern ladder rises like a ribcage, metal slick and gleaming. On deck, a guard paces, rifle slung but ready.
We cut the engines, the momentum coasting us the last eight feet. Grapple hooks arc up, clank, bite steel. I climb first—boots silent, rubber sole meeting rung. My pulse tracks each motion: left foot, right, shift weight, silent as thought. Cresting the rail, I drop to a crouch behind a deck locker. The guard turns, brows knitting at the noise he thought he heard. Too late. A bean-bag round smacks his chest, and he crumples with a breathy oof, more stunned than wounded.
The team flows over like oil on glass, splitting left and right along the teak deck. I pivot toward the salon hatch, my heart hammering. A second guard emerges with his pistol half-drawn. My M4 barks twice, subsonic rounds punching his vest and dumping him without lethal force. He hits the deck groaning, weapon skittering under a deck chair.