life for the money you need.”
“But Maddy will see. She’ll know that I—”
Rory kept talking right over him. “They’ll hold their fire, and that’ll give me time to get there and blow them out of the water. Consign them to the devil and the deep blue sea.”
“Blow them out of the water? But Maddy—”
“Doesn’t matter,” Rory said, his tone ice cold.
A shiver of dread rippled over Tony’s skin, raising the hairs on his body. “What do you mean?”
“Come on, Tony,” Rory spat, yelling something over his shoulder at one of his guys before turning back to the phone. “It’s over. You need to forget about the damned ransom money and start thinking about a quick cleanup that’ll leave no trace and no witnesses who might lead back to us.”
Shit! He knew Rory was right, but it was impossible to accept. This was supposed to have been easy, a piece of cake. A quick snatch-and-grab. A fast ransom, and voilà, the company he and Gene had started would once again have full coffers, and once all the new ventures were up and running, Tony would get his just reward. Namely, money. Boatloads of it. We’re talking Rockefeller wealth.
He racked his brain for a way to turn it all around, to get back on track. But the scotch was muddling his mind. Either that, or the truth was there was no way to get back on track. It’s over. I’m ruined! And all because of those two mysterious assholes!
He’d wanted to scream. He’d wanted to kick. He’d wanted to kill. But the only thing he could do was acquiesce to Rory’s final solution, grab Gene, and head out on deck.
“Maddy Powers!” he called now. It was the third time he’d repeated the words since towing Gene topside. “Come out and see who I have with me!”
Chapter 25
1:16 a.m.…
“Don’t go,” Alex pleaded, grabbing Maddy’s arm when she reached for the door handle.
Maddy glanced back to find Alex’s gaze beseeching. Rick wore the same expression. For that matter, so did the three teens peeking over the wall of mattresses.
It’s not like I want to go, she thought. What she said was “I have to.” Her knees and hands and stomach were quivering. And the only good thing she could say about the latter was that she could now affirm with one-hundred-percent certainty that the corned beef had finally digested. If it hadn’t, it would be all over the floor of the crew’s quarters. “What if whoever is up there is talkin’ about Bran or Mason when he says no one else has to die?” she asked.
Alex pushed up her glasses and swung the strap of the machine gun over her shoulder. “Then I’m coming with you.”
“No. Stay with the girls.” Maddy turned to include Rick. “Both of you.”
Before they could argue—no time for that—Maddy pulled open the door, leading with the barrel of the weapon in her hands because she hadn’t the first clue who or what might be waiting for her on the other side.
A pitiful mewling sound, like that of an abandoned kitten, burst from her when she saw Bran was waiting for her. Big, bad, still-breathing Bran.
She launched herself at him, overcome with joy, with gratitude—thank you, Lord!—that none of those bullets that had sounded overhead had found a home in him.
“Whoa.” He snatched the machine gun away from her. It was a good thing, because she didn’t know how she’d have managed to tighten her hands around his neck otherwise. She pressed her lips to his throat just so she could feel the steady beat of his heart.
“Y’okay?” he whispered in her ear. And she allowed herself three glorious seconds to close her eyes and simply feel him against her. Then she pushed back to glare at him.
“Am I okay? I’m not the one who’s been in the middle of another firefight and—” She stopped when she saw the blood spattered on his chest and the big, ugly stains on his shorts. “Holy shit, Bran!”
“It’s not my blood.”
Before Maddy could respond, Alex’s voice, thickened by fear, sounded from behind her. “Mason?”
“Was fine when I left him to come down here,” Bran assured her with a quick bob of his chin. “But I can’t say the same for the Coast Guardsmen.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Alex blew out a wheezing breath, doubling over from the relief. Then she straightened and winced. “I meant about Mason. I-I’m really sorry about the—” She shook her head. “Sorry.”
“How many didn’t make it?” Maddy asked, sending up