slammed his foot on the gas, launching the truck forward at full speed. Payne, using his well-honed instincts, sensed what was about to happen before it actually did. With mongooselike quickness, Payne fell backward onto the hard ground. A split second later, the truck roared above him, its high undercarriage protecting Payne from injury.
The instant the truck had passed, Payne flipped onto his belly and burst forward like a sprinter at the start of a race, but he quickly realized that the vehicle was too far ahead for him to catch it. Stopping immediately, he aimed his Glock at the truck’s back tire and discharged three quick rounds in succession. The second and third bullets hit their mark, piercing the right wheel and causing Holmes to temporarily lose control of the truck. The vehicle fishtailed, skidding sideways on the dew-filled grass, but Holmes didn’t panic. He coolly compensated for the loss of air pressure, allowing the back end to straighten itself out, then continued forward as fast as the vehicle could carry him.
“WHERE the hell have you been?” Levon Greene growled. He had been standing by the boat for several minutes, impatiently waiting for Holmes’s return. “I was getting ready to leave you.”
With a look of annoyance on his face, Holmes stepped from the heavily damaged truck. “Where the hell have I been? I’ve been doing your dirty work, that’s where I’ve been!” He opened the back of the truck with a slam, then climbed onto the tailgate. “If it wasn’t for your selfishness, we’d already be far from this place, somewhere in the gulf by now. But no! You just had to have your pet slave, didn’t you?”
Greene moved forward, glancing into the back of the truck. He wanted to make sure that Holmes had returned with Nathan. “He’s gonna fetch you a lot of money, so I don’t know what you’re so pissed about.”
Holmes glanced down at the slave and gave him a swift kick in the midsection. He was completely fed up with Greene’s shit, and he needed to take it out on somebody.
“You don’t know what I’m pissed about? Well, let me tell you! You brought two MANIACs to my island, then when they got loose, you ran and hid while I was forced to deal with them!” Holmes pulled the slave toward the back of the truck and waited for Greene to take him. “I mean, this is your guest, not mine. So why did I have to risk my life to get him?”
Greene shook his head at Holmes’s ignorance. “Because I’m the one with money. If your name was on the bank account, then I’d be doing stuff for you. But I’m the one with the cash, so you’re the one with the job.”
PAYNE knew he had a lot of ground to make up—probably too much to do on foot—so he decided to take a chance. He wasn’t sure if his four-wheeler had survived the vicious jolt from Holmes’ truck, but he decided to run back to the crash site and find out. Thankfully, the gamble paid off. The Grizzly had overturned, but it worked just fine.
After putting it on its wheels, Payne jumped on the ATV and rocketed ahead with a touch of the accelerator. The green and black vehicle reached top speed as Payne urged the machine to catch Holmes. If Ariane was taken from the island, he knew the odds of finding her would go down significantly. It wouldn’t be an impossible task—hell, Payne would devote his entire life and all of his resources to finding her—but he knew it would be quite difficult.
“Come on!” he implored, digging his heels into the ATV. “Go faster!”
But the vehicle was going as fast as it could, vibrating rapidly from the strain. The darkened scenery of the Plantation whipped by in a blur. The trees, rocks, and animals were all a part of the landscape that Payne ignored. His full concentration, every thought in his throbbing head, was focused on the love of his life and the bastards that had taken her away.
Oh, they would pay. They would fucking pay!
But he had to catch them first.
IT wasn’t until the hydroplane eased into the warm water of the inlet that Holmes was finally able to relax. Until that moment, he was certain that Payne or Jones would appear at the last possible moment to foil his escape. But as he glided from the marsh’s rugged shoreline, his anxiety started to fade.