Page 6 of Hell to Pay

“I can’t believeI wasted all day watching that motherfucking boat,” Rafe fumed, pulling on his wetsuit.

It was dark, the charter pitching in the waves, theArtemisfar enough away that the lights were just a speck in the distance. The boat Rafe had used to watch theOspreybobbed next to us, tied up to our own.

“We had to do it until we knew.” I fastened my Kevlar, part of Crank’s equipment drop. “Having you here wouldn’t have made a difference.”

I understood his frustration. We’d been forced to stand around with our dicks in our hands, waiting for Crank to arrive with the gear, wondering if Lilah was on one of the boats we were watching or getting farther away from us on another boat entirely.

But she was there, on theArtemis. We’d seen it with the thermal camera, but I also felt it.

Felt her.

She was almost close enough to touch, and we were going to get her.

Nolan tucked his earpiece into his ear. “Check your comms,” he told Rafe.

The waterproof scuba earpiece was embedded in the hood of the wetsuit we’d used for sea-based SEAL missions. We’d be dropping him into the water from the inflatable dinghy we were rowing to theArtemis. Rafe would board the yacht from the bow while Nolan and I boarded from the stern.

We knew from the thermal camera that there were ten people on board: a person we thought was Lilah who never moved from a room below deck and nine others — including another woman — who moved freely about the boat. I wasn’t particularly worried about taking on nine guards — although I supposed one of those was the captain of the boat — but it was only smart to use every available advantage. The element of surprise was one. Taking on the large Ferretti luxury yacht from the stern or bow was another.

We would use both.

“Testing, one two three,” Rafe said.

I heard his voice in my earpiece. “Copy that.”

“I got you,” Nolan said.

Rafe strapped on the waterproof pack we’d used in SEAL missions and started for the side of the boat. “Let’s fucking go.”

His impatience made me nervous because it echoed my own. We were all too attached to the outcome of the mission.

Too attached to Lilah.

It wasn’t good, wasn’t smart, but damned if there was anything I could do about it. I’d been fooling myself to think I’d be willing to let her go when it was time for her to return to her real life. Now that she was gone I knew the truth: she belonged with us, even if she didn’t know it yet.

Nolan lifted his own pack onto his back. We would stay in the dinghy until we reached theArtemis, but anything could happen in the water, and we would need our weapons to get Lilah out.

Which didn’t mean we were getting into the dinghy without weapons in hand. Nolan and I had those too, but we carried other weapons in our packs, along with extra ammo.

I thought about the knife Lilah carried everywhere, wondered if she still had it or if they’d taken it from her. The thought — that someone might have put their hands on her, that Lilah might have had to fight for her life — made me crazy. I tucked it away into the darkest corners of my mind, tried to focus on the mission.

Rafe was already in the dinghy when I lifted a leg over the side of the boat. I stepped into the inflatable raft and took a seat and a couple seconds later Nolan joined us.

I picked up the oars that were attached to the small craft and started rowing into the dark.

6

LILAH

I heldthe screw in my hand like an unearthed diamond. I’d done it: I’d gotten the bolt off, had freed the screw from the bracket attaching the nightstand to the floor.

I'd almost cried with relief. It was pathetic really. Now that I had the screw in my hand, it looked so small, so… useless, but it was more than I’d had an hour earlier.

Now I just needed to figure out when to use it.

It was fully dark out now, the blackness feeding into my darkest fears. I felt like I was alone in the universe, drifting through space where no one could hear me scream.

I was tired and dizzy, a sign that my heart was having trouble pumping blood through its faulty valve, and the back of my neck burned under the gauze bandage. I closed my eyes and took a slow deep breath, tried to focus on the air moving in and out of my lungs.

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