Page 94 of Forged in Secrets

He never should have let the Hintons handle paying the ransom on their own.

He should have realized that a supply chain baron and his self-proclaimed trophy wife weren’t going to be able to take the heat when their daughter's life hung in the balance. Whatever other option he might have tried, it was too late to do anything about it now. He’d beat himself up over his stupidity later.

To his surprise, Isla Hinton had mostly calmed herself by the time he reached the dock. The terrified cries for her daughter had been replaced by a look of steely determination on her lacquered face.

“Gabriel,” she called, sounding breathless, as though she’d been the one who had been running. “We’re not just going to let them get away. We need to go after them!”

It was all Gabe could do to keep his mouth shut instead of reminding them just how badly they’d failed to obey his directives.

Not that it mattered.

It was his op, and therefore his responsibility. He would have told his brothers the same.

Fortunately, Robert spoke before he could attempt to shift the blame off of himself and make his clients feel worse than they already did.

“How, dear?” he demanded. “You gonna dive in?”

Isla peered over at the crystal water for a moment before shaking her head. The boat was still well within sight, but it was growing smaller with each passing minute. “Don’t be ridiculous. No. We’re going to get in one of those little speedy boats and follow them.”

“We don’t have one, Mrs. Hinton,” Gabe said carefully. “We were trying to come quietly by car and avoid detection.”

Isla gave a dramatic eye roll, suddenly looking very much like Grace.

Gabe missed her. Even if he was usually the one stuck on the other side of her more dramatic mannerisms.

“Really, Gabriel,” Mrs. Hinton scolded. “I’d expect a man of your expertise to know when it’s time to think outside of the box.”

Without giving her husband or Gabe any time to respond, she stepped off the dock and set off along the beach, her blonde bob bouncing in the breeze as she began to jog.

“Ma’am! Please be careful!” Gabe called out, striding quickly after her as she climbed onto a rickety dock a little ways down with Robert at his heels.

There were several men standing around talking, their boats bobbing in place nearby.

Dozens of people had already begun making their way back onto the beach, no longer concerned about the single gunshot, though these men didn’t seem to have fled in thefirst place. They could be dangerous, perhaps even accomplices to the kidnapper, but he couldn’t exactly shout as much at Isla. He wished she was wearing an earpiece.

Not that she would have listened to him anyway.

“Wait,” he said, sticking out an arm to restrain Robert as his wife began speaking to one of the men sitting next to an old but admittedly quick-looking speedboat.

He didn’t need the tiny speakers in his ears in order to hear Mrs. Hinton’s horrendous attempt at Spanish. Gabe spoke the language decently himself, but he didn’t want to jump in and take over. He was a tad more intimidating than Grace’s bumbling mother.

“Hola! Por favor? Boat, por favor? Señor? My hijo…hija? Perdida! Ola…rapido.”

She was pronouncing each word with what sounded almost like a French accent, and nothing resembling an actual sentence emerged.

The man was staring at her with an expression of pure bafflement, holding a hand to his forehead to block the sunlight.

“Por favor?” Isla added, as though that might clarify things.

“Lady, please speak English,” the man said after a moment, his tone friendlier than Gabe would have expected after witnessing the massacre of his native language. “Por favor.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Isla said, her breath escaping her lips in a dramatic sigh. “I took high school Spanish a few years ago now. A person forgets the little details. Though it wasn’t really that long since–”

“Your daughter is lost at sea?” the man interrupted her. “Yes, I am happy to help.”

Relief flooded Gabe’s chest as he gestured for Robert to approach his wife and the stranger on the dock.

Like mother, like daughter. Grace had a little more tact than Mrs. Hinton, but she, too, had a way of getting people to like her and to do what she asked. Her sunny attitude often drove him and his brothers crazy, especially Ben, but at the moment, Gabe was thankful she had inherited it from her mother.

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