Page 310 of Wild Mustang Security Firm

There was banging, men who weren’t quick enough to secure their grip on the ship, bouncing off the rails on other floorsbefore falling into the water now directly below them, where the aft of the ship stood planted in the ocean as if it were a statue on a watery base.

Except this was no statue. This was a vessel, and it was sinking as water poured in through holes in the hull, rapidly filling its insides.

“Life raft,” Fariq shouted, but Christian was already staring at it, not twenty feet below them on the fucking wall where he was far more likely to fall and break his back or neck, hitting the rails before the water than he was to snag one.

But if he didn’t, Aliya was going to die, pulled down into the undertow of the ship as it sank into the ocean depths or shot by the mercs in one of the two boats he could see circling their yacht, firing aimlessly at anything they saw moving.

Or worse, they were pulled into one of their boats to be ransomed to someone. Fariq had a lot of enemies, any one Christian could easily see not thinking twice before making Aliya pay for Fariq’s crimes.

“I’m on it.”

Climbing along the deck railing was like playing on playground monkey bars, only with a hell of a lot farther to fall if he lost his step or grip. The rail was broken into sections, the once vertical rails in the railing now horizontal, becoming the next step he reached for with his feet as he lowered himself, section by section. Shaking, the boat wasn’t holding still beneath him as it was sinking. He could feel the ominous vibrations of the water as it poured in, filling the interior beyond its ability to stay afloat.

Every thirty seconds or so, one of the two motorboats circled around him, and those inside took shots at the ship. They weren’t here to raid or looking for money or plunder to steal, but everything about them screamed pirate.

How had that meeting with Murammar gone? Caught up in what had happened at the bazaar, he’d forgotten to ask, but he was pretty sure if this wasn’t related to it, Fariq had yet another enemy who’d taken exception to something he’d done.

“Hold on to me, my darling,” Fariq told his sister, soothing her silent panic with his tone as he clasped her arm and carefully lowered her down into Christian’s reaching grasp. “Watch your step.”

The boat came around again, and a line of bullets sprayed the water, shooting everyone who’d fallen or jumped. Cheering, waving their guns in the air, the pirates made only another few passes, sometimes shooting up the side of the yacht, mostly just shooting in the air before turning and speeding back the way they’d come.

“Watch your step,” Fariq said again, making sure Christian had Aliya before daring to release his grip. Glaring after the retreating boats, he quickly scaled the railing to stand on the rail with them, reclaiming his grip on his sister before sending Christian down the next step. The water was racing up fast to meet them. At an awkward level with the inflatable emergency raft on the deck wall, Christian glanced at it, then at Aliya.

“Wh-what are you doing?” she stammered. Her wide eyes looked strange, and her teeth were chattering. Shock must be setting in. Although cool this time of the morning, it wasn’t cold. Not until they hit the water, anyway. “Y-You can’t reach that, Christian. Y-You can’t reach.”

“Ladies do not address men outside of the family by their given name,” Fariq censured mildly, securing both his grip on the rail and on his sister. His dark eyes were fixed on Christian, coldly ordering him to jump.

Christian wasn’t fooled or offended. If he missed the bright orange raft attached to the wall, there were two more chances, each attached to the wall about six feet apart, then nothing elsefor him to grab onto between here and the white frothing water violently chewing its way up the sinking ship. If he did miss, he didn’t doubt for a second, Fariq would leave his sister clinging to the railing while he made the same daring attempt to save their lives. If they both missed, they would end up in the water, either sucked down in the wake of the sinking ship or to watch helplessly as Aliya went down with the vessel, eyes wide and teeth chattering all the way.

Fuck.

Eyeing the raft, he leapt. He grabbed onto the raft, but his weight snapped the emergency bag right off its hook on the wall. Barely getting his feet under him, he belatedly leapt, but only after gravity caught him. His leap went sideways, enough to get him over the rail, but he must have caught the deployment line on something. The bright yellow raft exploded, rapidly inflating as he fell. Regardless of what the cartoons might show, it didn’t slow his descent. Nor did he hit anything bone-breaking on the way down, though that might have been due more to sheer dumb luck. Still, hitting the water from this high up was more like landing shoulder first in a puddle of wet concrete. It gave way beneath him, but it hurt like hell.

Water enveloped him, but the buoyancy of the raft didn’t let him sink. His grip on a side-handle meant he dove only as far as the length of his arm before he was yanked back to the surface, and the ocean spat them both out again.

The cord cut into the knuckle grooves of his fingers, but he didn’t dare relax his grip. The waters around Morocco were white shark central. Not only was there a lot of blood in the water from all the men their attackers had shot, but he didn’t for a second trust Fariq to help him get into the raft if he was stupid enough to let himself get separated from it.

His shoulder felt dislocated, so he forced himself to swim with one arm, the other drifting uselessly as he circled the raft.Fariq spared no expense when it came to things that could potentially save his life, and this was no different. The Viking RescYou looked more like a two-man pup tent than a raft, complete with beacon lights on top of the canopy. Finding the opening, he heaved himself up the rope step and tumbled into the bed of the raft.

Outside, he could already hear Fariq ordering his reluctant sister to jump. It didn’t matter how much he hurt right now, he couldn’t lie here. Forcing himself onto his knees, he grabbed his useless arm. God, this was going to hurt. He breathed, finding his center, then pulled. Every nerve through his shoulder and down his back screamed until, with an electrified snap, his shoulder snapped back into place. His ears rang. He almost shouted.

“Jump,” Fariq ordered through the haze of lingering pain.

“Sharks! There’s sharks!” Aliya screamed. “I see them!”

Crawling one-armed around the small, six-man raft, Christian searched the provisions until he found the oars. Bracing himself against the inflated lip of the opening, he turned the raft around and paddled hard to get back as close to the ship as he dared. That first stroke was sheer hellfire, shooting out from his throbbing shoulder. How he kept from dislocating it all over again, he didn’t know, but he got as close to the sinking ship as he dared, within feet of where she might splashdown.

“We are going to be in the water with them one way or another, so do as I tell you.” Fariq soothed the harshness of his rebuke with a single caress to her hair and her cheek. “Take a deep breath, my darling.”

Christian struggled to keep the raft close without getting sucked toward the bow, where the gushing of white froth was the most violent as the water rushed in to fill the ship.

“Jump,” he shouted up at her. For just a second, her wide-panicked eyes latched onto his. “I’ve got you,” he promised,knowing no matter what, she would either be in the raft with him or he’d be back in the water with her.

In that half-minute of indecision, while she was distracted, Fariq made a decision of his own. Ducking out of her side-armed hug, he picked her up around the waist and before she could do more than scream, heaved her out as far from the sinking ship as he could throw her, almost lost his balance on the rails, but she hit the water a good six feet out from the bubbling froth.

Almost immediately, her scream was echoed by someone else’s, a high-pitched warble of panic coming from the throat of a man. Another survivor, swimming madly toward them from only thirty feet away. There was a fin in the water just behind him. He saw it only for a moment, then the man screamed as he was grabbed, and both vanished beneath the water.

Jesus.

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