Page 116 of Wicked Intentions (Wicked Games 3)
“I’ll never forgive myself if anything happens to her,” I say, struggling to breathe, adrenaline lashing through me, my stomach in ropes. “If she’s hurt, or worse—”
“Stop!” Connor shouts. “Focus!”
I close my eyes, drag air into my lungs, drawing on all my training for high-stress situations. But no mission has ever been this personal before.
No mission I’ve ever been on has included the possibility that the woman I love dies in a fiery explosion.
“Can you get closer to the other yacht?” Connor asks in my ear.
“We’re on the way.”
“We?”
“Long story. Call the FBI. Call Interpol. Call everyone. Get that fuckin’ boat surrounded and get a medical emergency response team out there as fast as you can.” I hang up before he can answer and spew a blistering string of curses, panic pulsing through me like another heartbeat.
Watching black smoke rise in the distant horizon, Armin says, “I take it someone you care about is on that ship?”
My heart pounds so hard, I’m surprised he can’t hear it. “Yes,” I say through gritted teeth.
He nods, his expression thoughtful. “We can get over there faster if we take the speed boat. She’ll do up to eighty knots on calm waters.”
When he looks at me, I say, “Let’s go.”
* * *
As we slice through the water toward the burning yacht in Armin’s yellow cigarette speed boat with the busty pin-up girls painted on the sides, I try not to think of worst-case scenarios or all the horrible possibilities. I try not to think of anything at all. But the closer we get to the ship, the more obvious it is that the only possibilities I’m dealing with are bad.
Worse than bad.
Not only is the yacht on fire, it’s sinking.
Listing on her starboard side, flames roaring through all the decks and spitting high up into the sky, the craft is almost completely demolished. The satellites on the helm have been blown off. All the glass on every deck is shattered. Smoke and chemical fumes billow from the length of the hull in acrid clouds that sting my eyes.
There’s an enormous debris field around the remains of the yacht, chunks of fiberglass and furniture and metal, partially submerged, bobbing in the waves, blackened and twisted into ugly shapes. There’s diesel fuel, too, a slick film floating on the water, reflecting oily rainbows in the light.
I don’t see any bodies, but it’s obvious by the level of destruction and the blistering heat of the fire that if anyone was on board, they couldn’t have survived.
Armin cruises in slow circles around the hulking carcass of the ship, keeping a safe distance from the roaring flames as he steers carefully through the field of debris. I lean over the side and hunt desperately for any sign of life, for anyone waving from the water, for the smallest hint that would give me hope.
There’s nothing.
The yacht is a burning, blackened husk of death, the ocean all around eerily silent.
It isn’t until I hear the helicopters and look up into the sky that I realize I’ve fallen to my knees.
And that awful animal scream that seems to be coming from everywhere is coming from me.
* * *
The next few hours are a blur. People. Activity. Noise. Questions.
So many fucking questions.
The Croatian coast guard arrives on scene first, followed by their navy, search and rescue teams, Interpol, and finally, the FBI. There are also plenty of lookie-loos in boats cruising around, along with news and paparazzi choppers whizzing overhead.
Field officers from the FBI and Interpol team up to debrief me while the search and rescue teams get to work. I remember nothing of what was asked or answered. I do remember having to be physically restrained as I was removed by police from the scene, and Armin telling them to chill out because I was cool.
But I wasn’t cool. I’d never been less cool. I was a rage and self-blame machine, desperate for any other reality than the one I was living.
