Page 79 of Forging Caine

Chapter 25

Samantha

Darkness.

A gentle sway.

Antiseptic.

Memories. Antonio. A man’s hand. My neck.

I cracked one eye open, the light driving through my skull like a knife straight into my brain.

My head.

“Here. Sip this.” A soft male voice.

Something touched my lips. A straw. My spiked champagne on New Year’s Eve. I couldn’t drink anything. “No.”

The straw followed my mouth as I shifted my head, sending the world tumbling end over end. I was going to be sick.

“It’s only water.”

The voice didn’t belong to David Scott. And it wasn’t New Year’s Eve. I wasn’t duct-taped to a chair. I was lying down. In a… a bed or on something soft.

All I could manage was a single rasped word. “Where?”

Metal wheels rolled across the floor. One click. Then another. “I shut most of the lights off. Try opening your eyes again.”

My eyes fluttered open, tentative. In the dim light, a man in a white jacket sat next to a hospital bed. My hospital bed. Not a hospital. Too small. A clinic.

The sway churned in my stomach again. We were on the water.

Fuck.

I was in the sick bay on Fiori’s yacht. The same place I’d landed in September after twisting my ankle. I forced my gaze around the room until it landed on the man holding a cup with a straw—dark blond hair and hazel eyes that seemed full of more regret than kindness. “Dr. Ivan Hayle.”

“Samantha.” He held the cup in my direction. “I want you to drink. It’ll help your throat.”

“Where’s Antonio?” I tried keeping my eyes open, but they closed. So tired. Had Antonio gotten away? The two goons were on him before… what did they do? Smashing my cell phone was obvious, but how did they know about the key fob?

Think, Sam, think. The detector the meathead used.

Antonio was right. I should have left it at home.

They caught us. Shit! I bolted upright. Cass, Emma, Sofia, Nico. Everything spun around me so quickly I fell back, grabbing my head to stop it from moving. And to stop it from exploding. So much pain.

A tug on my arm. A pinch. A… an IV?

“What’s going on?” I groaned.

“The nausea and vertigo will pass soon. The headache you likely have, not so much. I have a lot of things here I can give you for that, but—”

“No drugs.” Whatever the goon had injected me with had acted quickly. One second I was two steps into getting free of him, the next, the sting in my neck and everything went hazy.

Ivan’s chair rolled across the floor. He opened a door and then a pill bottle. “How about you drink the water and I give you some acetaminophen? It’ll take the edge off.”

Helpless was not my preferred role. But until I could sit up without wanting to vomit, I had little choice. I held out a hand and he placed a pill on it.

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