Page 81 of Whispered Surrender

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MATT

Marenah’s lookingat me like she wants to say something, but Cole’s voice disrupts my thoughts. “Interpol’s swooping down. ETA less than five minutes.”

“We’ll go in from the rear and cover the exit. We don’t give these fuckers an escape route,” I say.

“Roger that,” Keith says, swinging off the highway.

“Where are you going, man?” Cole says as we watch the truck continue down the road.

“We know where they’re headed. Trust me. I know these docks like the back of my hands. I grew up running shit around this area. We’re going to slide in from the back, and they’ll never see us coming,” Keith says, navigating us down the frontage road that runs parallel with Lake Michigan.

“Roger that,” I say because Keith was born and raised in Chi-town and there’s nothing about the underground that he doesn’t know. I message Scottie to see how far away they are, and he’s got his team in place with air support, on the alert, if needed.

Keith pulls up behind a warehouse, and we wait as the truck begins to plod down the road, and then turns and starts to back up toward the dock adjacent to a large ship vessel.

“Hold up everyone. Intel just got wind of explosives on the truck. One false move and these fuckers will blow that truck, those people, and any evidence they were ever here away,” Cole says.

“We need to get to the captain. I’m going,” Marenah says, opening the door and rolling out of the car, but I’ve been watching her, sensing a change. I don’t understand it, but something isn’t right. As soon as she pops that lock, I reach for her, but she’s just a little too quick. Fuck. I roll out the same side she did, but she’s got a few seconds on me now, and my princess can move. I don’t catch up to her until she slides into the shadows beside the boat’s ramp. There are a couple ways to get on this thing, but the guards have the easy way blocked, and Marenah knows it. This doesn’t deter her one bit as she slides into the lake and disappears underneath the water.

I see exactly where she’s heading and take off after her. She hadn’t planned on being pursued by a man who had no parents to pay for extracurricular activities at school, and who instead swam the currents of the lake for exercise and stress relief in his high school years and continues to use that as a conventional source of exercise.

I reach her just as she comes up for air. She thinks she’s going to climb those fucking stairs and go onto this ship filled with enemies all by herself. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Princess?” I growl softly, pulling her soaked body back into my own.

She turns in my arms, hanging onto the stairs that she intended to climb, treading water, looking up at the massive boat above us. Her eyes are intense, watching me, and her heart is racing against my body. “Marenah, tell me what’s going on Princess? Whatever it is, I’ll help you if it’s for the right cause,” I say, pushing her drenched locks away from her face.

“I think we have a traitor in our midst,” she says.

“Who? Tell me that, Marenah,” I say.

She’s intermittently glancing at me, contemplating, and it’s longer than I would usually allow for an answer, but I give her time, just watching her as she processes. “Interpol, I’m not sure who, but some of them are trafficking. We may be walking into a trap. We have to get to the captain and take over where this vessel goes. If anything goes wrong, that’s the only thing that’s going to save these people,” Marenah says.

Fuck! I reach for my phone to send our team a text and realize that I’ve lost signal thrashing through the turbulent waters of Lake Michigan. I can no longer connect with my team silently and I’m dependent on my mic and headset. Interpol is only a few moments out and timed to reach the boat exactly when the passengers are supposed to board. “You’re right, Princess. We’re taking over the goddamn ship. I’ve lost all connectivity, so it’s you and me. I’m going up first, cover me,” I say, spinning her and heading up the ladder, pressed flush against the hull as I make my way upward.

I’m only halfway up when I hear voices above and pause. They seem to move on, and I continue the climb, but slowly. I’ve almost reached the top when the team alerts me to the incoming helicopter. I double-time it up the remaining stairs and pull her over and up, pushing her head down just before the lights of the craft come into view and light up the entire surroundings.

“Let’s go,” I say, grasping her, crawling across the deck, slowly inching toward the door that will take us to the captain. I reach and open it, standing and taking a moment to get my legs back while pulling her inside the door and upright, too. She stretches to one side and then the other.

I look her over to see if she’s okay, and she raises her eyes at me. “I’m good,” Marenah whispers.

I take her hand, keeping us both pressed against the wall of the hull as we make our way to the north side of the ship, where I believe the captain will be. We shimmy along the walls and are fortunate that most of the men have been sent out to the shore to oversee the incoming. We settle in behind the mammoth man who oversees the ship and is talking into his speakers. “The packages are being loaded. We’ll be on our way shortly,” the captain says to whoever is at the helm.

“Roger that, Lad. Let’s get this ship sailing as quickly as we can,” a voice says over the speaker in the main quarters.

Marenah’s pure look of fear after hearing that voice and my knowing precisely who it is tells me everything that I need to know. I put a finger to her lips, pressing against them to keep her silent, but also to calm her.

Instead of looking scared, she sucks my thumb and then my forefinger into her mouth, and when she looks up at me with those wide blue eyes, my cock hardens with desire at the most inopportune time.

I keep her pressed against me, quiet, just waiting, watching her eyes dilate and grow hazy as she continues to suck my fingers. Fuck she is hot!

I know that my team will do everything in their power to keep these innocent people safe, but Marenah is right. If something goes south, we are in precisely the place that we need to be.

The water is cold this time of year, and her body is drenched. She shivers, and I wrap my arms tighter around her, pulling her back against me, sliding my hand down her nape. Her pulse is racing, and I wish I could talk to her, but one sound could bring the entire mission down.

Instead, I keep Marenah pressed tight against me, running my hand along her arms to keep her warm as I listen to my team deal with the situation on the dock.

“The truck gate is opening. No one moves until we get a lock on the fuckers that are moving these people,” Cole says.

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