Miranda’s revelations had thrown me for a loop. Even though I tried not to react, there was no denying the sour sickness in my stomach – or the bitter despair in my heart.I couldn’t stop myself from saying what came next. It was the only way I could fight against the onslaught of hopelessness and outrage coursing through me.“Even if you kill me, it won’t matter,” I said coldly. “In fact, it’ll just make it worse for you. Connor will find you. He will. And he won’t stop until you’re dead or behind bars.”“Your faith in Connor is… adorable,” she said, her voice dripping with contempt.“It’s amazing to me how stupidly overconfident you are. You think you know everything, but you don’t.”“But I do. For instance, I know that Eve Saunders is helping them. I know that she has currently accessed all the cameras aboard the ship. What she doesn’t know is that the feeds from all the cameras are fake. They’re recordings. In reality, I have three times more men onboard than Connor expects – and
The four of us reached the rendezvous point, three hundred feet from the ship. The hull was visible only as a silhouette, but we could make out lights along the decks and on top of the bridge.“Leo and Juan, starboard side,” Johnny said. “Connor and I will take portside. Everybody use the sleds until you get about a hundred feet out, then abandon them and swim the rest of the way. We don’t want anybody hearing us approach.”“How do we get up there?” I asked.“Leave that to me,” Johnny said. “Remember, once you’re onboard, use your earpieces and microphones. Hopefully Eve can reach us, but if she can’t, we can still talk to each other.”Johnny and I split off from Leo and Juan and used our sleds to approach the left side of the yacht. The closer we got, the taller it seemed to loom above us.A hundred feet out, we left our sleds bobbing in the water and swam the rest of the way. When we reached the side of the ship, the waves slapped me up against the hull like a cork bobbing against a
I stared at Miranda.Two traitors?! “Who – ?” I started to ask, but I was interrupted by Armin opening the door. In his arms he carried a nasty-looking rifle with a high-tech scope.“They’re onboard,” he informed Miranda. “We just got visual confirmation.”“Good. What about the satellite uplink? Did you turn it off so the hacker can’t help them?”“No, we’re having trouble shutting the system down,” Armin said as he closed the door behind him and locked it.“What are you doing?” Miranda asked, obviously annoyed.Armin seemed confused. “Protecting you.”Miranda held up the pistol in her hand. “I’m fine. Get out there and shut down the computers. I don’t care if you have to blow them up, I don’t want Eve Saunders helping them.”“But – ”“GO.”Armin frowned, but he unlocked the door and started to step out.“And remind the others that I want Connor alive,” Miranda said.Armin turned back in surprise. “You want him unharmed?”“I didn’t say that. You can hurt him as much as you need to.” S
I was halfway down the deck when Eve spoke in my ear. “Connor, there’s a problem.”“What?” I whispered.“Juan and Leo are on the other side of the yacht, but I’m not getting any video feeds of them.”There was a dull WHUP in the distance, then another one a few seconds later.Not like gunshots, exactly. But they did sound like a heavy book being dropped on a wood floor.I ducked into an alcove with a door in it, and hunkered down into a squatting position. “Juan? Leo?”“We separated, and Juan ran into a guard,” Leo’s voice said. “Juan’s dead, but I got the other guy before he could sound the alarm.”SHIT. Already things were going to hell, and we’d barely engaged the enemy yet.But… something didn’t make sense…I frowned. “I heard two silenced shots. How come I didn’t hear any regular gunfire?”“They’ve got suppressors, too. The first one was the guy shooting Juan, the second was me shooting the guard.”I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something seemed off. I just chalked it up to
BOOM.There was a massive explosion somewhere on the ship. Every glass pane in the spider terrariums rattled, and a couple cracked.“What the hell?” Miranda said, and stumbled to her feet as the yacht began to tilt to one side.After my initial shock from the blast, I watched Miranda’s face. She was reacting with more fear – in fact, with more emotion – than I’d ever seen her display before.She looked back at me, her eyes wide with surprise.After all the indignities the bitch had put me through, I couldn’t resist. “Guess my fiancé’s here,” I said, and gave her a little smile.
I rushed over to Leo’s body, staggering in the tilting hallway as I ran.He was lying face-up on the ground, a pool of blood spreading out beneath him on the floor.He saw me coming. Tried weakly to lift his AR-15 – I put two more rounds in him with my .45.BLAM BLAM.He lay still after that.Adrenaline coursed through me like a drug, sharpening my senses while making everything unreal.I felt sick. I had just killed a man. I had just taken a life. He was a traitor, yes, and someone who was planning to hand me over to be killed – but still, I felt queasy.Lily.She was all that mattered. I pulled myself together.“Nice shooting,” Eve said in my ear. “Oh ye of little faith.”“What?” At first I thought she meant something about me doubting my abilities to shoot someone, which didn’t make any sense.“You thought I was a turncoat? AGAIN?”“Oh,” I said sheepishly. “Sorry about that.”“Hmph. We’ll talk later. Go down the hallway the way you were originally heading – there’s a half-dozen g
The door suddenly burst open, and there stood Connor with a gun in his hand, just like the star of an action movie.My heart soared with love – and fear. Because Miranda was standing behind my chair, just like the villain in an action movie.I was between them – Miranda’s human shield.I felt the barrel of Miranda’s pistol jam against the back of my head.“Drop it,” she commanded, “or I kill her.”Connor looked at me helplessly.“Don’t worry about me – shoot her!” I begged him.But he wouldn’t take the chance. He held the gun slowly away from him and let it fall to the floor. CLUNK.I felt Miranda’s pistol stop pressing against my scalp, then saw it appear next to me as it pointed at Connor.“I win,” she said, and I could hear the sneering triumph in her voice.
I couldn’t take the shot. I wasn’t Johnny; my aim was good, but not stellar, and the floor was already at a 20 degree tilt. Miranda had her gun at point blank range to Lily’s head. If she pulled the trigger before I got her – I slowly held my .45 away from my body and let it fall to the floor.All the ugliness I knew was inside Miranda revealed itself on her face. It was the evil leer of a serial killer, the grin of a Great White Shark.“I win,” she gloated.My heart sank.It was over. I had failed.I looked at Lily, both sorrow and love welling up at once. She was seated in some sort of chair bolted to the floor, and was handcuffed to the metal armrest.Lily’s eyes were frantic, but her lips were moving. She was mouthing something…Keep her talking.I couldn’t tell for the life of me what she had in store, but I complied. I looked up at Miranda. “You win. You can do with me whatever you want, but please – let Lily go.”“Don’t waste your breath,” Miranda snarled. “Walk towards me w