The chatter of automatics greets me, and rounds whip overhead, muzzle-flare brightening the night's gloom. Sol, Chance, and Rev fan out around me as Saxon drops down to the deck, Scarlett next, then Lash, and Silas landing last. Kane stays in the helo, clipped in and perched on the edge, one foot on the skid as he cuts down tango after tango with short, precise bursts.
Unlike every other engagement I’ve been in with these men, when enemies drop, they do so silently and stay down. Each burst is a kill-shot.
I leave the gunfight to the others and bolt across the deck for the cabin. I kick open the door to a small but well-appointed saloon, dark and quiet—empty. A hand grabs my right shoulder—Silas taking my six. I find the stairs leading down to the rooms—it's steep, more of a ladder, and getting down it without crying out in pain takes everything I've got. Sweating and panting from the effort, I hobble down a narrow, low-ceilinged hallway; I shoulder open each door as I reach it and sweep the room. Empty, empty, empty.
When I've checked each room, I report over comms. "Negative, negative. She's not here. Move out."
Our airborne ride has long since departed, committing us to the op, now. Sol takes command of the yacht while the others dump the bodies overboard, and within minutes of the last shot being fired, we're moving at full speed for the next nearest target. The yacht has a tender, of course—a small boat for getting to shore from an anchored yacht. As we approach the next target, Solomon kills the yacht's engines while Silas and Saxon deploy the tender. Getting down to it with a bum fucking leg is excruciating, but then, everything hurts right now. The ibuprofen is helping a bit, enough to take the worst of the edge off. Once we're all on board the tender, Chance guns the motor and we cross the dark, choppy sea toward the yacht; it's running dark, so it's little more than a black shadow against the night, but the low throb of its engine guides us. A hundred or so yards out, Chance slows the tender's motor to a quiet chug, and we slide toward the yacht. Right on cue, the chop of helicopter rotors stipples across the sea, echoing and dopplering so it's impossible to determine where it’s coming from. Lights wink to life on the yacht's deck, and voices waft across the water. I catch bits and pieces in Spanish. I see the helo skimming the surface like a hunting dragonfly, and then it flares and twists to present Kane, spraying burst after burst at the yacht's stern, distracting them as we approach the bow.
Rev secures a line to the side of the yacht and hauls himself up hand-over-hand, and then helps the rest of us ascend—embarrassingly, it's all I can do to simply hang on to the rope and let Chance use his brute strength to pull me aboard.
Silas and I make for the cabin while the others glide like vengeful ghosts sternward, riflesTAKTAKTAKing. Bodies hit the deck in quiet thumps, and one of them topples overboard with a loud splash that's drowned out by the gunfire.
Another fruitless sweep of the belowdecks leaves me in even more of a blind rage; I'm first back down into the tender, molars gritted so hard they ache, putting a throb of tension behind my forehead. Moments later, the now-full tender is skimming toward our next target.
The process is repeated four more times, and each one is empty except for a handful of Mercado thugs.
The fifth yacht goes down as easily as the first four, also empty.
We approach the sixth and last yacht as dawn threatens the night sky with reaching, spreading, staining fingers of gray and pink and pale orange
Sol grips my shoulder and squeezes. "She'll be on this one, brother."
"She better be," I snap.
My gut tightens as the sleek, low shadow of the yacht creases the horizon. A sour snake of worry curls in my belly, a forewarning I've come to instinctively trust. "She's here," I murmur. "But this…this won't be good, I fear."
"Stay calm, Ren," Solomon mutters in my ear as the tender slows; the helo's rotors thud in the distance, approaching low and fast. “Stay frosty. We've got this. Inez is a survivor—she'll be fine."
A shrill scream of female agony tears across the sea—Solomon's hand on my shoulder is the only thing that keeps me in the tender, otherwise I would have leapt into the sea and tried to swim to her.
As it is, I half rise from the bench, snarling as Solomon restrains me. "Sophia!" I growl. "Sophia!"
"We’ll get her, brother," Solomon says in my ear. "Sit down. Wait. Just—wait. Thirty seconds, Ren, and you're up there."
Rev joins the effort to keep me in the boat, and it takes both of them to hold me back. Another scream echoes across thewater—female again. I lurch forward, nearly breaking Rev's and Sol's hold on me; they yank me back down by my vest at the last second, and the tender rocks violently.
Another scream.
A shout, male, in Spanish: “Hijo de puta!"Another female screams."Dime! ¡Dime dónde está!”
"Jodéte. Come mierda."
A scream.
Sounds carry on the water. Her scream is awful, piercing. Close. Blood-curdling.
I don't remember the ascent to the deck. I hear the helo. Kane's rifle chattering. Silas follows me, hand on my shoulder as we descend into the belly of the beast, toward the screams.
Silas's rifle barks behind me, and I hear the thud of a body hitting the floor. "Got your six, brother," he murmurs. "Get in there."
Gunfire crackles overhead.
I kick the door in and it slams inward as a shout of shocked male pain echoes.
The sight that greets me is one that will haunt me for the rest of my days.
Blood, everywhere.
