“My plan would have worked if you hadn’t taken a trip to my vineyard. Gabi might still be alive if not for you.”
For the first time in hours, Meg felt her lungs constrict.
No, please no. Gabi can’t be dead. Not after everything, every risk she’d taken.
“Don’t cry, Miss Rosenthal. She was so high she probably didn’t feel a thing.”
“You bastard.” She lunged at the man, only to have two men hold her back. This time, when Alonzo moved alongside her, she did spit in his face.
His deadly stare unnerved her as he took a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his face. “I should blow a hole in your leg and toss you overboard right here . . . watch the sharks come and feast.”
Meg had to force her breathing to slow. A slight wheeze started to build.
Alonzo ran a hand down her face and gripped her chin with his thumb and forefinger. “But you’re my gift. Diaz likes blondes.”
The men holding her laughed as if Alonzo had made a joke.
He pushed away from her and boarded his yacht.
Stephan took the helm again, followed Alonzo’s yacht.
Within ten minutes, they were narrowing in on an island. From her vantage point, there weren’t any inhabitants.
Once in the cove, Stephan dropped anchor and Alonzo shouted orders for her to be dragged on board his ship. There were too many of them to fight, and struggling made her wheeze.
Alonzo pushed her across his deck and over the side to a smaller boat. Under gunpoint, she followed and watched. Stephan and all Alonzo’s men moved onto the pleasure ship, and it pulled away from the one filled with drugs.
They were leaving it there.
Which meant someone was going to come and pick it up.
Diaz? The Alpha behind this Beta? And when would the pickup happen? A day, an hour?
Could she swim out to the charter and call for help? She had no idea if Rick and Neil knew where she was. Her mind scrambled for a way out.
One of Alonzo’s bigger men pulled her from the boat the second it hit the shore. Before she could scramble to her feet, he placed his foot onto her ass and pulled out a knife.
She screamed as he gashed the back of her right calf.
He pushed her to the sand and jumped back in the small boat.
Blind with pain, she rolled onto her back and cradled her leg.
“Take a long look before you dive in, Miss Rosenthal,” Alonzo said as he motioned toward the water. “Those fins aren’t dolphins. And they love fresh blood.”
“Burn in hell!”
Alonzo laughed, looked at his men as they maneuvered the boat back to his yacht. “People keep damning me today. Must be a full moon.”
Meg found her footing and ran behind the safety of the trees.
For the first time since she’d lifted Rick’s backup gun from the back of his pants, she checked the weapon. A 1911 with a twelve-round magazine. Perfect, reliable, accurate as all hell.
Ignoring the pain in her leg, she kept her eyes on the receding boat. Once the dinghy full of shitheads inched closer to the fins in the cove, and was too far away for the passengers to make it back to shore, Meg took aim. Three consecutive rounds splintered the wood, startled the passengers, and water started to fill the boat.
A bullet whizzed past, not close enough to do anything but tell her they had ammunition in their guns.
She moved position and located the cap to the fuel tank of the charter.
While Alonzo and his men were scrambling to stay afloat, those on the yacht were trying to move closer to their boss. One man went overboard and started swimming to the larger boat. Meg ignored their efforts and concentrated on her own. It had been a while since she held a gun. And the charter was probably outside of range, but she had to try.
If the charter blew up, someone would see it.
Or so she prayed.
She squeezed one eye shut and forced her breath to slow. It came back, all the training . . . the reason she picked shooting as a sport.
The wheezing in her lungs slowly went away as she counted down.
Squeeze.
Missed.
She lifted the barrel, felt the wind on her face, and lifted a little higher.
Squeeze.
Wood splintered. Nothing exploded.
“For Gabi.”
Squeeze.
They were closing in, finally.
Val saw enough on the satellite feed to know there were two vessels next to each other, and a third was following close behind. Just when he started to catch his breath, the blip on the radar disappeared.
“Damn it!” Brenson yelled.
“Where did it go?”
Val swiveled toward the satellite view, the delay a good thirty seconds behind the other monitor.
The charter became a flash of white, and even from miles away, Val heard the explosion.
Brenson picked up his radio. “Move in, all units, move in.”
The men on board the ship scrambled. “Full speed.”
Val looked up to see a helicopter overhead. He heard Rick’s voice on the radio shouting orders.
They stopped the engines cold when they found the wreckage.
His charter was still in flames, much of the hull already becoming an artificial reef.
There were at least two bodies floating in the rubble. Val looked for his jacket or Margaret’s red shirt and found neither.
Alonzo’s yacht had attempted to flee. The helicopter buzzed over the vessel, letting those on board know they weren’t going to outrun them.
It didn’t take long for a marked Coast Guard ship to position itself in a way to keep Alonzo from escaping . . . if in fact he was on board. Val had yet to locate him on the deck.
Instead of searching for his enemy, Val scanned the ships and the shore.
A booming voice filled the air. “United States Coast Guard, drop your weapons.”