Hot on the Hunt

She flipped the rest of her hair behind her and gave him her best scowl. “I’ve been shot enough to last a lifetime, thank you very much.”

The allusion to her injury at Rory’s hand hung in the air between them. John’s jaw went stiff and the ice in his eyes seemed to spread to the rest of his body. The peal of police sirens cut through the tension.

John stared out over the water. Alicia followed his gaze. Rory had shot straight out of the bay and was heading south toward St. Croix. John hitched his canvas bag higher on his shoulder and walked past her. “Those sirens are my cue to beat it. See ya around, Phoenix.”

“He’s mine to kill, John.”

He didn’t even bother turning around to answer. “Maybe so, but I have other plans for him.” He gave her a little salute before breaking into a run to the right, moving southwest along the boardwalk.

Alicia shook some clarity into herself, shoved away the overwhelming flood of emotions John had evoked and concealed her gun. Then she took off left in search of something—anything—that would get her to St. Croix faster than either of the two men who’d wrecked her life for the second time in as many years.

* * *

Well. That was something else. This day certainly wasn’t turning out like John had thought it would when he’d woken up that morning. True, he’d been looking to shake himself out of complacency, and being in Alicia’s orbit certainly rocked him off his axis.

He roared through the Caribbean on the boat he’d docked not too far away from the one Rory had stolen, the speedboat that was now visible through his binoculars, as he fought to recover from the confrontation with Alicia.

He hadn’t been prepared for the toxic cocktail of relief that she looked to be thriving, at least physically, after her injury mixed with a fresh shock of fury at how she’d dismissed him as a corrupt agent without ever hearing him out about what had happened that day. Beyond the fury from his memories, she’d known exactly how to hurt him.

Always the sidekick. How dare she slap him in the face with one of the deep, secret parts of himself he’d shared with her after they’d made love. It wasn’t even a valid argument. Green Beret snipers always worked in pairs, with each able to perform both jobs of spotter and shooter with deadly, world-class accuracy. Just because John had been the spotter more times than not didn’t mean he was any less skilled than Rory. And she couldn’t be talking about their stint on ICE’s black ops team. A team could only have one leader, and that hadn’t been Alicia, either, so he wasn’t sure how she got off separating her experience in black ops with his.

And there he went, arguing the point as if he was trying to convince himself. He smacked his forehead, royally pissed at his stupid, middle-child insecurities rearing their ugly heads. While the lingering, unjustified sensation of being less than compared to the rest of the team had taken a turn for the justified after the entire crew assumed the worst of him on the turn of a dime, exile had forced him to rely only on himself. He was stronger, faster and more lethal than he ever had been in the group or as Rory’s sniper partner.

He pushed the throttle to the max, careening into the open ocean until St. Thomas was nothing but a shadow behind him. St. Croix was forty miles south, not too much of a stretch on the Caribbean’s relatively calm waters. This was a well-traveled boat route for ferries and locals, and despite it being hurricane season with one such predicted storm a day or two away, he spotted cruise ships, luxury yachts and even the occasional water skiers and kayakers.

After thirty minutes of travel, he no longer needed binoculars to keep tabs on Rory’s location. In another twenty minutes, the nose of John’s boat raced alongside the back of his, and in no time flat, they were careening neck and neck toward the green hills rising on St. Croix in the distance.

Time to step up his efforts. Bracing for impact, he slammed the side of his boat into Rory’s. The blow knocked Rory’s boat off course, but didn’t slow him down. John had to crank the wheel to stay even with him. He couldn’t see how it was possible to damage Rory’s boat enough to stop it without doing the same to his. He needed a new strategy.

When they were neck and neck again, John climbed onto the captain’s chair. With a hand on the windshield for balance, he crouched with one foot on the chair and the other on the rail. He maneuvered the boat so close to Rory’s that the hulls knocked, then he pushed off, throwing himself over the edge.

Chapter 3

While John was airborne, Rory noticed what he was doing and jerked the wheel left. John’s hands closed over the metal bar atop the rail, but he didn’t make it on board. His body slammed against the side of the hull and the pull of the water on his legs nearly sucked him under, the boat was moving so fast.

His hands slipped on the wet metal. With the wake and the water pressure, he slid along the rail to the rear corner of the boat.

The next thing he knew, Rory was over him, stomping on his right hand with his bare foot as the boat sped on. John tried to swing his leg up to catch on the bottom rung of the ladder, but Rory’s assault was too much. John lost his grip with his right hand and swung out, perilously close to the nearest of the two motors.

With a shaky, smarting right hand, John moved his grip to a lower rung on the ladder so Rory couldn’t stomp on him anymore, then reached for his gun. The trouble was, Rory had started prying off the ladder with a metal gaffe. John barely had time to grab the frayed end of the parasailing rope dangling off the back before the ladder separated from the boat and flew backward. Blinking sea spray from his eyes, John wrapped the rope around his wrist and tried to line up a nonfatal shot of Rory with his gun while Rory grabbed the fillet knife and sawed at the rope.

A loud bleat shocked them both. Rory whipped his head around to see a large luxury liner bearing down on them, still far enough away for Rory to change course. He lunged for the wheel and John seized his chance to climb aboard. Replacing his gun in its holster, he rallied his grip and core strength to hoist himself hand over hand until, with a growl of effort, he fell to the floor of the boat. Rory cranked the wheel right, out of the yacht’s trajectory, and set the course toward St. Croix once more.

John wiped the back of his hand across his face, as if it wasn’t as soaked through as the rest of him. “Rory, you bastard. Stop the boat.”

Rory turned and faced him, but he left the boat racing over the water at an impossible speed. “Not a chance. What the hell are you doing in the islands?”

He bore an angry flesh wound on his thigh where John had grazed him with a bullet, but it had clotted and he didn’t seem any worse for wear.

John, on the other hand, felt as if he’d been locked in a washing machine during the spin cycle. He rolled his shoulders and flexed his hand. “I had it on good authority that Alicia was going to kill you.”

Rory let out a wheezy laugh. “And you thought you’d beat her to it? Nah, I bet you two are working together, am I right? You always were her lovesick whipping boy.”

Okay, wow. Rory knew about John and Alicia’s affair. That changed things. Intimate relationships between members of an ops team weren’t exactly endorsed by ICE or their team leader, and he and Alicia had worked hard to be discreet. But somehow Rory had figured it out, which meant that John needed to rethink what Rory’s motives were for shooting Alicia and broadcasting for all the world that John was his accomplice. Was it to twist the proverbial knife he’d stabbed John with? Why else would Rory shoot John’s lover? Even after all this time, it didn’t make any sense.

Looking into the face of the man John had once considered his brother, John felt his blood start to boil. Whatever Rory’s motivation, he’d tried to kill Alicia. Whatever muck he’d made of John’s life, he tried to kill the woman John loved. Another flex of his right hand told him all he needed to know—none of his bones were broken and he was in top shape to brawl.

He flew at Rory and landed a satisfying blow to his gut with a left hook chaser that knocked Rory into the steering wheel. Rory pushed off with a fist meant for John’s cheek, but the boat zigged right.

John gave Rory a shove, sending him stumbling toward the rear of the boat. “You don’t get to talk about Alicia like that. You don’t deserve—” He swallowed back his next words. Rory might know they were lovers, but no way would John give him even an inkling of how very much he’d cared about her.

Rory bounced back swinging, this time catching John with a blow to the chin. He absorbed the pain and grabbed Rory’s neck, yanking his torso down to John’s waiting knee. Damn, it felt cathartic, this fight. Letting Rory experience a fraction of the pain Alicia must have felt at Rory’s hand.

John tried to back up a step, but Rory locked his arms around his middle and pedaled forward, pushing John to the steering console. His midback hit hard against the rim of the console, knocking the wind out of him. Any moment, U.S. authorities were going to descend on them. It was inevitable. Rory was a violent offender and a traitor. They knew he’d escaped, and John, Alicia and Rory had made enough of a commotion on St. Thomas that officials were going to pick up their trail in no time flat.

He needed to get Rory subdued and take control of the boat, stat. But Rory had a whole lot of fight left in him. He let fly with a fast hook, but John blocked with his elbow and sent his fist into Rory’s wounded thigh. The blare of a warning horn sounded from off the bow and John played the sucker by looking. A massive barge snaked by their boat with only feet to spare. While John was distracted, Rory caught him with an uppercut that made contact with John’s jaw. He staggered back and wasn’t sure, for a split second, if only he was pitching sideways or if the whole boat was.

By the time he decided the boat was jumping a wake at a dangerous angle, he was toppling overboard. He flailed his arms as he careened toward the water, but didn’t come in contact with anything but air. He plunged into the water.

He came up spluttering and gasping for breath. The speedboat was moving fast toward St. Croix and overhead, a helicopter hovered. His first thought was that the navy or police had found him, but after blinking water from his eyes he took a closer look. It was a private chopper and Alicia was in the passenger seat. She leaned over the edge of the open passenger doorway, her hair waving wildly in the wind created by the rotors.

“You okay?” she called.

He had to admire her wit, hiring an aerial tour pilot for a private island hopping escort. That was a smart move.

“Yeah.” Sort of. The only damage was to his pride, and that wound stung like an SOB.

Alicia turned her body and looked back toward St. Thomas. In her hand, John glimpsed a flash of metal. Her gun. Which meant she hadn’t exactly hired the pilot to take her to St. Croix. She’d used force, digging herself even deeper into a criminal hole. Desperate times, desperate measures and all that jazz. The question was, why had she put herself in such a desperate position? It’d been a miracle that she’d survived the gunshot wound Rory had inflicted on her, so why was she squandering her second chance at life with vengeance? It didn’t add up.

“The navy’s coming,” she called.

Not unexpected, but he still needed to get away before U.S. authorities found him. They’d already accused him of being Rory’s accomplice after Rory’s initial arrest, but though one criminal’s claims alone hadn’t been enough proof of John’s guilt to charge him with a crime, finding him there and Rory gone might be the corroborating evidence the Feds had been waiting for to put John away for life.

He hated to ask for help, not from her. Anyone but Alicia. She already thought him as less of a man. The sidekick. Never the alpha. Damn it all to hell. “Throw down a rope.”

Her attention swung to Rory’s boat. Even from that distance, he could see it in her eyes, the disdain for John, her desperation to get to Rory. Unbelievable. She was going to leave him there in the middle of the ocean, tens of miles from shore or the nearest boat.

Anger at her and Rory and the entire rotten farce that had become his life made him snap. He smacked the water, shouting, “Don’t do it, Phoenix.”

Ignoring him, she nudged the pilot’s shoulder. He couldn’t hear her for the thunder of the rotors, but he watched her mouth the word go.

Just like that, she was gone.

The Caribbean Sea had never felt so vast. John tipped his chin up and looked at the clouds. His boat was miles away, the U.S. Navy was bound to catch up with him and try to pin him with orchestrating Rory’s escape, and he’d had no choice but to beg Alicia not to abandon him. Triple ouch.

Most of the time, he relished being the perpetual underdog. His whole life he’d been a scrapper, but he’d used it to his advantage. In warfare and black ops combat, it was rarely a bad thing to be underestimated by the enemy. But sometimes, clawing for a seat at the table sucked. Today, it sucked.

His only hope of getting through the next hour without becoming shark bait or getting arrested was to get the attention of one of the yachts or sea kayakers passing by. Treading water, he turned in a slow circle, assessing his options. The navy was maybe only five or ten minutes back. In the distance, a modest luxury yacht cruised his way, coming from St. Croix, blasting reggae music and with sunbathing, barely clothed women adorning its deck.