Kidnapping me hadn’t been a whim to him. Katie and I had decided on our Europe trip at the last possible minute. We’d only bought the tickets two days ago. Alexei had learned about that somehow and not only had he trailed us to our hotel, his people had liberated my luggage when he’d approached me at the bar. Poor Katie had to be freaked out, assuming she’d made it back to the hotel by now and found my things gone.
It was the kind of planning I could respect. If it hadn’t been in service of kidnapping me, I would have to add it to the ever growing ‘Pro’ column I’d kept tally of in my head. No matter how long it grew, how interesting Alexei became, the single item on the other side written in jagged lines, angry red and circled thirteen times would always counter it. He’d kidnapped me. You couldn’t trust someone who would do that.
I sucked in a breath and shook my head. There was another item on the ‘Con’ list. Alexei wanted to hurt my father. You never betrayed your family. That was rule number one, no matter how you felt about them.
The walls of my, admittedly luxurious, prison cell shrunk around me. The slit of a window with its ever shrinking line of lights from the shore offered no help. I paced around the space and considered the flat screen on the wall but a TV show wouldn’t distract me, not now.
My eyes fell to the door. When Alexei opened it, I saw how thin it was, only an inch or so like the rest on his yacht. I wasn’t Wonder Woman or anything, but if I gave it my all, it’d probably open.
A futile gesture, I’d still be stuck at sea, but better than being locked up in a small cabin with only my thoughts. I pressed my hand against its surface. It didn’t budge an inch, no give at all. My shoulder came next. It thudded against the door, but even then, the only result came in a dull pain that throbbed down my arm.
I shook it out and wiggled my fingers as I glared at the door. My eyes dropped to the small square handle embedded at the edge. It took seeing the word “PULL” printed above it to remember the door opened inward.
At least no-one had been around to see that. I reached out with my recovered arm and tested the handle. The lock clicked and the door opened. I remained frozen for a long moment, staring out into the narrow hallway beyond and the door across from me.
A smile came to my face before I banished it. Just because Alexei hadn’t locked me in a cabin as if it were a prison cell didn’t make up for him kidnapping me in the first place. And I still couldn’t escape the yacht… or could I?
They had a dinghy, the small boat that had brought us here. The yachts I’d seen or been on with boats like that usually had them trailing on a line. I’d need to head to the back of the yacht.
The narrow hallway I found myself in after padding from my room looked the same coming and going. When Alexei had brought me down to this level, I’d been more interested in watching the muscles in his shoulders move as he walked in front of me than the direction we came.
Closing my eyes, I listened to the slight hum of the engine. It was loudest to the left, so I crept down that way. The door at the end of the hall had a circular window – now that was a porthole. The small deck we’d embarked onto was right outside.
Instead of being dragged behind the yacht, the small motorboat sat on the edge of the deck, a few feet over the water. The door opened for me without any trouble. I even followed the pull directions the first time.
The wind whipped my hair once I stepped through. Cool but not cold, the sea breeze still sent me shivering. My summer dress wasn’t exactly designed for a night on the Tyrrhenian sea, even in late June.
I’d been on boats and yachts before, but had never had the pleasure of piloting a motorboat. My summer camp canoeing experience wouldn’t help me here but how hard could it be? Once I discovered how to start the engine, I’d be able to figure out the rest, I was certain.
That was all well and good, but it was all for naught if I couldn’t get the boat into the water. No crane mechanism hung over the boat or anywhere I could see. I stepped closer to my grounded method of escape, eyes darting everywhere in search of how it was deployed.
Underneath, two padded stands held the boat in place against the slats of the deck. The water churned underneath, near black in the moonlight and shadows. The lines holding the boat would be easy enough to untie, but I still hadn’t found a way to lower the boat.
A click sounded behind me, muffled by the water and hum of the engine. Oleg, Alexei’s pet thug, stepped out of the doorway. His shoulders were so wide, he had to slip sideways to get through it. Even then, his body brushed the edge of the door.
“The boat lift doesn’t work when the engine is running unless you disengage the safety,” he said, his first words in my presence. Unlike Alexei, he spoke with a thick Russian accent in a baritone, “and we don’t have time to stop for a midnight cruise.”
Thugs menaced. My father employed several for just that purpose. I wouldn’t want to have been left alone with almost any of them. They never turned it off, most couldn’t, the others liked the reaction. Being feared gave a man power, some reveled in it.
Oleg’s flat expression with his dark, deep set eyes and chubby cheeks gave nothing away, but didn’t kindle any fear in me. It seemed Alexei had a refined thug, a more nuanced enforcer watching his back.
“Why don’t we have the time, is Alexei late for some important date?” I asked. The bad rhyme earned a giggle from myself but no reaction from the refined thug.
“I don’t keep Mr. Lebedev’s schedule, he does that himself,” the man replied.
His eyes twitched at the question, realizing he’d shared too much. His non-answer showed just how refined a thug he was. Smooth, but not perfect.
“Where is our next port of call?” I asked as if I’d been on a cruise and was talking with the porter instead of having been kidnapped, then discovered trying to escape and was now asking the question of my kidnapper’s pet thug.
“You’d have to ask the captain that, I don’t steer the ship or plot the course,” he replied.
He wouldn’t repeat his single slip-up. His answers proved that he had realized my game. I’d get no new admissions from him but maybe I could provoke him?
It was a dangerous idea. You didn’t poke a thug and with very good reason. They dispensed violence out of hand. If the man wanted, he could snap my bones like cracking a cheap popsicle in half.
Alexei wanted to seduce me. His whole plan had avoided violence so far. Sure, he’d threatened the possibility if I didn’t leave with him peacefully at the restaurant, but smart as he was, he knew roughing me up only made his goal that much harder. He also didn’t seem to be the type to hurt innocent women, at least without a reason.
If I could goad his thug into throwing a punch or getting grabby as he dragged me back into my cell, Alexei wouldn’t be happy with the man. At the very least, that could drive a wedge between my kidnapper and his thug. Depending on how far I wanted to take it, Oleg might end up sustaining the local fish population by the time the dust cleared. Were there sharks in the Mediterranean? Alexei the wannabe marine biologist probably knew.
