“Quadruple the pay, right?” Rory asked. “You said if things went haywire, then we’d get—”
Impatience skittered across Tony’s nerve endings. “Damnit, Rory!” he thundered. “When in all our years together have you ever known me to go back on my word? Besides, it’s your ass on the line as much as it is mine if the authorities get their hands on the bodies of your men.”
“Consider it done then,” Rory said. “Just know it’ll take some time. The place is a fort, so I can’t use standard tactics. I’ll have to put my men in the water and have them sneak onto the island, past the seawall, through the moat, and then inside the curtain wall.”
“Just hurry,” Tony snarled. “You don’t want the Coast Guard getting there before you.”
“According to the radio transmission, we should have some time,” Rory assured him. “The closest cutter is a few hours out.”
“Good. Great. Call me when it’s done.” And with that, he signed off and faced Gene.
“Wh-what the hell is goin’ on, Tony?” All the color had drained from Gene’s face. And by the time Tony filled Gene in on what had transpired on the island, Gene’s paleness had taken on a definite bluish tinge.
“So…” Gene said, only to stop and swallow and suck in a ragged breath. “We just…we just have to cut our losses, right?”
Oh!Tony wanted to reach up and strangle him.Cut our losses? Cut our losses! Are you nuts?
“Wrong,” he gritted. “We see it through.”
“See it through?” Gene asked incredulously. “How the hell do you plan to—”
“Itoldyou I prepared for every contingency.” Tony fisted his hands so tightly he knew he was ruining his latest manicure and leaving crescent moon cuts on his palms.
“You prepared for there to be two armed men on the island who—”
“Notthatprecisely,” Tony interrupted again. “But something,anything, like it. My guys are sending in a second team.”
Gene blinked and drew back as if Tony’s words had physical force behind them. “Asecondteam?”
Tony nodded. “A larger, better-armed team.”
“Better armed?” Gene spat the words as if they tasted rancid on his tongue. He grabbed the phone and thrust it at Tony’s face. “Call them back! Tell them it’s off! It’s too dangerous!”
Tony slid a glance to the man standing by the cabin door and subtly dipped his chin. The mercenary began a stealthy journey in their direction.
“It’s done, Gene,” Tony said, reaching nonchalantly for his highball glass. “The wheels are already in motion.”
“Well, apply the goddamned brakes!” Gene yelled, his voice echoing over the gently lapping waves. “You can’t be serious about sendin’ in more men. They could turn that island into a war zone!”
“If that’s what it takes to get the job done.” Tony took a sip of his drink, grimacing because the melting ice had watered it down.
“If that’s what it t-takes?” Gene sputtered, his face having gone from blue to fire-engine red. That vein in his forehead was pulsing again.
“Yes!” Tony yelled, having reached the end of his patience. His nerves were shot. His certainty of success had dropped from one hundred percent to something more like fifty-fifty. And Gene was such an idiot that he actually thought they could call it off. “Even if we can’t get Maddy and the girls, we have to retrieve those dead bodies. Don’t yougetthat? Don’t you understand? If the authorities get their hands on those bodies, they’ll lead back to Rory. Rory leads back to me. I lead back toyou. If we don’t finish this, we won’t just be looking at a failed business, we’ll be looking at an eight-by-ten!”
“I don’t care!” Gene shrieked. “Maddy’s on that island!”
“You may not care!” Tony screamed, pushing to his feet and forcing Gene to stumble back. “But I do! I’m not losing everything just because you don’t have the stomach to follow through when the going gets tough!”
“No!” Gene bellowed and lunged for him, hands curled into claws.
Rory’s man moved like a flash, tackling Gene to the deck before Gene could lay a finger on Tony.
“Get off me!” Gene howled, writhing ineffectually as the mercenary yanked Gene’s arms behind his back and secured them with the bright-orange zip tie he pulled from the pocket of his shorts.
“Take him down to one of the berths,” Tony said, looking at the Stetson that had flown off Gene’s head to land at his feet. With a curl of his lip, he kicked it off the back of the boat and watched the waves happily embrace it, tugging it along in the direction of their tidal pull. “Tie him to the bed and gag him.”
* * *
