She’d nearly cried out when she’d heard him call her name.
And even though her heart still raced a mile a minute, she felt like she had her fear under control when she walked up behind him. Of course, seeing him standing so tall, his beautiful naked back dripping seawater but otherwise unmarred despite the wicked looking knife that could’ve done so much damage, probably went a long way in tamping down her terror.
The man he’d battled with stood in front of him. Or rather, was beingheldin front of him. Romeo had the guy’s arms wrenched up behind his back so high his shoulder blades poked painfully against the cotton of his T-shirt.
She couldn’t see the man’s face, partly because she didn’t have the right angle, but mostly because she got distracted by the behemoth face-planted in the sand. She could tell the overgrown guy was dead by his utter stillness.
By contrast, the skinny blond man standing next to him twitched like he’d stepped in an anthill. Of course, the fact that Doc was aiming at the dude’s balls might have something to do with his nerves.
“I, uh, brought your clothes,” Mia told Romeo, taking a step closer so he could see her out of his peripheral vision.
Two things happened then. The first was that Cami said, “Oh, come on, Mia. The only men in my life right now are Ben and Jerry and their amazing gift to the world known as Chunky Monkey, so this is a rare treat. Don’t ruin my fun.” The second was that Mia saw the profile of the man Romeo held captive.
Her kneecaps turned to immediate dust, and it was a wonder she didn’t crumble onto the sand. She knew her expression was a mixture of confusion and dismay when she whispered, “Carter?”
“You know him?” Doc asked at the same time Romeo said incredulously, “This is your cousin?”
She didn’t answer either of them. Instead she took a step back when Carter turned and his green eyes bored into hers.
Her mind raced with a million questions, but the biggest one was...why? Why is he here? Why is he looking at me with a hatred so hot it burns the very air around us?
She voiced her first question aloud, and he smiled. The expression looked sinister thanks to the blood staining his teeth.
“I would think that’s obvious.” He shook his head and let out a laugh that sounded hard and brittle.
Understanding dawned, and traitorous tears pricked behind her eyes. “It was you?Youbrought down the plane?Youtried to kill us?”
“For the record,” he said, “I was only afteryou. Everyone else was collateral damage.”
She stumbled back another step, shaking her head uncomprehendingly. Again, that one question rang inside her mind. “Why?” she demanded again. “I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you?” His upper lip curled, once again revealing his blood-stained teeth. “Or have you pretended to have the moral high ground for so long that you actually believe you belong up there?”
“Careful how you talk to her.” Romeo jerked Carter’s hands higher behind his back, forcing Carter up on tiptoe lest Romeo pop his shoulders out of joint.
“Carter, I seriously don’t understand what you—” That’s all she managed, because the twitchy guy let out a cry of desperation and lunged for the pistol lying next to the dead man.
Everything that came next happened in slow motion.
The blond man fumbled with the weapon at the same time Doc yelled, “Stop or I’ll shoot!” Carter wrenched out of Romeo’s startled grasp. Cami screamed bloody murder. And Mia found herself staring down the barrel of a big, black handgun as the blond dude tried swinging the gun around to aim at Doc.
If it’d had time, her heart would have jumped out of her throat. But all it managed was to skip a beat before two deafening—nearly simultaneous—boomscleaved the night in half.
She saw the flash at the end of the twitchy guy’s weapon and expected to feel the agony of a bullet tearing through her flesh a split second later. But instead, all she felt was horror when Romeo leapt in front of her.
He jerked when the round plowed into him, and then he hit the ground at her feet, groaning.
“No!” she heard someone scream. Dropping to her knees beside him, she realized that someone was her.
Grabbing his shoulder, she tried turning him over to see where he’d been hit, but stopped what she was doing when she heard Cami yell, “Quick! He’s getting away!”
From the corner of her eye, she saw Carter kicking up great clouds of sand as he raced for the beach.
“Damnit!Damnit!” Doc cursed, obviously wanting to give chase but knowing Romeo needed him.
He dropped to his knees beside Mia and helped her roll Romeo onto his back.
She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw him blink quickly, when she saw the large vein in his neck pulse thickly.
