She stood, shoved him toward the stern. “Go. I’ll be fine.”
“Riven, I’m not sure?—”
“You’re the one taking all the risks. Going where all the cartel assholes seem to be congregating. Just keep your damn promise and come back.”
He clenched his jaw, looked as if he might kiss her, or maybe hike her up on his shoulder, dive overboard, before drawing himself up. “Radio silence until we get there and clicks only — unless we’re compromised.” He glanced at his watch. “Let’s say ten minutes. We take these fuckers off the board and call in the cavalry.”
“Ten minutes.”
Patch tapped his watch, pinned her with a long, hard stare, then joined McGuire.
McGuire glanced back at her. “You stay safe, and for god’s sake, no hero moments.”
His voice seemed to echo around her as he nodded once, then melted into the darkness alongside Patch, vanishing as if they’d never been there. No tapping boots. No heavy breathing, just utter silence.
She swallowed against the punch of fear. The truth that it was always going to come down to McGuire shouldering the heavy load. That even if Patch had fought him on it, he still would have gone. She just hoped she hadn’t sent him up there to die.
Uncertainty weighed on her shoulders, that double pulse openly mocking her as she grabbed her knife, placed it on the ground. She checked her watch, each second counting down as if it had gotten stuck halfway along.
The silence echoed the empty feeling slowly building in her chest, and she wondered how she’d lasted all that time alone. Survived without someone like McGuire guarding her six.
Her watch hit the two-minute mark when her comms crackled, Patch’s voice coming through. “Riven, I found the second receiver but there’s a problem. The casing’s damaged. It compromised the wire. If I don’t physically hold it in place, it’ll separate.”
And the rest would detonate.
He didn’t say it. Didn’t have to.
“Roger.”
“You know what this means, right?”
He couldn’t help her if things went sideways.
She sighed. “No hero moments. Got it.”
The line went silent, again, McGuire’s absence gnawing at her resolve. If anything happened to him…
She pushed down the riotous feelings. She could worry about the fact she’d fallen in love with the guy later. When there weren’t armed cartel assholes walking the deck, threatening touncover her position with every passing minute. Like the guard coughing a few rows over, all the voices whispering in the fog.
She steadied herself, waited for McGuire’s call, when a shadow detached from the darkness, the large silhouette looming at the end of the row. She inhaled, looked up, hand instinctively reaching for her sidearm.
Martillotsked, knife held loosely at his side as he bared half his face to the gray light. “We meet again, Cinder, and it’s your lucky day. We’ve been ordered not to use guns around the explosives, just in case.” He twirled the blade in his hand, smiling down at her. “But I know what you’re thinking. You could still shoot me. Though, I can tell from here that gun’s not silenced, which means my men will hear the crack. The smack of my body hitting the ground. My voice as I call out your name. Do you have enough ammo to take them all down?”
She swallowed, fingers wrapped around the hilt, indecision weighing her down. He wasn’t wrong. Between the metal, the water — the report would bounce back at them. Sound infinitely louder, even if she timed it with a creak of the boat — a blast of the horn. But more importantly, she couldn’t risk drawing any attention to Patch. Not when he was a fixed target holding a live trigger. And with McGuire still searching for his receiver…
She needed to finishMartillowithout alerting the rest of the boat.
EitherMartilloread the moment she abandoned the thought, or he’d gotten tired of waiting because he lunged at her, knife sweeping the air in long driving arcs.
She jumped back, waited until he’d committed to striking before ducking low and left, sidestepping the next thrust, knocking him off-balance with a sharp kick to his knee.Martillostumbled past, collided with one of the pallets when he tried to turn and catch her on a backswing. She scrambled over to the rail, grabbed part of a rescue pole off a set of clamps, then held itacross her body, weight shifted onto the balls of her feet, muscles waiting to strike.
Martillochuckled. “Nothing and no one will help you this time,puta.”
He struck, pummeling her with short, stabbing blows. The blade glinting in the foggy light. She blocked his next attack, landed a couple hits to his ribs before he grabbed the pole, sent her flying across the floor.
She rolled, hit the corner of a stack of pallets square in the ribs —pain crushing her side. Black dots flickered across her vision, each breath blazing fire through her lungs.
Her comms crackled, McGuire’s voice whispering over. “Tug’s a nightmare, but I’m ready.”
