Recognition.Because I knew that voice well.
Michalo Machado.
I straightened slowly, lifting my chin beneath the sack.
“Untie her hands,” he said.
There was hesitation.
“She’s—”
“I said untie her.”
The rope loosened a second later, my wrists burning as blood rushed back into them.
The sack came off next.Light hit hard.I blinked, my vision adjusting slowly.
And there he was.Exactly as I remembered.
Polished.Controlled.The kind of man who belonged in a boardroom, not standing on a dock with a kidnapped woman in front of him.
I took him in.Then spat at his shoes.
He glanced down at it, then back up at me, unfazed.
“Charming.”
“What do you want?”I snapped.“Because this—in case you didn’t get the memo,” I gestured around us at the boat, the men, the situation “—is a spectacularly bad idea.”
A faint smile touched his mouth.“I’m aware of exactly what I’m doing.”
“Are you?”I shot back.“Because you’ve just stepped into territory you clearly don’t understand.”
“I didn’t step into anything,” he said smoothly.“I came by sea.”
My eyes narrowed.Of course he had.Skip the borders.Skip the checkpoints and the cameras trained on arrivals that mattered.Come by sea.Where there were no manifests and minimal scrutiny.No trail anyone could follow in time to matter.Just open water and blind spots wide enough to disappear into.
It was a cunning, calculated plan, just like he was.
And exactly the kind of move no one would expect from a man like him—because someone with his reach and money, his arrogance… would have taken a plane.
“And now,” he continued, gesturing toward the boat, “we’ll be leaving the same way.”
My pulse spiked.
“What?Where?”
“Malta,” he said easily.“From there, we’ll take a plane to Spain.”
My jaw tightened.He had really thought this through.
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“You are…and you will,” he informed me.
“You have no idea who you’ve messed with,” I whispered, incredulous.
“I wasn’t stupid enough to walk into your family’s territory blind,” he added.“I know exactly who I’m dealing with.”
