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Agunshot awakened me.
A gunshot? I squeezed my eyes shut and counted all the reasons that wasn’t possible. Thor (his parents named him Mark, but he bore a startling resemblance to Chris Hemsworth) and I were snuggled in bed on a private island. The only other people around were Consuela (the long-haired Chihuahua who adopted me on a trip to Mexico) and the caretakers. And the sweet older couple didn’t seem the type to shoot guns at—I fumbled for my phone—four in the morning.
Four?
My poor, tired brain, which had endured days of guns and chases and death, must have conjured the gunshot.
Bang!
I levitated out of bed.
Thor was already halfway across the room and reaching for his pants. And his guns.
I pulled on a black t-shirt, jammed my feet into sneakers, and stumbled to the drawer where I’d stashed the Glock my father loaned me. The one I forgot (sorry, not sorry) to return.
Consuela, who possessed the heart of a lion, growled from deep in her chest. A sound she saved for people she didn’t like. And danger.
Thor cracked the door and peeked into the hallway. “Clear.”
Consuela and I followed him into the hall that led from the enormous master bedroom to the gigantic living room. The house—the whole island—was an over-the-top wedding gift from my new stepfather, Yurgi Prokhorov, to my mother, Chariss Carlton.
A low rumble came from Consuela’s tawny throat.
“Hush,” I told her.
I couldn’t see her little face in the dark, but I strongly suspected that she rolled her eyes at me.
The three of us crept toward the living room.
The house felt empty. But that didn’t stop a chilly tingle from settling between my shoulder blades.
Thor paused. Using the hallway wall as cover, he peeked into the living room.
Consuela darted past us.
She stopped near the couch and sniffed the air. Then her doggy lips pulled back from tiny but vicious teeth, and she snarled.
I tightened my grip on the Glock and wished we’d never come here.
We were supposed to be on vacation, and the use of a private island had sounded idyllic. Sun. Privacy. A beautiful home. And the two of us. Three, if you counted Consuela (and Consuela insisted upon being counted). It should have been perfect.
But Yurgi had asked us to stop in Athens and pick up a package from his friend, Kostas Dimitriou.
That hadn’t gone well. One might go so far as to say, it had gone car-chase-leading-to-a-smashed-Mercedes poorly.
Bemused and exhausted, we’d arrived on the island, just in time for a storm which washed six trafficked girls ashore.
Since then, between getting the girls to safety and dealing with the men who bought and sold them, we hadn’t had a moment’s peace.
And now, some new threat had crashed our vacation.
It was enough to make me long for home.
“Three o’clock,” Thor whispered.
The living room was dark. The patio was not. And the man in tactical gear was easy to spot as he skirted lounge chairs.
“Who sent them?”
Thor shrugged.
The possibilities were endless—Russians mobsters, Johnny Soo, a billionaire playboy with a dark side, or someone who wanted the mysterious package we’d picked up for Yurgi. And those were just the first three options.
“What do we do?” I pulled on Thor’s arms, tugging him deeper into the shadows.
The plaster near where he’d just stood exploded.
At the stairs that led to the lower level, Consuela barked.
I lifted the Glock, aimed at a dark shape on the steps, and pulled the trigger.
A series of thuds and “oofs,” followed.
“Did you hit him?”
My stomach clenched. It was possible the man had lost his footing and fallen down the stairs. It was also possible I’d just killed someone. “I’m not sure.”
“We need to move,” Thor whispered.
We crouched and dashed to the kitchen, where I hid behind the island and clutched the Glock with fingers chilled by adrenalin.
Thor opened a drawer, chose a knife, then took a position next to the doors to the patio. He scanned the outside. “I think we’re clear.”
Was going outside the smartest choice? “You’re sure?”
“They’re looking for us inside.” He made an excellent point.
We slipped outside, wrapped ourselves in darkness, and found cover in the bushes that lined the steep path down to the docks. In theory, we could descend, hop on a boat, and escape to open water. In theory. But there was no way we could leave the older couple who took care of the house with a hit squad.
“The caretakers?”
“Two shots, Poppy.” The grimness in Thor’s voice left no room for hope. He meant Melia and Oscar were dead, murdered by whoever had come for us.
I blinked back a wash of tears and put aside the guilt and anger (they would wait for me). “Why now?”
Thor had a long history with the secret agency that had recently recruited me. Before that, he was a Navy SEAL. Those years meant he had experience dealing with villains. “No idea.”
I huffed my frustration. “This is ridiculous. We’d have been safer in a border town in Mexico.”
“Juarez and Tijuana don’t have the same cachet as a private island in Greece.”
“Who cares about cachet? I don’t want to die.”
Consuela growled softy, and Thor and I fell silent.
Seconds later, a man carrying a body in a fireman’s hold passed our hiding place.
I held up two fingers and mouthed, “Is that it?” There could be twenty men in black tactical gear lurking on the island, but I was hoping for two. A nice, round, small number.
Thor answered with a frown. He wouldn’t risk our lives on a guess.
Instead, he gripped the kitchen knife (which had a wicked blade), motioned for me to stay put, and followed the man toward the dock.
Sneaking up on someone with a knife wasn’t exactly Thor’s style, but these men, whoever they were, had come to kill us.
Consuela and I waited in the dark. I held her on my lap and stroked her silky head (which calmed us both) and counted the passing seconds.
An eternity—less than two minutes—later, Thor returned.
“You killed him?”
Even in the darkness, I saw the grim line of his mouth and the tense set of his shoulders.
I squeezed his hand. “Now what?”
“We wait.”
I groaned. Waiting wasn’t my favorite thing. Nor was it Consuela’s.
She gave the idea ten seconds, then wriggled away from me and left us in the shrubs.
“Consuela,” I whisper-yelled. “Stay.”
She tilted her head as if she were actually considering obeying my command, then she took off into the night.
I exhaled. Audibly. T
his time, Thor squeezed my fingers. “She’ll be back.”
He was right. Of all my worries, Consuela’s well-being hardly registered. She did a bang-up job taking care of herself. “Did you see their boat?”
“Too dark.”
In the distance, a man yelped.
I tensed.
“She’ll be fine.” He said it like a promise. “She’s faster than a greased pig and smarter than most of the people I know.”
Seconds later, the rapid click of doggy nails on the concrete patio reached us. She ran, and the outdoor lighting around the pool meant the worried expression on her face was plain.
A man chased after her.
He lifted his gun.
I lifted mine.
He took aim. At. My. Dog.
I shot.
The man clutched his chest, stumbled into the pool, and floated. Face down.
Thor gripped my arm. “Time to move.”
I lowered the gun and swallowed a sob. I hated killing people. And my tally for the night stood at a possible two. “I had to shoot him.”
“I know.” Thor’s voice was gentle. “You saved Consuela.”
He pulled me to standing, and we ran for a stand of trees a hundred feet from the patio.
Consuela, who was unfazed by her brush with death, disappeared around the corner of the house.
I lowered myself to the rocky ground. “Do we have a plan?”
“Not to die.”
“Good plan. Is there more to it?”
“The wheels are turning.”
I let him think. I had plenty of thoughts to examine myself. First, and totally annoying, was that Mr. Brown was right. Mr. Brown was my boss at a super-secret agency tasked with keeping America and the world safe. His average build and looks hid a dazzling intelligence. And Mr. Brown believed I desperately needed training. He harped on that. Often. Second, there was no one I’d rather have with me at this moment than Thor. I trusted him. We fit. Third, I didn’t want to die. Period. But especially not before I found the person responsible for this.
“Got anything?” asked Thor. I
frowned. “I thought you were working on the plan.”
“It could be a joint effort.”
“We don’t know how many men are here, who sent them, or why.”
“All true,” he agreed.
“We’ve taken out three.”
“And?” He sounded as if he expected more from me.
“That’s it.”
“That’s it?” His voice was amused. “That’s an assessment, not a plan.”
“Waiting to hear your plan.”
“We hide till daylight and reassess.”
Spend the next few hours hiding in the bushes? That didn’t appeal to me. At all. “It gives the bad guys the opportunity to call for reinforcements.”
“We go on the offensive.”
“Hunt the hunters?”
“I guess you could call it that.”
“Three guns and a knife against who knows what?” They might have automatic rifles or night vision goggles. They undoubtedly had more ammunition. I didn’t like our chances. “Is there a third option?”
“We make a run for the boat and hope a gunman isn’t waiting to pick us off on our way to the dock.”
I pushed my hair out of my face. “No good options.” Why wasn’t there at least one?
“Nope.”
“We’ve seen worse.” Unfortunate, but true. Also true? A mystery man on a motorcycle wasn’t coming to save us. We were on our own. “What do we do?”
Before Thor could answer, Consuela rejoined us. She sat on her haunches and panted, and her little pink tongue lolled from the side of her mouth.
“How many more?” I asked her.
She grinned. Yip. None.
“Consuela says we got them all.”
It was too dark to see Thor’s face, but I was fairly certain his brows lifted.
“You want to trust our lives to a dog?” he asked.
“She’s saved us before.”
“Are you sure you’re interpreting her correctly?”
I pushed myself to standing.
“Poppy.” Thor grabbed my wrist. “This is crazy.”
I couldn’t see Consuela’s face any better than I could see Thor’s, but I was fairly certain she side-eyed him.
“What’s the worst thing that can happen?” I asked.
“Your dog can’t count, and you get yourself killed.”
Consuela growled.
Thor ran his fingers through his already messy hair.
“What if Melia and Oscar need help?”
He sighed as if he were one-hundred percent sure they were dead.
“Please?”
“Fine. We check on Melia and Oscar. We grab go bags, and we get off this island.”
“And go where?”
“Someplace no one will find us.”
That was just wishful thinking. Someone always found us. Yurgi, or Mr. Brown, or my father, or the paparazzi.
We tiptoed to the house with Consuela dancing around our ankles.
As she’d promised, the place was free of bad guys. We descended the stairs to Melia and Oscar’s apartment and found them. Dead. Each with a single gunshot wound to the head.
Guilt twisted my stomach into an elaborate knot. “I have to call Yurgi.”
“Let’s get off the island first.”
“The police—”
“The police could be corrupt. Let’s get to safety, then we’ll figure out our next steps. If it makes you feel better, I’ll call Mr. Brown.”
Reluctantly, I agreed.
We returned to the bedroom, and I threw clothes into a carry-on. Using the satellite phone, Thor called Mr. ...
