“Cy Kaufman.”
I blink. He knows me.
“Where the hell are we?” I grate out between swollen lips. My tongue feels too big and cumbersome, and my head is throbbing. I try to observe the man in front of me, but the light in here is dim, and it’s hard to see. He’s a good-sized guy, though not quite as big as I am. He carries a gun in hand, though from here I can’t tell what it is. It has weight, though. Loaded.
“Sir, we’re heading to George Town,” he says. “We’ve come to rescue you. It’s important you listen, sir,” he says, almost gently, as if he expected me to wake and be volatile. “We’re here to help.”
George Town. The closest Navy base to the Cayman Islands. Is that where we were, then?
“Rescue me?” I say. “Then why the fuck am I bound like this? Unfasten these cuffs.”
He looks to the cockpit, and the pilot shakes his head.
“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t do that, sir.”
“Why the fuck am I bound if you’ve come to rescue me? You’re lying.”
“We’re not, sir,” he says, so earnestly I almost believe him. He steps closer to me, so the light illuminates his face. His young, clean-shaven, with wide blue eyes that give him the appearance of a new recruit. He looks like he’s barely out of grade school. I try to see the guy in front, but I can’t get a good visual. He’s calling me sir as if he’s trying to show me respect, but he hasn’t addressed me the way someone below me in rank ought to. Not if they know who I am.
My suspicions are on full alert.
I don’t trust these two.
“Then tell me what the hell’s going on.” My temper rises. If I weren’t bound, I’d have this guy by his scrawny neck already.
“You were kidnapped, sir,” he says, his voice steady and certain. “It came to our attention that you and five of your comrades were taken hostage, drugged, and dropped on a remote island.”
“Who are you? It came to the attention of whom?”
He swallows hard, and he shakes a little. The damn douchebag’s nervous, like he’s going to wet his damn pants. Who is he afraid of? The person who sent him here? Who hired him?
Or is he afraid of me?
“The Navy, sir. They discovered six of their men had been taken prisoner and launched an immediate investigation. As soon as we discovered your location, emergency crews were dispatched to find you. But you were the only one we found alive.”
“That isn’t true,” I say through gritted teeth. The effort it’s taking to keep my temper in check makes my blood pressure rise. My hands clench into fists, and heat rises in my chest. “There was Harper.”
The man frowns, looking confused. “Who?”
How the hell can he not know who she is if he were watching me?
“The woman,” I tell him. “There was a woman.”
“Ohhh,” he says, as if he just remembered something. “Yes, sir. I thought you meant one of your comrades, sir.” He shakes his head sadly. “The reason we took only you is because she was in on the operation.”
What?
I freeze. I’m not sure if I’m breathing, or if my heart even beats. A chill comes over me at his words, but I’m still groggy and can’t quite process what he’s telling me.
“Say that again?” I ask. The tone of my voice must scare him because he takes an involuntary step back and swallows hard.
“We could not rescue her as well,” he says, his voice shaking a little. “She was in on the operation. She orchestrated this. She was the one who—”
“Fucking bullshit,” I fume, and right then, he’s goddamn lucky I’m cuffed, or I’d kill him with my bare hands. I’d beat him senseless before I sliced his goddamn throat.
The island affected me, more than I realized. I’d kill as soon as I’d beat him, and I wouldn’t look back.
I wouldn’t fucking look back.
I need to find Harper, and I will kill anyone or anything that comes in my way, and this motherfucker is my first goddamn target.
But I have to keep it together. If I don’t…
I take a deep breath to try to calm myself. I’m at a decided disadvantage up here, bound and drugged and unarmed. Christ.
“Cy, it will do no good to fight us,” the pilot says from the front of the helicopter. It’s hard to hear him over the noise of the aircraft, but I’m trying. “We’re on your side. We came to rescue you.”
“Bullshit,” I repeat. “You don’t fucking rescue me and leave my woman to the goddamn wolves. Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“No,” the man with the gun says levelly, holding my gaze. “But you could be.”
What?
It’s like some sick, twisted sci-fi movie or something, and I half expect eerie music to come filtering through the speakers. I breathe in deeply, trying to calm my temper. Even now, if I weren’t bound like this I’d beat these two to within an inch of their lives. I clench my hands into fists.