“Don’t let a good opportunity go to waste, right?” Riley said with a grin. “Up we go.”
Cade was up the gangway and on the yacht in seconds. Riley was two steps behind him, gun drawn and ready for action. Decker and Selena were on board a second later, reaching for their guns and scanning the deck for any more of the Snake King’s small army.
Selena didn’t have to look far. Two men turned a corner at the stern end of the deck, walking slowly in casual conversation until one looked up and saw them. They reached for the weapons but Riley was already running toward them. The tall Australian shoulder-barged one straight over the rail and into the sea and then turned and delivered a bone-crunching headbutt into the face of the other, collapsing his nose and sending him crashing to the deck in a spray of blood.
“Fuck, that hurt!” he called out, rubbing his forehead. “I forget how much that hurt!”
“Riley!” Selena cried out. She was standing at his side now, along with Cade and Decker. “Finish the job, please.”
“Sure thing, boss.”
The punch was a big, ugly shield of seasoned knuckles driven into the man’s temple and knocked him out, hard and cold. He slid down into the pool of blood formed by his smashed nose. Riley disarmed him and tossed the weapon out into the water where the other man was splashing around and calling out, trying to alert the others to the invasion.
They heard shouting on the deck above them and then a loud, ear-piercing siren. Decker thought it sounded like a standard high-bilge-water alarm, but now it was being used to alert the guards on board to their presence on the yacht. Chaos kicked-in like a rocket booster.
“We need to split up.” Decker said. “I’ll take Riley and go to the stern. We’ll try and find Atticus and Diaz. Cade, you take Selena and try and find the capstone.”
Cade gave a two-fingered salute, his fingers brushing against the rim of his straw hat. “Sir, yes sir!”
“Let’s move!” Decker said.
Selena watched the former marine lead Riley down the deck and disappear out of sight at the stern. Alone with Cade, she wasn't sure where to start looking for the Stormbringer.
“Where do you think the bastard is keeping it?” Cade said.
“I have no idea,” she said with a sigh. “It could be anywhere.”
“But inside is a good bet, right?
She nodded and followed Cade into a large seating area full of soft leather couches and potted palms. Then, a man with a long black ponytail burst into the room. He was already gripping a gun, and now he levelled it at them and prepared to fire. Selena knew what she had to do, and brought her gun up but it was too late. Cade fired first and shot him clean through the head. A sickening spray of blood and bone exploded in the air as the man tumbled down onto the coffee-colored carpet.
“Move on,” Cade said firmly.
She thought that might be a good idea, and gingerly stepped over the mess as she followed the tanned Floridian out of the room and into the corridor. They were alone, for now. Each raised their weapons and made their way down the narrow passageway. Halfway along, she heard more shooting and a man screaming. Was that Decker? It sounded like him. Her mind filled with images of him being hurt, or worse.
“Keep going,” Cade said. “It wasn't Mitch. Trust me.”
She prayed he was right and kept going. They heard movement behind them and turned to see a man entering the passageway by the same door they had just used. He was crouching down and examining the body of his associate on the floor of the lounge area. He didn’t look too happy. He brought his gun up and opened fire on them.
“Cover!” Cade yelled.
Caught in a savage fusillade of automatic gunfire, they each crashed through doors on either side of the corridor and rolled out of the line of fire.
33
Selena hit the carpet face first and skidded to a halt with a painful friction burn on her cheek. Not a good day. Where the hell was she? Looked like one of the yacht’s impressive staterooms. Another burst of gunfire and more screaming. She twisted her neck and looked up in time to see Cade Thurman leaping across the corridor and crashing down beside her in a hail of lead.
“Are you insane?” she cried out.
He brushed himself down and smiled at her. “My psychiatrist prefers the term mildly deranged.”
She laughed. “Yeah, crazy.”
They heard the gunman pounding along the corridor and sprinted for cover. Splitting up, Selena ran for a large grand piano and Cade dived behind a sumptuous double bed. The gunman burst into the doorway, gun in his hands, and opened fire again.
The automatic gunfire cut through the air like lightning as he swept the muzzle from side to side and obliterated the hardwood wall above Selena. When he swung the weapon down to where she had landed, she rolled further under the grand piano with only seconds to spare.
The bullets ripped into the Steinway, splintering the hard rock maple into matchwood, striking the music wires and ricocheting off the Sitka spruce soundboard. A peel of out-of-tune notes rang out in the mayhem.
“Mitch never said you could play the piano, Selena!”
“Such wit,” she mumbled under her breath.
From his position behind Danvers’s sumptuous double bed, he called out, “Huh?”
“Can we just concentrate on the armed psychopaths and leave the jokes for later when we’re in the bar, please Cade?”
He fired on the man, now in the doorway leading out to the foredeck. “When we’re in the bar? I love an optimist!”
“You sure know how to fill a lady with confidence, Cade Thurman.”
