Be Careful What You Wish For

Chapter Ten

No one should be enjoying life as much as this, she thought in disgust. There was something vaguely obscene about how pleasant it had been over the past week. Much like her time at the villa, she found herself falling into a sensuous routine on board the boat. The only thing that made it less than perfect was the fact that Skip and Jose were still with them. She and Sean had a much better understanding of how to sail the boat, but Sean still didn’t want to get rid of the two men. She wished he would—they frightened her. She knew they still had a lot to learn, but surely there were better people out there to teach them.

They had gone ashore three times, and each time she and Sean stuck together. At first she’d had some dim idea of escape, but it was pretty clear that wouldn’t happen any time soon. For one thing, she didn’t have any money. For another, she was terrified of Skip. Her earlier fantasies of killing the crew and taking over the boat had been ludicrous. She didn’t want to kill anyone, even if she could.

She knew Sean would be able to find her if she ran, but that didn’t scare her. He wouldn’t hurt her. If Skip found her, though, she’d be finished. He’d gut her without thinking, using that long, wickedly sharp knife he kept in his belt. Where the hell had Valzar found a man like that?

Every time he looked at her, he had a smug, smirking look in his eyes. As if he knew all about her, and wasn’t particularly impressed. She supposed part of it was in her head—after all, it was hard to feel friendly toward a man who’d spied on you during sex. But she wasn’t imagining the entire thing. He watched her closely, and his looks weren’t friendly. She felt sorry for Jose. Skip wasn’t the kind of man she’d wish on anyone, and couldn’t help but think that sharing his bed wasn’t the kindest of fates. Still, the young man didn’t seem to be unhappy. He did all that Skip asked of him cheerfully, and each night they disappeared to their tiny cabin near the engine compartment without comment.

Despite this, though, things were good. Skip wouldn’t be around forever.

She’d made a decision, too. She wasn’t going to leave Sean. She didn’t like everything that he did, but she’d realized something a while back. She wanted to be with him. Regardless of “Stockholm Syndrome,” she knew her feelings for him were real. She hadn’t left anything behind that was so important to her. Living with Sean was good, and she wanted it to continue.

Once she made that decision things got a little easier.

The days blended into each other, and she spent her mornings lazing on the deck, occasionally dipping in for a swim when they weren’t under sail. Much of the time they spent anchored off small islands, many of them almost untouched by the tourist trade. She had always been a strong swimmer, and practicing in the warm Caribbean waters only made her better. So when, on the spur of the moment one evening, he asked her to swim to shore with him, she didn’t think twice. She simply pulled off her sarong revealing the two-piece swimsuit underneath and dove in.

They played as they swam, him catching up to her and ducking her under, and her pulling him down with her. He was stronger, of course, but in the water he was still vulnerable. They raced the last hundred yards to the beach, wading up out of the water laughing and gasping for air. She ran to a coconut tree beyond the water line and tagged it.

“I win!” she called, although touching the tree hadn’t been part of the original race. In response he growled, running toward her with a look of mock menace. She squealed, and ran down the beach. He followed, catching her up in his arms within a few yards and tossing her around as if she weighed nothing.

She clutched his neck, steadying herself, and before long they were both in the sand, laughing and giggling like children.

Sean’s face stilled, and he leaned over and kissed her suddenly. It was a quick kiss, hard and full of intent. Humor faded, and he looked down into her eyes, pinning her beneath him with his body.

“I love you,” he said suddenly. “I don’t know how I was lucky enough to find you, but I love you.”

“Thank you,” she said softly, not quite ready to say the words back to him. “I wish I’d found you earlier.”

“Me too,” he said. “Although you’d have had a hard time visiting me. They didn’t let anyone in to see me most of the time, let alone women.”

She stilled, and a shadow crossed her face. She didn’t like being reminded of his past, of who he was.

She didn’t like thinking of him in Edgar’s office and the pool of blood flowing across the floor.

“Will you tell me why you did it?”

“Did what?” he asked.

“Why you had Edgar killed,” she said softly.

“Are you sure you want to know?”

She thought of saying no for a moment. It was easier to pretend he hadn’t planned a man’s death, easier to imagine this was just some wonderful dream free of context and consequences. But it wasn’t. If she wanted to be with this man and to truly love him, she needed to understand what he had done.

“I want to know,” she said softly. “If you don’t tell me, I won’t ever understand and maybe there’s a part of me that won’t trust you.”

“What if my explanation makes you trust me less?”

“I don’t know,” she said softly, trying to be as honest as possible. “I guess we’ll take that as it comes.

What I do know is that if we aren’t honest with each other, we don’t have a chance.”

He nodded his head slowly, and then rolled off her to lie in the sand next to her. She snuggled into his side as he cradled her with his arm.

“Well, I started out in the Special Forces,” he said slowly. “I did that for several years, and then some friends of mine and I decided to go freelance.”

“Freelance?” she asked, unsure what he meant.

“We started hiring ourselves out to the highest bidder,” he said. “At first we thought we’d be fighting.

You know, fearless mercenaries and all that. And we did do some fighting. But what we mostly ended up doing was training other people how to fight.”

“I see,” she said.

“No, I doubt that you do,” he said with a bitter laugh. “But I’ll keep telling you anyway. I met Valzar around this time, by the way. He and his family go way back, descended from Conquistadores. They’ve owned and sold people for generations, controlling entire countries. They’re always working on some new deal, some new angle. Half the things that happen down here they have a finger in, legitimate and illegitimate.”

“He’s not a very nice man,” she said softly.

“No, he isn’t,” Sean replied with a harsh laugh. “Although he’s a damn good man to have at your back. I hooked up with Valzar because I wanted to get into a new field, hostage rescue, and he had the money. I was tired of teaching peasants how to fight. I knew that whatever I taught them probably wouldn’t save their lives, not as long as the guerrillas and the government refused to even consider peace. It’s always the peasants who get caught in the middle of these wars. With Valzar’s backing, I started contracting with several large insurance companies who offer kidnapping insurance to foreign businessmen.”

“I’ve never heard of insurance like that,” she said. “It sounds like a different world.”

“That world is all around us,” he said softly. “It’s just that most people don’t have the background to notice it. That’s the difference between people like me and people like you. I notice things.”

She didn’t say anything, knowing he was probably right. She hadn’t had a clue something was wrong at Edgar’s until she’d walked out of the bathroom. She’d be willing to bet Sean wouldn’t have been fooled like that.

“So, Valzar and I started our little business, contracting with these companies and bringing in a nice revenue stream. Most of the time we’d just pocket the profits, and even the occasional hostage situation wasn’t too bad. Ninety percent of the time we’d manage to negotiate a ransom for our hostages and get them out safe.”

“What about the rest of the time?” she asked.

“We’d go in after them,” he said, his voice going lower. “Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. It’s a messy business.”

She nodded her head, as if she knew what he was talking about.

“So, how did you end up in prison?”

“I ended up in prison because I murdered a man in the United States where I could get caught.”

She waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t.

“Why did you kill him?” she asked finally.

“Does it really matter?”

“Yes, it matters,” she said.

“I murdered him because he got six of my men killed, not to mention two hostages,” he said, his face emotionless. “Their lives were worth 25,000 to him. I learned later that he blew all of it in Vegas the next weekend. That’s why I killed him.”

She stayed silent for a moment, and then shook her head. “I don’t understand,” she said softly. “Will you tell me the whole story?”

“Are you sure you want to hear it?”

“Yes,” she said softly. “I think if I don’t, I’ll always question what happened.”

“You can’t just trust me?” he asked. She looked at him sadly, and then shook her head.

“No, I don’t think that I can,” she replied. “I wish I could, but you’ve never given me the chance to make any decisions for myself. If you won’t trust me, how can I ever trust you?”

He rolled to his back, and put both hands behind his head. She did the same, looking up at the stars and marveling at how bright they seemed. She’d never seen anything quite like it. If only life wasn’t so complicated, she could spend her time with him simply enjoying the life they were leading. But she couldn’t just do that, she needed to learn what was really going on, and he was the only one who could tell her. As much as she wanted to turn her brain off, it wasn’t happening. She had to know.

“Well, I told you I did contracting with insurance firms,” he said. “I was negotiating a hostage release in Sinaloa, up in the mountains. There were two businessmen who’d been snatched off the street in Mazatlan by drug dealers, and I suspect there was more going on between them than a simple ransom demand. Anyway, it was complicated by the fact that one of them had ties to the CIA.”

He paused took a breath, and she drank that in. What a strange world he lived in. Who had ties to the CIA in real life? It sounded like a movie…

“When they heard about the situation, they sent an advisor down to work with me. Someone in his office had a big mouth, because they told a co-worker, who just happened to be a drinking buddy of Edgar’s, about the situation.

“Now I suppose that any human being with a scrap of decency would have pity on hostages, but not this guy. He decided that information on our operation might be worth something to someone. Edgar found him a buyer. We’d made arrangements for the exchange at a little airfield outside El Quelite. When we arrived the kidnappers were waiting. We were poised to do the exchange, and then they struck.”

“Who?” she asked, breathless.

“A rival cartel,” he said softly. “Edgar and his pal sold us out to them. They swooped in, killed everyone in sight and took the money. Only five of us got out alive.”

She stayed quiet, unsure of how to respond.

“When I recovered from my wounds, I started investigating what happened,” he said, his voice growing hard. “I found out about Edgar from one of the drug dealers, and when I came up to the States, I found him and his friend. I watched those bastards for weeks, waiting for just the right moment. I waited until they went out drinking one night and ambushed them in the parking lot. I killed the CIA leak first, but I underestimated Edgar—he pulled a gun on me and shot me. I woke up handcuffed to a hospital bed.”

“What did he tell the police?” she asked softly.

“He said he thought it was a random act of violence, that I’d been trying to mug them,” Sean said softly.

“I didn’t bother contradicting him. I figured that I’d do better pretending it was a crime of opportunity rather than a hit. They’re a little too excited about the death penalty in Texas to take chances. They offered me a plea bargain and I took it.”

“And Edgar just got away with it?” she asked softly.

“Until I got back to him,” Sean said with dark satisfaction. “He killed my men, Sandra. He deserved to die.”

“Why did you get caught in the first place?” she asked softly. “I’ve seen you in action. I wouldn’t have thought a man like Edgar could get the drop on you.”

“Honestly?” he said, his voice still toneless. “I lost my cool. I’d intended to follow them for a while, learn their habits and make it a clean hit. Instead I lost my temper. When I saw them drinking and laughing together I couldn’t stand it. I had to get them. And I had to do it right then.”

“I guess I can understand that,” she said softly. “The world probably is better off without him. Did you ever consider going to the police with the entire story? I mean, before you decided to kill them yourself.”

He gave a quick bark of laughter.

“No, that was never an option,” he said softly. “Not with the CIA involved. They don’t like any kind of publicity, and they’ll do whatever it takes to keep information on their little mistakes from coming out.

They preferred to let me handle things, and when I finally found a way out of prison, they were more than happy to assist in my disappearance. They owed me, you see.”

“Yes, I can see that,” she said. She rolled over toward him, running one finger along the bridge of his nose. In the moonlight he was little more than a stark profile beside her, cool and almost untouchable.

She let her finger trail down the smooth curve of his throat, then trace along his chest until she reached his stomach. She laid her hand flat, watching his chest rise and fall, and wondered how she had ever met up with this strange and terrifying man. She knew then, right there in the moonlight, that he was worthy of her love. She was glad Edgar was dead. He’d deserved what Sean had done, no questions asked. She just wished he’d been able to get to him sooner, that he hadn’t wasted five years of his life in jail.

“I love you,” she said suddenly, realizing it was true. He froze, a profound stillness coming over him. Even his breathing seemed to stop, and then his hand came up over hers and clenched it tight.

He started to reply, but was cut off abruptly as a booming explosion tore through the night.

He rolled over her suddenly, one hand covering her mouth. He pushed her head down into the sand, his body covering and protecting hers. A second explosion ripped through the darkness, and then silence drifted back over them.

“I’m going to let you look up,” he whispered in her ear. “Don’t say anything and don’t move, or they might find us.”

She nodded her head, and he shifted his weight. She rolled over and looked out across the water. A mass of fire lit up the night where their boat had been moored.

“Skip and Jose were on there,” she whispered numbly. “We have to get help!”

“They’re dead,” Sean said softly. “There’s no way they could have survived that. We’re supposed to be dead, too.”

She looked at him blankly.

“Why else would someone blow up the boat?” he asked. “They wanted to kill us, Sandra. The good news is that they probably think they succeeded. We just have to keep it that way.”