Five Minutes Earlier:

  Luis forced himself not to run.

  She saw me. She saw me. The thought kept repeating in his mind over and over like a stuck record on his cousin’s old vinyl-player. Alejandra Albright had, in the space of those few seconds, seen him.

  He reached the cabin he shared with Tomas and managed to not wrench the door open with muscles tensed up and vibrating.

  How much time would he have? The Albright puta was a soldier, no? Would she have weapons on board? Of course she would. Soldiers always had weapons nearby, even in peacetime.

  “Esta clavo,” he hissed to himself. This was a problem. He shut the door behind him too quickly and too loudly. How much time would he have? Not much. He crossed to the footlocker in front of the small bunk that occupied a third of the cabin’s available space.

  “Luis?” His cousin Tomas sat up from where he had been laying down in his bunk. “Is everything alright?”

  “Si cousin,” Luis said, lying through his teeth as he flung open the lid of his footlocker. Go back to sleep you peasant. I don’t need you hovering over me like a hen.

  “You are lying,” his cousin said without rancor. Luis glanced over his shoulder to see the other man watching him with passive interest. “What has happened?”

  “I merely ran into the Senora outside,” Luis said, trying to sound casual. “I invited her for a drink, and she declined. That is all.”

  It was a shame, he thought idly. The Albright puta was a fine woman. Strong, powerful, and oh so serious. He loved women like that. They were such a handful once you got them in the proper frame of mind.

  Such a shame.

  “You did not try to make a pass at Senora Albright did you?” Tomas asked, coming fully awake now. “Luis you fool, I told you she is not that kind of woman. This is a good job I got for you, you should not try to step over boundaries like you used to!”

  “Oh quit your preaching,” Luis said, rolling his eyes and rooting around his footlocker among the dirty clothes and other small personal effects he’d brought on board as camouflage. “You sound like an old woman sometimes. It was a harmless invitation.”

  “The Albrights are good people, Luis. You must comport yourself better than this! Senor Albright will not hesitate to put you ashore if you step out of line, and then all that work I did to get you this job would be wasted!”

  Luis lifted his eyes and stared at Tomas. “Cousin,” he said as though talking to a child. “Do you think I care about this job? Do not be a fool Tomas. They treat you as a peasant, they pay you with chicken feed, and you lap it up like the grateful little dog you have always been. I am here for something more.”

  “What are you saying?” Luis heard the anger in his cousin’s voice now, but it did not matter. He had played the lacky to these foolish Americans for barely two days, and already he had had enough. His hands found the two objects in his footlocker they were seeking, and he pulled one of them out with a flourish.

  “I am saying, cousin,” Luis said triumphantly, “that we are about to make more money off of these Americanos than you have ever seen in your life.”

  Tomas’s eyes went wide when they saw the transmitter in his hand.

  “Luis,” the smaller man said in the way of a man trying to talk another man down off of a ledge. “Cousin, what are you doing with that? Have you lost your wits?”

  “These Americanos are rich, Tomas,” Luis said with a shark’s grin. “Think how much money we could receive from the capture and ransom of such a wealthy family. Father, mother, and children? They will pay handsomely to escape captivity, would they not?”

  Tomas stared at him, mouth hanging open like a fish, eyes unbelieving. Luis snorted and turned to his transmitter, thumbing the button and speaking into the mic.

  “We are ready,” he said in his native spanish. The cartel man on the other side responded in the affirmative, and Luis clicked the transmitter off again.

  “”You cannot be serious,” Tomas said, his voice sounding dull with shock. “Luis, I value this family. They are my employers and my friends. You cannot possibly be thinking–”

  “A boat from Acapulco is coming to meet us,” Luis said, turning back to his cousin. “The sicarios aboard will board this ship, and together we shall take captive this family who you serve as errand boy and menial servant, and when we return to Guerrero, we shall make a ransom of them and collect a handsome bounty.” He tossed the transmitter onto his bed and walked forward, placing his hand companionably on his cousin’s shoulder. “You will see, Tomas. This is a good thing. And soon we shall be wealthy beyond your dreams.”

  He turned back to his trunk and reached in for the gun he’d packed in with a bunch of toiletries. He would need it to deal with the Albright woman. She would not go quietly. Even the gun might not be enough. Better to wait for the sicarios to board, with their machine guns and their machetes, before joining in–

  “I will not let you do this!”

  Luis spun around to see his cousin coming at him like a bull. The other man grabbed his arms and shook him hard, years of working the docks had made Tomas strong as an ox and just as thick-headed it seemed.

  “Senor Albright! Senora Albright!” Tomas’ voice rose to a yell, and Luis learned that his cousin had the lungs of an ox as well. The damn fool nearly blasted his eardrums together with how loud he yelled.

  “Shut up you fool!” Luis twisted out of his cousin’s grip and staggered as the ship took another one of those hard rolls.

  “No! I will not allow this! These are good people, and I will not let you harm them in this way! Senor! Senora! There is—“

  Luis struck Tomas across the face with the barrel of the pistol. His cousin staggered, then roared in anger and came at him again. A fist pounded into the side of Luis’s face, sending him spinning around. Another one hammered into his side, bruising a kidney for sure and sending flashes of pain up his side.

  He turned back and struck Tomas again with the barrel of the gun, this time punching it into his cousin’s belly. Tomas gasped and bent double, then grabbed for the gun with both his hands. Luis cursed him and yanked backwards, trying to free the weapon. But Tomas would not let go.

  For a short eternity they struggled with each other, like two dancers in a Flamenco at the crux of the music. Then…

  BANG.

  Tomas’ grip on the gun fell away and the stench of burnt flesh and gunpowder and blood filled the cabin. Luis stumbled back from the sudden lack of resistance, eyes glued to his cousin in horror as the other man seemed to collapse in on himself. Tomas looked up at him, eyes wide in shock.

  “Luis?” His voice was thready and full of breath. A red stain was spreading across his shirt in the middle, and Luis looked down to see blood dripping onto the cabin floor.

  Then his cousin pitched forward, hitting the floor face-first and laying unmoving.

  Luis stared at the body, for a second not comprehending. Then he felt something stiffen inside him, and his face twisted into a sneer.

  Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

  “Soft-hearted fool,” he spat, straightening and clenching his fingers around the pistol grip. “What am I to tell Aunt Mariana now?” He swore under his breath and turned for the door. Others would have heard the shot. He would have to move fast. Take the Albright woman hostage first, taking the most dangerous piece off the board and forcing the cooperation of the others. If he moved quickly enough, maybe he could have them all presented for the sicarios even before they boarded. Surely the Jefe would see how valuable he was then. Perhaps even increasing his share.

  As for Tomas… He would just have to say that his cousin had been caught in the crossfire, perhaps. Or better yet, had simply been lost in the storm that was brewing outside. Yes, he decided as he flung the door open. That was the best–

  He stepped out of the cabin and immediately jerked himself back inside without quite knowing why. At least until the twin gunshots rang out an eyeblink later and the mahogany paneling right where his face had been exploded into splinters as it caught the bullets intended for him.

  His mind played back the last half-second frame by frame. The Albright puta was out there. She had a gun in her hand, her small frame locked into a shooter’s pose, eyes wide open like a snake’s, staring right at him as he emerged from his room. Had he taken any time at all before retreating back into the cabin, he would have been as dead as his cousin right now.

  “One chance, cabron,” the woman’s frozen-steel voice rang down the hallway. “Throw out your gun and come out with your hands up, or you die.”

  Against all reason, Luis felt a feral grin stretch across his face. So. It seemed he would have to work for his victory.

  Such a shame.

  * * *

  Matt stared at the weather instruments on the bridge and tried to believe what they were showing him.

  It couldn't be possible. He'd gone over everything before they'd even left Long Beach. The forecasts had been clear for days out. What he was seeing shouldn't be there. Storms didn’t manifest this quickly outside of the freakiest of freak weather patterns, and nothing in the forecasts had indicated anything close to that being possible.

  But, of course, that didn't negate the fact that there it was. A massive storm front rolling in from the south, aimed directly at the area he and his family were passing through and moving quickly.

  That’s not possible, his brain said again. But it was. And even as that realization hit, he could feel his Foreman’s mind taking over as it always did in an unexpected crisis. The panicky bits of his mind quieted down as he examined his displays, then glanced out the window at the darkening sky, already being lit up periodically with flashes of lightning and accompanying thunder.

  Okay.

  First things first. Confirmation. He flipped on his marine radio and tuned it to the appropriate station, and sure enough in came the middle of an automated Notice To Sailors message on repeat. Freak storm in the Pacific, heading inland at hurricane speeds. A small craft advisory was out, and even larger merchant traffic was advised to divert course if possible.

  Right. Confirmation attained. Second: examine options. Heading for Hawaii was right out. They’d have to plow through hours or even days of the storm, and even if they got through that there was no way the yacht would get through without damage. The plan he’d had in mind to turn back for Long Beach wasn’t looking much better; the storm would catch them before they made it to port, and while it wouldn’t be as bad as going through all of it it would still toss them around pretty good.

  Head for Mexico? There were plenty of ports along the coast that could take the Dilligaf in, and they’d be heading perpendicular to the storm, so they’d avoid the worst of it. It would take an extra day, and they’d be passing close to the commercial shipping lanes, but that was probably the best course for now.

  “Right.” Matt nodded to himself and made the decision. He turned to the autopilot and keyed in the new course correction, and felt the rolling under his feet change slightly as the yacht made its turn to the new heading. He’d better make sure everyone aboard had their passport. The Mexican authorities were real sticklers about that kind of thing–

  The door to the pilot’s cabin slammed open, and Matt jerked around in surprise just as Isabel came storming in and practically skidded to a stop, transferring the scowl from whatever she had been glaring at in her mind’s eye onto Matt.

  “Mom said to give you this,” she said, thrusting one of Matt’s portable radios out at him like it was a dead fish and she wanted to get it away from her as fast as possible. “She was all weird about it. I don’t know why. She said to change to channel 3.”

  Matt raised an eyebrow but accepted the radio with a nod of thanks. He did not turn it on right away, instead taking a moment to look at his eldest daughter. She stood on the rocking floor like she couldn’t decide whether she was heading for a fight or running away from one. Her shoulders were tight and her arms were crossed over her chest, and her glare spent its time drifting between him and the gathering storm outside.

  “Care to have a seat?” he asked in what he hoped was a nonchalant way, gesturing to one of the fold-down chairs attached to the tower’s wall. “I need to make some course corrections real fast.”

  For a second she looked like she wouldn’t. Then Bel huffed out a breath and plopped down onto the chair, shifting her glare exclusively to the storm now.

  “What’s the deal with this anyway? I thought it was supposed to be clear weather all the way to Hawaii.”

  Matt shrugged as he turned back to his instrument panel. “Sometimes nature decides it wants to try something new. We should be okay, we’ll just adjust course to skirt around the edge of it. It’ll add maybe another day or two to the trip, is all.” He glanced up at the radar screen and watched the rain bands approaching. The edge of the storm would hit them soon.

  “Want to talk about it?” he asked after a second of carefully not looking at Bel except with his peripheral vision.

  His oldest daughter’s face scrunched up mulishly, and for a second he thought she was going to stand and leave the cabin without another word. But then the mulishness seeped away, leaving behind a quiet kind of sadness that he recognized all too well. He’d seen it on his own face too many times in the mirror the mornings after a particularly bad incident with Alejandra.

  “I don’t care if she leaves,” Bel growl-whispered. “If she can’t figure her shit out–”

  “Language,” Matt chided gently.

  “Fine,” Bel tossed her head, sending her long black hair whipping away from her face. “If she can’t figure her stuff out, then tough. She can go do whatever the fu–heck she wants. We’ll be fine without her. We don’t need her.”

  The quiver in her lip belied the anger in her voice, but the words made Matt flinch all the same. He understood why she gave voice to them, but he couldn’t accept their content. “She’s not going to leave us,” he said with more conviction in his voice than was in his heart. “We’re going to get through this.”

  Bel gave him a rueful smirk. “You’re a bad liar, dad.”

  “I used to be better at it–Woah!” the deck suddenly rolled again, almost knocking Matt off balance. His hand went out and scrabbled for purchase, smacking into a couple of the electronics before he managed to regain his balance.

  “What is with this weather,” Bel asked as the rain began to fall.

  “Just a bit of rough seas–” Matt started to say, then flinched as a flash of lightning sheeted across the sky, followed almost immediately by an explosion of thunder.

  “Damn,” Matt breathed, looking out the cabin windows at the approaching storm.

  “Uh, dad? That looks really bad,” Bel said, nervousness in her voice.

  “Yeah it does.” Matt made a decision and started entering in course changes to the auto-pilot. No way was he going to take the Dilligaf through even a portion that monster. They’d have to go back and put in at a Mexican port until it passed. He turned and brought up the sea charts on the computer screen. They had more than enough fuel, at least. Maybe if they headed towards Encinada…

  Another explosion sounded, sharp and flat, with no accompanying flash of lightning. Bel flinched, eyes turning to the windows, but Matt’s eyes went wide and he spun around. That hadn’t been thunder. Matt had accompanied his wife to the firing range too many times for him to not recognize the sound of a gunshot. And it had come from below.

  His first instinct was to run for the stairs and get belowdeck to find what had happened. Then the yacht hit another series of rough swells, and he had to turn back and wrestle with the helm to keep them on course.

  The radio.

  His hand scrabbled for the handset–he’d set it down on the console just as the rain had started–and snapped it on with fingers suddenly clumsy with fear. Channel 3, Bel had said.

  “Dad? What’s wrong?” Bel asked as Matt finally got the radio on. He ignored her.

  “Allie? Allie! Is everyone alright?” he asked into the radio. A burst of static answered.

  “Allie! Answer me!”

  Two more gunshots sounded, and Bel let out a little cry. “Those were shots!”

  “Get down!” he yelled at Bel who was already turning towards the source of the noise. He grabbed her and forced her down behind the console, the only real cover on the bridge.

  “Dad?” Bel’s voice was scared as she huddled down. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know kiddo,” Matt said, swallowing hard. “Stay down and don’t move, okay? I’m going to–”

  Matt stopped when he realized he had no idea how to finish that sentence. He was going to do what? Go downstairs, leaving Bel alone and vulnerable while he confronted… Whoever was shooting? Stay up here, and have no idea what was happening downstairs? Indecision descended on him like a paralyzing wave. He didn’t know what to do.

  And his children were downstairs.

  That thought tore through his paralysis. He sucked in a breath shook himself once.

  “Bel, take the wheel,” he said in a voice he knew held more fear than he wanted it to. He caught her eyes with his own gaze and waited until he was sure she had understood him. “And lock the door behind me. Don’t open it for anyone who isn’t me.”

  “R-right.” Bel’s eyes were wide and scared, but she made it to her feet and took the helm. Matt gripped her shoulder for an instant, then whirled and started for the door.

  And just as he got his hand on the latch, the radio still in his hand crackled to life.