When I first came back to some hazy semblance of consciousness, I felt things gently rocking beneath me, like I was adrift on a raft on a lake.I opened my eyes.I was in a small, dark, windowless room, with a strip of light coming from beneath a door.I was lying in bed – a narrow bunk set into a wall, with a thin mattress underneath me. Just a few feet away from me was a toilet and a sink. Other than that, the room was bare.My throat was dry as sunbaked concrete. There was a chemical taste on my parched tongue.Then I remembered.The crunch of metal. The shattering of glass. The sickly sweet smell on the wet cloth forced against my face.Overcome by panic, I fought to sit up. Whooooaaa… that isn’t good. Nauseated, I lay back down and waited for the drugs to wear off. Or at least for the room to stop spinning.While I lay there, I tried to figure out where I was.The rocking sensation was real. It was gentle, but it was definitely there – so I was probably on a boat.Where the bo

The sun had set an hour before. The limo was almost back to Manhattan, and I was in hell.I was completely powerless. Lily and Sebastian had both been abducted, and there was nothing I could do. If Eve couldn’t find them, there was no way any of my company’s security guys could – although I still worked the phones relentlessly, talking to my employees, praying for a miracle.We had just entered the city when a text message pinged my phone.Connor – I found her cell.“What?! Where?!”In international waters near the Grenadines, in the Caribbean. “Smart,” Bert muttered.I looked at him.“She’s out of the jurisdiction of any local police forces,” Bert explained.“Good. Then she can’t count on them when I go after her,” I growled, which made Bert recoil.Eve continued, The phone’s signal is super weak, but it’s there.“Can you see or hear anything?”No. All I get is blackness and muffled voices.I looked at Johnny and Bert.“It’s a trap,” Johnny said. “It has to be.”“If she’s in interna

We stopped by the penthouse first. Johnny had more than enough weaponry, ammunition, and scuba gear for the mission. Hell, I’d been training with all of it over the last 12 months. The only thing we lacked were the scuba sleds, and those would be delivered to us at the airstrip before we took off.While Johnny assembled the weapons and equipment, I went up to the master bedroom and looked in the top drawer of my dresser. There, on the velvet-lined trays amongst my watches and cufflinks, sat the wedding rings I had planned to exchange with my bride on our wedding day.Planned. Not had planned. The wedding rings I planned to exchange with her on our wedding day.I picked them up, both of them, and rubbed them between my fingers.These are my good luck charms, I told myself, fighting back desperation and despair. I’m putting this ring on her finger the very first moment I can – which will be in just a few hours.I kissed them for good luck, placed them in my inside jacket pocket, and rus

Johnny was as good as his word. We were standing on the tarmac loading our gear inside of three hours.Five of us were standing by the plane: me, Johnny, Bert, and my two remaining bodyguards, Juan and Leo. Four of us were going. But I had to give them one last chance to back out.“You don’t have to do this,” I told them. “I’ll pay you handsomely if you do – three million dollars apiece, and that goes for you, too, Johnny – but I’ve got to tell you, there’s maybe a ten percent chance we come out of this alive.”“Twenty percent at least,” Johnny said in a deadpan voice. “Don’t be pessimistic.”“No matter what, it’s still shitty odds. You can walk away now and I won’t say a thing.”Leo shrugged. “Danger’s part of the job. I’m going wherever you’re going.”Juan grinned. “I was a Navy SEAL, sir. Frankly, this job’s been pretty damn boring till tonight.”“You people are insane,” Bert muttered.“A good time with a three million dollar payday?” Juan asked. “That sounds pretty sane to me.”“T

We were allowed bathroom breaks – armed members of the crew unlocked our handcuffs, then escorted us out of the room and back – but other than that, we were kept chained to our brass chairs around the table. Sebastian kept toiling away, giving Miranda access to Connor’s companies, piece by piece – and I was the sword held over his head to get him to comply.The only ray of hope I had was my bobby pins. I checked my hair when I went to the bathroom; they were still there. If there was a moment when Miranda left me and Sebastian alone, I might be able to get us both out of the cuffs – and maybe someplace safe.Maybe.But now wasn’t the time.I just prayed the time would come……and that Sebastian, Connor, Johnny, and I all lived to see it.