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K urt had started using the light to signal SOSs at night in the hopes someone somewhere reported it to the Coast Guard.

So far, no one had come to their rescue, and he knew they needed to save themselves.

Tonight, he planned to pop that porthole and find a way to steal one of the lifeboats and get away.

They couldn’t afford to wait any longer.

The sound of the door being unlocked had all Kurt’s senses going on high alert. This was not their normal routine.

Two guards shouldered their way inside, each carrying submachine guns pointed right at them. In a space this small, they couldn’t miss if they tried. The game changed in that instant. The world shifted. He’d waited too long.

He stepped in front of Rowena.

A third man came in between the behemoths—the asshole who’d escorted them here that first day. He pointed at Rowena who was peering out from behind him. “Come. Now.”

Kurt pushed her back behind him. “Hurek knows the only way I’ll cooperate is if she stays with me. Safe.”

The man’s expression hardened into a sneer. “You overvalue yourself, Mr. FBI. If you don’t want to be shot in the next ten seconds, then I suggest you let her go. ”

Kurt would never let them take her. If he could provoke one of them enough to try to pistol-whip him, he’d snatch the weapon and shoot the shit out of the other guys—or die trying. Then they’d take their chances in the ocean.

The leader took the submachine gun off one of the other guys and slung it over his shoulder. Kurt braced for imminent death even as Rowena’s fingers clutched at his waist.

“Take her.”

The brute on the left shuffled forward to try to reach around him and grab Rowena’s arm. Kurt caught him, twisted him around and held the butter knife he’d spent countless hours sharpening against the goon’s exposed throat.

“Let us out of here, or your friend is dead.”

The leader’s lip curled. He pulled a Glock from his hip holster and shot the man in the chest. Kurt struggled to hold the dead man upright to use him as a shield.

“That was your last chance.” The guard gave an evil grin. “I’ll be delighted if you make me shoot you too.”

Before Kurt could tell him to fuck off or make another move, Rowena darted in front of him, and he watched his entire future disappear.

“No! Please don’t hurt him. I’ll come willingly. You don’t need to hurt him.”

She turned to face him as they grabbed her arms and secured them behind her back. Her eyes pleaded with him not to do anything foolish. “I’ll be okay. I promise.”

She was telling him she knew exactly what might happen to her and that she could face it, as long as he was safe. Love shone bright in her green eyes, and he didn’t have an answer for it.

He only knew he wanted to rip off these men’s heads with his bare hands.

“She won’t be long. General Hurek wants to talk to her.” The tone was placating, and Kurt didn’t trust the words coming out of that mouth, not even for a second. “If you behave, the men will leave her alone. If you don’t… well, you can imagine. ”

The leader smiled and raised his Glock to Rowena’s head, finger on the trigger, as they slowly backed out of the room. They immediately locked the door. Kurt knew right then he’d kill that sonofabitch if he got the opportunity, and he’d smile while doing it.

He stood for a moment, shoulders slumped, head bowed, feeling as if a mountain had been dropped on his head. He’d failed.

Failed himself.

Failed Rowena.

Failed his family and his team.

Failed utterly.

What would they do to her? He couldn’t think about it. He couldn’t not think about it. He shook himself out of his inertia.

He needed to move.

One thing was clear—they weren’t coming back. Why leave the dead guy behind unless they were done? Obviously, Hurek had gone with Plan B and bartered Rowena for his own safety.

Would Hurek hold onto Kurt as a wild card? Or would he get rid of him? It was 50/50. Kurt was leverage, and Hurek liked leverage. But if he were rescued, there was nothing to stop Kurt telling the world about Hurek’s associates and crimes.

Kurt wasn’t waiting around to find out anymore. Now that they’d taken Rowena he had nothing left to lose.

He dropped to his haunches and went through the dead man’s pockets. A thin wallet with ID and some US dollars tucked inside. He took it.

A pocketknife.

A cell phone .

He unlocked the screen with the fucker’s thumb and quickly changed the access code.

He heard a helicopter approach, went to the porthole, and craned his head in time to see an Agustawestland AW109 Grand Versace VIP with fancy black and white paintwork approaching the landing pad. Was that Gilder in the back seat? Kurt was pretty sure it was. Smug son of a bitch.

Gilder must have come for Rowena, which meant he was probably her biological father.

Maybe he cared about his daughter. Enough to get her off this ship, which was something.

It gave Kurt a slim hope that perhaps she wouldn’t be thrown to the crew to be tortured and raped and would be kept safe until he could reach her.

He needed to get the hell out of here and call for help. He took a video of the chopper. Two bars of signal, which was probably connected to the ship’s own communication system.

Would Gilder be blocking it? Kurt had no idea, but he had to try to contact help while he had the chance. And perhaps it would go through at some later date even if it failed now.

If he died, he wanted Rowena’s rescue to be a priority. He entered Jordan’s cell number because it was the first one he could remember.

He stared at the screen in shock as the call went through.

“Who is this?” Jordan sounded annoyed.

Fuck. The sound of his voice hit Kurt like a left hook, but thankfully, training took over and his mouth started working.

“It’s Kurt. Listen up. I don’t have time to explain.

I’m on a container ship somewhere possibly in the Caribbean.

Not sure of the name or color.” Brilliant observational skills, Kurt .

“Hurek kidnapped me and a Brit named Rowena Smith”—his universe—“on Jan fourteenth. The billionaire Nolan Gilder landed on board in a fancy AW109 one minute ago.” He reeled off the tail number.

“I believe he’s kidnapping Ms. Smith, who we suspect is his biological daughter.

And if I were Gilder, I wouldn’t be leaving any witnesses behind who could testify against me later. I’m sending you the video right now.”

Kurt sent Jordan the short recording and then a selfie with the porthole behind him—proof of life.

The sound of rotors grew louder again, and he pressed his nose to the glass to see if he could spot Rowena, but it was too far away this time. “Chopper now heading approximately northeast based on the position of the sun. Not sure if Row is onboard.”

“Is she?—”

“She’s everything to me. Whatever happens, make sure she’s—” The signal dropped, and Kurt glanced at the phone in frustration. Then he heard the sound of the helicopter coming back.

Oh hell .

He peered out the window and caught sight of the chopper hovering off the port side. It wasn’t the same machine as before, but another Leonardo-made bird, this one a shit-hot military version in plain olive green.

This couldn’t be good.

Krychek stared at the phone for a moment and then stared at Daisy, who sat working at another desk in his office. “Fuck.”

Her eyes were wide. “Who was that?”

He sprinted into Ackers’ office as he opened the video on his cell. Daisy ran after him.

Ackers looked up in surprise.

“Just had a call from Kurt. He’s alive.” He heard Daisy sob.

“Get SIOC on the phone. We need them to triangulate the call. Send out the alert for the guys to assemble at Andrews Airforce Base. And get on the phone to DEVGRU. We’re gonna need support taking these sons of bitches down, but rescuing Kurt is priority. ”

Ackers picked up his phone as they all watched the video Kurt had sent and saw the bearded face of their beloved friend and colleague, definitely still alive, but also in imminent danger.

“Let’s mobilize everything we have in the area but no details yet.” Jordan reeled off instructions, and Ackers started making phone calls. “We’re looking for a container vessel.”

Daisy grabbed Jordan’s wrist and awareness flashed over his skin. She replayed the video, her grip painfully tight .

He paused the video when there was a knock on the open door.

Dinah Cohen stood there, her head cocked to one side. She held up a folder in her hand and took a step forward.

“I thought you might like to know we finally tracked down the truth about Hurek’s kid. He’s five years old, and he and his mother live in Edinburgh, where he attends a private nursery school. The locals are keeping an eye out in case daddy makes contact.”

She placed the folder on the desk.

“We discovered their expenses are paid by a trust. Interestingly enough, the trust owns and operates a container vessel called MV Mudik, which happened by some wild coincidence to be not far off the port of Beira in mid-January.”

Ackers was already relaying the details of the ship to SIOC.

“You’re welcome,” Dinah called out to no one in particular.

Jordan rushed back to his computer, pulled up the ship’s data from the list, and saw its course plotted on a map onscreen—headed straight for the Caribbean Sea. He found an image on the database.

Daisy stood at his shoulder. Her expression was a mix of grimness and hope. “Is my dad onboard that ship?”

“I think so.”

Tears brimmed in her eyes, sparkling like jewels.

Emotion gripped him by the throat, but he had to go. “I need to gear up.”

“I want to come with you.”

Jordan shook his head. “That’s not how this works.”

She tilted her head. “I’m not your prisoner, despite what you might believe.”

“Your father would want you to be safe.”

“My father taught me to take care of myself.”

“Not during an op.”

“I won’t be part of the op. I’m not stupid.” She folded her arms. “But I’ll be closer if you find him. ”