Page 1

CHAPTER 1

February 29 th

6:44 P.M.

Well, twenty-eight years wasn't so bad.

It could have been worse.

At least she’d made it over a quarter of a century of life before she died.

You're not dead yet.

Ava Hendricks needed the reminder.

Giving up wasn't an option. She’d give up when she was actually dead, and so far, despite the crushing pain rendering her almost paralyzed, she was still prepared to do whatever it took to find a way to live.

She wanted to live.

So darn much.

Okay, so dying at twenty-eight wasn't the worst thing in the world, but it wasn't what she had planned for her life. There was still so much she wanted to do, so much she wanted to experience.

It wouldn't be fair to die now when she hadn't realized all her dreams or goals.

Which meant she had to pull it together. The absolute last thing she wanted to do was die while knowing she hadn't done everything within her power to save herself.

It wasn't like anybody would ever know, but she’d know, and for some reason, that was what she was worrying about.

Probably so she didn't have to face her much bigger problems.

Problems like she’d been snatched off the streets. Drugged and shoved in a van. Woken up chained to a bed with a doctor drawing blood. Had surgery performed on her against her will and was now missing … whatever organ it was they’d taken from her.

Something she did not want to think about too deeply right now.

That or the fact that her skin currently felt too tight and definitely way too hot, which meant she had an infection. She was sick, possibly dying already. Even if she managed to escape, it didn't mean she would survive.

At least it’s a chance .

For now, that would have to be enough.

Ignoring the sickening wave of dizziness that assaulted her the second she swung her legs over the side of the hospital bed she’d been left on, Ava pushed to her feet. The tug on the inside of her elbow reminded her that she was still hooked to an IV, and she ruthlessly tugged the needle from her arm, uncaring about the rivulets of bright red blood that ran down her pale skin.

For the first time since she’d been kidnapped, luck was finally on her side.

Usually, she was left tied to the bed, but in the middle of examining her, the doctor had gotten a call, obviously something urgent, because both he and the guard accompanying him had quickly finished up and hurried out of the room.

Leaving her free.

There was no way she couldn’t take advantage of this opportunity.

If she didn't strike now while she had a chance, another chance might never come.

While Ava wasn't entirely sure how long it had been since she’d been abducted, she knew it had to be several days at least, maybe even a week or more. From the sluggish way she stumbled away from the bed and toward the door to her room, it was definitely like a week or more. Her muscles were already starting to atrophy from lack of use, and the fact that she’d had surgery and was now no doubt fighting off an infection didn't help.

Her people would be looking for her, that was about the only thing that kept her going when the terror threatened to swamp her.

Never in her life was Ava more grateful that she had bucked against her family’s pressure and refused to allow herself to be married off to another wealthy family as part of a business deal. Instead, she’d gone with passion and studied computer programming and coding, and then managed to snag a job with the world’s most prestigious private security company.

Prey Security would know she was missing. There was no way they couldn’t because she shared an apartment with two of her cyber team members, twenty-nine-year-old Teresa Dash and twenty-seven-year-old Chelsea Pierce. They would have reported her missing as soon as she didn't get home that night, and her cyber buddies would be searching the ends of the earth for her.

But to find her, they were going to need a helping hand because she hadn't been taken by amateurs.

Nope.

This was a full-on organ trafficking ring, with a sophisticated setup, armed guards, highly trained doctors, and no doubt dozens or maybe even hundreds of victims just like her.

As she slowly eased open the door, Ava’s heart clenched at the thought of leaving all those people behind. They hadn't done anything to deserve this, and she wanted to take them with her.

But they’d be tied to their beds, possibly drugged, definitely in pain from having their organs stolen from their bodies. It would be impossible to bring them along. Even if she wasn't sick and hurting, she wouldn't be able to do it. And the more of them that were free, the more likely they’d be spotted.

One person sneaking out might be doable, but a whole bunch of them was just asking to get caught.

So, as she peered up and down the long corridor and didn't see anyone, she slipped out and hurried as quickly as her body would allow down to a set of stairs. Doors lined both sides of the hallway, and she knew that behind each one was another unfortunate victim.

As soon as she got out of there she’d make sure Prey made shutting down this trafficking ring a top priority. It wasn't okay to do this to people. To forcibly remove their organs from their bodies and then sell them on the black market. She assumed that if she didn't escape, they would keep taking organs from her until there was nothing left. Then when she was just an empty shell of a person, her dead body would be disposed of in a way that it would never be found.

These people had to be stopped.

But first, she had to escape.

Thankfully, no one seemed to be about, and she was able to drag herself up the flight of steps, and then another, and another.

By the time she spotted daylight, Ava was breathing heavily, hunched over in an attempt to better manage the pain. When she pressed a hand to the wound on her stomach, she winced as it was coated in something wet.

Blood.

Because this wasn’t a proper hospital, and because she wasn't supposed to live, she was just a tool to be broken apart piece by piece until there was nothing left, it wasn't like the surgeons did keyhole surgery to ensure a quicker recovery. They had just hacked her open and taken one of her organs, then quickly sewn her back up. It was no wonder that the stitches had burst, and her wound was now bleeding freely.

No time to worry about it, she headed for the dim light she could see, and the next thing she knew, she was stumbling out into the fresh air. It hit her like a blast of ice, and it wasn't until she looked up that Ava realized where they were.

All around her was ocean.

They were on a boat.

As she staggered over to the railing, she spun in a circle.

No land in sight.

A weird wheezing sound filled the air, and it took Ava way longer than it should have to realize it was coming from her.

Hyperventilating.

Panic was getting the best of her.

As badly as she wanted to remain strong, play this smart, and save herself, the realization that she might not be able to was sinking in.

How was she supposed to get herself off a boat?

The whir of rotor blades caught her attention, and she looked up to see a helicopter approaching. Tilting her head back made her dizzy and it felt like the whole world was spinning around her.

Grabbing onto the rails for support, when she looked down, her gaze locked on one of the lifeboats.

Could she …?

Was that possible?

It had to be.

There were no other options.

She was going to have to find a way to make this work.

Because she knew she had nothing to lose, Ava didn't waste time worrying about the what-ifs and all the things that could go wrong. The bottom line was that staying here was a death sentence. They were not going to let her live, not when they could make so much money selling off her organs one by one.

So she used what energy she had left to scramble over the side of the railing, and then she just let go.

The landing sent blinding pain stabbing through her body, and she cried out, grateful for the roar of the approaching helicopter that drowned the sounds out.

White dots danced at the edge of her vision, but she clung to consciousness.

Had to.

She wasn't safe yet.

Grabbing the ropes, she worked as quickly as she could to lower herself down to the ocean.

Finally, just when she thought her trembling body was going to give out on her, she heard the lapping of water against the lifeboat.

Had she done it?

No one had called out, and no lights had flashed on her, which had to mean that no one knew she was gone yet.

That wouldn't last though.

Unhooking the ropes, Ava used the last of her energy to push her little boat away from the big one. There was still a good chance she would be spotted. And even if she wasn't, she was hardly safe. Out there, she was at the mercy of the water and the weather. She had no idea where she was or how to get to the nearest land.

All she could do was sink down into the bottom of the boat.

Losing her fight with consciousness, the encroaching darkness stole her away.

If she didn't make it, at least she would die knowing she had literally done everything in her power to save herself.

Now her fate rested in God’s hands.

* * *

February 29 th

8:58 P.M.

As soon as he came up for air, he knew something was wrong.

There were two boats within sight.

There should only be one.

Faulty intel could lead to death, and Navy SEAL Nathaniel Trevino was immediately on edge.

This should have been an easy in and out. A helo dropped him in the ocean about a mile back, and he’d made quick work of swimming the distance, hidden by the dark night and darker water. Now he was within sight of the former cruise ship that was rumored to be used as part of a large organ trafficking ring.

Their tip had not mentioned that there would be any other vessel.

Was it possible someone had learned he was supposed to be there and was trying to flee? There would be no point, the point of this mission was not to engage. All he was supposed to do was tag the boat with a tracker and then disappear back the way he’d come.

Over the last twelve months, this ring had gained confidence, dominating the black-market organ market. They were becoming a go-to for wealthy families with ill loved ones who were on official organ transplant lists but had so far had no luck in a match turning up. They operated by snatching innocent young men and women off the street, the majority of their victims in their twenties, so they avoided the extra attention of taking minors, while still getting the youngest and theoretically healthiest bodies they could find.

This tip had been a godsend because before that, there had been no links to the ring.

Until a dock worker spotted something that made him uncomfortable.

Now, Nathaniel was there, supposed to do no more than tag the boat and disappear, but curiosity had him adjusting his position toward the smaller boat. Wondering perhaps if it had been delivering supplies or possibly even a new victim. As he approached, he saw the boat was, in fact, a life raft.

Just like the ones hanging off the sides of the former cruise ship.

With curiosity definitely piqued, he knew there was no way he wasn't going to check out the boat first. It wasn't really defying the orders he had been given, it was more like taking a small detour along the way.

After all, someone in that boat could have intel that could be used to bring the trafficking ring down.

Anyway, he’d always been someone who had bent and even occasionally broken the rules. Not that there had been a whole lot of rules in his family growing up. Mostly just don’t provoke his father when he was drunk. Which was more often than not. And something that was almost impossible to achieve since he and his eleven siblings provoked the man simply by existing and there was nothing they could do about that.

Although three of his siblings had managed it. One by suicide, and another two with drug overdoses when they tried to find a way to numb the pain of their existence.

Now wasn't the time to worry about his past and the many emotional and physical scars it had left him with. He was there to do a job. A job he was actually good at, a job that had given him the found family he craved. A job that included the small lifeboat because there was every chance that answers were inside it.

Gliding through the water with the practiced ease of someone who had lived most of their life in the water, he quickly ate up the distance between him and the raft. Living near the beach in Miami meant Nathaniel had often escaped his abusive home life and traded it for the peacefulness that came with being surrounded by nothing but ocean. Joining the SEALs had been a no-brainer when he decided the only way out of the life his parents had set him up for was the military. Water was where he felt comfortable, and he was the best swimmer in his team, an achievement he was proud of because every one of those guys was basically part fish, they were that good in the water.

As he approached the small boat, he listened carefully for the sound of voices or movement. For signs of life.

But he couldn’t detect a single one.

Had the boat just fallen free?

It was unlikely but not impossible. Lifeboats were designed to stay right where you put them until you needed them, but there was always the chance that something had malfunctioned.

They were really too far from land for someone to use this raft to get to the ship. If someone was making a supply trip or one of the higher-ups was coming to check on their operation, they wouldn't travel this way. The helicopter that was visible on the ship attested to that fact.

So chances were this was nothing more than a dead end. But he was almost to the raft now so he may as well take a quick look at it and confirm it was empty before he continued on to plant the tracker.

Slowing his strokes so he didn't attract any attention should the raft be occupied, he reached the side and lifted himself up enough to look over it.

When he saw what was inside, his eyes almost bugged out of his head.

The raft wasn't empty, but it was no trafficker inside.

Lying in the bottom of the boat was a woman. A long tangle of blonde locks hung halfway down her back. She was dressed in a white hospital gown, and even in the dark he could see the dark patch on the front of it that could only be one thing.

Blood.

This woman was one of the victims of the trafficking ring. How the hell had she managed to get herself onto a life raft?

It should have been impossible to escape, in fact, Nathaniel would have sworn that it was. And yet here the woman was. There was no doubt that she was a victim, the hospital gown and blood confirmed it, unless she had volunteered to die at the hands of an organ ring that would take her apart piece by piece until there was nothing left and no sane person would do that.

Hoisting himself into the raft, he quickly leaned in and pressed his fingertips to the woman’s neck. She might have been alive when she managed to achieve the impossible and escape, but right now, she looked dead.

Once again, the woman proved him wrong. The slightest flutter against his fingers told him that she still had a pulse, was still breathing, her heart still beating. Still alive. For now.

But for how much longer?

Torn between doing what he’d been sent to do and tending to the unconscious woman, Nathaniel hesitated, still on his knees beside her. He should leave, plant the tracker, radio in what he’d found, and await orders on what to do with the woman.

The problem was, by the time he did that, the woman could be dead.

Besides, he had no other oxygen tank, and she was in no condition to swim, plus she was bleeding, so taking her back the way he’d come would be next to impossible. That would mean he would have to stay in the boat with her, and this way they were much more visible.

If he was caught, the entire mission would be a failure, and the ring would slip away under the radar again. This time taking more precautions to make sure no one was onto them.

Was it worth putting this one woman’s life above the lives of thousands of innocent people?

Because that was what he could be doing if he stayed.

There was a chance that her boat would drift to shore without anyone on the ship finding her first. It was possible that once she got to shore, she would still be alive and that medical treatment would save her. She’d go to the cops and tell them her story, so in the end, his team would still wind up with the intel from her anyway.

But that was leaving so much to chance.

There was every chance that he could get them both out of there on the boat without them being spotted. And it was only if he was seen that the mission would be compromised. If he could get himself and her out of there quickly enough, no one from the boat would be any the wiser.

The one thing he struggled with in his job was the greater good idea. That sometimes a few people had to be sacrificed to save a lot of people.

This woman deserved to live. Especially with how hard she’d obviously fought for her freedom. Leaving her behind just to ensure he wasn't caught would be wrong, her life was just as important as anyone else’s. Maybe even more so because if she perished anyway after she’d worked so hard to live it would be cruel.

Deciding he could definitely do both, tag the ship, and save the woman, Nathaniel was just leaning down to check her wound and begin performing first aid when the woman suddenly bolted upright and let out an ear-piercing scream that sounded far too loud in the otherwise quiet night.

Far too loud with their proximity to the ship she’d just escaped from.