hadn’t been able to fight for her university job or her project funding, hadn’t been able to stand up for herself in the face of her ex’s smear campaign, which had been the lowest of low academic politics.
But somehow, somewhere, she’d become the sort of woman who could plan an escape and make it happen.
Unfortunately, she’d also become a criminal, because whether or not Tiberius had coerced her—and he sure as hell had—she’d been the one to create the DNA code he considered his ultimate retail offering. Now it was up to her to make sure he never got to sell or use the engineered virus.
As she sent the boat into the gloom and the sounds of pursuit faded, hope guttered in her chest, pressing tears into her throat. She began to believe—when she hadn’t really believed before, no matter what she’d told herself—that she was really going to get out of this mess, that she and Celeste were going to be okay.
Then something splashed loudly behind her, followed by a hiss and the growing thump of helicopter rotors. She turned and froze in terror. The chopper was directly behind her, and there was a dark shape in the water, churning a white wake as it sped toward her. A torpedo.
Tiberius had apparently decided she was a liability.
No, she thought. Impossible. Then the searchlights pinned on the boat and the surrounding water, illuminating the plume of the deadly missile speeding toward her boat and proving that it wasn’t impossible at all. She was dead if she didn’t move, and move fast.
Screaming, Sydney flung herself into the sea. The shock of the cold saltwater drove the air from her lungs, but she didn’t have time to take another breath. She didn’t think. She dove and swam down and away from the boat, kicking and stroking for all she was worth.
Moments later, the world went orange and a booming shockwave of water slapped at her, tumbling her end over end, pummeling the breath from her lungs, dazing her and making her ears ring.
She hung motionless, utterly disoriented, feeling the thud of her heartbeat in her head, in her bones.
She was vaguely aware that she was rising toward the surface, and something inside her said that was a bad thing. She couldn’t seem to make her arms or legs obey her commands, though. She could only drift, longing for air as the water around her grew warmer, or maybe she got colder, she wasn’t sure.
This isn’t good, she thought, but couldn’t seem to get beyond the thought.
Then the heavy rumble of a boat engine cut through her daze, and her brain came back online with a jolt. Tiberius’s guards had arrived! Panic flared through her, chasing away the lethargy of shock, and she struck out wildly in the direction she thought was “up.” Moments later she breached the surface and sucked in a gasping lungful of air. Then she was swimming, flailing her arms and legs as hard as she could in an effort to get away from the motor noise as her heart hammered in her ears and panic spurred her on.
There was a splash behind her as at least one of the guards jumped in to grab her.
“No!” She swam harder, adrenaline propelling her onward when her muscles trembled with fear and fatigue, and the numbing cold of the water around her.
Her head pounded and there was a sharp pain above her eye, suggesting she’d been cut by waterborne debris. She banged into other pieces of debris as she swam, and the air was tainted with the odor of gasoline and smoke. She wanted to cough but she couldn’t spare the breath as she swam for all she was worth. She had to get away, had to—
A hand closed on her ankle, gripped hard and dragged her under.
Panic jolted and she screamed, then inhaled water and choked hard. She thrashed, fighting her captor even as she struggled to the surface and gagged, trying to get the water out of her lungs, the air in. The world spun and closed in on her, and her captor shifted his grip from her leg to her throat, clamping an arm across her upper chest while he struck out, swimming strongly with his free arm and kicks from his powerful legs.
“Let me go!” Sydney struggled against him, fouling his rhythm and dragging them both below, but he didn’t fight. He simply waited until they broke the surface, then shifted his arm to her throat and squeezed until her world went gray and spun to a pinprick.
Semiconscious, she went limp against him, barely breathing even after he eased up on the choke hold. Defeat hammered through her, alongside the sure knowledge of what Tiberius would do to her now.
He wasn’t just going to kill her. He was going to force her to help him sell a terrible opportunity to terrible people. Then he was going to kill her and Celeste both, very slowly. That was what he’d promised he’d do if she betrayed him, and she had every reason to believe the threat. She was going to die, and die horribly.
The realization spurred her to a last desperate attempt to escape. Knowing she had just one more chance, she waited until her captor reached the slick white side of a tall boat and called for others to reach down and grab her. At the moment he handed her off, she found another burst of energy and exploded, kicking and scratching at the two men who held her. They cursed and fought to hang on to her. They shouted at her, but she was too far gone to process the words.
She screamed over and over again until her voice went raw and then broke to sobs as they subdued her by grabbing her arms and legs and hanging on despite her furious struggles. When she finally went limp, they dragged her up and over the side, and dumped her onto the rain-slicked deck.
Moments later, the man who’d jumped in after her landed on the deck nearby, dripping and breathing hard.
Sydney curled herself into a protective ball, waiting for rough hands to tie her so she couldn’t get away while they hauled her back to her quarters on the island—or worse, directly to Tiberius.
Instead of rope, though, a heavy wool blanket landed atop her, cutting the sting of the cold air.
She whimpered and clutched at the blanket, pulling it over her head. After a minute or two, when the warmth started to come and the men hadn’t made another move, she peered out, dragging the blanket around herself as she struggled partway up on the rain-slicked deck.
Her teeth were chattering and her dark, shoulder-length hair was plastered over her forehead, covering her eyes. She slicked the strands away from her face, and when her vision cleared, she found herself only a few feet away from the man who’d pulled her from the ocean.
He was leaning back against the side of the gunwale a few feet away from her, wearing a coarse gray blanket like hers. His wet hair was short and dark, his features square and regular, his blue eyes assessing. Even soaking wet, he carried a definite aura of command.
She didn’t recognize him, but that didn’t mean anything. She’d only seen a few of Tiberius’s guards face-to-face, but had heard the footsteps of many more. What was strange, though, was that he was looking at her with utter calm, laced with an air of speculation. He seemed willing to wait for her to speak first, which didn’t make any sense.
Then her eyes locked on his blanket, which had something written on it in six-inch-high letters: U.S. Coast Gu—
It broke off where he’d tucked one side of the blanket beneath the other, but it was enough to have hope blooming viciously in her chest.
She hadn’t been recaptured after all.
She’d been rescued!
She gasped and looked at the other two men standing nearby. They were burly, curly-haired guys with the shared features of brothers and coast guard insignias on their jackets.
When she looked back at the man who’d saved her, he nodded in greeting, but didn’t smile. “I’m Special Agent John Sharpe of the FBI’s major crimes task force, and you’re on the coast guard cutter Valiant.” He paused, expression assessing. “Whether that’s good or bad news for you is going to depend on what you were doing on Rocky Cliff Island and why Tiberius wants you dead.”