The Billionaire's Prize: Taken & Tempted: (Book 3 Billionaire Bodyguard Series) (14 page)

“Honey,” Cade said, dropping kisses along the back of her arm, “no family is normal. That’s a fantasy. A fallacy. Nothing in life is normal, because from the start we make a judgment that it isn’t. Then that reality becomes something we can point to and say, ‘Hey, that’s not what I wanted.’ From there, we choose the life we want.”

“So what?”

“That’s what family gives us. A jumping off point.
A place to push off from, so we can move forward in our own direction.”

“You know what I think?”

Pushing up onto his forearms, he turned her to face him, tucking her close against his
side. “I’d love to know what you think.”

Damn those crystalline blue eyes that seared right through her. “I think you don’t realize what your dad did for you.”

Surprise registered in his expression. “Okay, now I’m lost.”

“I know.” She caressed the steep angles of his face. “The thing is, you believe your father didn’t trust you, or didn’t believe you could hack it in the bounty hunter business. I disagree. I think your dad was trying to protect you.”

Arm still cradling her head, he dropped back against the pillows. He fixed his gaze on the ceiling. “Not sure I follow.”

“I believe your dad was protecting you. He worked really hard to save up enough money to send you to college, right?”

“Right,” Cade said with an edge of steel in his tone.

“He didn’t do that for anyone else in the family. Did he?”

A long pause separated her question from his answer. “No.”

“I think your dad knew your potential. He wanted you to become more than the rest of them could be. No offense to your brother or cousins. I just think your dad saw something special in you.”

“He had a funny way of showing it,” Cade growled.

“Of course they do. They’re our parents. They can’t spell it out for us, otherwise we’d do the exact opposite of what they want most for us to achieve.”

With one fluid movement, he levered up onto his forearm again and hovered over her. “That is shockingly brilliant. Are you always this insightful?”

“Only when I have to be,” she said, grinning up at him.

He stole a passionate kiss from her. “Would you be shocked if I said you bring out the best in me?”

She shrugged. “Anyone could do that.”

“No.” His nose glided alongside hers. “Not anyone.” His lips brushed her cheek. “
You.
”

Angling his head, he grazed his mouth over hers once, twice. He deepened his kiss to a passionate level, and proved to her again how much she affected him.

*

Piercing the edges of his slumber, the slam of a door jarred Cade awake.

Instinctively, he sat up and dragged the sheet to cover Kylie. Just in time as Slone barged through the cabin door.

“We have a problem,” Slone said.

Drowsy from all night sex, and unnaturally possessive of Kylie, Cade tucked her against him and
glowered across the room. “Don’t you knock?”

“You said you’d have my back. I took you at your word.”

“Yeah, okay.” Cade scrubbed a hand down his face. “Wait in the lounge. I’ll be there in a sec.”

When Slone stepped away, Cade glanced at the clock. Five in the morning. Hell. He stepped into fresh boxer briefs and rummaged for a pair of jeans. He slid them on, zipped up then bent to kiss Kylie.

Warmth infused his chest as he gazed at her. The crotch of his pants grew uncomfortably tight because he wanted her again, now. “When I come back, we’ll pick up where we left off.”

“Mmm-hmm,” she mumbled, snuggling into the warm, sex-scented covers. If last night was any indication, they’d need to change the sheets every two hours.

A smile lingered on his lips as he went to the door and closed it behind him. He finger combed his hair, heading straight for the coffee maker.

When he met Slone’s brooding steel gray eyes, he paused mid stride. “What’s wrong?”

Slone stopped pacing, approached him and spoke in low tones. “Twenty minutes ago I felt the ship turn. Sharp enough that it woke me out of a dead sleep. So I went topside. Judging by the location of the stars, I did a quick mental calculation. We’re going off course.”

An uneasy sensation tightened his gut. “How far off course?”

“Forty five degrees southwest.”

Cade recalled that Slone’s work history included eight years as a Navy SEAL. He trusted the man’s navigation instincts implicitly. “What does that mean?”

“Next stop won’t be the Virgin Islands.”

A block of ice formed in Cade’s stomach. “Then where are we heading?”

Moving toward a map framed on the wall, Slone ran his finger along the route they’d taken from Miami, past the Bahamas, then tapped a spot a half inch lower. “There’s a narrow strait running between Cuba and Haiti. Right now I’d say we’re an hour from either shore. In unfriendly waters.”

“How unfriendly?”

“Cuba isn’t known for their hospitality toward Americans. If we send a distress call, there’s a fifty percent chance they’ll ignore us.”

Cade swallowed. “What happens in the other fifty percent?”

A shadow darkened Slone’s eyes. “You don’t want to know.”

“This is serious.”

“Dead serious.”

“Shit.” Cade raked his hands through his hair. “I didn’t think to question Ramos’s origins. If he’s of Cuban descent, we don’t know what we’re up against or who he has ties to here.”

“That’s my concern.” Slone hit his fist against his palm. “I knew there was something cagey about the captain.”

“Are you packing heat?”

Slone flashed the gun on his hip. “Always.”

Nodding, Cade went to the safe in the corner. He punched in the code and retrieved a revolver. “Right now it’s two of us against five crewmembers. If the captain is on Ramos’s payroll, I’ll assume he’s armed. The odds aren’t in our favor.”

“Don’t underestimate the element of surprise.” Slone checked the bullets in his clip and popped the cartridge back into his Glock. “Before I came to you I did a quick recon. Three crewmembers are still asleep in the lower quarters. Captain’s in the control room. Antonio’s on the main deck cleaning. Kid seems harmless enough, but we don’t know what his cut is from Ramos or what part he’s supposed to play in how this goes down.”

Cade turned off all emotion and switched into calculating bounty hunter mode. “I’ll bet Antonio values his life more than a payout.” He tucked the revolver into the back of his jeans, the metal cool against his bare skin. “I’ll pay him twice what Ramos offered to get him on our side. That’s three against four.”

Slone nodded. “I like those odds better. The kid could have valuable information to keep us one step ahead Ramos.”

“Exactly. I’ll handle Antonio, then confront the captain. Think you can handle the crew?”

“You got it, boss.”

“Meet me at the control room when you’re finished. We’ll reassess from there.”

“Done.” Slone slipped quietly from the suite and disappeared down below.

Blood pumping hard, Cade exited his cabin. Ambient light and the first pale slivers of sunrise guided his steps.

Both hands gripping his gun, he ascended to the main deck. He spotted Antonio prepping in the kitchen, dicing vegetables on the counter. The scent of onions hung in the air.

Barefoot, he moved into position soundlessly behind the kid and growled, “Drop the knife. Now.”

Antonio froze. The knife clattered onto the countertop.

“Slowly raise your hands where I can see them.”

Fingers trembling, Antonio complied.

Sliding the knife out of reach, Cade lowered his gun. The kid’s wide dark eyes lifted, and fear flashed in their depths. “You should be afraid. Unless we can make a deal. What is Ramos paying you?”

“Wh-who?” The boy’s voice shivered from his throat.

“Don’t play stupid. That’ll get you killed.”

“Si! Si, okay. Five hundred American dollars.”

“What were your orders?” Cade demanded.

“I do nothing.”

Cade raised his gun.

“Dios! Don’t shoot!” Antonio began to hyperventilate. “I was told,” he choked out, “to do nothing. Look the other way when the boat comes.”

“What boat?” When the kid didn’t answer, Cade said through clenched teeth, “
What boat?
”

“Ramos tell us at sunrise three men are coming on speedboat. They shoot, we duck. They take the girl, dump you and guard overboard. I say nothing to no one.”

When Cade reached into his back pocket, Antonio leaped away, cowering next to the dishwasher. Cade pulled six hundred-dollar bills from his wallet. “You work for me now.” He tossed the bills in Antonio’s lap. “From here on out you do what I tell you to do.
Comprende?
”

Antonio nodded vigorously as he collected the bills and clutched them to his chest.
“Si, senor.”

Did Ramos actually think that killing him would go unnoticed? Or that he’d get away with it? The guy clearly didn’t know the Soren clan well enough. And he’d greatly underestimated the skill of their bodyguards. “I’ll double the cash you’re holding if you help get us out of this mess. Alive,” Cade stressed.

The kid rose to his feet cautiously. “Tell me what to do, I do it.”

Cade returned the gun to the waist of his jeans. “Make breakfast. Scramble a couple of eggs, whatever, just make it quick. Take it up to the captain, and leave the door open behind you. Duck out fast, so I can take your place in the control room. Then you run and find my guard. Tell him you’re with us, and that I need him on deck, stat,” he said, borrowing Slone’s term. “Think you can handle that?”

“For this money, I handle anything.”

With a curt nod, Cade folded his arms and paced the galley kitchen, keeping an eye on Antonio, while his thoughts turned to Kylie. He prayed he’d worn her out so she’d stay asleep during this coup to take back the ship. The thought of her getting caught in a spray of bullets made him sick with worry.

Protecting her meant more to him than his initial feeling of obligation.
More than an old vow not to repeat the past. This had become about his future—their future—and what it could hold once the danger passed. The thought of being with her, waking up and making love to her every morning, stirred a sense of anticipation yet put peace in his restless heart that he’d longed for. Though he didn’t see it at first, Kylie was everything he sought in a woman. Intelligent, driven, passionate.
A partner on his wavelength, not just another pretty face to flaunt in front of the cameras.
Someone who understood him on a personal, private level that he didn’t share with most people.

Maybe he was ready to consider settling down, settling in for the long haul like his brother Trey. He’d never been able to picture that before today. Not that he was ready to buy a ring and pick out curtains, but she fulfilled a place inside him he hadn’t realized was empty.

He cared about her deeply, and he damn sure wasn’t going to let a criminal like Ramos destroy a possible future they had yet to discover.

Angst twisted his insides, but he forced himself back into the zone of cold, detached action. “Ready?” he barked at Antonio.

The kid produced a plate of sloppy, half-cooked eggs. “Si, senor.”

“Let’s get this over with,” Cade said, prepared to draw blood if it came to that.

Following Antonio up one flight to the Captain’s deck, he remained close at the boy’s heels. “Get down,” Antonio whispered.

Cade hunched out of reflex. “What is it?”

“You are too tall, senor. Bend down or he’ll see you, and no more surprise.”

Cade let Antonio go a few paces ahead of him, then he crouched down and kept to the shadows.

“Buenos dias, Captain,” Antonio said, a little too cheerfully, when he knocked on the cockpit
door. “Breakfast?”

The captain muttered something in Spanish. Eventually he unlocked the control room to let the boy inside.

As instructed, Antonio left the door wide open so Cade could make his move.

Adrenaline rushed through his veins. He burst into the cockpit, gun steady and aimed at the captain. “Step away from the controls.”

The plate fell from the captain’s hands. Ceramic shattered on the floor.

Ignoring the gun to his head, the man slammed down a lever and the boat ground to a halt, knocking Cade sideways against the window. The captain pounded his fist against two buttons before he raced out.

Cade shook off the blow and wheeled to charge. Just in time to see the captain trip over Antonio’s extended foot and fall flat on his face.

Cade arched an eyebrow. “Nice.”

Antonio grinned.

After he waved the boy away to go find Slone, Cade lowered, putting all his weight on the knee he ground into the captain’s back. The man howled and kicked.

Cade cocked his gun. “This nothing compared to the pain of a bullet tearing through your skull.”