Shit. They’d found the bodies, and it sounded like Nelson was already on the bridge. Or they might have heard all the shit that had just gone down.

“We never had to play it this way, you know,” Nelson continued. “We could have worked together. Alas, you had all the skills but lacked that special something I require in a partner.”

Yep, Ian had a conscience. Oh, it was a flexible conscience, but it was there. He also had a certain loyalty to his country that Nelson would find offensive. Fucker.

“Luckily, I managed to find a couple of friends to help me out along the way. They’ll be the ones who kill you if you don’t surrender right now and bring me the king of Loa Mali. I’ll need his computer as well. You see, I bombed his testing site so I really am going to need that computer. I’ll just have to kill his employees until he brings it to me.”

Thank god for soundproofing or the king would likely be martyring himself.

“Or maybe I’ll just start with the pretty lady in the white bikini.”

Ian’s body went cold.

A nasty chuckle came across the speakers. “You dressed her nicely for me, Tag. I’m going to enjoy her before I kill her. Or I could always reunite you. I have a soft spot for lovers. Especially when I was such a good matchmaker. Your choice, Tag. Your wife has five minutes before I slit her throat.”

“Stay calm,” Sean said.

“I am calm.” He was deadly calm. His focus had narrowed to one point in the world. Saving his wife. He laid out his options, shitty as they were, and came up with a plan.

“Do we have what he wants?” Simon asked.

Ian shook his head.

“We can always get the computer,” Sean said. “We have a copy so if we need to hand the computer over, I don’t think Kash would argue. He was horribly torn up about his guards. He won’t want Charlie’s death on his conscience.”

Ian nodded. “I’ll get it. I’ll do the trade.”

“You think he won’t just kill you on sight?” Sean asked.

That would be the smart play on Nelson’s part. It was what Ian would do if their roles were reversed. “I’ll password protect it. He doesn’t get the password until I have my wife. Then he’ll try to kill both of us.”

“I’m thinking that’s not a smashing plan, boss.” Simon shook his head.

“That’s because you don’t know what your part is yet. Get those bodies and some rope. What we need is a little chaos.” And a little time. The minute the Coast Guard showed up, all bets would be off.

His team leaned in and Ian told them the plan.

Chapter Nineteen

Charlie stood on the bridge, watching as Nelson’s men boarded the boat. She kept her eyes on the outside. It was better than seeing what Nelson had done to the crew.

They were lying in heaps of dead flesh, their corpses cooling. He’d just put out that he wouldn’t kill the rest of the king’s people if the king gave him what he wanted, but Charlie knew the truth. He would kill everyone. No matter how fast he got the data.

She’d seen what one of his men had attached to the side of the boat just under the water’s surface. He might have thought she wasn’t looking at the time, or maybe he didn’t care, but she knew damn well he intended to blow the yacht sky high. She’d also watched as he put the bomb’s trigger device in his pocket.

She had to get that device.

Unfortunately there were four guards watching over the bastard. The pirates were dressed in a mixture of camo and jeans and tank tops. They looked dirty and mean and very comfortable with AK-47s.

“Do you think he’s panicking, dear?” He put a hand on her shoulder.

She shivered and tried to step away. She was steady on her feet again, but her hands were still shaky.

His hold tightened. “Don’t. I wouldn’t want to be forced to make a point, Charlotte. I think Taggart will be more inclined to be helpful if you’re in one piece, so be a good girl and don’t flinch when I touch you.” His hand stroked her shoulder, but she couldn’t forget that he had a gun pressed to her side. “You might make me think you don’t want me, sweetheart.”

Nothing could make her mouth stop though. “I thought I made that plain when I turned down your first offer, Eli.”

“Or you could have just been playing hard to get.” He took a step back. “You know I understand the value of not giving in too soon. Sometimes you have to make a man work for it, don’t you? Charlotte, you’re a smart girl. We could use you. You have to know that Taggart is a bad bet at this point. Why else would you have contacted me?”

“I didn’t. It was my sister.” The last thing she needed was to play out the creep’s sexual fantasies. She was going to have such a long talk with her sister. If she survived this, Chelsea was getting off the information-gathering wagon forever. That kind of power had become a dangerous addiction for her.

He frowned and stepped over the captain’s body. “I should have known. Well, that’s a shame. I mean I’ll still try to recruit her because obviously she got all the brains in the family, but I was hoping for a fuck buddy, too. I’ll have to take a pass on her. You got the looks. She got the brains. Taggart is going to lose his balls over a woman. I kind of love that. I wish the others were here to witness it. I’ve had to be in his shadow for years. I was an operative before he was old enough to join the Army. Then one day they recruit him out of black ops and put him on some fucking pedestal. Well, I showed them.”

She’d always known his problems with Ian weren’t strictly professional. “Yes, you showed them that he was human and that you’re a traitor.”

He waved that off. “Traitor? I’m more American than any of those fuckers. They still think we’re some sort of democracy. We left that long ago. You know what took down your father’s precious USSR? It sure as fuck wasn’t a thirst for freedom. Hell, no. It was capitalism. The world doesn’t run on democracy. It runs on capitalism, and I’m a capitalist.”

As long as he was talking, he wasn’t shooting her full of electricity. “So you’re going to take the plans for the engine and sell them to the highest bidder.”

“No. I’m going to hand them over to the oil company that’s paying me and let them sit on it. There’s still money to be made in oil. A lot of it. Until such time as that changes, there’s no place for technology like this. Do you really think some bumfuck beach bum from Loa Mali is the first scientist to think this up? No. This is just the latest, and we’ll take this down, too. When the company is ready, they’ll roll out their own version and the money will stay in the right hands.”

Ian had been right. This wasn’t about selling secrets to other governments. “So you work for companies that want you to steal technology for them. Or hurt other companies. That’s why you’re working with my uncle on the pipeline.”

Nelson shrugged a little, like a small boy who had been caught cheating at Monopoly. “Malone Oil doesn’t belong to my employers. If you aren’t in with the big boys, then you’re fair game. The Collective watches out for their membership.”

“The Collective? They have a name for themselves? Oh, god, I hate the Illuminati crap. So I’m supposed to believe that a bunch of CEOs have gotten together and they hire you to what? Steal some plans? What the hell can you really do?”

A nasty little smile lit Nelson’s features. “Well, let’s see. Let me give you an example. Let’s say my latest assignment is for a pharmaceutical company whose top-selling pain reliever is being beaten out by new-blood competition. New drug research takes years and millions of dollars. It’s so much easier to simply herd the public where we think they should go.”

She got a chill as she remembered what had happened a little over a month before. Someone had coated the caplets of a certain brand of ibuprofen with a cyanide paste. It was clear and undetectable to the human eye. Fifteen people in five states had died.

The company’s stock had plummeted while the rival company had seen its shares and its products purchased at higher quantities than ever before.

They had called it a terrorist attack. For Nelson, it seemed it was just good business. “You’re a terrorist for hire.”

“I’m just a lowly employee, Charlotte, looking to make his pension. Like a lot of other people in my line of business. The Collective finds it easy to recruit from Western intelligence agencies. They pay crap. The Collective offers an alternative. Did you wonder how I knew to be here at this particular time?”

She had wondered about it. And come up with some unsavory answers. “You’re saying one of the agents is working for you?”

“Maybe more than one, but certainly you have a viper in your little nest.” He picked up the microphone again and pressed the button on the side before speaking into it. His voice filled the air around her. “Mr. Taggart, you’re down to one minute. Has the bloom worn off the rose so quickly? Well, then you won’t mind when I try her out myself.”

“I’m here.”

Charlie’s whole body went electric with the sound of his rough-as-gravel voice. Fear crept along her spine as her husband stepped on the bridge and every gun in the room pointed his way. Four AK-47s that could tear him apart in an instant.

He shouldn’t have come. He should have found a way off the boat. She wasn’t worth his life, not after everything she’d done.

“Hey, baby.” He held a laptop computer in one hand, his eyes on her.

Two more pirates came up behind him, surrounding him with death.

God, she couldn’t lose him.

“Mr. Taggart, so nice to see you again.” Eli Nelson sounded perfectly content, but then he did have the upper hand. “Did you bring me my data?”