Hour of Darkness Page 16

  Marina nodded, knowing there was no arguing that point with him. Taking the briefcase, she looked out at the moonlit docks and boat slips. A dozen assorted sailboats and cabin cruisers were tied up and bobbing in the dark water. At the far end of the docks a dark mega-yacht loomed like a sleek shadow, its windows illuminated with warm yellow light.

  “Here come two of Fuentes’s men now,” Cain said. He grunted, sounding pleased. “Humans. That’s a point in our favor.”

  Marina watched the pair of bulky guards who were stepping down from the yacht and onto the wooden planks of the dock. Dressed in dark suits that looked vastly out of place among the rest of the boaters who came and went from their vessels in beachwear and flip-flops, the two guards approached the end of the dock where Marina had been instructed to wait once she arrived.

  “Okay, let’s get this over with,” she said, unfastening her seat belt. Briefcase in one hand, she pivoted to reach for the door handle. Cain’s hand came to rest on her shoulder, making her pause. Confused, she swiveled to face him. “What is it? Have I forgotten something?”

  “Yes. This.” He leaned across the car’s cabin and caught her mouth in a sensual, if fleeting, kiss. His gaze was sober, even grim, but amber sparks smoldered in the depths of his stormy silver eyes. He stroked her cheek, seeming to struggle finding words. “Stay safe, Marina. Do what I say. Promise me.”

  She nodded. “I promise.”

  His intense stare stayed locked on her for another long moment before he released her. He climbed out of the vehicle, and went around to her side as she opened the passenger door and stepped onto the parking lot. Cain’s palm settled at the small of her back, his heat and strength reassuring as they approached the pair of dangerous looking men.

  Marina walked ahead, shoulders squared and chin held high. She knew how to act in front of men like these. Years under the watch of her uncle’s Vory soldiers had equipped her with a confidence she drew on now, as she strode up to Fuentes’s guards and gave them each a cool nod.

  “Miss Moretskova,” the larger of the two said by way of greeting. “Señor Fuentes is waiting for you. We’ll escort you to his vessel.”

  “Thank you.” She took a step, but stopped short when the second man parked the flat of his palm against Cain’s chest. She glanced at the guard in charge. “Is there a problem?”

  “Señor Fuentes said nothing about expecting anyone else to be accompanying you.”

  The man still holding Cain back sneered. “Especially not one of his kind.”

  Marina swallowed past the knot of dread climbing up her throat. Cain’s silence and lack of reaction only meant he was twice as deadly. The last thing she wanted was for this meeting to end even before it began. “I am Anatoly Moretskov’s niece. I do not go anywhere without my personal security detail. I’m sure Mr. Fuentes will understand. If he doesn’t, please let him know my uncle and I will be happy to take our business elsewhere.”

  The men exchanged a look, then the first guard touched the communication device in his ear and murmured to someone on the other end. He glanced to his comrade, then tightly shook his head.

  “As you wish,” he told Marina. “Señor Fuentes says your man is welcome. But we’ve been instructed to hold on to his weapons until after your business is concluded.”

  When Marina looked at Cain, he gave a vague shrug. His face remained impassive, devoid of expression as the second guard patted him down and removed a semiautomatic pistol from the back waistband of his dark jeans. A couple of nasty looking blades were confiscated, too, one from a sheath under his arm, the other taken from where it was strapped to his left ankle.

  Only when the weapons were taken did Cain allow the slightest smile to ride the edge of his broad mouth. Marina had seen firsthand that he was no less lethal armed solely with his bare hands. She only hoped Fuentes or his men wouldn’t be foolish enough to test him.

  She arched a brow at the two guards. “Satisfied?”

  The bigger one indicated that she follow him. “This way, please.”

  Ernesto Fuentes was seated aboard his yacht on a cushioned velvet sofa inside a lavish salon. Warm, polished wood and opulent millwork paneled the walls. Brass fixtures gleamed beneath the sparkle of crystal chandeliers that swayed and tinkled with the soft rocking of the vessel on the water.

  As wide as he was tall, the Cuban mafia boss didn’t bother to stand up as Marina and Cain were escorted inside. His thinning hair was dyed inky black and slicked to his round skull with an enormous amount of pomade. When his dark gaze lit on Marina, an oily smile spread beneath the pencil-thin line of his dark moustache.

  “My good friend Anatoly neglected to mention how lovely you are. Please, come in.” His smile frozen, he patted the small space beside him on the sofa. “Have a seat, my dear.”

  At her side, Cain’s stoic silence belied the menace pouring off him. Before she could even consider taking the first step toward the man, Cain reached for one of the club chairs opposite Fuentes and pulled it out for her instead. She lowered into it without comment, setting the briefcase on her lap.

  “A drink, perhaps?” Fuentes offered, disapproval in the flat look he gave Cain before focusing once more on Marina.

  “No, thank you.” She curved her mouth in what she hoped was a pleasant smile. “If you don’t mind, Mr. Fuentes, I would prefer to get straight to business.”

  He chuckled. “A pretty girl with a head for commerce. My favorite kind.”

  At the comment, Cain’s entire body radiated barely restrained menace. Marina pretended not to notice the change in the air, or the avid way Fuentes studied her as she placed the briefcase on the cocktail table between them and popped the locks. She took out the money, stacking the bundles of U.S. currency on the table in front of him.

  “Two million dollars,” she announced. “With compliments of my uncle.”

  He gave a short grunt. “And the disk?”

  She reached into the case and unfastened the false wall containing the hidden compartment. As she took out the flash drive, Fuentes eagerly held out his hand. Marina glanced at him without relinquishing the prize. “Do you have your key?”

  “Of course.” He grinned and tapped his temple. “I’ve memorized it to keep it safe. And I trust you’ve brought yours as well?”

  “I have.” She held out her tattooed arm.

  Fuentes’s eyes widened with understanding. He wagged his finger, nodding in amusement. “Anatoly is a clever one. My old friend never fails to make sure his interests are well protected.”

  “He takes his freedom very seriously,” Marina replied. “And he cannot be too careful considering what’s on this drive.”

  “Yes. You are so right my dear.”

  The cryptic smile that flashed across the Cuban’s face sent a twinge of doubt through her bloodstream. He snapped his fingers to one of the two bodyguards posted in the salon and the man brought over a laptop and opened it for his boss.

  Fuentes’s gaze turned serious and dark as he waited for her to give him the disk.

  Marina hesitated, suddenly unsure. Unsure of Fuentes. Unsure of the deal she was about to make. At the moment, she was suddenly unsure of everything. Even her faith in her uncle.

  Cain glanced at her, his face tense with a similar foreboding. He clamped his hand around her arm, pulling her to her feet. “We’re out of here.”

  “What the fuck?” Fuentes snapped. His two bodyguards reached for their weapons. “You’re not going anywhere yet. Give me the disk, girl.”

  A faint thump sounded from somewhere above their heads. It sounded like a body hitting the roof of the salon.

  “Shit.” Cain pulled Marina to his side, hissing a sharp curse. “We’ve got company.”

  Someone shouted in Spanish. Then gunfire erupted from outside on the yacht.

  “What’s going on?” Fuentes shouted. “You think you can double-cross me?”

  His two men held their guns on her and Cain, but panic filled their faces as the chaos
and shooting continued outside the salon.

  “It’s not us,” Cain snarled. He looked at Marina, his face grave. “He’s here.”

  She didn’t have to ask who he meant. His chilling seriousness sent an icy realization flowing into her veins. The assassin who had failed to kill her in Miami had caught up to her again.

  Cain pushed her behind him. “Stay down, baby. He’s not getting to you without going through me first.”

  At the same moment, the salon window behind Fuentes exploded. Marina hit the floor, covering her head as glass shards rained down and a massive figure in full black tactical attire swung into the room on a hail of automatic gunfire.

  ~ ~ ~

  Flying glass, splintering wood, and a blinding spray of AK-47 rounds turned the yacht’s ostentatious salon into a battlefield in a matter of seconds.

  Fuentes’s two guards were mowed down like bowling pins, both men dropping in dead heaps. Their boss was bleeding from a nasty wound to the side of his neck. He screamed like a terrified animal as he scrambled off the sofa to the floor.

  Cain barely noticed the Cuban casualties. With everything unfolding in an instant, the only thing that mattered to him was Marina. She was hunkered down behind the cocktail table where he put her, arms folded over her head to shield herself from the falling debris as the sniper dropped to his feet inside the room.

  Jesus, the man was huge.

  No, not a man. A Breed male, built like a tank with a squared head and hawk nose. Beneath the black skull cap pulled low on his brow, his eyes crackled hot with amber.

  With weapon raised at Cain, the male started to squeeze off another stream of bullets. Cain took a hit in the shoulder, but it was a lucky shot won at close range. His Breed genetics powered him forward. He plowed into the shooter’s torso, knocking the rifle’s barrel up toward the ceiling.

  Cain kicked out the male’s ankle, dropping him to the floor. They wrestled for the AK, a stream of wild rounds tearing up the paneled walls and shattering the large chandelier overhead. When Cain smashed his elbow into the vampire’s throat, the bastard howled and finally lost his hold on the weapon. Cain grabbed it, jammed the barrel under the bastard’s chin and pulled the trigger.

  Empty.

  Fuck.

  Strong hands came up, clamping around the weapon still in Cain’s hands. On a roar, he flipped Cain off him and rose to his feet. The male was still choking and sputtering from the damage inflicted on his larynx, but it wasn’t slowing him down. If anything, rage only spurred the assassin on.

  He leaped at Cain, going for a stranglehold. Cain didn’t give him the chance. He threw him off, sending the big body crashing into a sturdy wooden desk. The piece splintered under the force of the impact. Cain was on him in a flash, poised to drive his boot heel through the vampire’s rib cage. But the male flew at him even faster. They went airborne, bouncing each other off the walls and trading punishing blows that would have already stopped a less disciplined opponent.

  This Breed male had training and experience that went beyond the militaristic style of his clothing and weapons. He was professional, a born and raised killer. Cain ought to know.

  “You’re a Hunter,” he snarled, his forearm braced beneath the assassin’s jaw. “Who sent you after her?”

  Instead of answering, the bastard head-butted him. Cain snarled and shook off the pain, blood dripping into his eyes.

  “She’s a Breedmate, you asshole.”

  “You think I give a fuck?” The Hunter bared his fangs. “Hundreds of lives at stake. All because of this bitch and her uncle. She’s not worth even one of them.”

  Cain scowled. “What are you talking about?”

  On a roar, the assassin shifted in his grasp. Hot agony slashed across Cain’s abdomen. Marina screamed as the knife tore him open. He staggered back. The Hunter came after him, the blade hacking and slicing through the air.

  Cain caught the male’s fist and wrenched it hard, snapping the limb. He jammed it higher, inflicting maximum anguish. The Hunter bellowed, but Cain showed no mercy.

  “Who do you work for?” he demanded. “Not Karamenko. Tell me, damn you!”

  “Doesn’t matter who. And I won’t be the last. Not as long as she has that file.” The big male groaned sharply and broke loose, chest heaving. His eyes were on fire with murder, his fangs like daggers in his open, panting mouth. “The bitch has to die, brother.”

  Cain shook his head, feeling no kinship for the killer who would harm his woman. “You want her, you gotta get through me first.”

  “Your call.”

  They crashed together again, an almost even match of strength and savagery. Cain had to work damn hard to take the bastard down. But his rage had gone from volcanic to deadly cold and focused. With the big male pinned and struggling beneath him, Cain reached for one of the bodyguards’ dropped pistols.

  With utter calm, he emptied it point-blank into the Hunter’s skull.

  “Cain!” Marina was hunkered down near Fuentes, her hand on his arm. She scrambled to her feet and rushed over to Cain as he rose off the dead assassin. “Oh, my God, Cain. You’re bleeding everywhere.”

  He set her away from him, still vibrating with violence and too on the edge to accept her comfort. “I’m fine. Ah Christ, you’re bleeding too.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I’m okay. The blood isn’t mine.” She gestured to Fuentes’s slumped corpse. “He’s dead.”

  He ran his hand over her hair. “I don’t care about him.”

  She swallowed, glancing down at the unmoving body of the assassin. When her gaze came back to Cain, her eyes swam with fear and uncertainty. “The things he said . . . about me. What did he mean?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He said lives were at stake, Cain. Hundreds. Whose lives?”

  Cain shook his head, hearing the confusion in her voice. And the edge of a reluctant, but deepening dread. He had his suspicions about her uncle before. After tonight, those suspicions had hardened into a cold certainty. Anatoly Moretskov had used Marina. He’d deceived her. Sent her out knowing she would have a target on her back.

  Cain wanted to kill the bastard for each one of those offenses.

  For now, the only thing he wanted more was to take Marina away from the carnage that surrounded them.

  He just wanted to take her home.

  “Come on, sweetheart.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Get the flash drive. This place is going to swarming with JUSTIS any minute now. Let’s get out of here.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Bram and Lana met them as soon as they walked into the Darkhaven.

  “Oh, my God,” Lana gasped, all the color draining from her face.

  “It looks worse than it is,” Cain muttered, although even that was probably less than reassuring. He had more bruises than he could count, and probably a couple of broken bones. His torso wound had finally stopped bleeding, but his shirt was soaked and hanging off him like a shredded rag.

  Marina didn’t look much better. Blood-splattered from Fuentes’s injuries and coated in a layer of dust and debris, she walked in alongside Cain with sallow cheeks and eyes glazed with a kind of battle fatigue that made him want to gather her in his arms and not let go for the rest of the night.

  Or maybe for the rest of his life.

  “What the hell happened?” Bram asked, concern furrowing his brow.

  Cain had filled him and the others in about the meeting with Fuentes, and the possibility that it wasn’t going to end well. But returning home reeking of gun smoke and death had not been part of the plan.

  Razor and Logan came into the room now too.

  “So much for diplomatic relations with Cuba,” Raze said around a smirk.

  Logan’s dark eyes ran over Cain with a decided lack of surprise. “Local news and internet’s losing their shit over a war zone situation on Key Largo tonight. I’m guessing that’s no coincidence.”

  Cain gave them a rundown of what took place on F
uentes’s yacht. As he relayed the attack by the other Hunter and the cryptic comments about the data on Moretskov’s disk, he couldn’t keep from glancing at Marina. She had gone quiet, retreating into herself.

  For a woman he knew to be so self-assured and determined, her withdrawal now told him how truly terrified she was—not of the attack or their hard-won escape from it, but of the questions tonight’s meeting had raised. About her uncle. About the disk. About the secrets that still needed to be uncovered.

  “You say the sniper was one of us?”

  Knox’s deep voice came from behind Cain. He leaned against the doorjamb, not quite part of the group, yet not fully on the outside, either.

  Cain nodded. “He was a Hunter, but no one I knew from the program.”

  Bram fisted his hands at his hips. “We’re scattered all over the world now. No telling how many of us escaped or where they are now.”

  Razor inclined his head in agreement. “And no telling when we might run up against a brother who needs killing.”

  Cain couldn’t take any satisfaction in what happened tonight. He’d killed the fellow Hunter because he posed a threat to Marina. He would never regret that. But the act left a hollow in Cain’s chest. In some fucked up way, taking his unknown brother’s life felt as empty as ending a life on a battlefield.

  Fitting, since the Hunter had shown up dressed for war.

  “Marina,” Bram said. “You believe the Hunter who attacked tonight knew your bodyguard, Yury?”

  “Yes,” she answered woodenly. “In Miami, Yury let on that he knew the sniper. They were working together to stop me from delivering the disk to Fuentes.”

  Knox stepped into the room now. “Was the Hunter a Russian?”

  Cain shook his head. “No. American. I’m sure JUSTIS will ID him. A fleet of squad cars were screaming down the highway as Marina and I were heading back here.”

  “News reports didn’t mention any Breed among the dead,” Logan said.