UndercoverSurrender (4 page)

The rush of loathing she experienced crowded out the fear
and she felt better for it. She would make them pay. She swore she would if it
was the last thing she ever did.

Which it very well might be.

The pirate chuckled, resting his forearms on the railing and
gazing out at the ocean. “There. That’s better.”

“What?”

“Don’t let them see you’re scared.”

“
Them
? Don’t you mean
you
?”

“Hey, Vik,” the big blond one called over to them. “You
sweet-talking my girl?”

Samantha’s stomach dropped.

“Don’t,” the other one muttered.

She flashed him an annoyed look. “Don’t what?”

“That’s better.”

It was pitch-black night out where her father and the rest
of them were, but on the deck of the yacht, it could have been midday the
lights were so bright.

The blond one, who seemed to be the leader, joined them at
the railing, standing next to her. “Did you wave bye-bye to Daddy?”

She said nothing. He no longer had that machine gun strapped
around his arm. No longer needed it, he probably thought. She glanced at his
shirtless torso, marked with tattoos and scars, but muscled like a
prizefighter’s. The dark one on the other side still had his tee shirt on, but
his muscled biceps suggested he was just as strong. Both stood well taller than
her even though they were both leaning.

She realized dully that the dark one was what she normally
would have registered as good-looking. She hadn’t even noticed that—she, who
usually judged everyone on their looks.

Pretty is as pretty does.
She’d never believed that
before, but God how true that was.

“You checking us out, girl?” the blond one asked her.

She tried to swallow her revulsion, not trusting herself to
speak.

“What do you think, Vik? You want to share her?”

“No thanks. I don’t share too well.”

“I’ll give her to you when I’m done, then.”

Christ, what the fuck was he supposed to do now? No big
surprise that was what Gunny had kept her for. To rape her. And if he wanted a
partner in bed to join in the fun, Santiago would be there in a second. Two
animals for the price of one ganging up on one terrified girl.

So how the hell did he stop that?

There was only one way. He tried another one first anyway.

“Her old man is obviously filthy rich. I say we lock her up
and try to ransom her. Her family will be so fucking scared, they’ll pay
anything.”

“Maybe,” Gunny said. “But first we’re going to put her to
good use.”

“She’ll be worth more if we don’t touch her.”

Gunny looked at him as if he was insane and it was kind of a
lame argument, to this crowd anyway. “Are you fucking kidding me? If you think
I’d pass up this pussy, you’ve been out in the sun too long.”

At the word “pussy” the others started to congregate, all
but the guy driving the yacht. They were simply watching for now, but hoping
for a gang bang no doubt.

Great.

With six men on board, besides himself, and two more in the
motorboat alongside them, he didn’t exactly have great odds. But Gunderson was
the leader and Vik was more or less second-in-command by now. The others were
no more than brainless thugs. If he could convince Gunderson to keep his hands
off the girl, the others would follow suit.

The only problem was that the only way to “convince”
Gunderson was probably to cut his dick off.

“Okay, if that’s the way it’s going to be,” Vik said
ambiguously, still thinking of his nonexistent alternatives.

“As I said, you can have her when I’m done.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Used goods by then? Man, you are one picky bastard, you
know that, Vik? If I hadn’t seen you fuck a whore myself, I might think you
were a limp dick.”

“Give her to me, Gunny, and you can have my share when we
get to Visto.” Vik blurted that out spontaneously, not thinking it through. It
was the wrong note to strike.

Gunderson laughed. “Why would you do that? Christ, she’s
nice but not a half-a-mil nice. I’m getting a bad feeling here. You some kind
of a white knight or what?”

The girl stood rigidly between them as they discussed her
and Vik was hoping she was too shaken to listen. He didn’t need any hysterics.
But now he had to do something. He turned to lean back against the railing and
suddenly copped a feel of one of her high firm breasts. She started and surged
away, but he held her arm with a bruising grip. Gunderson laughed and Vik
shrugged.

“I want to fuck her, just like you, but I’m willing to pay
you for her. What’s wrong with that?”

“Pay the whole take? That doesn’t make sense—unless you’re
figuring I won’t be around to collect. Is that what you’re thinking?”

God, Gunderson was such a paranoid bastard and Vik was
fucking this up big-time, making him suspicious. As if taking
this
yacht
instead of the yacht that Interpol had deliberately placed in their path wasn’t
fuckup enough. If he ended up tipping his hand and getting killed in the
bargain, it wouldn’t do the girl much good.

Vik shrugged. “If you don’t want the deal, okay. I was just
offering. You’re right, though. Sometimes I let my dick think for me. She’s
hot, but we’re going to be there in a few days anyway, aren’t we? There’s pussy
there, all I want, right? I can jack off ’til then if that’s the way you want
it.”

Gunderson glanced at Santiago, confirming what Vik was
starting to suspect. Gunny wasn’t the only one who knew how to get to their
destination, Visto, the nerve center of the sex trade operation Vik was
investigating. Santiago knew how to get there too. He could feel it.

Or maybe that was just what he wanted to believe, since he
was rapidly seeing no way to save the girl unless he did something about
Gunderson.

“You don’t have to jack off, Vik. I told you, I’ll give her
to you after I’m done,” Gunderson said quietly. “Or with us. Either way. I like
a show, but this time I got to be in on the action.” He spared some attention
for the girl, staring at her and licking his lips at the sight and then rubbing
his stiffening cock through the material of his jeans. “Look at her, man.”

“I told you I don’t like to share.”

Gunderson jerked his head back to Vik at the comment, his
lustful contemplation replaced by annoyance. After a career of keeping the
dregs of the earth in line under his command, Gunderson recognized a challenge
when he heard it. “Just for that, you arrogant fuck, I’m going to let all the
rest of the assholes at her, maybe even at the same time, before you get your
turn.”

The girl gasped between them.

Of all the things he thought he’d be crossing this maniac
over, a damsel in distress was about the last of them.

“Now take her below.”

Gunderson issued the command casually, as if he had no doubt
Vik would comply. And actually, Vik was planning to comply—figuring something
would occur to him when he got her down below—until the girl took off at a run.
Before either of them could stop her she had one foot on the opposite railing,
preparing to dive into the ocean. Vik caught up to her at the very last second,
whipping his arms around her waist and tumbling them both to the deck as she
struggled wildly beneath him.

Half of him thought he should have let her jump, but given
the height of the deck and the speed at which the yacht was travelling, she
probably would have broken her legs and drowned. She was crying and kicking and
he was having a hard time settling her when the both of them were suddenly
drenched with water. Gunderson stood above them with an empty bucket, laughing.

“You wanted a swim, baby? I’ll give you a swim.”

Santiago and a few of the others formed a circle around them
to watch the spectacle as Vik rolled to his feet, dragging the girl up with
him.

“Oh, I like what I see,” Gunderson crooned, honing in on
girl’s tits, her tee shirt now transparent with the water. “Forget about taking
her downstairs, Vik. I’ll fuck her right now.” His hands went to his belt.
“We’ll give the boys a show. What do you say, sweet cheeks?”

“I’ll kill you first.” The girl was soaking wet and panting
but Vik, for one, almost believed her. The other men laughed.

Vik held fast to her wrist, but he would need to let her go
if he was going to take on Gunderson. The question, though, was whether by
doing so he’d be taking on the rest of them.

“Let me handle this,” he said to her in a low tone and she
shot him a startled look.

“Hold her down, boys,” Gunderson instructed, his belt now
undone.

Vik reached around to his knife in the back holder strapped
to his jeans and whipped it out. “I wouldn’t take your dick out just yet,
Gunny.”

Gunderson froze.

“I decided I really do want the girl for myself,” Vik said,
brandishing the knife. “You don’t want to sell her to me, I’ll fight you for
her.”

Gunderson digested that for a moment, but the thing about
commanding the dregs of the earth was that it was important not only to
recognize challenges, but to meet them, no matter how they escalated.

At least if a person wanted to keep commanding said dregs.

Gunderson extracted his own knife from its holder. “Okay by
me, you stupid fuck. I gave you that whore back in Jakarta, but that’s just
because I was getting my dick sucked regularly every day for a month or so
before that. Now, we been out to sea a while and I don’t feel like letting you
go first. You got to learn to play well with others sometimes, Vik. All the
time you been with us, I don’t think you learned that too good.” He accompanied
the admonition with assuming the crouching stance that often preceded a knife
fight.

Vik glanced around at the rest of the crew, gesturing with
the seven-inch-long blade that he hoped would see him through this. “A fair fight
between you and me, Gunny? Or do you need all this backup?”

Gunderson laughed, starting to circle him. “You don’t think
I can take you? Man, you
are
one arrogant bastard. Too bad because
you’re going to be one dead bastard in two minutes. You done okay with us, Vik,
but you’re starting to piss me off now. So unless you want to just stay out of
the way now and not get all greedy—”

Even as he said it, Gunderson lunged and Vik jumped back,
out of reach.

The other men went completely silent and a glance to the
side told him Santiago had grabbed the girl’s arm. No need to, though. She
looked as mesmerized as the rest of them.

“You’re making a big mistake here, Vik.”

Gunderson was good with a knife. Vik had seen it more times
than he liked to remember. And he had no compunctions about knocking off one of
his own crew, Bobby Vincent being exhibit A—although Vik supposed he had done
the actual knocking off in that case.

But Gunny talked too much.
All the time.
Even in a
fight. And that could turn out to be dangerous when confronted with an opponent
who was good with a knife too.

Like him.

“You’re going to die for this whore, Vik? Why’s that? She
remind you of your sweetheart back home? Your sister?”

Gunny continued to jabber as the two men circled each other.

“’Cause if it’s your sister, I have to say that’s kinky. I’d
like to meet your sister, Vik. I’d show her a good time.”

Vik tuned him out. Nobody here but him and the knife in his
hand and the knife in the other guy’s hand.

Not to mention he didn’t even have a sister.

Gunny lunged again, putting all of his considerable heft
into it, and Vik just barely made it out of the way in time. The blade might
have even sliced his shirt. If he couldn’t hear Gunderson’s pathetic attempts
to bait him, though, he could for some reason hear one voice, small as it was.
The girl’s. She squealed a little as he jumped out of the way and the reminder
of her baited him more effectively than a thousand taunts from Gunderson could
have.

He hooked his foot under one of Gunny’s as the big man was
regaining his balance from the motion of the lunge and it was quick enough,
thank God, to bring him down, hard, the sound of him falling to the deck like
the thud of a tree trunk.

Without overthinking it, without thinking of it at all, as a
matter of fact, Vik brought his knife down and sliced, the razor edge of the
blade making short work of even the toughened skin of his opponent’s throat.

He hadn’t really faced up to the fact that he meant to kill
Gunderson until he actually did it. But once he had, he knew there was nothing
else he could have done. Gunderson wasn’t going to back down. It was a fight to
the death. There was no such thing as a friendly knife fight with this crew and
Gunderson could never let Vik live after he’d challenged his authority like
this.

The dying man gurgled a little, clutching his throat as
blood spurted out, and Vik watched him dispassionately. It was important at
this moment to be as cold as possible. Having the others accept the verdict of
the knife fight depended on it.

He glanced around at the rest of the men. “Anybody got
anything to say?”

They didn’t. A minute later, Gunny’s hands dropped and the
head he had been trying to lift conked down on the deck like the rest of him.
At least the bastard had died quickly. That was more than a dozen of Gunny’s
victims had gotten as far as Vik could tell.

The motorboat was still keeping pace with them, but if they
could see what had happened he didn’t worry too much about that. They’d find
out eventually and those particular crewmen weren’t any huge fans of Gunderson
anyway. He wasn’t a guy who’d inspired loyalty.

Vik dragged the corpse to the side of the deck and with a
mighty heave dumped him over the railing. He didn’t bother to watch him sink.

“Fucking Gunny got blood on the deck anyway,” Vik commented
with a look down at the purple-red puddle, wiping his knife on his jeans and
then holding the clean blade out to the circle of men. “Anybody else want to
fight me for the girl?”