I turned around and looked through the French doors into the kitchen. A man, his back to me, stood talking to Marabel. His hair was dark, and for a moment I assumed it was my father. He’d probably returned to take us back to the horror of the dorms, as Juliet had called it.

But no— This man was taller than my father, and he was wearing blue jeans and a black shirt. Not the black pants my father had been wearing.

He stood talking to Marabel for what seemed like forever. Turn around, I screamed inside my head.

When he didn’t, I stood, my feet moving toward the door seemingly of their own volition.

I opened the door and walked in.

The man turned to face me.

And I gasped.

Chapter Twenty-One

Ryan

I clapped my hands over my ears. The women in the hallway began wailing.

Raj was yelling at Scotty, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. The man started walking, Raj’s gun never moving from his temple. I looked to Talon. As much as it pained me to leave Anna and the others, I followed.

The siren blared on and on for what seemed like hours. We followed Scotty down a flight of stairs and into a dark basement. The sound was muffled a little more here. I sniffed. No smoke, so it wasn’t a fire alarm. We were safe for the moment.

“What was that?” Talon yelled to Raj.

“He said it’s a signal of breach,” Raj yelled back. “He doesn’t think we’ve been seen. What most likely happened is that someone found the two guys we left behind. We should have killed them.”

His use of the pronoun “we” disturbed me. As much as the jerks deserved death, I could never take a life. But I couldn’t argue the point now.

“What’s down here?” Raj yelled.

“You don’t want to know,” Scotty said.

As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I began to make out images. A stockade. A— Fuck. Was it a guillotine? Christ. This must be where the goons doled out the severe punishment.

Raj was dragging Scotty along, clearly looking for something, though I didn’t have the slightest idea what. Talon and I followed them as Raj pushed Scotty down onto a chair.

“It’d serve you right if I locked you in that stockade.” Instead, Raj took a roll of what appeared to be duct tape out of his bag. The man definitely came prepared. He bound Scotty’s hands and wrists together and then taped him to the chair. He held a piece of tape to his mouth. “Lucky for you I’m not a sadist. Any last words, mon?”

“Fuck you,” Scotty spat again.

“Original.” Raj taped his mouth shut. “But I respect the fact that you didn’t beg.” He turned to us. “He’s taken care of for the moment. Since we’re in our black outfits, we can fit in around here. Next step is going back up and seeing what this is about.”

“No offense,” I said. “But I’m sick and tired of smelling and tasting a guy’s blood.” I held my mask out to Raj. Since the masks were black, the blood didn’t show. We could still smell the tang of it though. It was quickly making me gag.

“Me too,” Talon agreed.

“Sorry. They’re all we have. I can trade, but that’ll only help one of you.”

“You take it,” I said to Talon.

He didn’t try to argue. It was the least I could do. Talon had seen more blood in his lifetime than I had. He deserved the clean mask.

“Everyone armed?” Raj asked.

Talon and I both nodded and patted our weapons.

“All righty, then.” Raj pulled Talon’s bloodied mask over his head, his brown eyes black in the dark cellar. “Let’s go.”

We walked slowly and quietly up the stairs. I still had Scotty’s keys, though they hadn’t helped me release Anna and the others.

“We need to find more keys,” Raj said.

“Shouldn’t we call the cops?” I asked.

“This is a private island. There aren’t any cops here.”

Of course. I should have known that. So we’d have no backup.

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

Ruby’s beautiful face poked into my mind. How I missed her. If anyone had harmed her…

I couldn’t go there. Not now. Right now, Talon and I had one mission. Find Theodore Mathias and take him down. In doing so, we’d probably find and rescue Ruby.

I hoped so. I prayed to a God I wasn’t sure I believed in anymore to keep her safe. To keep the woman I loved—the woman I was going to marry—safe.

Raj opened the door slightly. The siren was still blaring. “Look,” he yelled to us. “People in black are running around out here like a bunch of maniacs. No one will notice us. Follow me.”

We exited the stairwell into the hall. He was right. Men in black were everywhere checking rooms. We blended right in. That siren had given us the perfect cover.

But where to now? I had no idea. We hadn’t made any plans on the yacht because none of us had a clue what we’d find here. Talon and I had agreed to give Raj the lead, as he was the most experienced at investigating.

So far, he’d proven himself trustworthy, but I still wasn’t sure. Something niggled at the back of my neck. I thought again of Ruby, about how she’d said she’d learned not to ignore her intuition.

My intuition was telling me to tread carefully with Raj. He was hiding something. I was almost sure of it. As soon as I had the chance, I’d relay my concerns to Talon.

For now, we followed Raj, nodding to the other men in black who scurried down the corridors. Some wore masks and some did not. We didn’t dare remove ours. They might not all know each other, but what if they did? What if they recognized that we didn’t belong here? We couldn’t take that chance.

We still had no idea what Scotty’s keys opened.

Raj began stopping at doors. “Cover me,” he yelled to Talon and me.

We stood in front of him while he tried all the keys. We did this at three doors before we hit pay dirt.

The door opened, and inside were two children. Boys. Both had blondish hair, could pass for brothers—maybe were brothers. They were dressed only in large T-shirts, and their wrists and ankles were bound with white rope. Both cowered in the corner when we entered the room.

Talon went rigid.

I could see it in his eyes. He was flashing back.

And that damned siren kept blaring!

“Hold it together, Tal,” I yelled at him. “Please! We’ll get them out of here!”

Then his eyes went feral. He ran to the two little boys and grabbed one of them.

“No!” The little boy yelled. “No! Please! No more!”

“We won’t hurt you!” I yelled.

And the siren stopped blaring.

Thank God.

But the little boy was yelling, and the other was quietly weeping.

“Hey, hey,” Talon said. “You need to be quiet if you don’t want the bad people to come. We’re not going to hurt you. I promise.” He quickly unbound the little boy’s hands and feet.

“Can he walk?” I asked.

“Of course he can’t walk. Look at him. Look at both of them. They’ll stumble. They’re starved and malnourished. They’ll need our help.”

Talon knew. He knew just what these boys had been through. And it was eating him up inside. I could see it. See what it was doing to my hero.

This had to stop.

“Tal,” I said. “Get a grip. We need them to be strong if we’re going to help them. You walked out, remember?”

“I had help.”

“You had Larry, who let you out, but you didn’t have anyone to help you walk. They do. They have us. They’ll be okay.”

“Listen, mon,” Raj interjected. “We can’t take them right now. We don’t know what we’re walking into. The siren has stopped. Things will settle down and get back to normal. We need to find who’s in charge here and get him taken care of. They’ll slow us down.”

“We are not leaving them here,” Talon said through gritted teeth. “I’m paying your bills, goddamnit, and you’re going to help me get these boys out of here.”

My mind whirled. The fact that Scotty had a key to this room meant he’d probably had a hand in abusing these young kids. Abhorrence erupted in my throat. I hadn’t been able to rescue Anna, but we could rescue these two little boys.

Not just for them, but for Talon. For the little boy my brother had been. For the little boy I had been, saved only because I had a different mother—an evil woman who had orchestrated all of this.

I so couldn’t go there right now…

“Talon’s right,” I said to Raj. “We’re not leaving them here.”

The boy Talon held let out a scream.

I clamped my hand over his mouth. “Hey, I know you’re scared. But we’re going to help you. We need you to be quiet. If you scream, someone will find us and we won’t be able to help you. Do you understand?”

The boy nodded shakily, but when I removed my hand, he let out another blood-curdling howl.

“He doesn’t trust you, Ryan. He doesn’t trust any of us. He can’t. He’s been through hell.”

I hated what I was about to suggest, but we had no alternative. “Raj, you still have the tape?”

Talon turned on me. “We will not tape his mouth! Damn it, Ryan. We can’t put them through more shit.”

“Tal, I understand, but they have to be quiet.”

“I’ll get them to be quiet,” Talon said. “I know what they need right now.” He set the little boy down next to the other and then sat on the floor with them. He removed his mask.

The little boy let out a heart-wrenching shriek.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Ruby