embarked on this ill-fated voyage. Sadie would never recover from losing both her husband and daughter.
At the stern, Ariana braced herself for the final assault. Instead, the thug left. Bewilderment assailed her. Reeling from captivity first in the odiferous hold and then the perfumed stateroom, she inhaled the bracing night air. If these were her last breaths, she would savor them.
Murky gray clouds scuttled across the pallid moon. The ocean churned below, where restless waves prowled to the horizon and tumbled off the earth. Shuddering, Ariana pressed trembling lips together. Don’t you dare start wailing.
How had she landed on a yacht in the Mediterranean waiting to die? She had never taken risks. Never longed for adventure. She’d been content to experience life through the stories she adored. She had never hungered for ambition. Never burned with passion. Never melded heart to heart with a soul mate.
At what were probably her few remaining moments before death, realization stole over her. She’d only flirted with blurry shadows of the real thing.
She had never truly lived.
It wasn’t fair. Wasn’t enough.
She wanted more!
If she made it through this, she would live her life the way she wanted…on her own terms. No more concessions. No more doubts. When she died, she wanted to leave behind no regrets.
She heard a commotion and spun around. Which was more terrifying? Someone creeping up from behind and shoving her into the water…or watching the waves rise up to swallow her?
The thugs struggled into view, wrestling Dante between them. The pair strove to restrain the furious Napoletano. Even tied up, he fought every step…defaming their parentage in admirably profane Italian. Relief crested over her. His injuries hadn’t disabled him as badly as she’d feared.
Dante saw her. He stumbled, his tirade broken mid-insult. His gaze swept her body, then locked with hers. His umber eyes mirrored her relief, and her heart jolted. Then he looked away, his features hardening into his usual stony expression.
The Russian opened a watertight door in the stern and motioned them down onto a platform. Her gaze fixated on the waves lapping at her deck shoes. “I’m sorry.” She sputtered a frantic apology at Dante.
“Stay calm, Ariana.” His low assurance vibrated in her ear. “Get into the boat.” He gestured at a speedboat moored to the platform.
Boat? Her limbs quivered as the spike of adrenaline ebbed. She hadn’t seen the boat.
The Greek piloted the speedboat and the Russian rode shotgun, with her and Dante trapped in the middle. As if they’d be moronic enough to dive headlong into the ocean with their hands tied behind their backs.
The Greek didn’t use the running lights. He either knew where they were going or was taking them farther out to sea to dump their bodies.
Wind whipped her hair as the hull chopped through surf. Shivering, she leaned into Dante. “Will they toss us overboard?” she whispered.
“I doubt it. They would have done it from the yacht and saved the effort.”
“You know I can’t swim. If you get a chance to escape, go. Save yourself.”
He angled his big frame to shield her from the wind. “I am not leaving you. And I will not let anything happen to you.”
“You don’t lack confidence, Signor Dante. I appreciate the encouragement, but unless you have blue spandex tights and a red cape stashed in your pocket, I don’t see how.”
It took a few seconds to translate. Then he threw back his head and laughed. His eyes sparkled and his teeth gleamed in his bearded face. Dazed, Ariana blinked at the impact of Dante’s unrestrained smile.
The Greek turned and scowled, and Dante lowered his voice.
“Don’t be so pessimistic, bella. Thanks to your cleverness, my ropes are weakened. I only need more time and a sharp object.”
“Which you won’t find in the middle of the Mediterranean.”
“We’re headed toward a destination. We wait. And watch.”
The Greek suddenly killed the motor.
“Shut up,” the Russian snarled. “No more talking.”
Ariana anxiously half turned as the beefy man stood, but he merely slid the oars into the oarlocks and reseated himself. His biceps knotted as he rowed.
She glanced up at Dante. Inscrutability shuttered his bruised face, but his forearms grazed hers as he fought his bonds. They had to be nearing their final destination. She fervently hoped he could break free.
Trembling with cold and apprehension, she huddled into the protection afforded by his body, and he moved closer. Though he had often appeared to ignore her over the past six weeks, in reality, he was acutely responsive to her body language. A survival skill when one conducted business with the mob.
Though their whispered conversation had been forbidden, the presence of his reassuring strength helped. The irony wasn’t lost on her. Soaking in his heat, she pressed against him, shoulder to firm shoulder, thigh to hard-muscled thigh.
She wasn’t convinced they were headed anywhere other than the bottom of the sea. If she succumbed to her rioting fear of how it might feel, how long it might take to drown, she’d start screaming like a banshee.
Think about something else. Anything.
She was freezing. Neither she nor Dante were dressed for nighttime on the open water. He had been wearing a long, weathered black Florentinian leather coat over his black T-shirt and black denims, but their captors must have stripped it from him before tying him up. She wore cargo pants with a long-sleeved shirt.
She jerked upright.
Oh. My. God. In the midst of the trauma, she’d forgotten. Was Dante’s coat the only thing their captors had confiscated? Muddled by terror, she hadn’t thought to check if her iPod and notebook were still in her hip pocket. Ariana twisted in frustration. She couldn’t tell. She’d taken the precaution of securing her iPod in a watertight case before accepting the job aboard Alexandra’s Dream and her notebook was in a sealed plastic bag.
The iPod hid Derek’s files, encrypted in ancient Greek, which she had spent months laboriously translating into the notebook. She’d had no idea cruise lines overlapped employee duties and that she’d be required to juggle many nonlibrary-related jobs. Duties aboard the cruise liner had kept her hopping. She’d spent every snippet of free time the past seven months decoding files. Only a long list of names and addresses, so far. Most dead ends. Finally, one had led her to the dealer in Naples. Her first break, thwarted by the Camorra.
When Dante had kidnapped her, she’d lost the use of her shipboard dictionary. Translating the complicated language had slowed to a painful crawl. She groaned. If Megaera’s cohorts had stolen her only clues to clearing her father’s name, her crusade was doomed.
Dante’s lips brushed her hair and his breath feathered into her ear. “Are you seasick?”
Not risking a reply, she shook her head. He had
