Prologue

Could a day get any better than this?

Caesar glanced over at the beautiful woman swimming effortlessly next to him as they explored the depths. She had chosen this spot for their scuba adventure today. He didn’t know how she’d luckily pointed at such a great location on the map. He’d assured her they’d get to see so many different sea creatures on the dive.

He touched her arm to point out a patch of rocks to the left, silently suggesting that they go look there. Mindy immediately shook her head and pointed up ahead. As they moved forward, Caesar noticed that she checked her watch several times. Was she watching her oxygen level? Was it something else?

Caesar had been on several dates with Mindy. He’d met her when another scuba instructor had introduced them. So far, she’d been fun to hang out with, but as he watched her swimming with such intent toward an unknown destination, he wondered how well he really knew her.

His inner radar went off. With several years in the Coast Guard under his belt, he’d honed a fine-tuned radar. He’d also learned long ago to trust that warning voice when it talked to him. Caesar tested his theory. Scanning the area, he spotted what looked like a series of wooden ribs pointing up from the seabed. Again, he touched her arm and pointed before waving for her to come with him. Mindy again shook her head and continued her path. That refusal went directly against her avowed passion to explore the unusual on the seabed.

Following her, Caesar shifted to swim on her other side. She appeared to be zeroing in on a specific location. Mindy certainly had not chosen to share that she’d had a target in mind. It explained why she’d insisted on selecting the area for today’s explorations. He hadn’t picked up on her intent as she’d giggled and seemed to ponder where to go.

He scanned the area, on full alert. Mindy stopped and immediately began waving her hands over the sand to disperse the particles. When the top of a box appeared, she motioned him over to help her dig it out. Her eyes gleamed with excitement even through the diving mask.

A shadow fell over the area where they worked, making Caesar look up. A large boat stopped just to the right of their location. Mindy hit his arm and dug furiously. A cold shiver ran down his spine. Something in the way they hovered over them alerted him that these weren’t tourists. He wrapped one hand around Mindy’s bicep and tried to pull her away. Perhaps they could make it back to the boat safely.

She shook her arm out of his hold and continued to work to free the box. Mindy obviously wasn’t going to leave without the object she was trying to get. As a handle appeared, he watched her grab it and attempt to drag it from the sand. It moved only a fraction of an inch.

Splashes from above made them both look up to see five figures in black wetsuits dropping into the water. Mindy frantically signaled him to pull the container out. Caesar moved her out of the way and heaved on the handle. It shifted in the sand. Bracing himself as much as possible in the water, he tugged with all his strength.

The case popped out of its sandy lodging. The driving force behind it propelled Caesar and the box backward. Mindy swam after them, frantically motioning Caesar to haul it up to the boat. She grabbed the handle on the opposite side and struggled to carry the heavy load to the surface.

Gathering his feet underneath himself, Caesar kicked himself away from the bottom and joined her efforts. Because the weight held them back, it felt like they were swimming against a strong current. A dive float would have saved this exertion, but without knowing Mindy had a recovery dive planned, Caesar had not brought one with them.

He glanced over his shoulder to see the divers getting closer. They could move ten times faster than he and Mindy with their burden. Pushing his body to its limit, he kicked quickly to propel himself forward.

Finally, Caesar’s head breached the water’s surface beside his boat. He dragged the mouthpiece from his lips. “What the fuck is going on?”

Before she could answer, a jolt of pain lanced through his thigh, drawing a shout from his lips. Caesar looked down to see blood streaming through the water. Damn it! They had shot him with a spear gun.

“I’ll get on board and pull the case up,” Mindy yelled and released her end of the case.

Dragged down by the weight and weakened by the pole spear now jutting through his thigh muscles, Caesar forced himself to use the last of his strength to drive his burden back to the surface. Mindy reached down from the deck of his boat for the handle his fingers were clamped around. Pulling over and over as he pushed, she heaved it out of the water.

Caesar reached for the deck to drag himself out of the water. Each time he hit the jutting spear, pain burst through his leg. The sound of the motor brought his head up as the deck vibrated under his hands.

“Help me up!” he yelled to Mindy.

She never turned her head. Throwing the boat into drive, she jetted forward, knocking Caesar away from the side of his boat and wrenching the metal bolt running through his leg. When he resurfaced, groaning with pain, he stared as the back of his boat roared away.

The black-clad divers surfaced around him. Three held spear guns at the ready while two removed their respirators to scoff at Caesar. The nearest one spoke, “Never trust a woman, especially one after treasure.”

Caesar stared into his vivid green eyes, trying to memorize everything about him. If he got out of here alive...

“What do we do with him?” the other asked.

“Bleeding like that, the sharks will take care of him,” the second man said.

Caesar looked toward where he knew the shore should be and couldn’t see it. Healthy, he might have maintained his energy level to reach the sand. In pain and bleeding more with each flutter of his feet to stay afloat, he didn’t have a chance.

“I run a boat service. I don’t know her,” Caesar said, trying to make himself sound totally used.

“You ran a boat…” A glug followed those words as one of two men without their breathing gear in place was suddenly jerked under the water.

Everyone looked down. A black substance blossomed through the water, shielding everyone’s view from the area under the surface. The thrashing under the water spread it quickly.

“What the hell?” the other diver who could talk asked.

A second later, the diver next to him disappeared, pulled abruptly under the water. A few seconds later, a gurgle of oxygen rose to the surface, suggesting that his oxygen line had been cut as the waves churned around them.

One of the three still remaining launched himself forward to swim back to the boat. He made it only a few strokes before he disappeared under the waves with a sudden jolt.

“That can’t be a shark!” the bare-mouthed man shouted. “We have to get out of this black stuff. You can’t see what’s coming.”

He turned to swim the opposite way. Two strokes away from reaching clear water, a visible hand reached up to drag the man under the water. Caesar heard two splashes and turned back to see the last two divers disappear into the murk.

His heart pounded so hard that Caesar could hear it. He remained where he was, trying not to move more than was necessary to keep his head above the water. He grabbed for his knife in his waistbelt and wrapped his fingers tightly around it as he prepared to fight for his life.

A man popped up in front of him, making him lurch backward and hold the knife out between them.

“Whoa, big guy. We’re not after you. These smugglers have a date with the authorities. I have this for you.”

He handed Caesar a gold coin with a swirl around the edges.

“What the fuck is this?”

“That’s your marker. It will be called in someday when it’s your turn to save someone from danger. Keep it safe.”

Caesar understood immediately by the man’s carefully crafted words. “I’ll return the favor as you have today.”

“Oh, I repaid my marker a long time ago. Now, I’m here simply to help people on their worst days. Come on. Let’s get you on board before the sharks start circling your wound.”

An hour later, he was dropped off at the shore with a burner phone, a heavily bandaged leg, and a coin. No boat, no girl, no explanations. Calling for a ride, Caesar vowed he’d make sense of this mess.