Chapter 38

Dimitri held himself in place, allowing the rage to boil off him. He didn’t know what Henry and Lauren were arguing about, but he’d heard Lauren’s rejection of him. Hell, half the island could have heard her shocked indignation regarding “the bodyguard.” What had Henry asked her? Why had she reacted so strongly?

There was a chance she’d done it so he could hear her, and he held on to that idea as he tracked the two men moving stealthily through the trees. Scratch that, more than a chance.

The information that Stefan had finally radioed him about the text messages had been easy to understand. An excited teenager babbling about gifts and flowers from an unknown admirer. They hadn’t gotten the pictures locked down yet, but they didn’t need to. Lauren would have taken the bait completely, believed that Smithson had sent her little sister something—good or bad, it didn’t matter. She’d clearly understood the message for what it was: a threat.

And now she was here, thinking that she could solve everything by sacrificing herself. She wasn’t Emmaline, for whom that kind of sacrifice was second nature. Lauren had made it her business to avoid sacrifices. The fact that she was giving herself up so easily was probably the best indicator of how desperate she was.

Did she know he was out here, closing in on her? She had to. She’d written the note.

Regardless, he needed to focus on the task at hand. The men skulking around the perimeter of the sculpture garden were on the watch for him. They wouldn’t be as easy to take out as the men by the boat—those two had been on the ground and out cold before they’d known he was there. These two men had night-vision goggles, however, doubtless with a heat sensor. Which ordinarily would give them the distinct advantage.

But Dimitri had worked a long, long time in the ranks of the ONSF before getting anything close to proper equipment. He’d learned how to evade nearly every military enhancement out there, using his wits and guile if he had nothing more reliable.

Now he perched motionless on a tree branch, watching the men beneath him. A quiet kill probably wasn’t going to happen tonight. A kill of any sort would be against ONSF protocol, because kills meant explanations and explanations invited attention the royal family never wanted or needed. Besides, there wasn’t any official threat here. Lauren had come to this grotto of her own free will. Henry wasn’t binding her, he was.... Dimitri shifted his gaze back to Henry. And froze.

The bastard was making out with Lauren.

A new flood of anger suffused him as he watched Lauren tilt her head back at a precise angle, accepting Henry’s attentions as if she hadn’t just made love to Dimitri mere hours before. Her body sagged as if in sensual abandon, and she lifted one hand to Smithson’s bicep—a bicep that barely filled out the loose suit jacket that encased it. And who wore a suit to an island?

A snap beneath Dimitri drew his attention back, and he scowled. Henry’s bodyguards weren’t bad, but they also weren’t trained in jungle recon. They were much too far apart from each other. An animal could easily come between them, and neither would be able to defend the other while keeping himself protected. The two were doubtless in contact via headset, though. So one of them dropping flat would raise an alarm.

He lifted his head and scanned the forest. The other man was nearing the sea sculptures, which were swaying in the light breeze, near where Henry and Lauren stood. The moment the guard stepped into the mass of shifting metal, however, Dimitri could hear the sudden crackle of the other man’s headset beneath him. The guy shook his head, tapping his ear, and Dimitri’s gaze leapt back to the man in the sculpture garden. Interference. From the airplane wreckage? He had no idea. He’d never tried radio communications out on this point.

He leaned forward, and the branch beneath him creaked. Just a little, barely a breath of a sigh. But it was enough to draw the attention of the guard below him.

By the time that man looked up, however, Dimitri had dropped down on him, heavy and sure. He didn’t want to kill the guy, so he struck him forcefully on the side of his head. The guard fell like a sack of potatoes, and Dimitri fell with him, cradling his body and going flat as he searched the man and divested him of gun, knife—and headset.

“Can’t fucking hear anything.” He could hear the exasperated English words coming through the headset in scratchy confusion. Dimitri rubbed his thumb against the microphone and murmured nonsense, then tucked the thing in his pants pocket and headed out as the man on the other end hissed a response. Now that he was on the ground, Dimitri was vulnerable again to the night-vision goggles, but as long as the other guy stayed in the sculpture garden, he was safe.

He moved forward carefully until he could find another blind. A break in the moving panels afforded him a clear view into the center of the sculpture garden, where Smithson was now holding Lauren in his arms, gazing down at her as if she was the answer to all his prayers.

Dimitri watched her too, drinking in the view. She smiled up at Smithson with perfect ease, as if she wasn’t in fear for her sister’s and probably her own life. He could have stared at her all night, if there wasn’t the feeling of impending doom closing in. What would Henry do to Lauren once he got her aboard the Turkish yacht that Dimitri had already spied off the coast? What had he already done to the owners of that craft? He’d broken laws without any concern about paybacks, and his every action was that of a spoiled and entitled multibillionaire, too powerful to worry about the niceties of international law.

This was the man who Lauren was handing herself over to. Willingly. Eagerly even. Rather than waiting for Dimitri to devise a better plan. She was so certain that a psychopath like Smithson was someone that she could get through with merely the proper head tilt and studied smile. That she could handle him better than anyone else.

Dimitri tightened his hand on his gun. The hell with that.

Affixing the night-vision goggles to his head, he swept the space for the other of Smithson’s men and moved through the trees. He’d need to find that guard, but he’d taken his measure already. He simply needed to take out guy number two, then get the jump on Henry and?—

The small scream coming from the center of the sculpture garden caught him up short.

So did the gun at his temple.

A third man.He should have expected that.

Swiftly, expertly, while he held the gun pressed up against Dimitri’s head, the man lifted his other hand. A knife flashed in the moonlight, and a searing pain exploded in Dimitri’s left shoulder before he could block the blow. The guard ripped the knife down and out, and blood immediately welled in the wound. Dimitri staggered but straightened as the man leaned close, the gun never leaving Dimitri’s temple.

“I took out the last guard myself, so he’s no longer a problem for either of us.” The man spoke the low words in English, but his accent was Greek. “I assume you handled the two at the boat?” At Dimitri’s nod, the man continued. “Smithson wants you delivered alive. It suits my purposes for the moment. But don’t tempt me, eh?”

The man quickly and cleanly divested Dimitri of all his weapons and electronics. This wasn’t an amateur. This man had been the real threat all along, which was why Dimitri hadn’t seen him. The other two had been a distraction...and had probably never known it.

There was something else about the man, too. Something in the salty scratch of his voice, his wild eyes, the sun-baked skin visible around the mask. Something in the way he carried himself...and the hint of an bold lightning bolt tattoo at his neck.

But why would a fellow demigod of Zeus betray him like this?

“I suggest that you come out now, Mr. Korba,” Henry’s voice rang out. “Unless you want to see Ms. Grant’s pretty throat get sliced open.”