Deception Island. Brynn Kelly

      “Don’t remind me.”

      “If my girlfriend had a tattoo of her former lover on her body, I wouldn’t want her leaving it there for a decade.”

      “Maybe that was why he dumped me. Bit slow on the uptake, Logan was.”

      “Story was that you dumped him.”

      “Like I say, you can’t believe everything you read in the media. I’m going to try out this shower.”

      She walked inside, the screen door snapping shut after her. He watched until she faded into the dark interior. Jasper. He’d read everything about her he could find on the internet while preparing for the mission—and there was a lot—and not once had a Jasper been mentioned. Rafe would have remembered the name—there was a Jasper in his company, a shifty guy he’d long ago learned to keep an eye on.

      Laura and Logan had been America’s golden couple. They’d been together since she was a teenager, so Jasper had to have come before him. A first crush, a childhood sweetheart? But why wait so long to erase a youthful mistake, when she had all the time and money in the world, and a widely reported fixation on her body image? He crushed the empty water bottle. Parachuting, Jasper. It didn’t add up.

      * * *

      Holly shut the bathroom door and rushed to the mirror to inspect her back. Hell. The scar had sunburned and the skin around it had tanned, so the letters stood out in sharp relief, pink on brown. They hadn’t looked so obvious a month ago—the scar had been fading into her pale skin. No wonder the damn thing had started itching. She should never have nicked Laura’s bikini—she should have stuck with her own cheap one-piece. Jack wouldn’t have known it was from the Walmart bargain bin.

      Had he bought her explanation? She walked to the shower and turned it on. A hiss spat out, by the cabin wall. She yelped and sprang back. A gas cylinder firing up, not a snake. Sheesh, she was jumpy.

      “Everything okay in there?” Jack shouted, over the fence.

      “Fine.”

      Scanning for peepholes, she stripped off the bikini and stepped under the stream of water. Or would voyeurism be a good sign? Not that Jack seemed the pervert type. A guy like that would have women lining up to strip for him, though he’d sure taken a good look at her body just now.

      She closed her eyes and dropped her head under the water. The sickly sweet scent of jasmine wafted around. Bliss. Her first shower in weeks. Expensive-looking toiletries were lined up on a stand. Might as well use them—someone was paying good money for this place, someone who wouldn’t be happy if the ransom wasn’t paid. And neither would Jack.

      What was his deal? He seemed so confident, yet occasionally desperation crept into his voice, or his expressions. Reading people was her strength—borne of necessity—but she couldn’t get a fix on him. His tense conversations with the men at the plane, hiding the comms equipment, the things he’d said—no escape for either of us... He obviously wasn’t the ringleader here. His bearing, the way he’d protected her from the pilot and treated her with respect...that suggested a man with principles. She didn’t buy that he was doing this for the money, so what else would drive a seemingly decent man to kidnap?

      One thing she’d confirmed she read right—he was physically attracted to her. His eyes had sparked when she’d walked back from the beach. He’d studied her head to toe. She might have been in prison for most of her twenties, but she hadn’t forgotten that look in a man’s eyes. She’d exploited it in many a bank employee and rich asshole, under Jasper’s instructions. If the FBI investigator who’d interrogated her had been a man rather than a sixty-year-old woman, she might have had a better chance. Jack might not be an easy target either, but if she could get him to fall for her, he’d be less likely to kill her when things went to hell.

      And just how was she going to do that? The man was made of granite.

      She smoothed conditioner on her hair—that alone was more of a luxury than she’d allowed herself in years. She’d been so disgusted with herself for the cons she’d pulled with Jasper, trading on her looks and her youth and her red lips, that until her Laura makeover she’d renounced every vanity except ChapStick. Some of the jobs she’d done for him had required more than flirting. And though she’d never crossed the line from the kind of physical intimacy Jasper called “innocent” and “harmless” to sleeping with the marks—thank God—each time she’d be left feeling nauseous and dirty. She’d take a long shower—just like this—and scrub raw every part of her body, wishing she could scour her soul. But then Jasper would act so grateful and pump up her confidence, and before she knew it she’d be doing his dirty work again. My brains, and your body, babe—unbeatable. She shuddered. Just the thought of that smooth voice... The femme fatale, they’d called her at trial, the scarlet woman who’d lured and corrupted poor, defenseless Jasper. If only.

      This time she’d be using her body to save her butt, not to earn acceptance. She closed her eyes and let the conditioner run off. One last con and then she’d become an honest woman. She could be that girl again—she had to.

Chapter 6

      As the day heated up, the birdsong subsided to the odd call or squawk and even the insects muted. By late morning Rafe was sitting on the veranda, leaning against a pole, his eyes going screwy as he stared at the brilliant water of the lagoon. Staying still was eating him up from the inside. Somewhere out there his son was being subjected to God knew what and all Rafe could do was wait for the sign the ransom was paid, wait for a boat to collect them.

      Too many what-ifs. Too much waiting. Too many troubling messages coming from Laura, telling him something wasn’t right. Too much reliance on other people. The only people he relied on were his commando team—and he wouldn’t trust some of them to babysit Theo’s pet turtle.

      Had Gabriel already started Theo’s training? The thought socked him in the gut. The beatings, the emotional abuse, the humiliation—an unbearable onslaught that would flip the boy’s understanding of right and wrong, and leave him convinced no one gave a damn about him but his commander. How quickly could Gabriel brainwash him into believing his papa didn’t care, that he was all alone, with no choice but to succumb?

      Rafe closed his eyes. Theo would know that wasn’t true, wouldn’t he? Rafe hadn’t prayed since his English missionary-school days. But, God, if you’re up there, give me another chance to be a father. He’d held out longer than most when he’d been inducted into the Lost Boys. But he’d already been toughened up by a lifetime of forced independence—trucked from refugee camp to refugee camp as the soldiers closed in, wishing always that at the next stop he’d find the parents he had no memory of, he’d find out where he came from and where he belonged. Until the militia had taken him and Gabriel, they’d survived by polishing shoes in villages near the camps, mostly for food or coins, but sometimes in exchange for lessons in English—the language of movies and escape and dreams. They’d vowed to never leave the other alone in that hell.

      No wonder Gabriel sought revenge and had taken the only thing that mattered to Rafe. Deep inside, Rafe could still feel the hatred and violence the militia had beaten into him, like a core of molten lava. Every day he fought to keep it dormant. The last time he’d lost control, had allowed himself to retreat into that dark place of numbness where he could disengage from his conscience and do unspeakable things, an innocent woman and child had died. More than twenty years on, he could still smell the spilled blood, could still feel the anguish and self-disgust that had ripped through his chest when he’d come back into himself, when he’d realized what he’d become. It had turned him into a coward who broke a promise to his only friend.

      Oh yes, he knew exactly what fueled Gabriel. The one thing that separated them was that Rafe had found a way to control the demon, by shutting himself off from anger and fear—the dangerous emotions that led to the dark place. If other feelings were shut off at the same time, so be it.

      “Don’t suppose you have any cards?” In the