THE MAN SITTING BEFORE ALANNA couldn’t possibly be the head of the Lozano cartel. He was too young, though his arrogance was as thick as the plush carpeting.

The men, including Purple-Tie, deferred to him with the same level of respect and distance given to her father. Though in linen pants and a floral silk shirt, this man hardly seemed worthy.

Alanna arched her shoulders back, keeping her head high. Steeling herself, she shoved down her panic and looked him in the eye. Her duty was clear.

I am Princess Alanna Peralta of Solana, you assholes.

The man lit a cigarette and stretched out on the cream leather sofa in the super yacht’s salon. As they’d boarded, she read the ship’s name, Pacific Tempest. The name nearly made her snort. The yacht’s opulence certainly indicated mega-wealth. Silk curtains with matching lamps in every corner. Gold accents lining the walls. A palace on water. Bought with drug money.

And my family’s blood.

“Julius, I think we can remove those cuffs.” Smoke filtered out of his mouth as he spoke. Purple-Tie palmed a key and took off her metal chains. Alanna rubbed her wrists, the red marks deep in her skin, with the hint of bruises forming.

“Despite your attire, Your Highness, the picture on the news hardly does you justice.” The man crossed his legs, his leather flip-flop dangling from his perched foot.

Alanna ground her jaw and focused on a crystal platform on the other side of the salon, with a gold pole mounted to the ceiling. It was surrounded by a cream sofa in a half-circle.

The man’s nostrils flared and he held out his hand. “Let me see it.”

Julius stepped forward, reached inside his jacket, and pulled out the clear bag that contained Luna de Azul and her passport.

Alanna’s eyes followed it into the other man’s hand, her anger flaring.

“Give those back to me at once,” she seethed. It was a useless demand, but she didn’t care.

“You do speak.” The man took the necklace. The light caught the prisms in a brilliant glow that bounced off the walls. “Simply beautiful,” he enamored. “Elegance like this shouldn’t be locked in a vault for no one to see.”

“It would be better in the hands of brute thugs like you?” she bit out. “You’ll only sell it to the highest bidder to enhance your drug operation.”

“So, you know who I am.”

“Just that you’re part of the cartel responsible for terrorizing my country. And murdering my family.” Fury burned in her stomach.

The man gave a slight smile, as if disappointed, and tossed the bag onto the table in front of him. He stood. “I am Ricardo Lozano.” He gestured to the rest of the yacht. “Welcome to your new home, at least for however long we have use of you.”

“And what precisely do you need from me? Not that I’d give you anything. Solana doesn’t negotiate with terrorists.”

The man’s smile widened. “Solana is destroyed, Princess. Or at least all it stood for, along with all its military forces. Negotiation is for the weak. We’ll simply take what we want.”

Alanna’s eyes narrowed. “Not from me.”

Ricardo’s expression never wavered as he stepped toward her. “You’re young and naïve. Everything has already been taken from you.” He twirled a lock of her hair between his fingers. “Well, almost everything.”

Saliva pooled in her cheeks, the urge to spit in his face nearly winning out. His thumb traced her cheek, and she slapped it away.

“Ricardo,” a deep voice behind her beckoned. They turned to an older man, this one wearing a designer suit and vest, complete with a silk tie and snakeskin shoes. The same dark eyes and thick eyebrows as Ricardo, and the same rough chin that made her want to punch it. Clearly Ricardo’s father. Yet the elder sported a full mustache, pudgier middle, and balanced a thick cigar between his fingers.

“Let me have a better look at our special guest.” His voice was lower, raspier, and twice as cutting as his son’s.

Ricardo switched on another lamp. The older man’s presence doubled in the large salon.

He took a drag on his cigar, held the smoke as he stepped forward, and then blew it out. “For all the years your father harassed my business practices, it’s a shame we never met. Now that event will never occur,” his mustache twitched, “it’s a pleasure to meet his daughter.”

Alanna raised her chin higher. “It’s a shame you didn’t meet my father in person.” The corner of the elder Lozano’s mouth lifted as she continued. “You’d have been executed for your crimes long before this.”

The man’s lip curled. “You have his spirit. A commodity of the young who’ve yet to learn true suffering or sacrifice. Perhaps that’s a lesson I can teach you. Yet that would be such a waste for someone who carries the beauty of the late Queen Esperanza. I have no doubts you would’ve made as stunning a queen as your mother, but now that is over for you.”

A tremble rippled through her legs, but she squared her frame. As intimidating as this man was, fear would not get the better of her. She absorbed the anger careening through her limbs, letting it fuel her bravery.

Lozano handed her handkerchief from his pocket.

Alanna frowned.

“For your head. I apologize if my men became too aggressive.” He took his son’s spot on the sofa, leaving Ricardo to sit in a side chair. The younger man’s arrogance diminished in the presence of the elder. His attire was even more out of place with his father’s taste in style. Lozano glared at his son. “You were supposed to be brought to me unharmed.”

“What is the point of this?” Alanna demanded, the fire in her voice rising as she clenched the handkerchief in her hand. “What else could you possibly want?”

The older man smirked through a cloud of cigar smoke. “An insurance policy. Until your brother is found.”

Everyone else in the room remained standing, as if they weren’t permitted to sit before his power.

I’ll be damned if I let him see me as inferior. His power is through fear. Mine is by birthright.

Alanna stepped forward, wrenching from Julius’s grasp when he tried to restrain her. She took the seat across from Lozano, the cushioned, high-back chair too large, but the rounded armrests were the perfect height. She clasped her fingers like she was holding a deck of cards, ignoring the blood spatters on her pants. Her spine stiffened, and she crossed her ankles, a perfect picture of her mother’s etiquette lessons.

“Lose the scare tactics, and state what you want.”

Ricardo snickered behind a glass of amber liquor.

“These are hardly my scare tactics, Princess.” Lozano took another puff on his cigar.

“Good. I’d hate to have you waste more of my time.”

Lozano tilted his head.

Come on. Show me your tells. Give me your end game.

“Ironic as it is, your father and I were in the same business.”

“I hardly believe you had anything in common with my father,” Alanna scoffed. Stalling would hopefully have him divulge more. She used the handkerchief to wipe away the partially dried blood on her forehead.

“Truly. I employ many to run my operations throughout all Southeast Asia and the islands. Likewise, your father employed many to stop my operations. We both made a great deal of money off my products, although your father’s gains were from stolen goods. My goods. That’s not even counting the massive ‘donations’ he received to assist him in thwarting my efforts. In a way, your father contributed to my drug empire as much as myself.”

“And your point to this little bedtime story?”

Lozano’s brows drew together, those eyes darkening with something more sinister.

Her mouth dried instantly, but she kept her poker face in place.

“I will recuperate my years of forfeited revenue through you, Alanna. Through you and your brother, if he’s still alive. One way or another.”

Alanna swallowed hard. This was all about money. She tossed the handkerchief on the coffee table, and grabbed the bag that contained her passport. A few men surrounding Lozano flinched, moving closer as if she’d intended to harm their boss, but he motioned them away with a smirk. She leaned back in the chair and pulled out the passport. “I seem to have lost my wallet in the process of being frisked by your thugs. Will a personal check suffice? Or perhaps I still have some loose change in the bottom of my shoe.”

Lozano’s face contorted into a scowl. The entire room seemed to darken with it. As if the yacht itself stopped breathing. “Careful, girl. I’ve killed women for lesser things.”

Alanna leaned forward, planting her feet firmly in the thick carpet. “Yet I still defy you. You won’t profit from me.” She tucked her passport into her waistband.

“You won’t need that anymore,” he muttered, a slightly amused smirk on his lips.

With an arched eyebrow, she continued to stare him down.

He flicked the ashes from his cigar onto the coffee table. He grabbed the handkerchief she’d tossed away, a large spot of her blood marring the white fabric. He brought it to his nose and inhaled deeply, right over the bloodstain. And grinned.

Alanna swallowed the terror climbing up her throat.

The cartel boss put the soiled cloth in his pocket. “We’ll see how defiant you are when I send your brother a few of your fingers. Or perhaps your nipples. Your choice.”

She took a deep breath to calm her racing heartbeat, blowing it out as though bored. “André will be less inclined to negotiate if I’m harmed in any way. You’ll only embolden him to fight you more.”

“Let’s find out.” With a snap of his fingers, one of the men grabbed her arm and yanked her out of the chair. She pulled away, but their grip only tightened. They dragged her to the bar behind her.

A scream lodged in her throat. The more she fought, the harder he squeezed. She balled her free hand, and punched him in the temple. Her knuckles exploded in searing pain, but she kept punching until the man’s grasp loosened. Two more men sidelined her, wrenched her arms behind her, and forced her against the bar.

“Put something under there so you don’t scratch the wood,” Lozano nonchalantly ordered from the couch.

“Which fingers, sir?” one of the men holding her down asked.

“The marriage ones.”

A third henchmen grabbed her left hand and slammed it onto the bar top. Panic engulfed Alanna. She used every muscle in her body to fight, to push them off. Fisting her hand so tight, her nails left red lines in her palm. But the man’s grip on her wrist was painfully ironclad. The weight from the other two men crushing her against the bar squeezed her ribs, but she kicked at them anyway, hoping one of her heels would catch them in the groin.

Nothing worked.

“Consider this your first lesson, princess,” Lozano instructed from the couch. “In the big leagues, only the weak bluff.”

The third man flicked a long knife in front of her face, her terrified reflection gleaming in the blade. A small trickle of blood trailed down the side of her head from where she’d been hit earlier.

With every ounce of strength she had, she thrashed against her captors and wailed.

The man pried her fingers out of the fist and spread them onto the bar. The restrainers behind her pushed against her even more, bracing for the struggle. The knife rested at the base of her pinkie and ring fingers. The marriage ones.

A massive jolt swayed the entire yacht sideways, slamming it into the dock. The men flew over the bar, crashing into the wall. Glasses and lamps shattered to the floor; the lights flickered. The knife meant to cut off her fingers clattered against the window. She grabbed the side of the bar to keep from falling, and the yacht swayed the other way. Her feet slipped out from under her, her rump and elbow landing hard on the floor.

Lozano was splayed on the carpet, having been thrown over the coffee table. A nasty gash marred the top of his head. A white mass engulfed the window. Certain her mind was hallucinating, she blinked, and gasped.

The bow of another yacht poked into the side of Pacific Tempest.

Through the shredded, hanging fiberglass, she spotted the name of the invading yacht painted on the side. Breezy Dreams.

“Alanna!”

The voice was hazy, muddled by either the roaring engines of the other yacht, or her own mind reeling from the impact.

A hand grabbed her shoulder and hoisted her to her feet. She stared into the eyes of a hallucination. It had to be.

Flynn.

“Move!” the illusion yelled. The eyes of her angel were wide and panicked. She reached to touch his chest, feel if he was real.

“Move, now!” He pulled her arm. She surged forward with him, tripping over mountains of wreckage and Ricardo’s barely-conscious body.

“Espera!” She tugged back. “Wait!”

“We have to go, now!”

Alanna scoured the debris around Ricardo, scarcely able to decipher much in the sputtering lights overhead. A sparkle of blue caught her eye. The gems of Luna de Azul peeked out from under shards of glass, still clutched in Ricardo’s grip.

She lunged for it and pried it from his fingers. She turned to Flynn and grabbed his hand. A shot rang out. Flynn jolted backward and covered his abdomen.

But he never let go of her hand.