ALANNA SLOWED HER BREATHING, ALLOWING the adrenaline to fuel her mind.

“Who are these donkeys?” Alfred croaked. “Friends of yours, Princess?”

“Maybe,” Flynn replied. “Or whoever wanted the guns we found in the engine room.”

“You mean those suckers you’re holding? Crikey!”

“We need to get out of here,” she said. “All of us in a room this small is a bad idea.” A royal guardsman had made the same comment before he helped her escape the palace. Right before he’d taken a bullet in the back.

Marcus nodded. “She’s right. Everyone spread out and keep aft. More places to hide than the bow. Find a good spot, stay hidden, and pick them off one by one. There can’t be many of them. Helicopter’s too small.”

Pick them off. Like they were plucking ladybugs off a leaf. Cold goosebumps raced up her arms, and she tightened her grip on the weapon. Breathe in…breathe out.

Marcus left first, his body crouched low, rifle up. Jaime followed, both heading to the port beam.

Flynn tucked a finger under her chin. “Right behind me, no matter what.”

“Got it.” She followed him to the starboard side. As they reached the doorway, shattered glass crunched beneath their feet. Voices filtered down from the main deck. Flynn pushed her against the wall.

“I had everything under control.” Liang Wen’s voice was unmistakable. “I’m risking my neck for Lozano, and this is my payment?”

The blood drained from her face. “Mamon…” she whispered. “I can’t believe that bastard. The whole time?”

Flynn put a finger to his mouth.

More gunshots splintered the air, showering broken shards of glass onto the deck in front of them. Flynn gestured toward the back of the yacht. Keep moving, stay low.

They slipped through the doorway and padded along the starboard beam, careful to minimize the sound of crunching glass. The darkening skies made it more difficult to see, especially with the flickering lights inside the yacht.

Her mind raced, the choices of hiding spots in the stern minimal. The bosun’s locker. The day head. The outboard cabinets.

The tender garage.

The perfect place to hide, with visibility to shoot anyone who walked by. If the attackers didn’t already have the same idea.

A shadow darted across the floor. Flynn stopped, his hand reaching behind him and grazing her leg. The dark form remained as still as a statue. Alanna held her breath. Every second felt like an hour. Finally, the shadow moved, until the barrel of his gun poked out from behind the wall with the rest of him. A short man covered in black fatigues and combat boots—

Flynn fired. Several bullets hit the man’s vest, two tearing through his ski mask. Blood splattered the wall behind him, and he dropped.

Alanna couldn’t get enough oxygen. All she could see was the man on the floor, dark liquid pooling beneath him, seeping into the wood deck.

“Keep moving,” Flynn ordered, voice low.

She followed, reaching the stern and then down the stairs to the tender garage. Flynn pulled the cover off the small boat.

A high-pitched screech made them flinch. Marie’s milky-colored face peered from inside the tender, her entire body tucked behind the cooler, trembling.

“Me asustó,” Alanna whispered.

“Is it over? Are they gone?” Marie was on the verge of hyperventilating, her wide eyes peering over the edge.

“No,” Flynn muttered. “Keep your head down.”

“Where in the blazes did you get those?” Her gaze widened on the automatic weapons.

A shuffling turned them to see another mercenary limping around the corner, a large knife handle sticking out of his thigh. Marie yelped. Alanna froze against the edge of the tender. The gunman grunted, raising his rifle to fire, but Flynn put several rounds into his skull.

“Wh-wha…” Marie began, but then became a mess of babbling incoherence.

Flynn grabbed the gunman’s weapon. He pressed a switch on the wall, and the back lift opened. Water lapped against the yacht’s hull, slivers of light glancing off the surface in the darkening sky.

Alanna stared at the knife handle in the dead man’s thigh. The carving knife.

Alfred.

“Where’s Al?” Marie started sobbing. “We can’t leave them,” she pleaded.

Flynn looked for something on the upper deck, perhaps a way to get to the rest of the crew. Maybe they could all escape on the tender. Unlikely, but they had to try something.

A thick hand closed around Alanna’s throat, and wrenched her off her feet. She clawed at her neck, but the iron grip only tightened.

Flynn spun around. “No!”

A rifle appeared out the side of her blackening vision.

“Drop it,” ordered a hoarse voice.

Flynn’s gaze narrowed, but he set both rifles on the deck. When his desperate, crestfallen gaze fell on her, she wanted to cry. Alanna kicked, desperate to hit something painful, like the monster’s groin. Each squirm sent splinters of pain shooting down her body.

“Lozano thinks you’re interesting,” he continued. “He wants to question both of you. But I don’t want to go through all that extra effort.”

The world bottomed out.

This is it.

But it wasn’t her own life she mourned. It was the loss of the man in front of her. His frame wide, full of integrity, and visibly defeated. The one who had risked everything for her, made her believe in herself again.

The one she wanted to share her soul with.

I’m sorry, Father. I let you down.

The rifle in her side vision knocked sideways. Marie yelled. The man released his grip on Alanna’s neck and she fell to the deck. Coughing and wheezing, she scrambled away on the floor. A massive beast growled at Marie. He punched her in the jaw, knocking her backward into the tender.

In a split second, Flynn charged across the space and barreled into the monstrous beast. Stampeding through him, both tipped off the edge of the boat into the water.