Asylum

Chapter 33: Back on Dry Land

Tuesday morning

I scanned the dock as The Sea Dragon continued its slow approach. There on the shore, as though they had never left, stood Marsh and Mateo, cool menace leaking from every well-dressed pore. The subtropical morning breeze teased a tendril of hair that had escaped my ponytail, and played with the hem of my pale pink sundress.

"I never thought I'd be this happy to see Mateo," I said under my breath.

I felt Ivan's smile as he pressed up against my back, his hands resting lightly on the deck rail to either side of me. The warm skin of his arms against mine distracted me deliciously from the lingering knots in my stomach. "I dare say the feeling is mutual," he murmured.

He turned slightly at the sound of Emilio's voice cursing at Sofia. He had tried to get me to stay in our cabin this morning until we had docked, offering to make some plausible but no doubt mortifying excuse to our host to explain my absence, but I had insisted that I needed to see with my own eyes that the other women were safe and sound, or at least, still alive. Plus I had vowed to myself that I would never leave Ivan alone with a cartel member again unless I was unconscious, dead, or otherwise forcibly separated from him. He hadn't fought me; despite his offer to cover for me, he was clearly reluctant to leave me alone on El Dragón Marino, even in our own room.

Lucia, Elena, and Sofia had all been present at breakfast, though unfortunately I wouldn't have described any of them as looking "okay." They had all appeared exhausted, Elena's lower lip was suspiciously plump, Lucia did not remove her sunglasses for the entire meal, and the entire group projected an aura of tension that had reminded me of a cello's overtightened A string, seemingly ready to snap at its next rough handling.

Emilio, on the other hand, had returned to his expansive good humor of the previous day; aside from the abraded and bruised knuckles on his right hand, he was indistinguishable from the carefree host that had welcomed us onboard. Ivan was right – not only did he express no remorse over his actions of last night, but it appeared that he hadn't given the spontaneous murder a second thought.

The psycho reappeared on deck now, alone except for the ubiquitous squadron of armed goons monitoring his every move. He strolled over to join us, clapping Ivan on the shoulder. I was glad that my sub role practically required me to ignore him; I kept my eyes fixed on the familiar but still distant forms of Ivan's bodyguards.

"Next time, maybe I come to New York," Emilio suggested. I felt his eyes roaming invasively over every inch of me. "You can show me where to have a good time, maybe I even get a Lana for myself." It took me every ounce of control I had to suppress my shudder.

"Of course," Ivan agreed. My stomach turned over; I could not deal with Emilio on my home turf this soon. "Though you may want to wait until the summer – New York at this time of year is still colder than ..." he hesitated and looked pointedly toward me before continuing in Spanish, "... un tit de bruja en un sujetador de latón (... a witch's tit in a brass bra)."

Emilio roared, pounding the taller man repeatedly on the back. The yacht's crew was scrambling below us to pull The Sea Dragon the last few feet to the dock and moor her safely. From the corner of my eye I noted one of the security detail bringing our bags over to the gangway; undoubtedly, they had been searched again, just to make sure we weren't leaving with anything more than the clothes we'd brought aboard and a cache of horrific memories.

"Adios, amigo." Emilio pulled Ivan over into an embrace that involved even more back-slapping. "Hasta luego." He gave me a parting once-over and a revolting leer. "Nueva York," he bid me, and took my hand to bring it to his moistened lips. I held myself rigidly still, forcing myself not to jerk away as I felt his tongue sneak out to lap between my knuckles. I suspected there was not enough hand soap in Miami to wash away my repugnance.

Ivan took my elbow and led me over to where the gangplank was being slid into position. The thug who had brought our bags up hoisted them into his hands and waited to follow us off the yacht.

In a moment, we were striding along the long dock; I mentally guess-timated the distance to the town car and began counting down the steps until I reached that shiny black cocoon of safety. "One hundred fifty ... one hundred forty-five ..." I could still feel Emilio's lascivious eyes devouring my retreating figure from the deck. "... one hundred thirty-five ... one hundred thirty ..."

As we reached the end of the dock, Ivan acknowledged Mateo with a curt jerk of his head back to our bags. The bodyguard nodded slightly and waited for Emilio's man to approach him. I could not stop myself from shooting him a relieved smile as I passed, which elicited a slight puzzled furrowing of the brow beneath his dark sunglasses.

"... ten ... seven ... five ..." Ivan opened the back door of the town car and held it for me. "... three ... in." I had overestimated. He slid into the seat next to me and closed the door, turning to find me scrabbling at the collar around my throat.

"Here, wait ... let me do that." He reached over to trigger the locking mechanism on the front, then opened the hinged collar and slid it from beneath my ponytail. I rubbed my hands vigorously over my neck, not caring if I was rubbing the skin raw. Ivan put the collar back in the jeweler's box, still on the floor of the car where we had left it yesterday morning. I could hardly believe it had only been yesterday morning.

Marshall slid into the driver's seat as Mateo stowed the bags in the trunk. The screen between the front seat and back was lowered, and he regarded my bizarre grooming with raised brows.

"Pleasant trip?" he asked blandly.

"I really don't want to talk about it," I said, finally allowed to speak for myself when someone addressed me. "What did you guys do?"

Marshall shrugged and started the car as Mateo folded himself into the front seat. "Worked out, ordered Cuban food, streamed all the Predator movies in order. Nothing too exciting."

I sighed and leaned back against the seat, my hand reaching out for Ivan's; he took it in his and squeezed gently. "That sounds divine."

"Really?" Mateo said skeptically. "Big fan of 30-year-old action franchises, are you?"

I shrugged. "Everything is relative." And almost anything would be better than the last 30 hours or so spent with Emilio.

My eyes dropped to Ivan's tanned, long-fingered hand where it cradled my own on the seat between us. I was supposed to be part of a team that was working to build a case against Ivan, then use that leverage to flip him to inform on the cartel, but I knew now without a sliver of doubt that I was no longer working toward that goal, and in truth, probably hadn't been on board with that objective for quite some time.

No, I wasn't going to help the NYPD use Ivan. I squeezed his hand and basked in the warmth of the smile he bestowed on me in response.

I was going to save him.