Riptide (8 page)

The sharp blow to the side of her head came out of nowhere.

Chapter 4

Stars sparked in Bria’s vision. She hadn’t heard a sound. Pain radiated from her shoulder as she was slammed hard into the unlocked door. It swung inwards with her weight. Staggering to maintain her balance, she had to do a quick two-step to stay on her feet. She managed to turn in time to block the second blow with her forearm.

She got a blurred image of black hair, dark eyes, white clothing, but the force of her attacker’s fist sent a painful vibration along the bones of her arm and the pain distorted her vision.

She didn’t scream. Maybe he expected her to. Instead, she went in for the attack as she’d been trained to do from childhood. Fists, knees, elbows. Marv had taught her well, and diligently. Her assailant didn’t expect her to strike back.

Her palm slammed up under his jaw, knocking his head to the side. Vision still swimming, she met her attacker’s stare dead-on.

The guy from a few minutes ago.

He launched himself at her, and through the pulsing pain at her temple, it was as if he moved like a strobe-light. “What—” was all she managed, blocking another blow and trying to center herself so she was ready for his next strike.

Heart pounding and her hearing dimmed, and trying to shake off the disorientation and disbelief of the surprise attack, and the very real menace behind it, she fought hard. Krav Maga, a martial arts discipline that emphasized simultaneous offense and defense maneuvers, had been developed in Israel from street-fighting skills. There were no rules, and even if there were, Bria didn’t give a damn. She fought back with everything she’d been taught to do for just this kind of attack. She targeted his most vulnerable points—eyes, jaw, groin, knees. She struck fast and randomly, so he didn’t know what she was aiming for until she’d done the job.

She grabbed his hair, pulled him closer, and kneed him in the balls; he screamed. She raked her nails down his cheek missing his eye by fractions of an inch. Then did it again. Not missing the second time. He screamed in pain.

“Ma io non sono qui!”

He wasn’t … there? He looked very much there to her. Bria didn’t try to figure that out because he was bound and determined to get her off her feet. She dug in her heels, but he shoved her farther into the tiny cabin. The back of her knees hit the mattress, and she grabbed his T-shirt to remain upright. Was he trying to rob her? Rape her? Kill her?

She held on, bringing her knee up hard and fast, no easy feat when she was unbalanced. Before her knee made contact a second time, he punched her in the chest. The blow knocked her sideways and she crashed onto the bunk, hitting the top of her head against the wood-paneled wall. Her breath left her in a grunt of pain.

One of her arms was pinned under her body, her own weight keeping it immobile, but she scratched and fought with her free hand, trying to arch her hips away from him as he climbed onto the bed, his body looming over her as he grabbed her wrist so she couldn’t slash at his face again.

Blood dripped down his cheek in four distinct nail gouges.

Realizing she hadn’t made a sound to alert anyone she was in trouble, Bria screamed at the top of her lungs.

He tried to cut off her cry with a vicious blow to her cheek that hurt like fire and made her eyes water. He wrapped his hand across her mouth and jaw to shut her up as she kept on screaming. He was small and wiry, but heavy as hell as he flung his leg over her hip to straddle her waist, holding her in place. He ground his knee into her free arm, and his weight almost wrenched the arm she was lying on out of its socket.

Bucking and struggling was useless. He had her pinned like a butterfly by sheer brute strength and his hands were wrapped around her throat, cutting off oxygen. His fingers tightened until Bria saw sparkling black dots in her vision.

She struggled to bring her knees up behind him, but nothing dislodged him. She had the sensation of sinking beneath black water, her vision and hearing smothered into nothing …

“What the
fuck’s
going on in here?!”

Bria gagged as the assailant’s weight was instantly yanked off her. Uncomprehending, she dimly watched him fly through the open doorway, to crash against the far wall out in the corridor.

The small cabin dimmed around the edges as, dizzily, she struggled to draw air into her constricted lungs.

Her world was suddenly filled by piercing blue. “Are you going to pass out?”

“T—”
Trying not to
. Bria attempted to form a coherent word, but nothing came out. Nick’s face faded for a second, then came back.

“Shit! Jonah? Get some guys down here ASAP. The princess has been attacked.” He cupped her cheek. His fingers felt cool. “Stay with me.”

Right. She closed her eyes and drifted.

*   *   *

Nick carried the princess to his cabin on the upper deck, his heart pounding hard and furious from the jolt of adrenaline. She was conscious, but barely. She remained limp in his arms, her cheek pressed against his chest, bruises turning dark about her throat, her hair a midnight fall over his arm. She didn’t say anything as he moved quickly through his ship. He didn’t talk with the few people he passed, instead communicating with Jonah through a lip mic. He’d never been more pleased that they’d chosen a Bluetooth to communicate throughout the ship. It saved a hell of a lot of time.

“I hope he broke his fucking neck when he hit the wall. Has he said anything?” Nick demanded grimly when Jonah let him know he was down on the lower deck. He felt the rapid thrum of Bria’s heartbeat where her chest pressed against his. At his words her arms tightened around his neck, stirring the scent of peaches that clung to her skin.

“Unconscious,” Jonah said grimly in his ear. “Mario’s going to secure him in a closet in the engine room until we figure out what to do with him.” Jonah’s voice was as grim as Nick felt. He hesitated, then spoke quietly. “Was she raped?”

Nick owned the ship, but he wasn’t the only man on board with a deep sense of responsibility to the passengers and crew. As captain, Jonah was just as culpable as he was. Which was exactly why Nick had filled him in on the whole diamond-smuggling scenario.

“Halkias better hope he kept his dick in his pants,” Nick told his friend, his voice savage and low. He didn’t like how fragile she looked lying in his arms, eyes closed. A fairy-tale Snow White. God. He didn’t like this one fucking bit. “Have two of the men make sure he stays where you put him. I’ll be down to deal with him shortly.”

His arms tightened around Bria’s rib cage, right beneath the gentle swell of her breast, and under her knees as she shifted in his arms. Her naturally husky voice was more so as she croaked, “Put me down, I can walk.”

“Shut up.”

His head steward, Khoi, waited outside Nick’s suite. He opened the door the minute he saw them, his eyes shadowed with concern. “Tea, boss?”

Nick didn’t know what the hell she’d need. Not to be attacked in a place where he was responsible for her safety was probably a start. God damn it to hell. “Tea would be great. Leave it in here.”

He strode through his office and into the suite, where the stars winked through the octagonal skylight over the neatly turned down bed.

“Please put me—” Nick set her gently on the edge of the mattress. “Oh!” Her face was pale, her eyes very dark as she put a delicate hand to her throat. Her manner, her dress, her go-to-hell attitude, all spoke volumes about who she thought she was. But her long-lashed dark eyes as she looked up at him were filled with vulnerability.

She’d lost her shoes somewhere along the way, and she rubbed her bare feet together as though she needed some sort of physical comfort, even if it was only from herself. For a moment, he stared at her toes with their flashy bright red polish and sassy gold toe ring. Damn it all to hell. He dragged his attention away from her slender feet, and from the brink of doing something damned stupid, like wrapping her in his arms and burying his face in her midnight hair.

Fuckingfuckingfucking hell.

Why would a man whom they’d hired a world away, and a year ago, try to kill a woman who’d barely been on board four hours? It made absolutely no sense.

Logic dictated that the attempt had something to do with the diamonds. But he’d only made contact with Najeeb Qassem and Kadar Gamali Tamiz in the last week. Agreed to bring the diamonds on board twenty-four hours ago.

Still, they’d seen her at the café. Perhaps recognized her…?

Maybe. Wouldn’t that mean she wasn’t involved with the diamonds?

Or maybe it meant she was, and was an outside player they didn’t want horning in on their territory?

A long shot by any stretch of the imagination.

But
why
was she attacked? That was the question.

Hell, none of it made sense.

But for the Moroccans to get to the Greek crew member hired almost a year ago on the Ca Mau province salvage? It was a big leap, and just didn’t add up.

A sexual assault made more sense. Stunning and sexy as she was, Gabriella Visconti was also the only female on board.

“Were you raped?” Nick kept his tone noninflammatory with a great deal of control. He’d already noted that her jeans were still done up, now he saw the lacy edge of a nude-colored bra peeking from the scooped neck of her white T-shirt. The relief he felt was profound.

She shook her head, causing the silky black fall of her hair to spill like ink over her shoulders. She winced at the movement and massaged the darkening fingerprints at her throat. “No,” she whispered. “I think he had something else in mind.”

“Like what?”

Her eyes met his. “Like trying to kill me.”

“How did you manage to piss off someone after only being on board a few hours?” Nick asked lightly, studying Bria’s face. Maybe it was a gift—she’d gotten his back up in the first twenty seconds. Quite a feat.

She gave him an arch look. “Funny.”

Savage
was closer to how he felt. “Do you need a doctor?”

“I’m angry as hell,” she said crossly. “Not hurt.”

Her color was high, and her eyes glittered with unshed tears. Yeah. He got that she was furious. But he saw too that she’d had some of the bravado scared out of her. There were dark bruises now marring her beautiful skin. He’d prefer to see her mad rather than terrorized. He suspected she had a temper and wondered, if not under
these
circumstances, under
what
circumstances she’d let it rip.

Experiencing one of her tempers would probably be similar to being hit by a tsunami.

His brothers teasingly referred to him as Spock. Emotionally detached. Unflappable. Extreme displays of emotion made Nick want to run, not walk, to the nearest exit. Always had. But right now, rather than have her sitting so still and withdrawn here on his bed with this dazed look in her eyes, he’d welcome her losing it.

Cry. Scream.
Anything
.

His control was bone-deep.

The princess was hanging on to it tooth and nail with everything she had.

“Start from the beginning.” He’d get a lot more detail from Halkias when he interrogated the deckhand—none too gently—later.

“The guy passed me in the corridor.” She smoothed her hair back in a nervous tell. “At first I thought I knew him, he looked a little familiar.”

That surprised him. So this was personal. In a way, that was a relief. A relief that she wasn’t involved with the Moroccans after all and he wouldn’t have to turn her over to his friends at T-FLAC who knew how to handle terrorists. “His name is Cappi Halkias.”

She was already shaking her head gingerly. “I don’t know him, I just thought I did because he looked a little like my nail guy.”

“What’s a nail guy?” Nick asked, puzzled.

She held out a slender, lightly tanned hand and showed him her red nails, and the three woven gold bands on her middle finger. “The guy who does my nails.”

He was more interested in the dark bruises marring the smooth skin of her forearm. She’d blocked a heavy blow. Several. “A manicurist?”

“Manis and pedis, yes.” She paused, and added dryly, “The guy who attacked me isn’t my nail guy.”

That she’d been injured on his watch infuriated him, but damn, he was unaccountably amused by her. He rolled his hand, motioning for her to get on with the story. Because amused by her or not, the situation wasn’t funny in the least.

“I thought perhaps he was sick. He looked—”

He waited a few beats, then prompted, “Looked?”

She blinked, the distant glazed look in her eye refocusing. “Jumpy. Nervous. Sweaty.” She shrugged. “Odd I guess. I was going to ask if he needed help, but when I turned around he was gone. I presumed he’d gone into one of the cabins. I unlocked the door and he jumped out of nowhere. He hit me here.” She touched two fingers to the red mark on her temple. “I went flying. He grabbed me, wrestled me to the bed, jumped on top of me and tried to strangle me. That’s about it.”

No, Nick thought with cold fury. That wasn’t it. He might not want Bria Visconti on board, but he was still responsible for her safety. “Do you need anything?” Other than the bruises, which were bad enough, she didn’t appear to have suffered any physical damage, but emotional damage was sometimes harder to recover from.

Emotional damage was so far out of his comfort zone. He’d rather break the man’s face and call it good.

She dropped her hand to her lap. “I suppose a bodyguard would be redundant now?”

“Not unless more than one person has it in for you, Princess. The man’s locked up.” And then, because he couldn’t help himself, he added pointedly, “You should’ve brought your own guard with you.”

She didn’t fight back. Not even with a look. Unaccountably, that worried him more than the bruises did. “I don’t have one anymore. I live in California and nobody cares about my pedigree as a princess of a small island nation when they have movie stars about.”

A hint of fire flashed in her eyes as she added, “Has anyone told you just how warm, fuzzy, and charming you can be?”