Page 151 of Rescuing You

Blinking rapidly, the man seemed to be slipping into full panic mode.

“It’s okay.” Michael forced a calm tone. “Just get me the keys, and I’ll leave. I’ll bring it back.”

Maybe. More likely, he’d be writing a check to cover the cost.

He was about two seconds away from aiming the Glock when the clerk swiveled and ran toward a check-in desk. He opened a drawer, chose a key hanging from a bright pink chain with a clip, and held it out.

Michael snatched it and ran back out into the now pouring rain.

“Answer me, Wrong!” Brock cursed. Michael had tuned him out for a few moments. “If you disobey me, I swear⁠—”

“I’m here,” Michael said.

“Stand down. Wait for your team.”

Wait for his team.

That had been his problem all along. He hadn’t waited for his team. He hadn’t trusted his team.

But Shehab was getting away.

He and his team needed to take him into custody. They could find out from him everything his little band of terror was concocting. They had to stop him.

But he didn’t say any of that because, honestly, he couldn’t have cared less about Waleed Shehab and his information at that moment.

All he wanted was to rescue Leila.

Michael watched as the boat got smaller and smaller in the distance, nearly disappearing in the sea spray and darkness.

“I’m not going to engage.” Michael kept his voice calm and steady. “In this weather, if we lose them, we might not find them again. Let me follow. At a distance. I’ll share my location.” He pulled out his cell and did. “Now you’ll know where I am. And where they are.”

“You’re going to take a Jet Ski out in a storm?” Brock’s voice rose with disbelief. “Are you insane? You’ll get yourself killed, and how will that help anybody?”

“I can handle it. I’ve been riding these things all my life. I grew up on the ocean, remember?”

“Stand down.” Brock sounded determined. And he never reversed a decision.

But a boat the size of Shehab’s would have a hundred-gallon tank, maybe larger. Even if the vessel only got five miles per gallon, that would give them a five-hundred-mile radius. They could make it to Antalya, or Cypress. Or any of a thousand other ports scattered across the Mediterranean.

Waleed would disappear.

Leila would be gone forever.

Michael couldn’t lose her now. He wouldn’t.

“Please, Brock.” He reached the dock and climbed onto the first Jet Ski he came to, jamming the key in the hole.

Hoping, praying that Brock would change his mind.

The key didn’t fit. Michael moved to the next Jet Ski.

Brock still hadn’t answered.

“Please.” Michael would beg if he had to. “I won’t engage. I’ll keep my distance.”

The key didn’t fit the second. He moved to the third and last.

Either this would work, or the clerk had tricked him to get him out of the hotel. Either way, he’d called the police. If this didn’t work, Michael would probably end up in jail.