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Chapter Twenty-nine
Rylee assumed Madelaine had no idea that she was standing at the open area behind her hiding place. She moved forward with intentions of arresting the woman and having them hold her in the cell she knew they kept especially for wrongdoers on board these ships.
They’d done their homework before taking this cruise. Though only Carl had been introduced as an FBI agent to the captain and crew and given special duties guarding the man the government needed to keep safe, they’d work it out. She’d let him be the one to take Maddie in.
Working undercover, he’d been assigned to watch over Jake’s cabin with total support of the other crew members. Therefore, he had the power to bring in a prisoner and expect them to hold that person under guard. Sticking her earpiece in and making sure he had his listening device ready also, she whispered her whereabouts and called for backup.
Then she made her approach.
Leaving the shadows to come at Maddie from the front, all hell broke loose. The woman spun out of the chair and body-slammed into Rylee. Unprepared, Rylee felt her back against the railing and the other woman’s hard hands trying to push her over.
Using the palm of her right hand, she drove Maddie’s chin upward and at the same time, thrust her knee into the woman’s stomach. Breaking the hold, and moving away from the railing, she went to flip Maddie around so she could get her handcuffs in place, but that was like holding onto a string blowing in a hurricane.
The crazy lady had no intentions of making this easy. With an evil grin marring her strangely beautiful features, her hand flew out to connect with the side of Rylee’s face, and she whipped around to slash with her foot.
Thankful that she’d trained for these specific moves, Rylee countered her kick by using Maddie’s extended hand as leverage to flip her over Rylee’s back. Expecting this to be the end of the fight, she saw the other’s elbow coming at her in time to move out of the way and drive her own elbow to Maddie’s arm in a counter move.
A practitioner of speed fighting, and glad she had on a pair of shorts that in no way inhibited her moves like Maddie’s skirt tended to impede hers, she flipped off her sandals and settled in for the fight.
Slashing, arms moving with the speed of steel weapons, hands hurting, spinning, whirling, bodies high in the air, kicks landing, they fought from one end of the deck space to the other, often Rylee managing to get in a good hit but she also took a few.
But time was moving on, and she knew they’d likely be seen and that wasn’t her goal. She needed to stop fooling around and take this woman down now.
Using a trick she’d learned from a Chinese master of this type of fighting, she whipped around, leaping high so her foot lifted the other’s chin, she used enough force to knock her down. Scrambling, she landed a swift blow to the side of Maddie’s head and ended the battle.
“I wondered how long you were going to play with her?” Carl appeared from the shadows and stooped to help the stunned girl to her feet, his handcuffs making short shift of imprisoning her.
“Hey, I was having fun.”
“Yeah, well a few spectators were also having fun watching you having fun.”
Rylee looked around and saw three men hovering on the deck above. They gleefully lifted their thumbs and then clapped. She couldn’t help herself. Grinning she gave a tiny curtsey and headed to catch up with Carl and his prisoner.
“Tired of the limelight?”
“She’s better than I expected, gave me quite a workout. You taking her to the brig?”
“Yep. She’s one person we won’t need to worry about from now on.” Sarcasm rampant, he added, “Now to just make sure our royal pain in the assness, Hakim, and his knights behave, and we just might come out of this assignment without anyone getting hurt.”
“Hey dude, I never took you for such a Mr. Doomsday. We’re all good, my friend.”
“Sure you, me, Jake and our two stowaways. We’re all just dandy.”
Not sure why his comeback cracked her up, but she laughed so hard his disgusted stare couldn’t bring her down. Nothing could.
She was heading back to the cabin to wait for Jake.
