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She looked at him with gratitude. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to break the glass ceiling?”
“No.”
“That’s right. No. Mr. Easy Like Sunday Morning. The top of my head hurts from banging it against that barrier.” Her voice broke. “They planned this to humiliate me, hurt me, and they left me to die.” She blew out a breath and threw her hands up. “I graduatedsuma cum laudefor fuck’s sake.” She huffed out a hard breath. “Do you know why I waited so long to tell you about those shoes and what they meant to me?”
His full attention was on her.
“I didn’t want to answer or give you an opportunity to dig deeper or work on my emotions. That would give you power, and I wanted to keep it, wanted that control in my own fist, to exploit my environment, people. I hated losing that edge, even a shred of it.” Her shoulders dropped. “I’m such an expert at manipulation. It’s my job. I’ve been doing it my whole adult life.”
She looked out over the water, her throat tight, the gall and ruthlessness of Mitchum striking her hard. “So, maybe I led Mitchum on. Men in my world are so easily manipulated. They respond to breasts, the promise of sex, and a woman’s allure.” She unfolded the knife and tested the blade, wondering if she could have been partially to blame for Mitchum’s disrespect and his hatred now.
“You’re not to blame. If a guy can’t play the game his way, he has to be man enough to accept that he’s been played. Regardless of your asshole boss, he should have fair pay practices. That glass ceiling only works one way.”
She folded the knife and tucked it in her pocket, feeling a little less weak. “I just wanted what I earned, Easy. At the time I thought that’s all it was until I came to the revelation how my need to be the best was tied up with my own self-worth.”
“I’m sorry, Jack. Do you want me to kill them randomly or by alphabetical order? I know a guy with some lime and empty acreage.”
She smiled wryly at him, reaching out to squeeze his hand. “The only thing Falk said I had going for me was a nice rack.”
“He actually said that to you?”
“Yes, right to my face in his office when he made his advances toward me. He probably told Ramos to rape me as payback.”
“I don’t think that fucking sicko bastard needed any encouragement.” He patted the seat in front of him, and she got up, keeping low, settling her back against him. “They’re going to get their due, Jack.” He moved slightly and slipped his arm around her neck. There was something about the way he did it that was so comfortably familiar. She got a warm rush. She would never have believed she could find so much pleasure from simply sitting with someone, especially since they were running for their lives. For right now, she was at peace. She would leave all the stuff that could or needed to happen in the future.
The sky darkened as the motorboat swept forward, and in the distance, she could see flashes of electricity. She bit her lip. “That looks like another nasty storm. I’m not looking forward to having to build an ark.”
“It’s not a storm. It’s a lightning phenomenon. The mouth of the river is charged with electricity. It flashes all day and all night for something like three hundred days a year.”
Suddenly the darkness lit up with bright light surging across the sky like cracks in a mirror.
“It’s otherworldly beautiful," she said. “I bet you wish you had your camera.”
“I do. I would love to photograph this.”
“Maybe someday you can come back and do that, " she said winsomely.
Easy reached down and pulled a compass out of one of the pockets of his camo pants, then consulted it. “A little farther and we can ditch the boat and get there in more than enough time.”
* * *
“The drone,patron. It’s found something.” At the sound of the excitement in the man’s voice, Shark stiffened. He and Juan had positioned themselves close enough to Ramos at the dock, but far enough that they could have a conversation. He heard the roar of a motor, and a black Kodiak came racing down the channel. It pulled up to the dock. Overhead, two choppers, their blades cutting the air, waited for Ramos’s orders. His LT and teammates were coming into this goatfuck, and he couldn’t allow the team to be at that kind of risk, especially when the lives of Easy and Crazy Choos hung in the balance.
He needed to get in touch with Tex, but his LT was too far out for communications and his cell phone had no connection here. They were flying in a nap-of-the-earth maneuver to stay invisible by exploiting the terrain to avoid enemy detection. Shark would have to play a game of leapfrog to get into range, but it would be cutting it close. Good thing he was a frogman.
The man handed Ramos the video feed from the drone. Shark’s knee-jerk reaction was to grab his rifle, but Juan stayed his hand. “If you kill him now, and believe me, I want to, it’ll expose us. We’ll lose our edge, and we won’t be able to help them,” he whispered low and urgently. “How far out is your team?”
Shark looked at his watch. “Thirty minutes.”
“Doesn’t she look cozy,” Ramos bit out, his face contorted with bitter jealousy and rage. “No one touches that man.” He raised his head and looked around the group. “Understood?” Everyone nodded, including Shark and Juan. “I want them both alive.”
That statement made Shark’s blood run cold.
* * *
Before Easy knewthis was the place to turn the outboard motor toward shore, he felt it, sensed it. Freedom for him and Jack was only thirty minutes away. The boat cut through the current. The water churned harder, pushing them along, and Easy steered, the moon giving him little light as they neared the valley. Mountains rose in the distance, the tree line silhouetted in silver against the strobe light of lightning and the black sky. He slid them around some rocks.
Jack stiffened. “Easy,” she whispered.
