Do or Die Reluctant Heroes

Phoebe swallowed a scream, turning it into a mere squeak, as she attempted to pull herself into a cannonball as Ian had advised.

She went into the water with a splash at almost the exact moment he did. She could feel him beside her as the water closed over her head as she went down, down, down, down, bubbles surrounding them both.

He’d let go of her hand at some point during their leap from the balcony, probably so as to not wrench her wrist on impact, but now she felt him reach out and securely grab hold of her shirt.

And then she was being pulled up—at least she thought it was up, it was so dark beneath the water. She could feel his legs brushing against her, solid and strong as he kicked and kicked, and then, finally, thank God, they broke the surface.

Phoebe heard herself gasping and gulping and she tried to do it quietly, but the water tasted like gasoline, and it was probably filthy with all the boats that motored out from their docks to the open Gulf; not to mention the fact that there were men with guns after them, probably breaking into her apartment right now, and God, her skinned knee was stinging in the saltwater.

And despite all of that—and despite the fact that the shower she’d sneaked home to take was now completely for naught—she found herself a little too focused on that stupid kiss.

Ian must have done it to distract her—he’d jumped on two for the same reason.

It had worked. She was here; they were safe.

For now.

“Arms locked around my neck. Big inhale, then under again,” Ian now breathed into her ear, and she nodded, turning to face him and loop her arms around him.

He waited for her to suck in another lungful of air, then they went back beneath the surface, and she held on for dear life even as she tried to kick, too, to help propel them forward. And when they surfaced again, she knew it was only for her sake—he surely could have swum much farther without another breath.

“Again,” he commanded, and she obediently obliged.

And the next time they surfaced, Phoebe was a little alarmed at the darkness until she realized that they were, absolutely, underneath one of the nearby marina’s wooden docks. There was just enough space for them to lurk beneath it, their heads out of the water, their noses up in the stagnant, fishy-smelling air. Ian reached up and grabbed onto one of the barnacle-covered beams as she continued to cling to him.

Dim light slid in between the wooden slats, but it shifted and moved with the swell of the water.

And that was both disconcerting and awkward, since there wasn’t much to look at besides Ian’s face, which was up-close and in her face as she held tightly to him, their bodies pressed together, their legs occasionally accidentally intertwining with the movement of the tide.

At least they had their clothes on, thank God.

A shaft of light lit their faces, illuminating the fact that Ian was looking down into her eyes, and in that moment, Phoebe could’ve sworn that he knew exactly what she was thinking.

She narrowed her eyes at him, trying despite their forced silence to convey her disapproval about that inappropriate kiss.

Ian, of course, thought that was funny and he smiled. And he shrugged very slightly, as if to respond with It got the job done, didn’t it?

Phoebe shook her head—just slightly—back at him, which of course made his smile broaden.

The son of a bitch was enjoying himself. They were hiding beneath a foul-smelling dock after leaping from her balcony to avoid being taken captive by mobsters who wanted to kill him.

And he was having fun.

I hate you, she mouthed at him, making a point to overenunciate those unvoiced words so that he would understand.

The smile turned wry as he nodded. I know. I’m sorry, he mouthed back as the light made another pass across their faces. I really am.

There was a vaguely musical rhythm to the shift of the water—it wasn’t always precise, sometimes the pattern repeated in four, sometimes in five or six. But light would shine in for a moment, then disappear. Then shine, then disappear.

And right before the light vanished again, Phoebe looked up into Ian’s eyes, and she realized that in order to talk without making any noise, she was forced to stare at his mouth to read his lips. And while staring at his mouth, it was impossible not to think about that kiss.

She closed her eyes as they were plunged once again into darkness, grateful that he couldn’t see her and do that mind-reading thing he did so well. She managed to compose herself and was ready when the light came back, at which point she looked at him and said, How long?


In other words, how long did they have to hide here? But Phoebe knew he’d understand the short version, and this way she didn’t have to endure him gazing intently at her mouth for more than just a few seconds.

She raised her eyebrows to emphasize that she’d asked a question, and he nodded. And he leaned toward her. This time, she quickly leaned away from him, shooting him a solid WTF with her face, and he smiled again, right before it went dark.

The truth was, there was no getting away from him in their current predicament. But she was grateful for the darkness as he put his mouth against her ear and said, “Relax.”

Right. Relax. She didn’t make noise as she rolled her eyes and silently laughed her disdain. He read her mind again, because she felt the warmth from his exhaled answering laughter against her ear, and when the light came back, he was smiling again.

Or maybe he’d never stopped smiling—because this was so damn funny and fun for him.

“If you’re okay for me to leave,” he breathed into her ear, “I’ll recon and figure out our next move.”

Phoebe nodded as she looked into his eyes, letting him see that she understood. His escape plan had only brought them this far. They were hidden from Davio Dellarosa’s men, but obviously they couldn’t stay in the water indefinitely.

And while the thought of Ian leaving her here, alone, was not a happy one, she could see how it was a necessity.

Phoebe tilted her head back to look up at the way Ian was holding on to the dock, and of course, the light immediately vanished. But she loosened her hold on him with her right hand and reached up, encountering first the taut muscles of his forearm and then his hand. She could feel how he was holding on, and she did the same, letting go of him with her other arm so that when the light came back they were still face to face, but she was no longer clinging to him.

She held out her hand, motioning with it—she wanted her bag. He handed it over, but stopped her when she moved to loop the tied arms around her neck.

“Don’t,” he said it aloud before wincing at his mistake. Leaning forward, he spoke into her ear. “If you have trouble, let it go. It’s replaceable. You understand?”

Phoebe nodded. Wearing her bag around her neck could be deadly if she couldn’t get it off and it weighed her down, pulling her underwater. Of course, that was assuming that she lost her grip and got dunked. Which was a possibility only if a tsunami suddenly struck, or in the case of an alien attack, or …

If a large boat went by, creating a huge wake. Yeah, okay. That was possible. He was right.

“Stay here,” Ian continued. “In the unlikely event that I don’t come back, don’t go to the police. And don’t use a credit card to check into a hotel. Get cash from an ATM. There are cheap motels up near the airport where you can give a fake name—”

She pulled back to look at him and for once the light worked for her, so that he got a clear look at her mouthing the words Are you ditching me?

Ditching wasn’t an easy word to lip read, so she had to lean close to say it again, into his ear. “Ditching.” Of course the water pushed her so that her mouth was awkwardly pressed up against his ear. “Sorry.”

As she pulled back, he was shaking his head rather vehemently. Not ditching you, he mouthed back. No. Never. Again, he knew what she was thinking, because he leaned close to say, “Yeah, yeah, I know. That’s what I’d say if I was ditching you. But I’m not. I promise. I’ll be right back.”

And with that he was gone, slipping into the water, leaving her alone in the darkness beneath the marina’s dock.

Alone and bemused.

Phoebe had fully expected him to take advantage and kiss her again. And it was only because he hadn’t that she believed he’d keep his promise.

* * *

Francine’s phone buzzed, and she looked to see that she’d gotten an email. From Sheldon. And she knew, even before she opened and read it, that Berto had saved the day again.

She and Aaron were sitting in the back of Martell’s car, with Rory’s car seat between them. Martell was driving, and the FBI agent named Deb rode shotgun as they headed for the interstate. The baby was sleepily clutching his bottle-with-a-straw, his eyelids heavy as he slipped into formula-induced unconsciousness.

“Shelly’s safe, at least temporarily,” Francie told Aaron, keeping her voice low for Rory’s sake. She reached across the car seat to hand Aaron the phone so he could read the email for himself.

He read it aloud, also at a sleeping-baby volume. “I’m okay. Thank God. With Berto. R U safe? Stay away from house, Davio’s men watching it. Awaiting instructions. Shel.”

In their haste to leave the FBI’s no-longer-safe house after Phoebe’s vanishing act, they’d piled into Martell’s crappy old car. The fed named Yashi had gone in a separate direction. He’d pointed his rental up toward Tampa, where he was going to gain access to both the files and funds that Ian would need to pull off that crazy B&E-of-a-foreign-consulate stunt.

When Martell first told Francie about it—that they’d taken Ian out of Northport to lead a covert rescue op—she’d laughed, because she’d thought he was kidding.

But it was not a joke. The FBI had—with very straight faces—released Ian from prison so that he could break into the Kazbekistani consulate in Miami and rescue the kidnapped children of a nuclear scientist.

And okay, there was a joke there, but it was on the FBI, who’d clearly bought into Ian’s badass reputation as the best-ever B&E man, a jewel thief extraordinaire.

In truth, it had been years since Ian’s private-sector spy team had attempted this kind of covert assignment. Francine’s own breaking-and-entering skills were seriously rusty. As for Eee’s? Pssht. He was capable of getting past any and all kinds of security, sure. But because he was the size of a small mountain, it was hard for him go unnoticed for very long.

As for Shelly and Aaron—neither were particularly skilled when it came to ninja moves. They weren’t bad, but it certainly wasn’t their forte. Shel’s main talents were computer-based. He was the team’s hacker, and he worked his plugged-in magic from the surveillance van. Aaron’s role—one at which he also excelled—was to keep Shel safe while in said van.

Their only real hope of pulling off this kind of Mission: Impossible assignment would’ve come from Ian’s former SEAL chief, John Murray, reupping. And since Johnny wasn’t already here, Francie knew that the SEAL’s participation was a no-go.

Talk about a truly impossible mission. Ian was going to have to get creative—although that was what he did best.

“He said, awaiting instructions,” Aaron repeated now, while quickly zapping back a message to Shelly that said, We R OK, B safe, hang tight, more soon, before handing the phone back to Francie. “So we know he doesn’t trust Berto.”

His words caused Little Debbie FBI to turn around. Martell glanced at them, too, via the rearview.

So Francine interpreted. “It’s code,” she explained. “For precisely this kind of situation. If you use those words, awaiting instructions, in an email or a phone call, it’s a warning. Proceed with caution. Shel’s telling us that he’s not convinced Berto’s help is coming from a place of brotherly love.”

Aaron snorted at that. “You think? Berto’s a douche,” he told Deb and Martell. “He works for Davio, his double-douche of a father. He’s hoping Shelly will lead him—and Davio—directly to me.”


“So Berto’s your brother,” Deb said, looking directly at Francine. “Yours and Sheldon’s.”

“Berto’s not my brother, he’s Shel’s,” Francie explained. “And they’re only half brothers. They have the same father, different mothers.” She could see that Deb was struggling to understand. “Think of our family as a modern version of Yours, Mine and Ours. My mother married Berto’s father, Davio, because he got her pregnant with Sheldon. And we all lived happily ever after, except, no, wait, we didn’t, because Davio thinks stealing cars and selling drugs and women is a reasonable way to earn a living. Shel and I escaped. Berto didn’t.”

“Because Berto’s a douche,” Aaron said again. “I don’t like that Shel’s with him. I want to get him out of there.”

“We will,” Francie promised him. “But we’re going to do this right. Wait for Ian—”

“Wait for Ian,” Aaron said. “How did I know you were going to say that?”

Francine looked into the eyes of this man who was not only her brother-in-law, but also one of the best friends she’d ever had. And she knew that he was still tremendously angry at her. As he had every right to be. For the past year, she’d kept the truth from him.

And Aaron was going to be even more bitterly wounded when he found out that Sheldon, too, had known that Ian had spent all that time in prison—that Shel had stumbled across that fact, and that Francine had made him promise not to tell.

But she was going to let Ian deal with that fallout, since he was the one who’d been adamant—month after month—that Aaron never be told where he was.

“Think about this,” Francine told Aaron now. “We want Shelly back, but we don’t want him to get hurt and we don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’d prefer not to get hurt, too,” Martell chimed in from the front.

“Even though he’s with Berto,” Francie continued, “that doesn’t mean Shel’s not safe. He is, right now—even if Berto’s just pretending to help him. Because Berto’s got to sell it, right? If he wants to convince Shel that he’s an ally, he’s got to act like an ally. And as long as Berto’s acting like an ally, then Shel’s safe.”

Aaron nodded grudgingly.

“So I’m going to email Shel,” Francine continued, “and tell him to go to the safe house that we just vacated. Number five eighty-five. In the event Phoebe already gave that info to the Dellarosas, we’re not telling them something they don’t already know.”

Deb nodded. “That’s a good plan. But hold off—I need to clear it with Yashi first.”

Aaron wasn’t happy. He didn’t trust Berto, but he didn’t want to not trust him, either. “If Phoebe’s working for the Dellarosas, then we’re potentially putting Shelly back into Davio’s hands. What if Berto’s really helping him without Davio knowing?”

Francine shook her head. “Lotta ifs there, Air.” She leaned forward to tell Martell, “Go north on Seventy-five. We’re going to exit at University and head east.

“Shelly’ll be safe enough at five eighty-five,” she continued. “It’s centrally located, plus we’ll be able to keep an eye on him, make sure Berto’s behaving himself.” She aimed her next words at Deb. “Right? You planted surveillance at the safe house? Full setup of cameras and mics?”

Little Debbie was clearly uncomfortable disclosing that, especially when Martell looked over at her in genuine surprise.

“Seriously?” Martell asked the FBI agent. “That’s how you make friends with Ian Dunn? By watching his every move? Eating a sandwich, taking a dump …”

“It’s procedure,” she answered shortly.

“New theory,” Martell said, glancing into his rearview mirror, directly at Francine. He’d clearly believed Ian when he’d left that message saying Francie was now in charge. “What if Phoebe’s working with Dunn—more closely than we’d thought? What if her departure from the safe house was part of his plan to get us out from under FBI surveillance?” He looked into the mirror again, eyebrows up, as if expecting confirmation from the backseat.

But Francie shrugged. “I don’t know Phoebe from Adam. I’ve never met her. If she’s working with Ian, he didn’t bother to tell me.”

“Welcome to my world,” Aaron said dourly. “Sucks, doesn’t it?”

* * *

Even without binoculars, Ian could see Dellarosa’s men swarming the marina. Despite his wishful thinking, they had not given up and moved on in their search for him.

Davio Dellarosa knew that Ian had once-upon-a-time been a SEAL. He’d correctly deduced that Ian would instinctively head for the water.

And he’d also apparently figured out that having Phoebe in tow would significantly slow Ian down.

That was true. If it wasn’t for Phoebe, Ian would’ve been long gone.

The canal beneath her condo’s balcony opened up into the bay just west of this marina. If Ian had been on his own, he would have swum to a part of the bay that was Dellarosa-free and gone ashore. Done and done.

Instead, he swam out here, to the mouth of the bay, where larger boats—yachts and sailing vessels almost big enough to be called ships—were anchored, most of them empty, their cabins securely locked.

He found one, surrounded by others that were dark and deserted, with a built-in cabin door lock that he could easily pick. So easily, in fact, that he opened it in advance. Best not to spend too much time with Phoebe up on the bright white of the deck. Best to get her on board—which was going to be some kind of trick, in and of itself—and then safely down below as quickly as possible.

Because if he were Davio, he’d have most of his men up on the private little marina’s commissary roof, scanning the harbor with night-vision glasses. If he had ’em. And if he didn’t, he’d get some soon.

One thing Ian had learned from his pre-prison quality time with Manny Dellarosa was that the Dellarosa family operation did not lack for high-tech equipment and weaponry.

Ian now surfaced at the halfway point back to the dock where he’d left Phoebe, his head and shoulders safely concealed behind what had to be a ten-million-dollar yacht. He traced his route back to the sailboat where they were going to take shelter and hide, memorizing each stopping point—he’d need to stop more often when he swam back there with Phoebe.

He could barely see their destination from here—of course he wasn’t wearing NVGs.

He went back under the water, aware that he was working some seriously underused muscles. It had been close to a year since he’d done any swimming at all, due to the lack of recreational pools in the state prison system.

He broke surface only one more time before coming up for air beneath the dock where Phoebe was hiding. He didn’t mean to startle her, but he brushed past her by accident because it was so damn dark.

She was breathing hard as he moved closer to her. She had no doubt imagined sharks or stingrays or maybe even a deadly Portuguese man o’ war when he’d bumped her, but she was trying her best not to make any noise.

“Sorry,” he breathed, moving close enough so he could speak directly into her ear, reaching up to hold on to the dock above them.

To his surprise, she let go, and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing herself against him like a long-lost lover. It wasn’t until she spoke directly into his ear that he realized she’d grabbed him merely to communicate. “I heard footsteps above me, then shouting and running. I was afraid they’d spotted you.”


She pulled back to look at him just as the on-again-off-again light shone in through the slats in the dock, and Ian could see her concern in her eyes. It wasn’t so much sharks she’d feared as him not coming back, despite the fact that he’d promised he would.

I’m okay, he mouthed silently as her gaze dropped to his mouth.

He instantly became aware of the intriguing mix of both firmness and softness of her body against him, of his arm around her waist. Because her shirt had floated up a little in the current, his fingers were against the smoothness of her skin.

It was hard not to think about Aaron’s snotty comment. Will you just pull off the road and kiss the shit out of each other? Just get it over with already. You’ll both feel much better.…

And yes, okay, in truth Ian would like to do way more than kiss the shit out of this woman, because yes again, he could use a good pressure release after nearly being killed, twice in one day. And because it had been too damn long since he’d gotten naked with anyone, let alone a woman to whom he was truly attracted.

The way Phoebe’s eyes lit up when she laughed was just a bonus, as was the fact that she was fiercely intelligent and had the uncanny ability to read his mind at times.

As Ian stared, hyperaware of every centimeter of her that was touching him and vice versa, she looked back up into his eyes.

And there it was. His brother was right. The attraction Ian felt was absolutely mutual.

The dock shifted with the water, and it was as if a light switch was flipped. Their world went dark.

And something flipped inside of Ian, too, and he closed his eyes—not that it mattered in the darkness—and kissed her.

Her mouth was warm and sweet—and salty, too, from the water splashing in her face. And Ian knew she was going to pull away from him. He expected it. It was coming. Any second now …

Except she didn’t.

There was a moment of surprise, mixed with the briefest of hesitation, but then she was kissing him back pretty damn enthusiastically, her arms tightening around his neck.

Ian clung to the beam above them, willing his fingers to evolve and quickly develop suction to keep him from slipping. He knew he was destined to get a splinter or twenty, but it didn’t matter as he surrendered to this moment. He gave himself fifteen seconds to enjoy it, then gave himself fifteen more when she wrapped her legs around him, too.

Was it really called dry humping, if they did it underwater? Probably not.

It was a crying shame that they both had their jeans on, because this was definitely one of those adrenaline-fueled moments of passion with a total loss of inhibition, where need and desire trumped all reason.

But those moments were nearly always followed by an awkward aftermath, and that would absolutely be so in this instance, particularly since Ian knew the truth. Most people experienced a strong biological urge to have sex following a near-death experience, or even a semi-near-death experience like jumping off a second-story balcony. Phoebe’s kissing him back was just a normal human reaction to danger.

Ian gave himself a third and final fifteen seconds and then waited slightly longer for the light to vanish before he broke their kiss—in hopes that Phoebe would be less embarrassed under cover of darkness.

He knew what to tell her, too, and he put his mouth against her ear. “Breathe. Catch your breath. Don’t say anything, we’re gonna swim now, you’ll have plenty of time to talk when we’re safe, okay?” His voice sounded odd to his own ears, and he felt strangely out of breath himself.

He saw her nod as the light came back, but she kept her face turned away from him even as she unlocked her legs from around him.

Ian closed his eyes, suddenly cognizant of the splinters in his hand, and the fact that his right arm and shoulder were screaming from the strain of anchoring them beneath the dock after swimming all that way.

He didn’t really expect her to be silent, and she didn’t disappoint. She turned her head and put her mouth to his ear. “Sorry.”

And there was the problem. She was sorry.

He wasn’t.

“Big breath and then under, okay?” Ian breathed back into her ear.

Phoebe nodded again, and he felt her draw air, lots of air, into her lungs.

And together, they went beneath the water, and out from under the dock.