Grave Phantoms (Roaring Twenties #3)(77)

“You do what I say, you just might get to see her again,” the man said. “Can’t promise what condition she’ll be in, though.”

“You f*cking piece of garbage—”

“Save your breath,” Max said. “I need you cognizant, and if the boys have to hit you again, I’m afraid they may cause permanent damage.”

Cold Pacific air howled in his ear and whipped though his clothes as Bo was hustled up a gangway and shoved onto the deck of a boat. He smelled a particular bright cedar scent and had a good idea they’d boarded the Plumed Serpent. While they crossed the deck, he wondered if Mr. Haig at the radio station had anything to do with him and Astrid getting captured, or if someone at the dance hall had recognized them. Maybe Max himself had been upstairs, looking down the peephole, when they’d visited the carousel booth. That thought made him feel a little sick . . . or perhaps that was only his head injury.

“Step up,” one of the thugs told him, but not soon enough.

He stumbled up several stairs, crossed a threshold, and was pushed into a cabin.

His arms were wrenched back painfully. Hands bound with rope. And then he was tied to what felt like a pipe on the wall and left in silence. Bo tried to pull himself loose, blindly feeling out his environment with his knees, feet, elbows, searching for anything. All he found were a couple of walls, a chair bolted to the floor a few feet in front of him, and the boat rocking beneath him. They hadn’t left port, and from the layout of the cabin—a small room, up a set of stairs—he was almost certain they’d stuck him in the boat’s pilothouse.

He ignored his instinct to call out for Astrid. Never show weakness around people who can hurt you. That’s what Winter had taught him. Bo didn’t want them torturing Astrid to get a rise out of him. And he couldn’t let his brain think about what they might do—what they could be doing to her right now!—or he’d go mad. He felt the raving panic battering his mind already. Sweat bloomed across his back and beaded his forehead. He wouldn’t be any good to her if he allowed himself to crack.

She would fight back, he told himself. That wasn’t much, but it was something. She was smart and savvy, and she didn’t fall apart under pressure. He heard her voice saying I am a Magnusson, chin high, foxlike eyes narrowed, and willed her to summon that defiance now.

The only thing that gave him peace was the dark confidence that he would kill every last one of these people the second he got free. Bo was not clean of spirit. He’d taken life before, twice, in self-defense. The most recent one was a bootlegging deal that went sour—the man had pulled a gun on him—but the first time when he was spying for Winter. When he was sixteen. That was a savage killing, and he’d been an animal when he’d done it. No matter that he’d known in his heart that he would’ve been dead himself if he hadn’t, the weight of it had taken months to purge from his head.

Maybe he’d never really gotten over it completely.

But he knew what he was capable of. And he would do it again. To get her back. To protect her. To avenge her. He would do it without hesitation. And focusing on this made the panic manageable.

A door slammed. Bo sat up as two sets of footfalls approached.

“We’re going to untie you now,” a British-accented voice said. Mad Hammett. “If you try anything funny, it’ll be taken out on the girl. Understand?”

“Where is she?” Bo demanded.

“Close enough that if I press a button, she’ll be harmed—and that’s all you need to know right now. And in case you haven’t noticed, that’s a gun on your head.”

Blood rushed to Bo’s hands as the rope was cut. He was hauled to his feet and pushed forward before being told to sit. The blindfold was removed. Bo blinked into the light. He sat in front of the ship’s wheel. An L-shaped wooden dash with a radio and navigational instruments curved around to his right, and before him, slanted windows looked out over the yacht’s bow.

He tried to gauge where they were docked—somewhere on the northern shore of the city—but it was hard to concentrate when a gun was prodding the back of his head and a man with half a face was coughing up blood at his side.

Max leaned against the ship’s wheel. “This is what’s going to happen. You will pilot us to this location,” he said, pointing to a map on the dash. A spot in the ocean was circled, and next to it, a pair of coordinates written in dark ink. It took Bo’s eyes time to focus, but he shortly comprehended the location. It was north of the city, off the coast. Near the Magnusson’s Marin County warehouse and the lighthouse . . .

Where Captain Haig had taken the yacht the night of its disappearance a year ago.

“Why do you need me?” Bo asked. “I thought pirates were sailors. Or has it been so long, you’ve forgotten your way around a boat?”

Something like surprise flickered over Max’s peeling face, but he looked too weary to care. “Start the engine before I change my mind and throw you overboard.”

Bo considered his options. Astrid was on the boat. That was all that mattered right now. She was here, and he would get to her. Somehow. He just needed to get his hands on the gun prodding his skull.

After flipping on the blowers, he managed to start the engine and get his bearings. He also sneaked a look around the pilothouse. It was a cramped space, hardly big enough for all three men to stretch out. Apart from the dash and the wheel, there was a narrow berth to his left and, next to it, the door they’d entered, which led down to the deck. Nothing that could be used as a weapon. He eyed the headset hanging from a hook on the dash. He could radio the Coast Guard.