Finding Carly (SEAL Team Hawaii #5)(88)

“You’ll sink all the way to the bottom of the ocean, where sharks and fish will feast on your flesh until you cease to exist. And you’ll spend every goddamn second of your last conscious minutes wishing you’d been a better woman. Willing to satisfy and please Shawn. Then you’ll spend eternity in Hell, with all the other women who thought they could control their men. Women who should’ve been subservient!”

Gideon was fucking looney tunes. How he’d been able to hide it from Detective Lee, Baker, her and Jag, and everyone he worked with, Carly had no idea. But one thing was very clear. If she didn’t do something right now, she would die exactly how Gideon described.

She shifted, and something bit into her thigh…

Her pocketknife!

An idea began to form in her head.

Glancing around carefully, she couldn’t see much of anything. The rain was falling in thick sheets, obscuring Oahu, which she assumed was behind them. And while she didn’t know exactly what time it was, it was getting dark. If she could get away, the night would help her stay hidden.

The one positive thing in her mind was that Gideon could only take her as far as the gas in the engine would allow. He had to save enough to get back. And while it had been a while since she’d trained for any kind of race—years, actually—Carly trusted her own swimming ability more than she did the man sitting at the back of the boat.

The vessel they were in wasn’t fancy. Didn’t seem to have any kind of GPS that she could see. There weren’t any life jackets or life rings. No railings around the edge of the boat either. It literally looked like some kind of cheap, oversized rowboat. Whoever Gideon had borrowed it from obviously didn’t use it for any long-distance excursions. They probably used it to fish or took it out to snorkel near the shore.

Gideon continued to rant and rave about what a horrible person she was and how she was going to die a painful death, just like Shawn had. How he was going to find an eighteen-year-old girl and mold her into a submissive, perfect woman. But Carly ignored him. She worked out in her head what her next steps should be. She had no idea if her idea would work, but she literally had no other choice. She wasn’t about to sit here and let Shawn’s fucking friend shoot her with a tranquilizer and throw her overboard. If she was going into the water, it would be on her own timetable.

And that time was—now!

Taking a deep breath, Carly swiftly grabbed the kettle bell and using all her strength, she threw it—and herself—over the side of the boat.

As she suspected, she took Gideon completely off guard, too busy listing all her faults. She heard the boat continuing on course, moving farther away. It would take him a moment to stop the boat and turn around.

One thing Gideon had gotten right was the fact that she would most definitely sink as soon as she landed in the water, thanks to the heavy weight around her ankle.

Moving quickly, she reached for the pocketknife. More thankful than she could say that Jag insisted she always carry the thing, Carly did her best to open the blade while also holding onto the kettle ball. She barely managed. Knowing it was only a matter of time before she ran out of breath, she frantically sawed at the rope. Somehow in her panic, she cut her palm when she grabbed the rope instead and dropped the kettle ball, to keep the material taut, hoping to cut more easily.

For a terrified moment, she thought the knife wasn’t sharp enough, that the rope was too thick, that she was going to sink to the bottom of the ocean just as Gideon had planned.

But she sawed away—and the rope finally cut through.

Desperate for air, Carly swam for the surface as fast as she could, clutching the knife, not wanting to drop it since it was literally her only defense if Gideon got close again. She popped up and inhaled a large breath, promptly coughing and choking from a wave that washed over her head.

Unfortunately, her coughing let Gideon focus in on her position when she surfaced, and he quickly turned the boat in her direction.

Fuck!

He lifted the gun and fired as he got closer. Carly couldn’t hear the pop of the air mechanism, but she felt something brush against her arm before she was able to duck under the water.

Knowing her only chance was to get as far away from Gideon as possible, and to use the storm to hide her whereabouts when she came up for air, Carly reluctantly dropped the knife. She hated to let it go, but she needed both hands to swim underwater as fast as she could.

When her lungs felt as if they were going to burst, she spun to her back and surfaced, figuring it would be harder to spot her if just her face appeared above the waves, instead of her entire head. She took several deep breaths before sinking back down, turning over and doing the breaststroke underwater once more.

She did that over and over, not even looking for Gideon. All her focus was on staying underwater for as long as possible and swimming as hard as she could. And when she did come up for air, putting only her nose and mouth above the water.

Time had no meaning. She could’ve been swimming for minutes or hours. But the next time she surfaced, Carly took a chance and looked around for Gideon.

All she saw was water. No boat. No Gideon with his dart gun aimed, ready to shoot.

It was both a satisfying moment and a terrifying one. She was all alone, somewhere in the ocean, with no idea where she was, in the middle of a storm.

A wave crashed over her head and Carly sputtered and spit out the saltwater that had gotten into her mouth.