A soft sigh slipped from Daniel and he closed his eyes. He should have listened to Quinn. He’d gone on and on about how there was nothing but trouble to be found in the Bermuda Triangle. Of course, he hadn’t believed a word of what the hacker was ranting about. The Bermuda Triangle was nonsense. And he had been having a great time. Sun, drinks, good food, and Edward. The man was fun to hang out with, and the sex had been great. They should never have left his room.
“Daniel?”
Daniel looked up. He was seated close enough to Edward that he could clearly see the worry on his face.
“You okay?” Edward whispered.
He nodded. “Just thinking we should have stayed in and got room service.”
Edward smiled at him, but the look was cut short when one of the men on the boat shouted at him. The language was rough and coarse, sounded like something in maybe Arabic, but Daniel couldn’t be sure. He spoke only two languages, and Arabic was not one of them. He was willing to guess that it was something along the lines of “Stop talking.”
That was fine with him. There wasn’t much to say until one of them came up with a solution of how to get out of there. Daniel closed his eyes against the ache that was starting in his temples. He needed his glasses, but that was the least of his concerns.
The one repeating thought in his head was that if he were one of Ward’s bodyguards, he would have known exactly what to do the moment the other boat appeared on the horizon. They wouldn’t have hesitated to get Edward’s gun, and they would have been happy to start firing back at the bastards chasing them. They would have had a great plan that would have allowed them to seize control of the other boat and leave the pirates paddling in the ocean.
Sure, he’d been in the FBI for several years, but he’d spent his days behind a desk. His life didn’t include chasing down bad guys and shooting a firearm. He searched through documents and checked financial calculations for erroneous transactions. The running and gunning might sound exciting, but they weren’t his things. He liked computers, math, and puzzles. It might not be sexy.
Okay, it definitely wasn’t sexy.
And Edward was definitely going to lose his interest in him, assuming they survived this mess.
Maybe that was for the best. It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to be interested in a guy who found it necessary to bring a gun along on a date. It was also clear that Edward was more the run-and-gun type like his coworkers at Ward. He was probably disgusted and disappointed with Daniel’s lack of experience and general cowardice.
The sound of the boat motor changed, and Daniel looked around to find they’d slowed. They’d entered an area that looked more like a lagoon. Trees and low bushes rose up on three sides of them. There were some small homes and other buildings that looked like old warehouses.
The engine cut off and one of the men scrambled over the side to tie the boat to the dock. Two other men came over and roughly grabbed him and Edward, pulling them to their feet. Pain shot through his shoulder as his arm was jerked at an odd angle. Clenching his teeth, he held back the sound that rose up in his throat. Once standing, he took the chance to look around. The dock was in a sad state with wooden boards rotted or simply missing. The closest warehouse wasn’t in much better shape, but judging by the man standing outside the open doorway holding a machine gun, there was a good chance that it was their ultimate destination.
As his feet hit the dock, everything seemed to sway and he struggled to walk straight. The man holding his arm tightened his grip, sending more pain through his shoulder. They were marched into the dark interior of the warehouse. Daniel blinked several times as they stepped out of the sunlight, trying to get his eyes to adjust. His vision wasn’t fantastic without his glasses. His nearsightedness allowed him to make out three other people in the warehouse, with one of them seated in a chair.
“What the fuck?” Edward slowly said. He sounded surprised. Did he recognize one of them?
As they got closer to the small group in the warehouse, Daniel could make out that the person in the chair was actually tied to it. One of the men in the warehouse was now shouting at the people who had captured him and Edward. Was the leader angry that they had more hostages than they had originally planned?
Daniel didn’t give it much thought as the man in the chair came into focus. He wasn’t just a hostage. The man looked almost exactly like him. They could have passed for twins. At the very least, brothers. What. The. Fuck.