Chapter 1

Kara Moore knew she would probably die in the next few minutes. An hour ago, she’d been congratulating herself for finally reaching a point where she couldn’t be afraid anymore. It had been the first time in days that she could remember the grinding terror that had been a constant chattering presence in the back of her mind finally quieting and being replaced by a grim determination to do what she could to survive the next few days.

At the time, her ex-boyfriend Dmitri and his terrifying friend Yevgeniy had been waving guns and screaming at each other, each blaming the other for everything that had gone wrong since they’d decided to grab Jesse Stone in a nearby parking lot, kidnap him, and ransom him back to his family. Of the four men who had hatched that genius plot, one was almost certainly dead, one had returned to the mainland to address massive injuries Jesse had inflicted on his face in the course of escaping from the abandoned hotel they were using as a hideout, and the remaining two were threatening to shoot each other.

The reason Kara had realized she was no longer afraid was because she had calmly worked out that, whichever of the two men shot the other, she was going to have to shoot the last one standing.

The decision to shoot Yevgeniy if he killed Dmitri had been remarkably easy to make. Being left alive and alone with Yevgeniy wasn’t an option. Kara knew there was a better chance that Yevgeniya would kill her than the other way around, but dying might still be better than it just being the two of them.

Deciding to kill Dmitri had taken longer. Dmitri didn’t technically know he was Kara’s ex-boyfriend yet, but he had to suspect that their relationship had entered a new, even rockier phase than the general dysfunction that had stalked them since day one. And while Kara had seen her share of rough breakups, a bullet in the brain seemed a bit harsh even for a toxic idiot like Dmitri.

Still, Kara would rather take her chances alone on this godforsaken island with Jesse Stone than try to find an acceptable outcome if Dmitri was still alive. The screaming match had started because Dmitri wanted them all to go looking for Jesse while Yevgeniy wanted to cut their losses and swim back to the mainland. Both struck Kara as suicidally stupid ideas, but she’d long since given up trying to talk sense into her fellow kidnappers. If they were both dead, she could start a bonfire to draw the attention of the helicopters that had been passing over the island with frightening regularity since morning and pray that Jesse would keep the deal the two of them had made.

Kara had barely finished having that thought when Jesse Stone reappeared out of nowhere. All three of them had assumed he was lying low and waiting for a rescue that now seemed inevitable. In hindsight, that had been foolish in light of how little Jesse had been willing to wait for rescue up until that point.

Instead of waiting, Jesse had been busy. He’d somehow found himself a length of nautical rope, formed it into a noose, gotten back into the hotel, positioned himself to watch the screaming match, and chosen the perfect moment to leap out, lower the noose over Yevgeniy’s head, pull it tight, and kick him in the back hard enough to both pull the noose tight and send him barrelling into Dmitri. Then, before anyone could react, he had yanked the rope hard, pulling Yevgeniy back into himself and wrapped the big Russian in a seemingly unbreakable headlock. Yevgeniy’s head had already turned bright red from the rope around his neck. When Jesse squeezed with his powerful forearms, it started to turn purple.

It also made Yevgeniy into an effective human shield between Jesse and Dmitri. The latter, sprawled on the floor, recovered the pistol he’d dropped a moment earlier and started trying to draw a bead on his former captive. When he couldn’t, he shouted to Kara, “Shoot him!”

Kara did have an opportunity to shoot Jesse in the back. Like every other man in this tragic tableau, Jesse had apparently discounted the fact that Kara had a gun and could theoretically have shot any of them at any time.

Or maybe Jesse had done the same thinking Kara had done and decided to rely on Kara not to shoot him because they had a deal. In truth, Jesse was the last person in the room she was going to shoot - possibly even including herself. If she shot and killed Jesse Stone, there was no doubt in her mind that she would be caught and she would get the chair.

Instead of shooting anyone, Kara froze. As had happened over and over again the last few days, her contingency plans had been destroyed by an event completely outside of what she’d planned for. She decided she should really step past Jesse and Yevgeniy, shoot Dmitri before he could shoot her, then blow off Yevginiy’s head at point-blank range as soon as she could get an angle that wouldn’t also kill the powerfully-built billionaire fencer currently doing his best to choke the life out of the even-more-muscular Russian in front of him.

She tried to gauge how long Jesse could keep his grip on Yevgeniy and saw how the muscles in his biceps strained to keep a hammer-lock as Yevgeniy gasped for air. The sight sent an odd tingle down into Kara’s core. She had just enough time to think about how screwed up she was that she could actually be turned on right now when she needed all her attention focused on not dying. Then, the world changed again.

The front door of the hotel lobby exploded inward and heavily-armed men in black body armor and helmets started pouring into the room screaming that everyone was to drop their weapons. Kara dropped her gun without any conscious consideration. The shouting was like the voice of God and could not be disobeyed.

Dmitri dropped his own gun and lay face-down on the floor without being asked. Yevgeniy held stubbornly onto his and it wasn’t long before little red dots traced over his face and chest.

“Jesse, let him go,” someone shouted.

Kara didn’t see what happened next because someone had grabbed her, pushed her face down on the floor, and cuffed her hands behind her back. When she looked up again, Jesse no longer had Yevgeniy in a headlock. Instead, Yevgeniy was face down on the floor with Jesse on top of him, one knee planted in the center of his back, and pulling on the end of the noose with both hands like he wanted to pop Yevgeniy’s head completely off of his body. Four of the newcomers were struggling to break Jesse’s grip on the rope, but for several seconds, it looked like he might actually succeed in his attempted decapitation before anyone could stop him. It was only when someone brought out a knife and severed the rope, causing Jesse’s inertia to pull him back off of Yevgeniy, that he stopped struggling against his rescuers

Even then, he retained his balance enough to let the momentum pull him to his feet, not send him sprawling. As the men in body armor pinned Yevgeniya and zip-tied his hands behind his back, Jesse stood over all of them and surveyed the scene with a scowl. He looked like a king in his displeasure. Not for the first time, Kara thought that this was literally the last person on the planet Dmitri and his idiot friends should have tried to kidnap.

Then Jesse saw Kara on the ground and his scowl faded. He strode over to her and crouched down, “Are you all right?”

Kara managed to nod even as she burst into tears. Jesse asking about her well-being gave her real hope that he meant to honor their deal and felt like she’d fulfilled her half of it. She’d been so focused on surviving today, the possibility that she might not actually spend the rest of her life in prison had been too improbable to hope for.

“Sir?” one of the men in body armor asked, only Kara now realized she was a woman.

Jesse pointed to Kara and lied with absolute confidence. “She’s not one of them. She tried to stop them and got kidnapped alongside me. Try not to traumatize her more than necessary.”

“Where’s the other one?” shouted one of the rescuers, crouching down and shouting in Dmitri’s face. “Where’s Vasily?”

Jesse spoke over the tumult. “Vasily’s dead, Aaron. I killed him in a cave near here. I don’t think there’s anybody else alive on this island.”

Aaron spoke into a mic attached to his shoulder. “Living Sword is secured, healthy and ambulatory. Two kidnappers neutralized and detained. One other friendly recovered. Preliminary all clear.” Even before he finished, Kara heard cheering from the other end of his radio connection. It sounded like a lot of people cheering, certainly more people than would ever care if Kara lived or died. For that matter, the dozen heavily-armed people who visibly, but only fractionally relaxed at the all-clear were probably ten more than Kara could rely on.

Jesse gestured to the knife that had been used to cut the noose around Yevgeniy’s throat, “Give me that, please.”

The man who held the knife offered it tentatively to Jesse, then glanced at Yevgeniy still writhing on the floor. “You’re not going to... ?”

“No.” Jesse took the knife, knelt down next to Kara, and cut the zip tie holding her wrists. Before she could even think about sitting up, Jesse was drawing her into those powerful arms she’d just admired at the least appropriate time possible. She allowed herself to fall into the powerful hug. In her ear, he whispered, “Until I tell you differently, you are too traumatized to speak. Do you understand? Stay close to me and don’t say anything until I tell you it’s okay to talk. All right?”

Kara nodded intensely against him. Jesse might only be hugging her so he could whisper in her ear, but it felt so good to be in his arms that she clung to him like he was the last piece of driftwood from a sinking ship.

She might not have needed Jesse’s warning to keep her from speaking. She also didn’t need to do much acting to feel like a kidnap victim instead of a kidnapper. Even though Jesse was the real victim here, he seemed entirely focused on taking control of the situation. To anyone who came in at that point without seeing how this raid had started, it would look like Jesse had led the mission here to save Kara.

Even after their embrace broke, Jesse kept one arm around Kara’s waist. When people wanted to ask her questions, he looked to her like he was waiting for her to answer, then answered for her. Kara nodded when the questioner asked her, “Is that right?”

A few minutes after the first team had burst in through the front door, a second group came pouring in. Where the rescuers were all dressed in black, these people were largely dressed in white with red crosses marking them as medical personnel. The first half dozen of them made a beeline for Yevgeniy and struggled to hold him still long enough to intubate him and lift him onto a stretcher.

The next four came over to Jesse and Kara. Jesse grumbled, “I’m all right.”

A dark-skinned woman with her hair in tight braids shook her head. “You’re not all right. You’ve been held hostage for five days. Even if you’re not injured, you’re almost certainly dehydrated. Are you injured?”

“Some bruises, a few abrasions.” Jesse flexed his hand and gestured with his head to where Yevgeniy’s stretcher was being lifted. “One of the Gibraltar guys may have broken my pinkie trying to keep me from killing that.”

When the paramedic reached for Jesse’s hand, he drew it back. “If it is broken, it’s not going to get any more or less so in the time it takes you to make sure Kara is okay.”

“Yeah, all right.” The paramedic shot Jesse a dirty look as she drew Kara away from him. “Come on. Let’s find some place for you to sit down here that won’t give you sepsis through your pants.”

She settled for leading Kara outside to sit on a hard plastic case, then crouched in front of her. “Kara, I’m Rebecca. Do you have any injuries I should know about?”

Kara shook her head. She had a few small bruises and a skinned elbow, but nothing that required a paramedic. Rebecca asked, “Are you cold? Do you want a blanket?”

Considering the warm, humid Georgia day, it was an odd question. Kara shook her head again.

“Are you sure you’re not cold?” Rebecca asked.

It took Kara a moment to decide which answer was expected. She nodded.

Rebecca shone a light in one of her eyes and frowned. “All right, Kara. You say you’re not cold and you’re not showing any obvious signs of shock, but considering what Jesse says you’ve been through, the fact that you’re not speaking is worrying. Can you speak at all?”

Kara didn’t want to disobey Jesse by speaking, but she was afraid that being treated for shock wouldn’t allow her to stay close to him. She was already nervous that she couldn’t see him from here. She said quietly. “I can speak. It’s ... all just a lot to process.”

Rebecca smiled. “I understand. Are you thirsty?”

Kara had been surprised to hear how hoarse her own voice had come out. She cleared her throat. “Not really, but I might be dehydrated. I didn’t trust the water here.”

Rebecca popped open a case identical to the one Kara was sitting on and extracted a plastic sports bottle filled with yellowish liquid. “Probably wise. I want you to sip this slowly. Don’t gulp it, but drink it all.”

Kara braced for something bitter or medicinal, but the liquid tasted like nothing except sugar dissolved in water. She sucked it gently through the plastic opening, not taking much into her mouth at once. That was fortunate because Rebecca’s next question would have made her spit if she’d been swallowing. The paramedic asked quietly, “Do you need me to get you away from Jesse? Is he keeping you from speaking freely?”

“No!” Kara protested, almost shouting in surprise. Then, more quietly, she added, “No, Jesse saved my life. Why would he do that?”

Rebecca stared into her eyes for a few long seconds, then said, “Just ... if you need somebody to talk to, I’m sure someone will make a counsellor available to you. But if you need to talk to somebody about Jesse and you don’t trust the counsellors, call Gibraltar and ask for Rebecca Becker the paramedic, all right?”

“Ok, but Jesse’s a good guy,” Kara managed, shocked by how quickly the conversation had gotten dangerous to her continued freedom.

Rebecca focused on digging in her crate for more supplies, but Kara didn’t miss the smirk she tried to hide. The next thing she said was a couple of minutes later and an entirely innocuous medical question.

While Rebecca sprayed Bactine on Kara’s elbow, another helicopter landed near the three already parked outside the little hotel with their rotors still. Where the others were black with only the same plain gold shield the raiders wore for insignia, this one was white with the letters FBI painted on the side and the seal of that agency underneath. Two men in suits emerged.

Kara tracked them with her eyes. This would be the real test of her cover story. She now wished she’d stuck to the original plan and feigned temporary muteness. She might be a fairly accomplished liar, but she’d never had to lie to anyone whose job it was to see through untruth and get at the real story.

But the man Jesse had called Aaron emerged from the hotel and intercepted the two agents, shaking hands and sharing a manly shoulder-slapping hug with them. They spoke briefly. Aaron gestured towards the hotel. One of the agents looked towards Kara and asked something, but Aaron shook his head in the negative. Shortly after that, the two agents headed into the hotel and Aaron came over to where Kara was sitting. “The arrest team politely requests that we beat feet and stop stomping all over their lovely crime scene. Are you okay to leave this place, Miss?”

Kara nodded. Aaron gave a single clap of his hands. “Great, I’ll get my men gathered up and let Jesse know his ride is here. Becca, I hope you don’t mind a crowded flight back to the mainland. We sent the medevac chopper to Mercy General with Subject One in it.”

Rebecca scowled. “Just tell me you didn’t send my ride away to transport a corpse.”

Aaron shook his head. “His trachea is probably collapsed, but we intubated and he was still breathing when we sent him out.”

“Living Sword isn’t going to thank you for stopping him from killing that shithead, you know,” Rebecca warned Aaron.

“I just hope he’s grateful we rescued him at all. I’m pretty sure his plan was to rip both their heads off and walk to shore with one in each hand. We just got in the way,” suggested Aaron.

Rebecca sighed and rose. “You’ll come back for our gear?”

“I’ll make sure of it.” They kissed each other on the cheek.

As Aaron headed back into the house, Kara had to ask, “Are you two dating?”

“Married, actually - six weeks ago. We just got back from our honeymoon.” Rebecca smiled.

“Congratulations,” Kara said then went back to her silent act.

Soon, Jesse and Aaron emerged with four heavily armed men in front of them and four equally heavily armed men behind them. Aaron and his men walked towards the helicopters while Jesse veered over to Kara and Rebecca. “How is she?”

Rebecca rose and wiped her hands on each other in an all-done motion. “Ask her yourself. I’m going to tell my team to leave their gear here so there’s room in the choppers.”

Jesse frowned and raised an eyebrow at Kara sending a frisson of fear down her spine. He waited until Rebecca had gone into the hotel to say, “I thought you were going to keep quiet.”

“You also said to stay close to you. She said she was going to treat me for shock if I didn’t say something. I was afraid that meant I’d wind up in a hospital or something.” Kara knew she should just apologize and probably simper a little, but she wasn’t good at either. Instead, she stood up to her full height, met his eyes, and waited for the kind of outburst her defiance so often brought.

“Did you tell her anything about your part in this?” Jesse asked evenly.

“I told her you saved my life and that you’re a good guy,” said Kara defensively.

Jesse gave a dismissive snort. “Well, now she knows you’re willing to lie to her ... or just a terrible judge of character.”

“Sorry.” Kara lowered her head.

“Don’t be. You had to make a difficult choice and you made a good one. But it does mean we have to adjust our strategy accordingly. Can you stick to telling anyone who asks that the last few days are a blur until we get our stories straight?” Jesse asked.

Kara felt an odd warmth at Jesse’s praise. It had been years since anyone but her Gran had praised one of her decisions and even with Gran that praise had been far less common than criticism for the terrible choices she made about men. Gran had been particularly brutal in her criticism of Dmitri, calling him a criminal, a thug, and a walking Darwin Award. Kara was going to have to admit she’d been right on all counts. She nodded to Jesse, “Yeah, that works.”

“Okay, once we get to the hotel, one of my lawyers will be there. He’ll be your lawyer in this too. If anybody tries to question you, he’ll be there shutting them down.” Jesse took her arm to guide her to one of the waiting helicopters.

Kara almost asked how he knew his lawyer would be there or that they were going to a hotel, but she spotted the bluetooth mic stuck in his ear. Instead of saying anything, she walked next to him silently, glad to let him take charge.

As they approached one of the helicopters Jesse asked, “Did Becca say anything to you that I should know about?”

Kara considered telling Jesse about Rebecca’s questions, but she didn’t want to get the paramedic in trouble and she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t need the lifeline Rebecca had offered before Jesse was done with her. “She said she and Aaron just got back from their honeymoon.”

“I’m glad you two got a chance to be chummy. Becca and Aaron are genuinely good people, but be careful around them. If Becca finds any holes in our cover story, she could queer the whole deal in a way that I can’t fix,” said Jesse.

Kara swallowed. “I’ll be careful. But, can I ask: What is the deal now? You said if I helped you escape, you’d make sure I didn’t go to jail. Does that still stand?”

Jesse stopped walking forward, turned, and looked at her. “Yes, with one important modification. You’re going to need to do what I tell you when I tell you for a while. For all practical purposes, I own you now.”

Kara’s knees got a little weak at those words. From very early on in their relationship, she’d been terrified of Jesse Stone. But even before that, she’d wanted him badly enough that she tried to seduce him practically under Dmitri’s nose. She wasn’t any less terrified of him now that they were leaving the island, but that desire came flooding back when she imagined what it would be like to be owned by him, to let him do whatever he wanted to her, even to punish her for her part in his kidnapping. Jesse was the most tightly-controlled person Kara had ever met, but she had no doubt there was a towering rage just behind those blue-gray eyes of his or that she was the deserving recipient of no small part of it.

Jesse was watching her, waiting for a response. Kara managed to get out, “I can live with that.”

Jesse Stone had no patience for stupidity, particularly when the stupidity was his own. He’d had plenty of time over the last five days to reflect on just how unbelievably and inexcusably stupid he’d been. That didn’t stop him from dwelling on it further as the helicopter carried him from the island where his kidnappers had brought him to the mainland portion of Saint Ephebus, Georgia.

Jesse had grown up knowing that he was always at risk of being kidnapped. The Stone family had always been targeted by opportunists looking to make a quick buck or force one of the wealthier members into a particular course of action. Even middle class members of the family weren’t entirely safe. Some of the same people who thought kidnapping was a good career choice also assumed every Stone was rich and grabbed the first one they could get their hands on.

That hadn’t happened in a while though, so a middle class Stone could be forgiven for thinking they were safe. Jesse had no such excuse. He was just about as far from middle class as he could get. Jesse had been born with a multibillion dollar trust waiting for him to take control of it once he turned eighteen. Outside of his cousins Threnody and Nick, he was the wealthiest of the Stones. If that hadn’t been enough to remind him that someone might want to kidnap and ransom him, Threnody had been kidnapped when she was sixteen and he was fourteen, and their deeply screwed up relationship was a constant reminder of how much damage even a failed kidnapping could do.

And yet Jesse had still gone off the ranch - not once, but every fall before he returned to college. He’d told himself that he needed a break between being Jesse Stone, scion of the Stone family and Jester, relatively easygoing college student and good-time party host. That might even be true, but he’d taken that need as license to leave his staff in New York, order his security detail to leave him alone for a few days, and drive from New York to New Orleans on his own. He’d practically been begging someone to kidnap him already.

He was just lucky that his kidnappers had been inept enough to allow him to escape, but not so inept to have killed him outright. At twenty-two, Jesse could have just as easily wound up another on a long list of Stones who died much too soon, many of them through their own unwillingness to do the basic things needed to keep themselves alive. Instead of flying away victorious with a beautiful, fascinating woman by his side, Jesse could just as easily be going home in a body bag or rotting away in that weird cave with the empty cages where he’d killed Vasily.

So, Jesse had been stupid to try to run away from his life and, in spite of his firm belief that he would never make exactly that same mistake again and all the self-directed rage he felt, he knew it wasn’t the last time he would let his hubris lead him to do something foolish and dangerous.

Case in point was the complication pressed into Jesse’s side. Even filthy and exhausted with her impractical, waist-length blonde hair hanging lifeless and dull, her heart-shaped face, flawless skin, and pale blue eyes could capture him if he looked at them too long. He’d only spent a few hours in Kara’s company, but he’d discovered her to be a mass of contradictions - tough and vulgar, self-interested and dumb enough to get involved in Jesse’s kidnapping, but compassionate, empathic, and resourceful enough to agree to help Jesse escape and then see it through.

That Jesse thought he could now bend this woman to his will was almost certainly an act of foolish arrogance and one that even fell into a familiar pattern. He considered calling it off - not entirely or abruptly. The way she’d responded when Jesse told her he owned her reinforced what he’d known since the first time they set eyes on each other: Kara thought she wanted him. He could pretend to be the person she wanted long enough for her to think he’d gotten what he wanted from her then find some pretense to send her on her way. Instead of showing her the real Jesse Stone, he could be Jester the fun-loving frat boy for Kara the same way he’d been Jester for any number of young women looking for a fun night or six with an attractive man.

Jesse knew he probably wouldn’t do that, though. For one thing, Kara had seen Jesse at his most atavistic. She’d watched him beat one man into unconsciousness and nearly strangle another to death. The obvious artifice of Jester would never fool her into believing him harmless. Worse, the fact that she had seen all that and still wanted him made him imagine she could be the woman he’d given up looking for. That woman would have to be a mass of contradictions, too.

And so Jesse was inviting a felonious waitress who’d helped kidnap him into his life. No, that wasn’t true. He was blackmailing her into becoming a part of his life and breaking God knows how many laws in the process. He’d threatened Kara with prison, but they could both be on the hook if this didn’t work. He didn’t know many Stones who’d gone to jail, but they certainly weren’t above the law.

Jesse had been so lost in thought that he hadn’t really seen the water as they passed over it and only noticed they were landing because the people around him started to disembark. He broke out of his reverie, unstrapped his harness, and stepped off the chopper. He’d barely cleared the rotors before a beautiful, petite redhead shouted his name and threw herself into his arms, hugging him fiercely. Jesse stumbled backwards, surprised. He’d seen Penny standing near the landing site, but he and his assistant had evolved a policy of hardly ever touching each other as a matter of unspoken agreement. She’d certainly never hugged him like this.

Jesse hugged her back. “I assume I have you to thank for all this?”

Penny drew back to look him in the eyes. “You have literally hundreds of people to thank for this. SSCS and Gibraltar pulled out all the stops to get you here. And your family was extremely helpful.”

“My extended family, I assume,” Jesse said evenly.

“Actually, your father was instrumental in the effort, but so were Nick and Inez. Your fraternity brothers gave us some crucial information as well,” said Penny.

What was left unspoken was obvious. Jesse’s mother hadn’t lifted a finger to help and Jesse couldn’t be surprised. Velia Ferrari-Stone had a tenuous grip on her own sanity most of the time and had cut Jesse out of her life completely long before he’d become the man he was today. If she’d had less money, his mother probably would have been institutionalized or at least medicated by now, but she’d fought off every attempt to get her the help she needed.

Penny looked past Jesse towards the helicopter. “Is that Kara Moore? I thought she was...”

“Kara tried to save me from being kidnapped, so they grabbed her too,” said Jesse firmly. “She’s coming with me to the hotel tonight and may be around for a while.”

“Of course.” Penny’s smile didn’t disappear, but it became careful and more professional as she took a step back from him. “I’m glad we got you back in one piece, Jesse.”

“So am I. I did something colossally stupid and you saved me from it. Thank you. I won’t be doing that particular stupid thing again,” said Jesse.

Penny did something just as uncharacteristic as hugging him had been and which showed how much stress she’d been under. She punched him in the shoulder. “You’d better not. I promised a lot of favors on your behalf and it’s going to take you years to pay them off.”

Jesse symbolically rubbed his shoulder and smiled at her. “And to think I did it all just because I knew you’d hug me like that when I got back.”

Penny shook her head and just looked at him, genuine warmth returning to her smile. She gestured to the cars parked and waiting for them at the edge of the heliport. “Shall we go? I’ve set it up so that you can eat, wash, change, sleep in whatever order you need. I ... didn’t plan for you to have company, but I can have clothes for her in your suite within the hour.”

Jesse nodded. “Please do. And, is it possible for me and Kara to have a car to ourselves? We need to talk.”