For a moment, Billie thought the window would hold.
Then he struck it again with his elbow, breaking through the window completely. She watched the man remove the last shards of the window quickly, as he tried to squeeze through.
Billie perched her back on the floor of the rear seats and pushed with legs against the back door as hard as she could. It didn’t budge on the first attempt, and she was already losing focus as the effects of hypoxia attacked her brain.
She held onto the door handle and kicked it again.
This time, the water pressure had equalized, and the door flung open. She turned to swim out. But her head was stuck on something, and as her world darkened, she began to lose the direction of the surface.
Disoriented and frustrated, she felt the calm that often came before one accepted their death in drowning. It wasn’t that she’d given up, simply a matter of accepting that she’d failed despite her best efforts.
As her lungs burned with pain and desire, she opened her mouth to take a deep breath of ocean water — and discovered a diving regulator being shoved inside her mouth by a large gloved hand.
She involuntarily took a deep breath.
It tasted sweeter than air — almost sugary — but it soothed the pain in her chest, so she continued to take long deep breaths. By the third, everything seemed to go funny again, and then the world went dark.
What has he given me?
And with the fourth breath, all the worries of the world disappeared.
Chapter Four
With the heavy landscaping block in his arms, Sam sank to the seabed below. Billie’s Renault Twingo could be seen resting on the sandy bottom. A few remaining bubbles dribbled out. The trunk had been opened, as though she had thought to remove her laptop. The information inside was worth millions of dollars.
Sam reached the front door.
Its window had been broken. He scanned the area to see if he could spot Billie, but there was nothing but murky water. He opened the door to make certain she wasn’t stuck inside. The passenger compartment was empty, the glovebox open, and the back door on the other side half ajar.
Thank God, she got out!
He dropped the heavy block and then quickly swam to the other side of the car to see if he could see her. Again, nothing. He checked the sand below to make sure he hadn’t missed her, and then calmly swam to the surface, feeling confident they had been lucky.
It was a wakeup call that their exploits to reach Atlantis were being pursued by others, but at least she’d survived. And now they would be much more cautious.
Sam broke the surface of the water with his head and breathed deeply. On the surface, he quickly looked around, expecting to see Billie swimming towards the bank of the dike. But he couldn’t see her in the water. He rotated three hundred and sixty degrees, trying to find her.
Sam was the only person in the water.
He looked towards the edge of the water, and scanned the faces of the several bystanders who still looked worried.
She wasn’t amongst them.
“Did anyone come up?” he yelled at them.
Most people ignored his question, either because they didn’t speak English, or didn’t know the answer.
“Please, there was a woman in this car! Did anyone see her come up from the water below?”
A man looked straight at him and said, “No, sir. I saw her crash, but I have not seen her surface the water.”
Sam ignored the man’s response and immediately dived below again.
Frantically, he examined the car from a new perspective. He saw it this time. The front driver’s window had been smashed from the outside. The rear passenger door remained opened and undamaged, giving the impression she’d escaped through it.
Had someone else come in after her?
Before he’d thought anymore, he knew that he was right. Sam carefully scanned the area around them, looking for any signs of whoever took Billie.
There was nothing.
He returned to the surface, swam to the edge and got back on his motorcycle. There, he picked up his cell phone and hit the call button.
“Tom, we have a problem. They got to her.”
Chapter Five
Andrew Brandt looked at the woman beneath him.
Despite approaching forty, her skin was delicate as it was white and smooth. Her blue eyes stared at him with wanton desire. Her ordinarily demure smile now contorted in pursed lips as she began to cry out in pleasure.
And the woman did cry out in pleasure, as he knew she would.
It began more like a whimper, and then in response to the horror of her own base desire, than the ecstasy of love. Frightened by her inability to control her bodily needs as he showed her exactly what her body was capable of. Her face, aghast in abject desire, unbearable pleasure, and split between the guilt and shame of it all.
Sarah tried to look away, unable to hide her shame.
Or her need.
When he was done with her he climbed out of bed, leaving her still writhing around, naked and insatiable.
“Come back to me!” she begged.
“I have a meeting. I must get ready.” He made no apology for her frustration.
Andrew Brandt examined himself in the mirror.
Despite his rigorous exercise this morning, his face displayed no sign of the exertion. There was no sweat, his cheeks weren’t flushed, and he breathed calmly.
There was something hard about his face, as attractive as it was frightening. His hair blond, and groomed so that not even a single strand fell out of place. His eyes were grey, and piercing in their intelligence and power. A cleft chin broke his strong jaw line. Years of practice had allowed him to develop an unreserved smile, which could be used to disarm another’s temper or mistrust instantly. It was entirely fake, but then, the best were.
If eyes really were the windows to the soul, his would show a man willing to stop at nothing to achieve his every desire.
And what he desired most was power.
In another hour he would meet the buyer and make the final arrangements to complete the transaction. At a price of 100 million dollars U.S., he had no intention of making even the slightest mistake. Even to him, that amounted to a massive financial windfall.
He had a short shower, followed by a long shave as he delicately groomed himself and considered all the things that such money could afford.
Luxuries, women, power…
He was born into luxury, although he’d worked hard to improve on the fortune that his father had left him. As for women, Andrew could have as many as he wanted. However, it wasn’t just the amount, but the type.
Like Sarah Clausen, whom he’d just seduced.
The daughter of the billionaire, Edward Worthington, who was the reclusive CEO of Worthington Enterprises, the multi-billion-dollar start-up tech firm. While her old man held the title, most people saw her as the brains and poster child of the company. Unknown to the rest of the general public, or even most employees, Worthington’s was about to make an announcement. Andrew knew what that announcement was going to be, but it was the date of it that was going to make him very rich.
And for that, he needed Sarah’s help.
Sarah was what he considered a typical heiress to a fortune. Groomed by tutors, educators, linguists and other specialists since birth, she was the product of the education that only that sort of money could buy. She’d gone on to become Dux at Cambridge University when she studied law. Now, at the age of 40, a control freak in herself and a self-pronounced feminist, she’d managed to avoid romantic relationships all of her life. When he first studied her, Andrew was momentarily worried that she was gay, but further scrutiny showed her to be a workaholic, with standards set much too high for any honest man to meet. Fortunately, he was as dishonest as a man could be. Currently, she served as senior legal counsel to her father’s company.