Jack Rogan: The Ocean Dark

So the chill she’d been getting off the Rio brothers throughout this voyage — all the way from Miami to Brazil, and now more than halfway back again — both insulted and irritated her. And disappointed her on a personal level, because she genuinely liked them.

When she turned and started for the stairs that crisscrossed the outside of the accommodations block and saw Gabe Rio leaning on the railing one level above her, she decided that the time for a confrontation had come. He was staring out at the Caribbean with a cigarette in his hand, and glanced at her as she approached, taking a drag off his cigarette. He had an air of authority about him, of sheer confidence, that had nothing to do with him being captain of the ship.

Tori mustered a confidence she didn’t feel as she started up the stairs, the breeze whipping at her hair, tugging a dark strand loose from the ponytail she always wore in the galley.

“Hello, Captain,” she said when she reached the first level. “They won’t even let you smoke on your own bridge now, huh?”

Gabe Rio blinked, as though she’d woken him from a trance, and his sad, contemplative expression took on a sardonic edge.

“Wouldn’t want you to report me, Tori.”

She ought to have seen it coming, yet still she flinched.

“Come on, Gabe. Has it really been that terrible having me along? I don’t hear you complaining at mealtime.”

He gazed at her, his eyes flat, defensive shields up. With a flick of his finger he knocked the ash off the end of his cigarette and the wind took it, just as it did the smoke he exhaled.

“We’ve had this conversation. I just don’t like being spied on,” he said, in the light accent that came from his Mexican parents.

Tori sighed. “Gabe—”

“Out here it’s ‘Captain.’”

“Fine. Captain. It can’t be spying if you know I’m here. Look it up in the dictionary. I’m not trying to get anyone into trouble. I begged Frank to let me come along on this trip because I was sick of sitting in an office. I practically blackmailed him into it. It’s what I’ve wanted since the day he first asked me to work at Viscaya — to be on a ship, just once.”

Gabe puffed on his cigarette, then he turned to look at her, studying her as though seeing her for the first time. He had deep brown eyes, a long nose, and a perpetually sad face, but the gray in his neatly groomed goatee added a certain charm, and at least the illusion of wisdom. For a woman who’d grown up with a little girl’s romantic fantasies, the brooding and mysterious Gabe Rio cut an intriguing figure. The circumstances of his employment at Viscaya only added to that allure.

According to the whispers — which Frank Esper had more or less confirmed when Tori had asked him — Gabe had quit Viscaya when he’d first learned of their illegal operations. Loyalty had brought him back, but not loyalty to the company. Miguel Rio had a temper and a history of letting it, and his fists, get him in trouble. He had spent seven months in prison for aggravated assault. If Viscaya fired him, he would have a hell of a time finding a company that would bring him on, especially as an officer. He’d have been lucky to get work as a deckhand. But Frank had been left with little choice when Miguel had gotten into a bloody fistfight with Gabe’s predecessor. Gabe had gone to Frank and asked him to give Miguel another chance, and Frank had agreed on the condition that Gabe come back to Viscaya and take over as captain of the Antoinette . If Gabe would hold the leash, Miguel could keep his job.

Which was how Gabe Rio became a smuggler.

“I don’t get it,” the captain said, studying Tori’s eyes. “Why not just take a cruise? Have people wait on you? Who the hell wants this job?”

A ripple of anger went through her. “You do. You love it. Maybe you don’t love Viscaya, but you love the job. And maybe you’re so used to seeing me behind a desk that you never really paid much attention, but do I seem like the kind of woman who wants to go lay in the sun with the shiny, happy people on a cruise ship?”

The captain chuckled softly, a grin appearing. “Now that you mention it, no. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t want to see you in one of those teeny bikinis the American girls wear out here in the islands, where their parents won’t see.”

Tori smiled. They were three-quarters of the way through a round-trip intercontinental voyage, and the ice had finally broken.

“Maya would cut your eyes out if you looked at me too long,” Tori said.

Gabe’s smile vanished, defensive shields clanging into place again. “Once, maybe. Not anymore.”

The awkward moment stretched. Tori had no idea what to say. Maya Rio seemed perpetually pissed with her husband, but that didn’t mean she wanted him sleeping around. Whatever was going on with them, it was none of Tori’s business. Yet she felt a wave of understanding and relief wash over her. If Gabe’s marriage had fallen apart, his cold, distant behavior took on new dimensions.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“Forget it,” Gabe said, waving at the air with his cigarette.

The tension between them grew. Tori still felt as though she had a layer of grease on her clothes and skin, and the Caribbean sun would fry her if she stayed out here too long. She squinted and peered out across the ocean, comforted by the absence of any land at all. The ship cut the water with a constant shushing that normally combined with the thrum of the engines to set her at ease. But at the moment, a lullaby wouldn’t have soothed her.

“It’s about trust,” Gabe said.

Tori turned to him. “I’ve never given you any reason not to trust me. I told you the first day, I’m here to learn, maybe make some suggestions about the business when I get back, not to talk about who drinks too much or who’s fucking whom.”

Standing up straight, he flicked his cigarette out across the undulating water.

“Not everything’s about you, Tori.”

“Captain, listen—”

“I worked for Viscaya for five years before I quit, and seven years since. Farzan might be the shipping manager now, but when I started at the company there was no such job title. I got my orders from Frank Esper directly — no bullshit, no middlemen, and for sure no ‘quality control manager.’ Okay, I had my issues with them, which is why I left, but in the time since I’ve been back I figured I’d earned their trust. Makes this hard to swallow, that’s all.”

Tori glanced around to be sure they were alone. Then she reached out and put a hand on Gabe’s arm. He gave her a surprised look, squinting against the sun.

“Captain,” she said, voice low, “they know I’m loyal. And maybe I dropped out after a year of college, but they also know I’m smart. They trust me. That’s a hard choice for people in this kind of business to make, but they trust me. Now they’re just trying to figure out how they can use me down the line. They want me to learn how it’s all done.”

He stared at her, unmoved.

“And they trust you, Gabe. Don’t be a dumbass. You know they do.”

He threw up his hands. “How do I know? I’ve got a fucking babysitter now.”

When Tori looked at the captain this time, she kept her gaze as grim and unflinching as his own. “If they didn’t trust you, you’d be dead by now.”

He flinched, staring at her, but she saw in his eyes that he knew the truth. Gabe let out a breath, a little grunt of air.

“Damn, girl, when did you get so hard?”

“In another life, before I came to Miami. But I’m not a hard woman. I’ve just got a little perspective, that’s all. If you spend enough time lying to yourself, then one day all you ever want from anyone is the truth, and it doesn’t matter anymore how ugly it is.”