739

Ben just stared at him.
“Dinner is at nine. Come dressed as you are, or feel free to wear the shirt in your closet,” Kaan said casually as he gestured to the side of the room where the closet was. “I would normally be heading for warmer waters, but business draws me north, so enjoying the outer deck will not be so pleasant during this journey. The inside areas of the ship are kept at a comfortable temperature.” He eyed Ben for agreement, so Ben nodded.
“This will be your room until we reach the next port. Memorize its location… or sleep with a stranger in their room.” He chuckled as he walked away. His men gave Ben a stern look, then followed.
Ben sat down on the edge of his bed again and considered his options.
Staying alive was priority one. The longer he was alive, the longer his rescuers would have to find him.
They weren’t moving now, and he assumed any rescuer would need time to get to his last known location. He wondered if there was anything he could do to ensure they remained stationary. He doubted it.
That brought him to his next challenge. Somehow the ship was avoiding detection. If he could, Ben would have to find a way to make the yacht visible to its hunters, as long as doing so didn’t interfere with priority one.
He wouldn’t be able to rely on anyone else as he didn’t want to cause anyone to die because he dragged them into this mess.
The last priority was to find Stephanie’s people. If they were still alive.
He took a deep breath, went to the closet, and pulled the shirt out. He was surprised to see it fit. Then he realized it had no means to close in the front. His scars were on display unless he held the shirt closed with a hand.
Fuck it.
He walked out of his cabin and saw it was labeled B8 for level B, room eight. Considering how Russo wanted to use him as bait, the room number was appropriate. That probably amused Kaan as well.
When he walked to the stairwell at the end of the hall, he saw a floorplan map showing two levels above this one. Access to level A, which was likely Kaan’s personal apartment, and the bridge above, was behind a door requiring some form of pass card to open it. The bridge was where radio and navigation equipment were. He needed access to both to be rescued.
Glancing at the floorplan and looking back down the hallway, Ben realized level B was just guest suites, twelve of them. C level seemed to contain a lounge, a bar, and a dance club. There was more space, but the map didn’t indicate its use.
Finally, there was D for Deck level, which was the largest of them. A pool, lounge chairs, umbrellas, and another bar were at the very back. Next was a large solarium where guests could enjoy sunbathing under the glass enclosure when it was too cool outside, as it would be during his visit. Ben supposed you could sit there and storm watch in comfort as well. Through a set of doors was the grand dining area. The kitchen was ahead of that but was off-limits to the guests. What was ahead of that was unmarked, but there was no access to it due to the kitchen.
The floor plan showed nothing below the deck. Or rather, it just indicated it was restricted.
He realized he’d better take the tour and familiarize himself with the ship.
Ben walked down the stairs and found himself in the lounge. Lots of comfortable seating for conversing with the other guests or reading one of the books in the cabinets against the wall. He passed through the lounge and entered the bar. Again, there were tables for sitting around and enjoying a drink. These would easily convert into poker tables, so the bar could be used for a card room.
Passing through the bar, he stepped through two sets of doors and into a wall of sound. The dance club was booming with harsh music, and colored lights flashed in the dim room, making it difficult to see. Then he caught his first sight of other guests. They seemed to be dressed in the same gauzy white clothes, but he couldn’t be sure with the flashing colored lights. Two young women were slow dancing on the dancefloor. They wore the presumably white bikini tops and flowy pants. Ben spotted a young man slumped back against his chair as he watched the women bump and grind in slow motion.
Ben looked closer at their faces; all three seemed to have vacant eyes. They were stoned on something.
They slowly turned their faces at his approach, and he got a better look. The girls were in their early twenties, and one had long straight light colored hair while the other had long, wavy dark hair. Both must have had extensive cosmetic surgery as there was nothing natural about their symmetrical features. High cheekbones, blade-thin noses, and oversized plump lips for both girls. He wondered what they looked like before. When they turned their bodies toward him, he saw their lips weren’t the only overinflated feature.
As recognition broke past their mental fog, the blonde broke into a wide grin and tugged her bikini top off to expose her balloon-sized tits.
In contrast, the brunette began to cry and threw her arms up as if to ward him off.
“NO! NO! I don’t want to go back!” she screamed and ran around him to dash through the doors into the bar.
Ben turned back just in time to see the young man with long blonde hair charging at him with his fists raised.
He caught the young man’s sloppy punch and yanked him forward to crash into a table and chairs at the side of the room and fall to the floor. He was moving slowly but clearly out of the fight, so Ben glanced at the stupidly grinning topless blonde woman now tugging her nipples and continued walking through the club to the far side, where he went through another set of double doors and down the stairs once more. He exited into a small lobby between the dining room and the solarium. There was no one in the dining room, but the solarium lounge chairs showed three more guests and a group of young men and women serving them drinks, rubbing tanning lotion into their skin, or sitting nearby waiting to be called upon. These companions wore a light blue variant of the same clothes the guests wore. He counted eight workers for the three guests, but there may have been more elsewhere.
The pool outside wasn’t very large, but Ben imagined it might feel good to take a dip on a hot day which he guessed was not the case today.
Ben took a deep breath and walked into the solarium to approach the group. Heads turned, and he forced the scowl from his face to relax his expression. There was little value in starting off on bad footing with these strangers.
A heavyset older man with a fringe of short grey hair was reclining on the lounger closest to him. Two young women were rubbing lotion onto his skin, one at his feet and the other massaging it into his hairy shoulders. The two ladies froze as they stared at him. The man said a sharp word, and they returned to their duties. Meanwhile, he kept his face turned toward Ben, but his expression remained in a scowl. Ben nodded to him as he walked past.
The next chair was occupied by another man, but he was in much better shape than the first. He had to be in his early thirties, his once muscular body beginning to show some neglect. He looked like he might be close to Ben’s height, and his shoulder-length hair was unnaturally dark, likely dye hiding premature greying. His expression was the opposite of the first man’s. He had the widest grin on his face. He pushed the two young women working on his lotion aside and got to his feet to join Ben.
“As I live and breathe, Ben Shepherd! Struth, I never expected to meet you here!” the man gushed, his thick Australian accent coloring his words.
“I believe Mr. Shepherd has as much reason to be here as you, Noah, though I doubt he has as much reason to fear going home,” the third guest said from her lounge.
Noah’s head whipped around to glare at the tall, short-haired brunette beauty stretched out on a lounger a few chairs over.
“Keep it civil, love. No need to air your dirty laundry so early in the introductions,” Noah said with a stiff tone.
He turned back to Ben, slipping a professional smile back on his face with a politician’s ease.
“Noah Pearce. Glad to make your acquaintance.” He held out his hand, so Ben politely shook it.
“Looking for an escape from the constant attention from the jackals, Mr. Shepherd?” the woman asked, her French accent tickling his ears delightfully.
Ben couldn’t tell them he’d been kidnapped, so this was close to the truth as he could get. “It will be welcome to not be under their microscope for a bit.”
He couldn’t see her eyes behind the large sunglasses she was wearing, but he got the impression she was giving him the once over. “You don’t recognize me. This is welcome, too,” she said.
“As I’ve recently been reminded, I’m a bit of a recluse. I don’t watch television, and I don’t follow the news. I concentrate on my family and friends and work on my engineering projects, which are my sources of joy and entertainment,” Ben admitted.
She smiled up at him. “This is good.” She lifted her hand towards him. “I’m Yvonne Guillebeaux.” He stepped closer to shake her hand and nodded. She grinned at him and tilted her head toward the dance club. “Have you met the bimbo twins?”
Ben knew who she meant, but he wouldn’t play that game. “I met two young women and a young man. I believe their perceptions might be altered by some substance as their reactions to me seemed… off.”
Noah laughed. “You sound like a Polly!”
Ben looked at him in confusion.
“He means politician. Even a disgraced Polly recognizes that language,” Yvonne said with a sly smile.
Noah spun and pointed a finger at her as his humor flashed to anger. “Shut it, slut!”
“Whoa!” Ben barked to stop the rapid escalation of hostilities. He saw Yvonne’s upper chest flush red in anger as her smile became a snarl. “Please, I just got here. I don’t know anyone, and I don’t need to know anything you don’t want to talk about. Can’t we just remain civil through my first day here?”
Yvonne nodded to him, and Noah cleared his expression with practiced ease and smiled at Ben.
“Are there any more guests I haven’t met?” Ben asked.
“Just the Princess,” Noah said.
Ben gave him a sharp look, and Noah held up his hands in defense. “No, really. She’s a Princess. We don’t know more as that’s all we got from the woman who spoke with her, who left the ship at Casablanca. The Princess keeps to her cabin most of the time when she isn’t raiding the library in the lounge for books to read. She never speaks to anyone at dinner. Not sure if she’s shy or just another stuck-up bitch.” He glanced toward Yvonne.
With the display of his nasty temper and attitude, Ben wasn’t getting a very good impression of the man. Yvonne showed she had a cruel streak, but he wasn’t sure of its source.