Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 104729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
There is no way they could have survived that fight. It’s only a matter of time before my yacht sinks. But I don’t care about the damn boat. An empty feeling spreads through my chest as I realize despite my best efforts to never mix business with pleasure, I fucked up. I did.
They do mean something to me. I care.
The men with me might be evil to some, but to me, they are my brothers.
A heavy, somber feeling weighs me down, and the desire to scream into the night overwhelms me.
But there would be no point. Instead, I turn toward Phoenix to make sure she is okay.
Her knees are pulled into her chest, arms wrapped around them. She shakes beside me. A part of me wants to comfort her, but I’m not even sure how to do it.
She blames me for everything.
If only she knew how wrong she was. None of this was my doing. The boat is just a casualty from actions a long time coming.
“It will be okay,” I say to her, but it’s as if she’s in shock and can’t hear me because she says nothing, just clutches her knees tighter and looks out at the ocean ahead of us.
It’s a cloudless night tonight, which is the only saving grace. If a storm hits, we probably won’t live.
But if the water remains calm, there is a good chance we will come upon another boat tomorrow.
We are too small, and with the proximity to my enemies, I won’t risk the flares today, but tomorrow, when the morning sun hits us, we should be able to find someone to help us.
Both of us settle into a tense quiet. She’s too afraid to speak, and I’m too angry.
Once they find us, I will send word to my men who weren’t with me on the boat. After that, a painless death will no longer be on the table for Michael.
No, the time for mercy is over. He will pay. Repeatedly.
Stars are the only light around the raft, the sound of the water crashing the only music.
I will myself not to sleep and stay vigil during the night.
But as each wave hits us, and as the energy that had once coursed through my body fades, I find it harder and harder to keep that promise to myself.
Instead, darkness beckons to me.
Vivid nightmares full of screams and death lull me to sleep.
19
Phoenix
Water splashes against my face. A bright blinding light makes my eyes squint.
I lift my hand to wipe the sleep out of my eyes.
It feels like I’m blind when my eyes flutter open.
Where the hell am I? What happened? With a jolt, I fling my body forward as everything that happened comes back to me at breakneck speed. Guns. Explosions. Escaping into the night on a raft.
The bright red canopy is pulled back from the raft that I see I’m still sitting in. I look around, trying to take in where I am.
Blue water surrounds me, but I’m not moving. It splashes over the side of the boat …
I look behind me and see that we’re actually on sand.
Alaric?
Where’s Alaric?
Frantically, I look for him. He’s a few feet away on the sand with his hand lifted toward the sky to block the bright rays of the sun.
He must see me sitting up because he walks in my direction.
“You’re up.”
I blink a few times. “Where are we?” I ask, my voice cracking from how parched I am.
“Beats the fuck out of me.”
His answer makes my belly feel like it’s dropping.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
He lowers his hand for me to grab it, and as much as I want to feign that I don’t need his help, I’m not stupid. I do.
The nausea and dizziness make me feel as though I spent the night in the middle of the ocean.
Which I did.
His hand encompasses mine, and then he’s pulling me up.
Once on the sand, I look around. “Do you really not know where we are?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “No. I can guess a general location, but we were in that raft for hours.”
“How many islands can there really be?”
“You’d be surprised. Remember the map I showed you?”
I think back to that moment, to what now seems like a million years ago.
The map. The location. The cluster of hundreds of small islands.
Deserted islands, he’d said.
We could be on any of them.
As if reading my mind, he shrugs. “Yep.”
“This isn’t good.”
“Thanks, Captain Obvious.”
I have seen many sides of him since I stowed away on his yacht, but never have I seen the expression he has on his face now as he looks across the vast beach and at the trees behind him.
“We’ll be okay,” he finally says, but I’m not sure who he is trying to convince, him or me.
The first thing I notice is nothing.