Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 96284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
I jumped over to the smuggle boat first and could barely believe what I was seeing. Juarez and Dunn were opening taped-up bales to test them, and they were fucking everywhere. We were standing on millions of dollars’ worth of coke.
I gestured for Jake to come over to me. I had a good shot of Dunn testing the powder.
Jake squatted down next to me and filmed the testing. In the meantime, I turned around and hoped my shoulder cam got some good footage too. I let the voices around me fade into the background, and my research brain took over. In the bow of the boat, I filmed empty food containers and a half-eaten loaf of bread.
The contrasts one came across in the drug trade revealed the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor. Cartels invested billions in technology on narco-subs and weaponry, then used poor people without a choice to take all the risks. They were easily replaced and discarded.
I bent down and eyed a homemade fishing pole, and I spotted a candy bar someone had stepped on. I brushed a hand over a crack in the fiberglass wall of the boat.
“Watch out—fire! Fire!”
What? I shot up, confused, not hearing any shots—
“Roe!”
“Abandon ship!”
“Get out of there! Jump overboard! Dunn!”
Everyone shouted at once. I spun around at the sudden, overwhelming commotion, only to be met by Jake darting toward me. My eyes widened, and in my periphery, I caught a flame that instantly grew larger. Holy fuck, holy fuck. Jake rammed into me, and then we were falling backward. Shock tore through me, and I just barely managed to suck in a breath before we crashed into the water.
Fire.
Chaos erupted within me—and around me. Cold water, heat, the white wash of the waves, we weren’t fucking sinking—the life jackets pulled us to the surface—I coughed and spluttered, then inhaled nothing but smoke, and something burned me. Jake coughed and fisted my life jacket.
“Get it off and swim!” he growled.
I fucking couldn’t! The currents pushed us closer to the boat!
The vests had to go; we had to go under. Oh my God, the whole fucking boat was in flames, and I didn’t hear my own scream when the deafening roar of a blast went off. I screwed my eyes shut as we got smacked with a pressure wave that punched the air out of my lungs. I got hit by something sharp that cut into my cheek. Get the life jackets off, get the fucking life jackets off! I wrestled with mine and managed to lose both the life jacket and the tactical vest, and then I coughed around a shallow breath and grabbed at Jake to find the straps to his vests. He wasn’t moving—why wasn’t he moving?! My legs burned from the exertion; we had to put distance between us and the boat.
“Men overboard on starboard side! Juarez, Denver, Finlay, Dunn!”
Finally.
I pushed his life jacket off and mustered all my strength to throw myself backward and below the surface with a dolphin kick. In a fraction of a second when I opened my eyes, I saw nothing but burning orange above us. The heat from the fire penetrated the water, and I fucking felt it. We were only a foot or two below the surface.
Pain shot up through my fingers, and I almost lost my grip on Jake. By some miracle, I managed to get us away from the carnage, just far enough for us to resurface again. I coughed and gagged. The salt water, the smoke, and the heat rendered me useless. I convulsed and went under again, because I had to pull Jake higher.
A second later, someone grabbed at me.
I resurfaced with a gasp just as two men hauled Jake out of the water and into the smallest boat.
“He’s not moving,” I croaked.
I was next. They pulled me up too, and I collapsed on my back. Breathe, breathe, breathe. The sun shone down on me, and the waves rocked us back and forth, up and down. Fuck, everyone was speaking over one another. Rescue on the way, everyone was out of the water, Denver wasn’t breathing—wait!
“Wait,” I rasped. I scrambled to my feet and rushed over to the back of the little vessel where they were working on Jake. “Oh my God.”
“You need to back off,” Dunn told me.
I couldn’t do that. But I positioned myself where no one else was leaning over Jake, near his head on the right side, and I touched his forehead. Wake up, Jake. Fucking wake up. Tears welled up, sending me in two different directions. I felt a weird relief from the tears, and I remembered how the smoke had stung just a minute ago.
“Starting CPR!”
I choked on a sob and covered my mouth with a hand.
No, no, no, no!