Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76298 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76298 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
I have to trust him. I don’t want to, but my life is in his hands now. The boat rolls up a wave and back down again as I begin to crawl toward the lower hatch.
As I’m halfway there, thunder claps and I yelp as the boat goes up over a particularly nasty wave.
Water sprays over the side. It’s freezing cold and salty and I sputter as it hammers into me with the force of a linebacker. It throws me sideways and I ram into the railing, and for a second I’m off my feet, pinned to the side. I scramble for purchase, trying to grab onto the slick metal, but there’s no way I’ll catch it. My stomach lurches, and I feel like I’m about to flip over the side. If I go down now, into this water in this storm, there’s no way he’ll find me. I’ll disappear, drown, and I’ll never know if I could get revenge for my sister.
“Kaye!” Emilio’s voice cuts through the noise. He comes barreling over and grabs my wrists, yanking me back as the boat rights itself and tosses us away from the side. I wasn’t over the edge yet, but I was inches from the edge and losing my balance. We topple backward, and for the second time now, he saves me from falling to my death.
But this time, he risked himself.
We were both inches away from dying, and if the boat rocked wrong, he would’ve gone over with me. He didn’t hesitate, only threw himself into danger to save my life.
Why the hell would he do that?
“I’m sorry,” I sputter as more water washes over the side. “I’m so sorry!”
He says nothing, only half-carries and half-drags me back into the hold. Once I’m safely deposited on the bench, he turns and hurries back up top. The hatch slams and locks behind him.
The lights flicker like the boat’s having trouble keeping the power going as I find a dry towel and sit down on the bench, wrapped up and trying to keep myself from freaking out.
I nearly died up there. I felt myself slipping, tipping toward the water. If not for Emilio, I’d be in that black sea, drowning. I’d be with my sister right now.
She fell too and now I’m constantly on the edge of plummeting to my demise.
How the hell does this keep happening, and why does he keep saving my life?
The bastard acts like he doesn’t care about people. Like his enemies aren’t worth saving just because they want to challenge his monopoly of the smuggling trade around Saint Parras. But people are more important than profit, and I think some part of him knows it, and twice now he’s put himself in danger to try to save my life.
Not to mention he let me bully him into going down there to help that poor shipwreck.
For a guy that doesn’t care, he’s doing a lot to help.
What am I supposed to think about him? I want to hate him for what I believe he did to my sister—but is that the Emilio I know, or the Emilio I imagined?
I close my eyes as the storm gets worse. It feels like I’m being tossed around by a giant’s hand like I’m some kind of toy. I think about what I expected Emilio to be like before coming here—I pictured a rich kid, privileged, soft, angry, some kind of obvious monster. I figured I’d know right away whether he killed my sister or not.
That’s not the man I met.
He’s harder than I imagined. Sharper, tougher. He’s angry, but not in the way I pictured. He’s not selfish—he cares about his crew and they care about him too—but he also has secrets. There are depths to him, a darkness I want to explore, and yet I’m terrified.
I thought he killed my sister.
Now I have my doubts.
After meeting him and knowing him, it’s hard for me to imagine he’d let my sister die, even if she did write a scathing article revealing some secrets about his smuggling operation. She probably made his life harder, but everyone at this school already knew about him before it came out. It’s just that she brought it into the light, and Emilio thrives in the dark.
But to kill her for it? He’d say it’d be the right move—but could he actually do it? He’s close with Lesley, and Lesley was close with my sister. Could Emilio have betrayed Lesley like that?
There are too many questions and not enough answers. I try not to concentrate on everything I don’t know, my eyes squeezed shut, my world winnowed down to only the motion of the boat and the beating of my heart. It feels like the storm lasts forever and the lighting and thunder are so much closer and more visceral than anything I’ve felt before, like the sea itself is truly trying to pummel us to pieces. But eventually, after an entire lifetime comes and goes, the thunder fades into the distance, the waves begin to ease, and the steady drilling and drumming of the rain pattering on the deck above quiets to a trickle.