26. Winter

TWENTY-SIX

WINTER

I t’s surprising that I managed to sleep, especially for six hours, seeing as my brain has been running a mile a minute since Marcus Law showed up at the jewelry store.

Marcus-Fucking-Law.

Of all the people I thought would show up, he was the last person I expected or wanted.

When I lunged at him, he caught me easily around my chest, taking care to avoid my baby bump. But when I started yelling profanities and swearing how I planned to murder him with my bare hands for harming August, he slapped a hand over my mouth.

A second before I could bite down on the flesh of his palm, he hissed in my ear, “If you want to live, shut the fuck up and come with me.”

His words were like a gong in my brain, but given that there were two, now three, dead bodies on the floor and Marcus had managed to take out the one who had a gun pointed toward me, I felt compelled to listen.

But it wasn’t until Patrick stood up and rushed toward us saying, “Listen to him and let’s get back to safety,” that I accepted that I needed to trust Marcus Law.

How did this all become so, so complicated?

When hasn’t it been complicated, Winter?

When I pad out of our suite and down to the living room, I’m met with a flurry of activity.

Patrick and Keegan hover over a computer screen, and Misha’s terse voice echoes from the speakerphone on the table next to them.

“What’s going on?” I ask. Patrick looks at me over his shoulder, and his face is grave.

Sharing a look with his partner, he says, “Brigham’s sister is missing.” Keegan stands, rushing out of the room with a laptop in his hand.

“What do you—Ella? Ella is missing?” I ask Patrick, and he waves me off, agitated.

“Hey!” I yell, putting my hands on my hips. “I don’t know what stick crawled up your ass, but you can’t treat me like trash. I deserve basic human respect and you’re talking about my sister-in-law,” I say in a measured tone I don’t feel.

Patrick sighs just when Hunter walks into the room. He looks tense but focused, his movements tight.

“Ella has decided to hand herself over to The Legion,” Hunter says. Each word presses through his tight jaw.

“ What ? Why the hell would she do that!” It’s my understanding that once we found out the clues about Isla Cara from the rings, the plan to offer Ella up as bait to draw out The Architect took a pause. We don’t need to go that route, so we reserved it as the nuclear option. We have Plan A—Misha and the rest of the team will infiltrate Isla Cara, find The Architect, and get rid of as many Legion members as possible at the same time.

Ella was on board with this plan...right?

Her moodiness at our wedding clearly was a red flag.

Oh, Ella, what are you doing?

“Fuck if I know,” he mumbles, looking away from me. “Patrick, we’re out of here in five minutes.”

Then he spins and walks out the door.

Wait. What?

I rush to follow after my husband. “Where are you going?” I say, each word rising in volume.

“I’m going to get my sister,” he throws over his shoulder as he follows the path to the helicopter.

“Wait a minute, Hunter!” I say, struggling to keep up with his fierce clip with my bare feet. “You can’t just go running off. Don’t you need backup?”

“Keegan dispatched a drone to fly over Isla Cara. There are very few people on the island from what we can tell. Less than ten. I can handle that. Plus, Keegan and Patrick are coming with me.”

My head spins.

“Wait, what? What about The Hunt? I thought… Wait. Hunter, please don’t—” I swallow my words. Because can I really tell him not to go after his sister? Can I really demand that he stay here where it’s safe?

He spins around when we’re a yard from the helicopter. It hums with the beginning stages of the startup sequence.

He crashes his mouth to mine, bringing me close so that our bodies are flush.

“Sunbeam, I’ve been running from this shit for my whole life. It’s time I stopped running and faced it.”

“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” I whisper, and tears make my vision blurry.

“I know,” he says. He runs a thumb beneath my lower eyelids. “But there isn’t another option that I can really live with.”

My eyes slide shut. He’s right, of course.

He has to go.

“Go to the safe room, Sunbeam. Stay there until someone gets you. Misha and Leo are on the way to Winter Island. They’ll be with you if I’m not.”

I want to wail and throw up and fall to the ground.

Hunter looks back at the helicopter when Patrick and Keegan begin to load it with massive amounts of firearms.

“I’ve got to go, Winter. I love you. I’ll be back before you know it,” he says. And from the steel in his jaw and the way his eyes blaze, I know he means it.

“I love you too, Hunter. Keep yourself safe and come back to me. To us,” I say.

He puts a hand on my belly, kissing me again.

Right at that moment, the baby decides to give a firm kick right where Hunter’s hand is.

I gasp. “Did you feel that?” I say, awe lacing my voice.

Hunter’s smile is wide.

“We gotta roll,” Patrick yells from the co-captain’s chair.

“I did feel that. And I’ll feel it some more tonight. I swear it.”

With one final kiss, Hunter steps onto the helicopter and flies off a few minutes later.

I stare after the helicopter until I can’t spot it anymore. The sun is low in the sky, and we have a few hours before it sets. The image before me would be beautiful to witness at any other time. The clouds cast a pink and orange highlight as the clear blue skies make way for the night.

Resentment is a sharp knife in my chest. We’re supposed to have this time for us. The world is scary enough back home, and we’re going to face some serious shit when we return stateside.

And yet, this time is supposed to be for us.

I let the tears fall as I turn to head back to the house.

We aren’t that far from Isla Cara by aircraft, only a hundred nautical miles away. I don’t know what it means that Hunter bought an island so close to his father’s.

I’ll have to ask him about it later.

If he comes back.

I put one foot in front of the other, but when I step on a bramble, I shriek. It’s a totally overblown response, but I can’t stop the sound from exiting my lips. Leaning on a boulder placed on the edge of the path, I remove the object from the sole of my foot.

When blood wells up, the spinning gets worse.

I’m about to have a full-blown panic attack.

I grab my chest, looking up at the house. I just need to get into the house.

Slow your breathing, Winter.

Inhale. Step. Exhale. Step. Get to the goddamn safe room.

I repeat and repeat the mantra until I reach the covered landing to enter the house, but then my hands start to shake, and an icy shot of adrenaline causes my face to tingle. I hold on to the walls, making my way through the back of the house toward the kitchen.

I need Kitty.

I need my meds.

I need Hunter.

Hunter is gone. Hunter is gone. Hunter is off on a suicide mission.

I grab the glass of water left on the kitchen counter. I need water. I need water, I need water, I need water?—

I bring the glass to my lips with a shaking hand, and it’s a miracle that it doesn’t all spill on my shirt.

I swallow—one, two, three—gulps.

But the water balls in my tense esophagus, mingling with a sharp, unpleasant taste of bile, and the discomfort sends me into a new panic.

I realize I’m crying, sobbing, when I land on my knees next to the stools, trying to bring air in through my nose. My clogged nostrils bring a resurgence of terror, doubling my misery.

Get to the safe room, Winter!

I lay on my side, letting the cool marble floors ground me.

“One. One-two-one. One-two-three-two-one….”

I close my eyes even though the action causes tears to roll into my ears.

“One. One-two-one. One-two-three-two-one….”

Inhale. Exhale.

Oh, my god. Please bring him back to me. Please don’t let him leave me to battle this world without him.

As soon as the thought comes, I’m barreled over with nausea.

I throw up on the tile, lifting myself onto my palms at the last second.

God, if you see it good, please return my husband to me. And Ella, too. And help her get some sense knocked into her. But please, not literally knocked into her. Amen.

Distantly, I hear the sound of footsteps tapping on the floor. I’m immediately on high alert because I’m supposed to be alone.

Someone is in here with me, and they’re walking toward me fast.

I pull myself to my knees, but the movement causes my brain to swim, and everything tilts to the side. Slipping. I’m slipping.

“No,” I slur, struggling with the words I want to say. I straighten my upper body, slapping my palm on the countertop. The action causes the water glass to tip over and crash to the floor.

You’re gonna keep yourself safe. Right, baby? Hunter’s words from before the raid when things were simpler whisper in my ear.

“Hunter,” I choke out, moving one knee and then another.

But it’s too late because darkness engulfs my vision.

When I come to, the first thing I realize is that the ground is rocking beneath me. Having spent a week on Hunter’s yacht, I can tell that I’m out in the ocean, and that thought terrifies me.

I don’t know how to pilot a boat, and swimming in the shark-infested Caribbean waters simply isn’t a good idea.

I crack an eye open, aware that I’m lying on my side on the floor. With my hands tied behind my back, I try to take in some of my surroundings without alerting anyone who might be around me. I’m bound by zip ties, and the plastic grates on the skin of my wrists. My legs are also bound together at the ankles.

Just then, the baby does a full flip in my womb, and I try not to choke on the sob that I feel trapped in my chest. At this moment, my baby is here, kicking around.

Breathe, Winter. Slow, deep breaths.

When I open my eyes again, the first thing I see is a pair of shoes and the legs of a chair near my feet. I’m unsurprised when I trail my eyes up and it’s Marcus Law sitting there.

“Good, you’re awake,” he says. He scrolls on his phone and the blue light from the screen highlights his bored expression. I don’t respond to his observation.

Instead, I choose to open both eyes all the way, taking in the room. It looks like I’m in a stateroom on a boat of some kind. The porthole windows give it away, along with the movement beneath my body.

We’re sailing, and we’re moving fast.

“You couldn’t have put me on the sofa over there?” I grouse.

Marcus doesn’t look at me when he replies, “Just be grateful that I had them put you here rather than the locker under the foredeck.”

I keep my face neutral, even though the idea of a dark enclosed space causes tremors of anxiety to bloom across my body.

He powers down the screen on his phone, putting it in his breast pocket.

“Hang tight, we’re almost there,” he says, settling back into his seat.

I make a deep, agitated sound in my chest. “I thought you were on our side?”

He raises his eyebrow and runs his hand back and forth over his low fade.

“Why would I ever want to help Hunter Brigham?” He draws out the sentence.

“What did Hunter ever do to you?” My chest gets tight with anger.

That question causes Marcus to sit forward on his chair in a flash of movement. “He killed my sister,” he spits. “He was there while she was used over and over on Isla Cara, and then he slit her throat on the beach. He left her there to rot like a dead whale.”

I hold my breath to keep from reacting.

“How do you know this to be true?” I say, not caring that it’s a completely insensitive question. The man has me hogtied on the floor for fuck’s sake.

He smiles and it’s grim. “I have my ways.”

I test the strength of the zip ties again, holding in a wince.

“I’m sorry about what happened to your sister. Hunter tried his best to help the people kept there?—”

“Hunter Brigham ain’t do shit for nobody but himself,” he fires back. “I’m just so fucking sorry that you got caught up in all of this. You seem like a nice girl. You could have met someone not as flashy, maybe an accountant or something. Then you could have had a safe, boring life, but now you’re tangled up in all this. It’s a shame.”

He leans back in his chair, relaxed, as if he weren’t just spewing vitriol at me for the last minute.

Shrugging, he says, “Oh well,” and picks up a glass of brown liquor.

I don’t reply to his statement because what the fuck is there to say? Nothing. Nothing at all.

So I close my eyes and wait for the next terrible thing to happen.

And I hold on to hope that Hunter will save me this time because I don’t know that I have the strength to save myself.