Page 12 of Hell to Pay

“On our way to the stern,” I said.

“Copy that,” Rafe said. “See you there.”

Jude and I moved faster. I was eager to get off the boat before we were met with more resistance, but even more than that, I wanted to see Lilah, wanted to lay eyes on her, see for myself that she was okay.

We thundered up the stairs, past the second-floor landing, and emerged into the living room. A guard lay dead on the floor, a perfectly round bullet hole marking his forehead.

Rafe was on deck when we got there, and with him, Lilah.

I didn’t make the decision to pull her into my arms. It was unprofessional, dumb even, especially with the other woman still loose on the boat.

But it was reflex, the need to hold her close, feel the beating of her heart, instinctual, like the need to breathe.

She wrapped her arms around me and I kissed her head.

I pulled back to look at her, smoothing her hair, inspecting her for injury. It only took me a second to realize that she wasn’t okay. Her breathing was labored, her skin pale.

“I feel funny,” she said.

I fished in my pocket for the bottle of beta-blockers I’d brought from the rental house, my own heart thudding in my chest. I was so fucking scared I could barely get the cap open.

“You brought my meds?” she asked, her green eyes wide.

“Wouldn’t travel without them,” I said, fishing out one of the pills.

I gave her the pill. She’d barely put it in her mouth when she started to slump to the deck, her legs giving way.

I reached out for her, caught her on the way down.

“We’ve got to get off this fucking boat,” Jude said. “If one of the guards radioed for help…”

“Let them fucking come,” Rafe said. His face was a mask of rage, his voice low and menacing.

I understood the sentiment. I wanted to kill the men who’d done this to Lilah, who’d brought her so close to death. But that wasn’t the most important thing.

She was.

“No, we have to get Lilah out of here,” I said, lifting her into my arms and heading for the ladder to the dinghy, still tied up behind theArtemis.

“Go first,” I told Jude. “I’ll hand her to you.”

When I looked down, I realized she was out cold. I tried not to think the worst: that her heart had been irreparably damaged by being without her meds, that the pill I’d given her was too little too late.

12

LILAH

“Sounds better,”Nolan said, holding the stethoscope to my chest. “Still slow, but better.”

“Thanks,” I said, leaning back on the sofa in the rental house on Folegandros.

I’d woken up on a different boat, a small one, hurtling through the darkness. Nolan’s was the first face I saw, looking down at me with concern, salt spray beading his face.

Relief had flooded my body, but not just relief, something more complicated too, something too strong to be just gratitude or even affection. I’d been relieved not to have the energy or focus to think too hard about it.

They’d gotten us back to land — the same small dock where I’d been picked up by the German woman almost forty-eight hours earlier — and back to the house where Nolan had drawn me a bath. After I’d soaked and gotten warm, he’d dressed the cuts on my hand from my work trying to loosen the bolt and screw on the yacht.

Now I was in a pair of his sweats, a blanket pulled up over me on the sofa. A cup of tea — brewed by Jude — sat on the coffee table.

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