Page 109 of Risky Passion

The dark stain on the weathered timber before me was enough to tell me we were close to blast central. Grant Hughes had been at ground zero when it all went to hell . . . his blood and body parts could be all over the fucking place.

I swallowed hard, the weight in my chest tightening. This wasn’t going to be pretty. But no matter what, we weren’t leaving without answers. Good or bad.

Not knowing what had happened to Charlotte was the deepest wound our family ever suffered. If we’d known she was dead, we could have dealt with the aftershocks. And maybe we could even start to heal. Instead, we were left drowning in the relentless what-ifs of uncertainty and constantly bombarded by every rotten possibility except closure.

This wasn’t just about finding Blade and Viper. It was about ending the spiral of impossible questions for everyone who loved them.

“Possible evidence of blood found,” I said into my radio, keeping my voice level. “I may be close to the blast zone.”

“Copy that,” Watts replied. “Be careful, Jaxson.”

I exhaled slowly and rested a hand on Onyx’s side. She leaned into me, her body warm and solid against my palm.

“Let’s go, girl. Seek,” I said.

The crashing waves below the floorboards grew louder the deeper we pushed into the wreckage, their relentless rhythm amplified by the stillness around us. The air was a cocktail of decay. Rotting fish and salt mixed with the acrid bite of charred wood and ash.

The steady pounding of the surf tugged at my thoughts, pulling me back to Ryder’s offhand comment about nearly drowning at high tide. Four high tides had come and gone since Blade and Viper disappeared. Four opportunities for nature to drown them.

Please, let me find them . . . somewhere beneath this rubble, in a pocket of air . . . still alive. I clung to the thought, repeating it like a mantra.They have to be alive. They just have to be.

Onyx pressed on, her nose working the air as she threaded deeper into the wreckage. I followed close behind, steadying myself with one hand against a beam as I climbed over a crumpled heap of charred corrugated metal.

Every sound seemed to echo: the scrape of my boots against debris, the groaning protest of shifting wreckage, the low whistle of wind weaving through the ruins. It was a symphony of destruction, oppressive and unrelenting.

Onyx halted, her body tense, nose pressed against a narrow gap between two collapsed beams. Her tail went rigid, ears forward, every muscle coiled with purpose.

I crouched beside her, my heart hammering as I peered into the dark void.

“Show me, Onyx,” I said over the pounding waves.

She barked once. Sharp. Certain.

Hope flared in my chest, fragile but undeniable.

A tapping noise carved through all the others.

My heart launched to my throat.

Onyx barked.

Three taps replied.

“Holy shit.” Someone was alive. “Go, girl. Fetch.”

Onyx twisted her body to squeeze through the narrow gap between the beams. I pressed my face closer, trying to see through the darkness, my own breath loud in my ears. The tapping came again. Three sharp beats.

Onyx barked and her tail wagged, but her posture was intense and alert.

I scrambled forward, easing past jagged edges of the metal that bit into my knees and palms.

“Hello!” I yelled into the void. “We’re here! We’re coming!”

My voice sounded raw and desperate, which I fucking was.

The gap was too tight for me to fit through, but Onyx vanished into the shadows beyond. Her barks turned into a rhythmic pattern that matched the tapping replies. She was locked on. I pressed my face as close as I could to the opening, straining to see.

A flicker of movement caught my eye between two fractured floorboards: fingers, trembling and wriggling weakly.

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