Page 7 of Risky Passion

I shoved the thought aside.I am not going to die. Not today.

I braced for impact, gripping the yoke. The water rushed up, too fast, too soon. I clenched my jaw, fighting to level out, but the damaged wing dipped first, catching the ocean surface with a bone-rattling jolt.

Ladybeetlehit the water like a hammer. The impact rammed me into the harness, driving the air from my lungs in a brutal punch. A wall of saltwater burst through the shattered windshield, hitting me with the force of a battering ram.

A scream ripped from my throat as my head slammed into the window, pain detonating through my skull in a blinding flash of stars.

Churning water surged into the cabin, a bubbling, frothing torrent that turned everything into a distorted, frantic blur. Twisted metalgroaned and shrieked, locked in a losing battle against the crushing weight of the sea.

Ladybeetleflipped over and seawater poured in like a liquid avalanche.

Up became down. Air became water.

The deafening roar of rushing water filled my ears. Raw adrenaline flooded my veins.

Survival was the only thought hammering through my mind.

“Oh fuck!” I gasped. “I’m upside down.”

I thrashed against the harness, my fingers fumbling with the buckle. Pain throbbed through my head where I’d hit the window, and my hands felt heavy and useless, like they didn’t belong to me.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!”

The water crept higher, filling my mouth. I coughed and spluttered as the brine burned my throat. I sucked in one last desperate breath through the dwindling pocket of air above me, filling my lungs just as the ocean swallowed me. The water surged over my face. Panic exploded in my brain. My chest tightened as every instinct screamed at me to breathe. But there was nothing but water.

The world plunged into muffled silence. My pulse thundered in my ears, drowning out everything else. My vision swam as I fought against the rising tide of panic. A massive bubble slipped free from the cabin, wobbling and shimmering as it floated upward toward the dim light filtering through the water.

The groaning metal around me was relentless, each creak and pop a reminder thatLadybeetle’smangled frame couldn’t hold out much longer. The cabin felt like a tomb, growing darker, heavier, with every passing second.

I clenched my jaw, forcing my trembling fingers to work. My nails scraped uselessly at the buckle before it finally snapped free.

The harness released, and as gravity twisted into chaos, I floated upward to the ceiling . . . or what was actually the cabin floor.

I shoved at the door, but the twisted metal made it sealed shut.

Panic clawed at me, threatening to take over the pain in my burning lungs.

Think, Tory. Focus.

The windshield!

As I turned around so I could kick off my seat, the plane jolted violently, and a deep, grinding thud reverberated through the cabin. The impact knocked me back against the seat. A muffled metallic groan echoed through what was left of the fuselage. My ears popped with the pressure, and then, everything went still.

Oh my god! I’m on the bottom of the ocean. And I’m trapped.

CHAPTER 4

B

The CamryI’d stolen twenty minutes ago rattled as I drove it down the ramp to the underground parking lot beneath Rosebud Hospital. I pulled into a dark corner. The car was white. Basic. Forgettable. The kind of car that didn’t attract attention and blended seamlessly with the rows of tired sedans driven by underpaid nurses and janitors who worked long shifts here.

I’d swapped the plates on the Camry with ones I’d peeled off a worker’s van parked behind the Rosebud Tavern, and it could be days, maybe a week, before the owner even noticed. By then, this Camry would be stripped and crushed at Anton's yard, where dozens of vehicles had gone to die over the years after serving their purpose. Anton was a rare find. Clean work, no questions, always delivered. Unlike his predecessor, Malcolm Holloway. That greedy bastard. One gold bar in a wrecked car's trunk, and suddenly he thought he was entitled to a bigger slice.

His stupidity nearly blew the whole damn operation sky-high. The last I’d heard, his disappearance was still a cold case gathering dust in Detective Parker Foster's drawer. But nobody will find him. Sharks were damn good at making problems like him disappear. Clean, quick, and thorough. Just like Anton. He understood the rules and knew his place. I made a mental note to slip him an extra grand when I brought the Camry to him for disposal.

Good help was so hard to find these days.

I killed the engine and wound down the window. Waiting. Listening. The engine ticked as it cooled, mixing with the drone of cheap fluorescent lights overhead. A familiar buzz coursed through my veins, sharp and precise. Moments like this had kept me alive all these years. Idiots mistook this pause as hesitation, but even the most vicious summer storms announced themselves with a whisper of wind. The calm before the bloodshed.

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