Page 281 of Ruin Me Gently

A muscle jumped in his jaw. “Fine. Get dressed. We’re leaving in two minutes.”

I smirked. “One.”

We turned backtoward the bedroom, clothes flying, buttons snapping, zippers yanked. We pulled on our boots, barely lacing them properly in the rush. Silas snatched his keys from the dresser, spinning them around his fingers like this wasn’t the most insane, adrenaline-fuelled shit we’d ever done.

I grabbed my jacket, shoving my arms through the sleeves as we flew toward the elevator.

The second the doors slid open, we were inside. He hit the button for the garage, and we went down.

This was it.

“There,” Silas said, pointing.

I squinted into the dark, craning my neck as my eyes adjusted. The water was black glass, and my stomach twisted as I scanned along the dark, slippery docks.

Sleek shadows lined the edges—yachts, all lined up like sleeping beasts.

Then I saw it.

Tucked away at the far end, shoved into a corner like a forgotten afterthought, was a yacht that looked like it had seen better days. Much betterdecades, actually.

The once-white paint was dull and weathered, the letters of ‘Invictus’peeling off like sunburnt skin. Streaks of grime trailed down the sides of the hull, and a few stray buoys bobbed lazily around it, their ropes frayed and slack. It looked more like a forgotten relic than a place someone could be living.

But he was here.

1.23a.m. That’s when he’d slipped up.

After all of Silas’ scouring, searching, and waiting for Clark to make a mistake—he finally had. Less than twenty-four hours after Orion had given us access to the private camera feeds, a yacht that had docked at the marina earlier that day handed us exactly what we needed. Its onboard security camera had caught him—grainy and shadowed under the dim dock lights. But unmistakably him.

We had no ideahow.No ideawhy.

Silas had spent the first forty minutes of the drive talking me through how to scour the marina records to find him, to find out how he’d managed to get onto a yacht and how long he’d been there—a task that hadalmostended in an argument.

I’d been tired, strung out on adrenaline and panic, and Silas? Well, he had the patience of a fucking viper when he was stressed.

“Just filter it like this,”he’d said, tapping at the screen from the driver’s seat.

“I’m literally doing that!”

“Youliterallyaren’t!”

Now, sitting in the car at the docks, staring at the run down, bobbing mass of ‘Invictus,’I wished I’d fought harder. Wished I could rewind to that car ride and stay locked in a dumb fight about databases and filtering tools, instead of standing here, facing this.

Becausehewas right there.

No records. No aliases. No paper trail.

The only explanation?

Clark was squatting, and hadmaybemanaged to scrape together a half decent disguise to fend off the marina’s public CCTV.

Which, quite frankly, was offensive.

Because he wasn’t smart. He wasn’t careful. He wasn’t some criminal mastermind. He was just a pathetic, narcissistic asshole who had gotten lucky for way too long.

My adrenaline had burned off, leaving a sickly, twisting nausea in its place. My skin was too tight, my stomach hollowed out. I wanted to puke. To rip my own soul out and launch it into the void.

But I trusted Silas.

---