Page 177 of Her Reluctant Hero
With one hand over the pony tank, lest he forget it, he started swimming.
“Where’s Adrian?” Mallory demanded, pushing her wind-whipped hair out of her face when the big blond diver, the one she’d nicknamed Brutus, surfaced and stripped off his mask. The water was growing choppy as clouds rolled overhead and she had to brace her feet to stay upright as the boat lurched.
The big man shook his head. “It’s cloudy as hell down there. I lost track of him.”
A frisson of alarm ran through her, but she battled it with reason. Adrian was the best diver she knew. A little silt wouldn’t throw him. But if he couldn’t see the guideline, or his dive watch wasn’t working… She couldn’t lose him, not like this.
She made her way to the pilothouse of Valentine’s yacht, encountering one of the other men who folded his arms to block her path. She pushed past him, and he grabbed her arm, fingers digging in. Looking up, she saw he enjoyed her pain, her panic.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
She wrenched her arm, but couldn’t dislodge him. “To get him.”
“I don’t think so.”
“What’s going on?” Valentine asked, coming out of the pilothouse behind her.
“Adrian hasn’t surfaced and a storm is coming up.”
“Maybe he found something good,” Valentine countered. “He has time.” He leaned against the doorway. “He’s a big boy. He doesn’t need you jumping in after him every time he’s late. He lived for how many years without you?”
Mallory turned away, fear still churning in her gut, and saw the dark-haired diver’s smirk. Her blood iced as his expression told her everything she needed to know. She lunged for him, her fingers digging into his shoulders as his had into her arm.
“What did you do?” she demanded.
Strong hands closed over Mallory’s shoulders and dragged her away from the diver and the glint in his eye. She tried to shake off the men holding her but they released her suddenly and stepped in front of her. Toney and Jacob.
“You sabotaged his equipment,” Toney accused Valentine. “What was it? His dive computer? His hoses?”
Dread dragged at Mallory, and it was all she could do to stay upright. The wind that kicked up with the approaching storm didn’t help, buffeting the water, sending waves crashing into the hull, splashing over the deck.
She almost wished Jacob and Toney were still holding onto her. This man hadn’t killed Adrian outright. He had let the sea take him. She knew it had to be something tricky—Adrian was fanatic about triple checking his equipment before he dove.
“Where is he?” Her voice sounded like it came from far away.
“There!” One of the men below pointed, and Mallory shoved her way around Jacob and Toney to look out across the sea, where a diver bobbed in the churning waves, partially floating on his back, his face turned toward the sky.
She gripped the rail. Adrian. At least two hundred yards away in rough water. He couldn’t make it to the boat. Knowing Valentine, he would start the boats and head for shore without him.
“Adrian!”
He couldn’t hear her, not over the water, but she shouted again.
Slowly, he turned toward her, his movements sluggish. He was exhausted. No way could he swim to the boat. Her heart thudded with fear and the need to go to him. But even as the muscles in her body screamed for her to do something, she knew she couldn’t reach him before he drowned.
Beside them, the pilot of Adrian’s boat started its engine and headed out to Adrian. She looked at Valentine to see if he’d shout for them to stop, but he didn’t. Instead, he set his jaw and watched the rescue.
Adrian flopped onto his back on the deck of the boat, feeling boneless after what had to have been nearly two hours in the water. He stared up at the sky he thought he’d never see again and wondered why it was so watery.
His goggles. Right. Lifting his arm to strip them off took more effort than he would have expected. He squinted up at the muscle that Smoller surrounded himself with. They’d fished him out of the water, so where was Smoller? Where were Mallory and Jacob and Toney?
“Mal?” he croaked.
“Other boat,” said the muscle who’d pulled him up, the one he’d heard Mallory call Brutus.
Safe. He nodded and let sleep take him.
Mallory was exiting the head when she heard the shouting. She’d never heard Valentine shout, but he was tearing into someone now, on deck. She hurried toward the stairs because surely the only person who made him that angry was Adrian.
“What the hell were you thinking, Karl? I don’t want the man dead!”
Not Adrian, then, but the dark-haired diver. Mallory crept forward to see his shoulders tighten defensively. “He could have killed Jeremy.”
“Jeremy acted on his own and probably deserved what he got. I need Reeves alive. I want him to bring up that chest and hand it over. I want him to go home empty-handed and live a long life full of regret for what he can never have. I want to take everything from him the way he’s taken everything from me, and I want to do it so he doesn’t forget it.”
Mallory shrank back when footsteps sounded on the stairs, and she slipped into the head, rubbing at the goose bumps that covered her body. He didn’t plan to kill Adrian. That was good news, right? But taking everything away from Adrian… What did he mean? The site, certainly. Her, too, perhaps, though Valentine had to know he couldn’t play her the same way twice. Her eyes would be wide open. Valentine had to be aware.
Which meant what? Taking her away from Adrian… Did he mean to kill her?
They had to escape, and it had to be now.
