Page 100 of The SEAL's Duchess
Calm, he timed the swells. Counted—one, two?—
The wave lifted the boat as Wyatt closed the distance at speed, six feet, eight.
For a beat he was level with the gantry.
Ryder jumped.
Air.
Cold.
Impact.
Metal slammed up to meet him. Pain detonated through his shoulder, blue and blinding. He’d bitten his tongue—tasted copper. But he had the rail. He had it.
Teeth gritted, he looked back.
Wyatt was gone—the boat lost in the spray. No way back now.
Just him and the storm and the dying rig and sixty feet of ladder between him and the helipad.
Ivy was up there.
Nothing else mattered.
37
The ladder went up for-fucking-ever.
Ryder climbed through a maze of maintenance corridors and catwalks not built for a rig slanting multiple degrees off true. Water sheeted down stairwells, every surface a trap. Emergency lights strobed amber along the walls—pulsing light followed by absolute dark.
The sound of the rig dying pressed in from all sides. Metal groaning under impossible stress, distant bangs that might’ve been hatches slamming or supports giving way, and the patchy wail of alarms on failing backup power.
His shoulder burned as if someone had held a flame to it. Every pull sent pain shooting down his arm, vision fogging at the edges.
He climbed anyway.
The air grew hotter, thick with the stink of burning insulation and fuel. He rounded a corner and walked straight into hell.
A control panel hung half off the bulkhead, flames spewing from a cracked valve. Smoke writhed across the ceiling. Ryder ducked low, arm raised to shield his face. The air reeked of melted plastic and diesel, the heat baking the wet right out of hisclothes in seconds as he hurried underneath. Sparks rained from severed wiring above, urging him to move faster, half-blind and coughing, until he was through—and back into the cold.
The next shaft’s hatch was jammed. He wedged his knife into the gap, used it as leverage, throwing his full weight behind it. Metal resisted, warped, then gave. He hauled himself through.
His radio crackled. Wyatt’s voice, chopped to fragments: “Ryder—can’t?—”
“Say again,” he snapped, hitting transmit.
Nothing. Static.
He clipped the radio back onto his belt. Alone now. Just him, the storm, and however long the Vega had left.
Don’t collapse before I get to her.
The exterior walkway was fastest to the helipad. He shoved through the access door and straight into the wind’s teeth. Sleet pummeled his face, and the metal grating shook beneath his boots with each gust, the entire rig see-sawing. Black water churned sixty feet below, white foam visible even in the dark.
A support cable hung loose on one side of the walkway, frayed and whipping sparks against the rail. On the opposite side, another groaned, straining to hold. The walkway wasn’t built to handle this angle of hell—but there was no other way.
He gripped the frozen rail and stepped on. The wind flayed him sideways, ice slicking the mesh, but he made it across and didn’t let himself think about the return.
