Chapter 3

I dragged myself out through the sewer at last.

Belly heavy.

Lungs burning.

The stink of it clinging to my skin.

I climbed onto the speedboat, kicked the engine alive, and tore east for Pelle Island.

When the hull scraped onto the beach, my heart lifted for one stupid second.

Armed men were waiting at the dock.

Then I saw who was at the front.

Marco Russo.

He shouldn't have been here.

He was supposed to be at sea with Lucien.

I didn't have time to think.

I stumbled toward him, the words tumbling out—the raid, the tunnel, the steel door—

He caught my arm and yanked me clean off the boat.

His face was carved with disgust.

"Wren Costa. I don't know how a woman can be this disgusting."

* * *

I stared at him, lost.

I didn't understand what he meant.

"The boss told me to wait here for you."

"He said you'd cooked up some scheme with Mia—running to another family's island to spread fairy tales about a Moretti attack. Just to ruin Celeste's birthday party."

The words hit me like ice water.

Lucien was a cold bastard.

He'd planted his own man on the only route I could take for help.

I told Marco the raid was real.

The Morettis had already landed.

I wasn't spreading rumors—I was begging for backup.

If we didn't move within the hour, every woman and child in that tunnel was dead.

He saw the look on my face.

Something flickered behind his eyes.

Just for a second.

His wife was on that island.

His mother.

His kids.

Marco reached for his radio to call Lucien.

Then a young soldato leaned in close and murmured, "Boss, come on. If the Morettis were really hitting us, you really think the boss wouldn't know first?"

The kid's face was full of that quiet, religious faith.

Lucien had been a soldier once.

He had the instincts and the command of a man who'd survived a dozen wars.

He'd led the Vitales through dozens of raids without losing the island.

Marco was silent for less than a second.

Then he laughed out loud.

"Wren. You should've been an actress. You almost had me."

"I know Lucien better than anyone. He's the goddamn boss of the Vitales. You think a man like that misses something like this?"

The mockery cut deeper than the slap on the beach.

Tears burned at the edge of my vision.

I held them.

Every second wasted was another second the women in that tunnel were closer to dying.

I tried to push past him, ready to run back to the boat and go anywhere—anywhere—that might still listen.

Marco caught me before I'd taken two steps.

He pulled out a length of rope.

"Not today, Wren. You're not going anywhere."

He bound my wrists tight.

His face was hard.

He threw me into the back of his speedboat like a sack of cargo.

The engine roared.

The hull cut through the waves.

I lay on my side, watching Pelle Island shrink.

The one shore that could have saved them—slipping further away by the second.

I closed my eyes.

Not in despair.

In my last life, I had closed my eyes at this exact moment because I'd given up.

This time, I closed them to carve Marco Russo's face into my memory.

To add him to the list I was just beginning to write.