Chapter 159

Chapter 159
Nydia's POV
Of all the rotten luck.
I'd clawed my way off Tanner's island—survived the guards, the fences, the open water—only to nearly get killed by the ocean itself.
A tsunami. Seriously.
The wave hit before I could do anything. One second I was at the helm; the next, the boat was gone and I was tumbling through a wall of black water, completely disoriented. Pure instinct took over—my hands found a life ring clipped to the side of the hull, and I shoved my arms through it before the sea swallowed me whole.
I went under. Then I came back up.
The cold hit me like a physical blow, seizing my muscles, rattling my teeth. There was nothing to do but hold on. While the surge raged, I was just cargo—no navigation, no control, nothing but the ring and the water and the dark.
When it finally settled, I was exhausted in a way I had no word for.
But I still had my bearings. I tracked the sun, recalculated my position, corrected my heading. My arms had nothing left in them, and I knew it. I also knew that stopping meant either Tanner's people found me, or the ocean did. Neither was acceptable.
So I swam. Mechanically. Numbly. One stroke, then the next.
I don't know how long it went on before I heard voices.
"There's someone out there!"
"Oh my God—she's real, she's actually—"
"Get the boat turned around, now!"
I couldn't tell if it was real or if my brain had finally started giving up and offering me something kind to go out on. Then hands—several of them—grabbed hold of me, and the world went dark.
---
I came back to consciousness in an unfamiliar room and shot upright immediately, every nerve firing.
Then I looked around.
The walls were uneven plaster, the furniture mismatched and worn. A window stood open, and through it came salt air and the soft rustle of dense, overgrown trees. Pale morning light filtered down through the branches in long, lazy strips and drifted across my face on the breeze.
I let out a slow breath.
Not Tanner's.
Tanner didn't do anything this modest.
"Hello?" My voice came out rough, barely more than a rasp.
Footsteps approached down the hall, and a woman appeared in the doorway—middle-aged, plainly dressed, with the kind of no-nonsense warmth that comes from a life built on practical kindness.
"You're up." She smiled and leaned against the doorframe. "We spotted you out on the water this morning—you were holding onto a life ring, drifting. Figured you must've gotten caught in last night's storm surge. Lucky we were heading out early." She nodded toward the window. "You're safe. This is our community—small place, quiet. Rest up as long as you need, and when you're ready, you can go."
"Where are we, exactly?" I asked.
She told me.
I ran the coordinates through my head—distance, direction, what it would take to get back. Then I thanked her and lay back against the pillow, already calculating.
---
I wasn't well enough to leave right away. The hypothermia had taken more out of me than I'd admitted to myself, and I had a gash along my left arm from the hull going over. I stayed, kept my head down, and used the quiet days to gather information.
What I heard surprised me.
Tanner was in the ICU.
Lima's people had hit hard after I'd sent my location through. Whatever they'd done, it had put Tanner in critical condition. Word on that front was definitive.
Lima himself, from what I could piece together, was fine.
On the third day, when I could walk without my legs threatening to quit on me, I borrowed a phone and called him.
He picked up on the second ring.
"Oh, thank God." His voice cracked slightly. "We thought—after you went off the radar, we feared the worst. I can't tell you how glad I am to hear your voice. If something had happened to you on top of everything else, I don't know how we would've faced Vincent."
My stomach tightened at the name. "Has he turned up?"
A pause. Then Lima exhaled. "No. Still nothing. No trace, no contact—nothing."
"He's alive," I said. I didn't say it to convince him. I said it because I believed it.
"I believe that too," Lima said carefully. "He's not a man who goes down easily. But if he's alright, why hasn't he reached out? Why haven't we heard a single thing?"
"Maybe the same reason I couldn't," I said. "Cut off from every channel."
Even as I said it, I knew it wasn't quite right. I'd been cut off too—but I'd still found a way to get a signal out. I'd scratched and clawed until I managed it. And Vincent was a man with ten times my resources.
The silence that followed was heavier than I wanted it to be.
Lima cleared his throat. "Nydia—we'll come for you tomorrow. We'll figure the rest out once you're home."
"Alright," I said.
---
He arrived with a full convoy the next morning. I told the couple who'd pulled me out of the water that I was leaving, and Lima had already thought ahead—there was a gift waiting for them, wrapped and ready. I handed it over, said everything I needed to say, and let them pull me into a hug before I turned and got in the car.
Six hours later, I was back at the estate—the one that was mine and Vincent's.
I hadn't thought about how that would feel until I was standing inside it.
His things were still exactly where he'd left them. The cufflinks on the nightstand. The jacket over the back of the chair. And on the side table near the door, the earrings he'd chosen for me the night we'd left for the yacht party, still sitting there like he'd just set them down.
I had to look away.
Lima gave me a moment, then quietly talked me through everything I'd missed.
"After the police declared you dead, Olive claimed the body as next of kin and took it."
"That was Tanner," I said. "He wanted to make sure no one would come looking for me. He wanted me to disappear."
"We know. We were tracking him—or trying to. He'd gone completely dark for weeks. Then Gordon came forward." Lima paused. "He told anyone who would listen that you weren't dead. That he was going to find you. His family put out a statement claiming he'd had some kind of breakdown, formally cut him off." He shook his head. "He didn't seem to care. Kept at it every day regardless. Honestly, that's part of what kept me from closing the file. I went to see him myself. He told me the body Olive brought home wasn't yours—said he'd seen it, and he was certain."
I stared. "He actually went to check."
"He was very sure of himself. And not long after that, Tanner resurfaced to attend some family business meeting. We tracked him, traced his movements, and that's how we identified the island. I was in the final stages of planning the extraction when your coordinates came through." Lima's voice softened slightly. "That was the moment I knew for certain you were alive."
"The information I sent—did it help?"
"Significantly. What happened to Tanner that night was the direct result of it. He earned every bit of it."
I was quiet for a moment. "He did."
Then I straightened. "I'm back now. We focus everything on finding Vincent. I know he's out there."
"I want to believe that," Lima said. "But we've run out of leads. Every avenue we've checked has come up empty."
Something flickered at the edge of my mind. A face.
"What's Mia been up to lately?"
Lima looked mildly puzzled by the shift. "Mia? She was devastated after Vincent went into the water—watched it happen, apparently. She had her own people join the search for the first two weeks. After that, when we had to call it off, her team stood down as well."
"And Mia herself? Was she out there with the search teams?"
He thought about it. "For the first couple of days, yes. Then she said the stress had gotten to her—health reasons—and she went back home. We haven't seen her since."
Something clicked into place.
I raised an eyebrow. "I need you to pull Mia's full movements. Everything—where she went, when she left, who she traveled with."
Lima studied my expression for a moment, then nodded slowly.
"I'll get on it today."