Chapter 89
Emily Windsor's POV
I could no longer see him. I couldn't see Lawrence, couldn't see those vicious gun barrels. My entire world had become nothing but a suffocating blanket of fog so thick I couldn't see my own hand in front of my face.
The inflatable raft drifted silently across the water, farther and farther from that steel behemoth swallowed by white smoke.
I don't know how much time passed. Maybe only an instant. Maybe an entire lifetime.
Without warning, a white light more blinding than lightning tore through the night sky!
Then came a deafening explosion that seemed to rip the heavens apart.
The tiny raft beneath me was violently lifted by the shockwave, then slammed back down onto the water's surface.
I was tossed like a ragdoll, choking on several mouthfuls of bitter seawater, but I didn't care about any of that.
I clawed at the edge of the raft and looked back.
That luxury yacht—the steel prison that had imprisoned him and would now become his tomb—had transformed into a massive fireball. Towering flames painted half the night sky an eerie orange-red, while black smoke roiled upward like the wailing of tortured souls.
The world fell into a death-like silence, broken only by the crackling roar of the inferno.
He was gone.
Along with all those sins, all those conspiracies, all those ambitions he'd never have a chance to fulfill—consumed completely by the flames.
And my heart died with him.
I curled up in the raft like a soulless puppet, letting the waves push me toward some unknown destination. So this was what it meant to have nothing left to live for.
I don't know how long I floated there before Luke's phone in my pocket suddenly vibrated. Mechanically, I pulled it out. The bright red "NO SIGNAL" indicator had finally disappeared, replaced by a single weak bar.
Trembling, operating purely on instinct, I pressed the emergency call button.
After an agonizing eternity of silence, someone answered. With a voice raw and shattered, I screamed incoherently, "Help... someone... at sea... the yacht exploded..."
"Ma'am, please stay calm. Can you tell us your exact location?"
"I don't know..." I looked around blankly at nothing but endless darkness and that burning wreckage in the distance. "He's still on board... there are people on that ship... please, you have to save him... he's still alive..."
My pleas were pathetic and desperate. Even I knew that after an explosion like that, the odds of survival were microscopic.
But I had to lie to myself. It was the only thing keeping me breathing.
Just then, a harsh spotlight pierced the darkness without warning, striking me full in the face.
A familiar, frantic female voice cut through the roar of waves and flames.
"Emily!"
I jerked my head up, searching for the source.
A speedboat was cutting through the waves, racing toward me at full throttle.
Several uniformed police officers stood on deck, and in front of them, holding a flashlight and screaming my name until her voice broke—
Jade.
My brain went completely blank. The sheer impossibility of it overwhelmed me.
How could Jade be here? In this death-soaked stretch of ocean so far from shore?
The speedboat quickly closed the distance and pulled up alongside the raft.
Jade jumped across, pulling me into a crushing embrace. She still smelled like warm, dry land. "Are you hurt? God, Emily, you scared me to death!"
I let her hold me like the lifeless doll I'd become, but my gaze remained locked on that column of fire in the distance. "He's still out there," I mumbled. "Luke is still out there..."
"Emily, what—" Jade looked at me—covered head to toe in blood, utterly lost—and her eyes immediately welled with tears. She seemed to want to ask something, but in the end only managed a choked sob.
"How did you find me?" I finally found my voice again, grabbing her arm like it was my last lifeline.
Jade didn't answer. Instead, she pulled out her phone with trembling hands, opened a message, and held the screen up to my face.
The light stung my eyes, but I could still read it clearly.
The sender was Luke.
The message was brutally simple: precise GPS coordinates, followed by a single, ice-cold instruction—
[If you haven't heard from me in 30 minutes, bring help to these coordinates. Get Emily out. Make sure she's safe.]
Time stamp: sent before the gala even began.
He'd known all along.
This gala had been a trap from the very start—a death sentence disguised as a party. And he'd walked into it willingly, eyes wide open.
He'd prepared his own grave, but left me the only way out.
"He knew... he knew everything..." The words came out barely above a whisper, but they carried enough weight to crush my entire world. The next second, all the terror, rage, and despair I'd been holding back all night came crashing down like a dam breaking.
I threw myself at the edge of the speedboat, grabbing a police officer's pant leg, sobbing hysterically. "Please! You have to go back for him! He's still alive—I know he is! He's a strong swimmer, he could've gotten out!"
My screams sounded so weak and pitiful against the howling wind.
The officer looked down at me with obvious pity and helplessness.
Jade wrapped her arms around me from behind, trying to pull me back. Her voice was thick with tears. "Emily, please! We need to get you out of here first!"
No. I didn't want to leave.
I fought them with everything I had, but they still dragged me onto the speedboat.
The engine roared to life. The boat turned away from the wreckage and headed back the way it had come—decisive, uncompromising.
I collapsed on the deck, staring back at that distant inferno. It grew smaller and smaller in my field of vision, finally shrinking to a single tragic star suspended on the horizon.
And my world plunged into infinite, absolute darkness.
They'd ripped me away from that burning hellscape. All my screaming and struggling meant nothing. The speedboat carved a ruthless white wake across the water, opening an uncrossable chasm between life and death—between him and me.
"Let me go back!" I dug my nails into Jade's arm hard enough to draw blood. "I have to find him! It's not too late!"
Jade was crying harder than I was. She held me in a death grip, voice breaking. "Emily, this is what Mr. Victor wanted! He arranged everything ahead of time. He knew—he knew from the start this would be a suicide mission!"
Her words were ice-cold daggers driving into my already shredded heart.
"As for the yacht," Jade wiped her tears away roughly, forcing herself to stay calm as she explained Luke's contingency plans, "the Victor family's people and another police team are already en route. The second they know anything, we'll hear about it."