Chapter 146

Nydia's POV

"Where the hell is Vincent?!"

Tanner had noticed too. He spun toward me, jaw clenched so tight I could hear the grind of his teeth.

I let out a short, cold laugh and said nothing.

The silence sent him over the edge. He jammed his hand into his jacket, yanked out a gun, and pressed the barrel directly to my forehead.

"I'm going to ask you one more time." His voice dropped to something quiet and vicious. "Where is he? Answer me honestly, or I will pull this trigger."

My heart slammed against my ribs—so loud, so fast, I could feel it in my throat.

I had never been this close to dying. Not like this.

I don't want to die. The thought came sharp and clear, cutting through everything else. I'd only just broken free from a family that never loved me. I'd only just found my way to Vincent—to something real, something good. A life that finally felt like mine. A life I actually wanted.

How could I die now?

For one awful second, panic clawed at me—raw and uncontrolled. My thoughts scattered.

And then Vincent's face surfaced in the chaos.

Those dark eyes. Steady. Unshaken. Just looking at me, the way he always did—like I was the only thing in the room that mattered.

The panic loosened its grip. My breathing slowed. The chaos in my head went quiet.

"Go ahead and shoot me," I said. My voice came out steadier than I expected. "I'm not telling you anything."

I was betting on the obvious: Tanner needed me alive. I was leverage. He wouldn't pull that trigger, not when I was the only thing guaranteed to bring Vincent back to him.

Tanner stared at me for a long, burning moment.

Then he let out a furious yell—and pistol-whipped me across the forehead with the grip of the gun.

Pain exploded across my skull. My vision went white at the edges.

"You wish." He shoved the gun back into his jacket, spitting curses under his breath. "I'm not that stupid. As long as I have you, Vincent will come to me. He won't have a choice."

"You're right about that." Vincent's voice cut through the dark from somewhere ahead. "I'm already here."

Tanner whipped around.

Vincent's fist connected with his face before he could finish the turn—a clean, brutal hit that snapped his head back.

Tanner let out a wild sound of pain and rage, scrambled for his gun, and fired.

My heart seized.

But Vincent had already freed himself from the ropes. He moved before the shot landed—twisting sideways in one sharp motion, closing the distance, driving into Tanner and taking him to the ground.

"Get back!" Even now, even in the middle of this, he remembered to warn me.

I didn't argue. I scrambled away from the fight, half-crawling, putting distance between myself and them while I tore at the ropes still binding my wrists.

Tanner can actually fight.

That realization hit me hard. I'd trained long enough to read a fighter—and Tanner wasn't performing. His technique was real, his reflexes fast. My stomach dropped.

But Vincent was faster. He faked Tanner out with a misdirection, drew his attention left, and stripped the gun from his grip in one fluid motion.

He fired once, forcing Tanner to scramble for cover.

The rope finally gave. I shook it off and pushed to my feet. "Let's go—now!"

Vincent backed toward me, keeping his aim on Tanner, laying down suppressing fire.

Then Tanner's men rounded the corner and found us.

"Shoot them!" Tanner screamed. "Kill them both—don't leave either of them breathing!"

The volley came from every direction at once. Vincent grabbed me, wrenched us both sideways, and threw himself over me—his body taking the brunt of it as we hit the deck together and the bullets punched through the air where we'd been standing.

We didn't have time to breathe before the next wave came.

Lima's team hit hard from the other side, and suddenly the whole deck erupted into a firefight—flashes of muzzle light, the crack of shots, bodies moving through the chaos.

Vincent was covering me. He was watching too many directions at once, and in the split-second his focus fractured—

The shot caught him in the shoulder.

Blood sprayed across my face.

"Vincent!"

The scream tore out of me before I could stop it.

Someone threw a smoke grenade. Gray fog rolled across the deck in seconds, swallowing the shapes around us, turning everything into shadow and noise. Vincent shoved me toward the edge of the cloud.

"I'm fine—go! Find cover!"

Silhouettes flickered through the smoke. I couldn't tell friend from enemy, couldn't find him in the murk—

A hand seized my hair.

Another clamped over my mouth.

"Running?" Tanner's voice came from directly above me, low and gleeful. "And you still ended up exactly where I wanted you."

He hauled me backward by my hair, dragging me with him. I fought—I fought hard—but he was tall, broad, and furious, and he had his hand clamped over my nose and mouth with enough force that my vision grayed at the edges. My body stopped listening to me. I went limp, and he dragged me off the yacht and onto his.

He shoved me at two of his men and barked a single order.

"Go. Now."

I kept my eyes fixed on the yacht we'd just left. Every frantic beat of my heart was a prayer.

Then I saw him.

Vincent broke through the smoke—saw me gone—and lunged for the edge without hesitation.

Three of Tanner's men cut him off. Their guns were empty; they'd drawn stun batons instead, and they swung them in hard, coordinated arcs.

"No—" The word came out of me in a breath.

Vincent shot twice—clicked empty—and drove the pistol grip into the nearest man's skull. The man went down. The others exchanged a look and rushed him at once.

"Lima!" I screamed across the water. "Lima—help him! Get to Vincent!"

Lima was buried under a half-dozen of Tanner's crew. He couldn't get clear. He couldn't reach him.

I watched, helpless, as they closed in.

Then one of them swung wide from behind while Vincent's attention was forward—a hard, blind hit to the back of his head.

The sound carried across the water.

Vincent staggered. Blood poured down his face, dark and immediate, and he took two stumbling steps backward.

"Stop!" I spun toward Tanner, frantic. "Let him go—I'll come with you, I won't fight, just leave him—"

Tanner shoved me hard enough that I stumbled. His palm cracked across my face.

"He tried to have me killed," he snarled. "There's nothing you can offer me that changes that. I came here for one reason. And it was never you." He raised his voice toward the yacht. "Finish him!"

"Please—" My voice broke. I was crying—I hadn't even realized it. "Please don't—"

There was nothing I could do. No play left. Nothing.

I watched Vincent get driven back toward the rail, blood streaming down his face, three men pressing in on him with raised batons.

And then he made his choice.

He was fast, even now—even bleeding, even exhausted. Three quick movements and he was up and over the railing, and then he was gone. He dropped from the yacht and hit the water below.

The ocean swallowed him whole.

The world went silent.

I stood there and felt nothing—nothing at all—just that image, looping over and over behind my eyes. Vincent, going over the rail. Vincent, hitting the water. Vincent, disappearing beneath the surface.

A gunshot wound in his shoulder. A blow to the head. And now the ocean in the middle of the night.

My knees nearly gave. I locked them. I couldn't fall apart. Not here. Not in front of Tanner.

"He went in?" Tanner sounded almost disbelieving.

One of his men confirmed it.

A grin broke across his face—wide and bright and sickening.

"Perfect." He was almost laughing. "Tell the crew—full search of the water. I want confirmation. I want to see a body."

"He's not dead." The words came out of me in a shout, ragged and raw. "You're wrong. He's not going to die. He's not—he can't—"

Tanner looked at me with something that might have passed for sympathy if you didn't know better.

"Nydia." His voice was almost gentle. "He was shot. He took a hit to the head. The water's cold, it's dark, and no one is looking for him yet." He spread his hands. "The odds aren't kind." A pause, and then—softer, almost tender: "But don't grieve too hard. I meant what I said. I do genuinely admire you. When this is over, I'll take care of you. I promise."

I didn't let him finish.

"He's coming back," I said, cutting through every word out of his mouth. "He will find me, and he will take me back, and everything you did to him tonight—he will make you pay for every single second of it. You're not his equal. You never were."

The smile died.

Tanner's hand shot to my throat—fingers closing hard around it, pulling me close until his eyes were an inch from mine.

"Fine," he said quietly, through gritted teeth. "Then I'll wait."

---

They locked me in a cabin below deck. Wrists and ankles bound. No light.

I lay on the bunk in the dark, and I let the tears fall—steady and silent—because there was no one here to see them, and I had nothing left to hold them back with.

The image wouldn't leave me alone.

Vincent, going over the rail.

You can't die. I pressed my eyes shut, and thought it as hard as I could, as if he might somehow hear it. You have to be okay. You have to make it back.

Please.