Chapter 88
Emily Windsor's POV
I looked down at my hands—covered in warm, sticky blood. The crimson stain seared my eyes, threatening to incinerate what little sanity I had left.
"You're hurt?" My voice trembled uncontrollably, each word laced with bone-deep terror. "When? Where?"
I frantically clawed at his clothes, desperate to find the wound he'd been hiding from me.
Before I could touch him, he summoned his last reserves of strength and caught my wrist.
"Don't." His voice was raw, like sandpaper on stone. His breathing was shallow, cold sweat rolling down the sharp line of his jaw and splashing onto my frozen hands—scalding me.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Tears I couldn't control spilled over, mixed with rage and retroactive terror. "Luke, what am I to you? Some useless burden you have to protect with your life while I can't do a damn thing for you?"
He looked at me, and in those eyes—still lucid even at death's door—I finally saw a flicker of vulnerable pain.
He tried to lift his hand to wipe away my tears, but didn't have the strength.
"I didn't want you to worry." He pulled his lips into something that might have been a smile. It looked worse than crying.
I couldn't bear to hear another word. I shoved his hand away and forced him to sit, ignoring his protests as I tore open his blood-soaked shirt.
A vicious wound cut across his left side, just above his hip.
Not deep, but long—as if slashed by a blade. Without treatment, it was bleeding steadily.
It must have happened when we burst out of that storage room. A bullet had grazed him.
The sight nearly stopped my heart. My tears fell harder, but my hands didn't dare pause as I tore a clean strip from the hem of my gown to staunch the bleeding.
"Emily, listen to me." He grabbed my hand again with shocking force, his black eyes burning with unprecedented urgency and resolve. "You need to leave. Get off this ship. Now."
"I won't!" I sobbed, trying to break his grip. "I'm not leaving you alone!"
"Lawrence has lost his mind!" he roared, the outburst making his wound bleed more freely. "He won't stop until you're dead! If you stay here, we both die!"
"Then we die together!" I shouted back through my tears, using every ounce of strength I had.
He seemed stunned by my words. Those fathomless eyes churned with shock and something that looked like awe.
That's when we heard it—footsteps in the corridor outside, growing closer. Rapid. Chaotic.
Lawrence's men had caught up.
Luke's expression changed instantly.
Without another word of argument, he hauled me to my feet.
Before I could react, he—despite his injury—threw me over his shoulder!
"Luke, what are you doing? Put me down!" I pounded his back in panic, but he ignored me completely. With almost savage determination, he kicked open a hidden door leading to the deck and carried me out into the cold night wind that reeked of brine.
Waves crashed against the hull with dull, heavy thuds. Above us stretched an endless expanse of oppressive darkness.
He set me down on the freezing deck. That's when I saw it—a small black inflatable raft already tied to the railing, as if waiting for its passenger.
He'd prepared an escape route. For me. Only me.
"Get in." He pointed at the raft bobbing in the dark water, his voice both command and final plea. "Emily, leave. Tell Professor Douglas everything that happened tonight. Tell the FBI. Make Lawrence and the Lowe family pay."
"No!" I clutched his arm desperately, shaking my head as tears blurred my vision. "We leave together! Luke, get in with me. Together!"
He looked at me, terrible conflict and reluctance roiling in his eyes. Finally, it all hardened into something heartbreaking and absolute.
"I'm sorry," he said hoarsely.
The next second, he shoved me toward the raft.
I fell in, caught off guard. The raft rocked violently.
Before I could scramble up, he bent down with a knife and slashed the rope tethering us together!
The raft immediately broke free, caught by a strong current that pulled it rapidly away from the ship.
"Luke!" I threw myself at the edge of the raft, reaching for him with both hands, screaming until my voice broke. "Come back! Come with me!"
He stood on the deck, growing smaller in the distance—a solitary silhouette against the night.
He just stood there, watching me quietly. Those eyes I loved so much held a tenderness and devotion I'd never seen before.
That's when dark figures burst onto the deck behind him. Gunfire erupted without warning—countless bullets tearing through the night, raining down on that lone figure standing by the rail.
My world shattered. All I could see was the cascade of muzzle flashes.
A deadly net of bullets engulfed him. Time stretched impossibly. I watched his tall body jerk once, then again—like a cedar tree hacked repeatedly by axes, finally unable to stand, collapsing forward with a crash.
"NO—!"
A raw scream tore from my throat. I clawed at the water frantically, trying to paddle closer to the ship, trying to get back to him.
But the freezing ocean only slipped through my fingers. The tiny raft was carried farther away by the current. The distance between us became an uncrossable chasm.
Just as despair swallowed me whole, the man lying in a pool of blood on the deck used his last shred of strength to raise his head.
His gaze cut through the darkness and gunfire, landing precisely on me.
His lips moved soundlessly.
He said: Live.
It was his final command. The cruelest one.
Tears flooded my vision, scalding and blinding.
Before I could react, he suddenly raised his gun hand and fired at Lawrence's position!
Then he pulled something black and round from his jacket and threw it.
Dense white smoke exploded outward like a beast suddenly unleashed, swallowing the entire deck in seconds.