Dangerous Desire

25

I don’t like that option, either, as it involves guessing. I f*****g hate guessing. I need to know. It also involves sailing all over the goddamn North Atlantic, which at any time of year is treacherous. Between the currents, the wind, and the sheer amount of luck it will take to get close enough to the Silver Shadow to get on board, there’s also the obvious problem of being spotted. I could take a dive from a plane, but it’d be like trying to thread a needle from outer space.

Tick tock.

Eva. f**k, sweetheart, please be okay.

I blow out a hard breath and decide on a course of action. “Let’s see if Frenchy wants to make a trade.”

Fingers crossed he loves his nightmare of a wife.

TEN

EVA

The scream that rips from my chest is one of absolute horror, disbelief, and rage.

He stabbed him. Killian stabbed Raphael in the chest!

Blood pulses from the wound in surges that quickly saturate Raphael’s shirt and spread down to the velvet seat of the chair. Lurid crimson blooms over white linen like a flower as he stares in shock at the knife protruding from his breastbone. He slumps lower in the seat, weakly grabbing at the handle, his mouth working but no sound coming out.

“You bastard!” I shove past Killian and fall to my knees in front of Raphael. His blue eyes are wide and disbelieving. A thin line of blood dribbles from the left corner of his mouth.

I’m going to be sick. There’s so much blood. It’s everywhere. On Raphael’s clothing and hands, sprayed in fine droplets on his neck and chin, on my own hands as I helplessly try to put pressure on the wound, which makes ghastly sucking noises every time Raphael draws a breath.

I know enough not to remove the knife. It will only make things worse.

He’ll bleed out faster.

“Get a doctor! Help! Someone help us, please!”

My desperate plea dies to echoes in the empty rooms. A new surge of horror washes over me when I realize no one is coming to help us. There’s no one aboard this ship who can help either one of us.

Killian knocks me aside, yanks Raphael to his feet, and drags him moaning from the room.

“What are you doing? Where are you taking him?” I leap to my feet, my hands slick with blood and balled into fists, my face hot and my legs weak.

I shout my questions again, but Killian ignores me. Blood splatters over the polished wood floor, smearing into wavy lines as the toes of Raphael’s shoes drag through the drops. Killian lugs him along like a sack of potatoes by his side.

Then we’re outside on deck. Cold wind whips my hair around my eyes. The sky is leaden gray above, the cloud cover low and threatening. The wind sounds like the howling of wolves. I cling to a railing for support because my legs are so unsteady, worse even than my stomach, which is roiling. The hot sting of bile burns the back of my throat.

He stabbed him. He stabbed him. I can’t wrap my mind around what I just witnessed, but I don’t have time to recover from that before the next horror begins.

Killian drags Raphael to the edge of the deck, picks him up as if he weighs nothing, and tosses him over the railing.

He seems suspended in midair for an impossibly long moment, a tangle of arms and legs against a background of white-capped waves in the vast blackness of the ocean. Then he falls, twisting and spinning, the knife still protruding from his bloodied chest. I catch a final glimpse of his white, gaping face before he tumbles out of sight.

My entire body is jolted with adrenaline. It floods my cells, enabling me to push past my horror and spring into action.

I hurtle toward the railing, screaming into the wind, my arms outstretched and my hands flexed wide open, grasping. I have to help him I have to help I need to help him—

I’m caught. Snatched away from the handrail by a pair of iron arms that bind me tight even as I kick and thrash against their hold.

“Let me go!” I scream. “What are you doing? What the hell did you do?”

Killian pulls me indoors, backing up step by step, his grip on me as relentless as his retreat. I fight him desperately, instinctively, but it’s no use. He’s too strong.

When we’re inside, he sinks to a crouch, taking me with him to the floor. His arms around me are a cage; there’s no escaping. When I lift my head and scream my frustration at the ceiling, Killian turns his face to my neck.

“It’s done, Eva. It’s done.”

“Why? I promised I’d behave! I promised and I kissed you! I gave you what you wanted!”

“It’s not your fault. He was never going to make it off this ship alive.”

All of me starts to tremble. My legs are folded beneath me, but they tremble, too. I think I’m going into shock. “I don’t understand.”

“You don’t need to. But don’t bother shedding any tears for Raphael. That man caused more human suffering than almost anyone I’ve ever known. And I’ve known the worst humanity has to offer.”

“I don’t believe you! He was kind to me! He was angry when you hurt me!”

“Only because he was afraid of the consequences. He was afraid of Dimitri. He valued your life as much as he valued all the hundreds of girls he’s delivered into Dimitri’s hands over the years—only for what it would gain him.”

Girls. A chill like death raises all the tiny hairs on my body.

He feels my sudden stillness and says softly, “Did you think Dimitri ordered them from sss?”

Several things come together at once in a sudden flare of illumination. “You thought I helped him with that?”