Page 32 of Shark’s Rise

“Of course,” I said. “Say the word, and I’ll have him give you an extra guy for those too.”

“No.” Her voice was adamant. “You know where I stand on all this.”

“Oh, I definitely do.” I didn’t hide my exasperated sigh. “But you’re not going to be giving Vela any sense of normalcy if you or she are taken by these bastards—or worse.”

A beat of heavy silence from her end. Another. “So…exactly how did you say Abbi was doing again?”

I spared her from the sigh this time. Wouldn’t have done me any good. When Cassiopeia Shark was determined to change a subject, the ruling was law.

“She’s okay,” I finally said. “I mean, as good as can be expected, given this clusterfuck of circumstances…”

“Annnd?”

“And what?”

“What are you not telling me?”

I whooshed out a long—but resigned—breath. “The desert isn’t exactly…agreeing with her,” I muttered.

“In what way?” Pia pressed.

“She picked up some sort of…virus…or something. A stomach bug, I think. Still, she’s thinner. And paler. I’m worried, Dub.”

“Sounds like you should be,” Pia returned. “It sounds like you’re both under a lot of stress—and it’s not doing you any good.”

“Her more than me.” I rubbed my forehead, which was already throbbing at ten o’clock in the morning. “Elijah isn’t exactly the nurturing type, so I’m very thankful the staff at the safe house is mostly women. They’ve been mothering her like crazy.”

“Yeah, that is good,” Pia concurred. “Something’s definitely going around. That’s why Vela is home today. I mean, she seems fine right now, but the midnight blow-and-go session wasn’t so pleasant.”

“Thanks for sharing,” I deadpanned.

“Just keeping it real, Your Majesty,” she teased back.

“Ugh. The poor kiddo,” I lamented. “I’ll have some of those flower fairy books delivered to her. I think she was telling me that a new set came out this week.”

Pia sent back a grateful sigh. “Best. Uncle. Ever. Thanks, Bas. That really will make her day.”

“Done,” I said. “But listen, I need to hang up right now. Grant will be here in five minutes.”

“And that means we have to hang up?” she jibed.

I grunted. “He and I have some scheming to do. We’ve got serious problems brewing in the Malaysia corridor again.”

“Oh, no! Now what?” There was genuine curiosity in Pia’s tone. “I thought you just finished working that deal out.”

“This is different than what I was there working on. There are maritime pirate stories in the mainstream news this morning. Never a good sign when the big cable channels catch wind of stories with buzz words like ‘pirates’ in them. I mean, everyone in the business knows that shit is going on every single day, but the rest of the population does not. Once it leaks through to the folks sitting around the dinner table watching the nightly news, the criminals start attracting too much attention for their screwed-up causes. Just encourages more of the bad behavior.”

“Ugh.” She huffed. “No kidding. Well, let me know if I can help. Tell Abbigail we were asking about her, okay?”

“I will, Dub. That will make her happy to hear. Hopefully I can bring her home soon.” I hoped she could hear the smile in my voice.

“Talk to you soon. Love you, Bas.”

“Love you too, Pia.”

After we hung up, I quickly reread Grant’s earlier email. I’d given it a harder perusal on my first pass, making sure I separated the actual facts of the situation verses the media uproar about what was happening in the world’s southern hemisphere. But I wasn’t sure that feat was completely possible, given all the information being skewed in every outlet’s story. I needed to contact my sources on the ground in that region and get the data from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.

My COO’s unique knock—two quick raps, one short pause, two more quick raps—sounded on my office door. We’d used the bootleg Morse Code signal since we were kids, showing up at each other’s houses at all hours of the day and night. Whether we were in trouble, in need, or just plain lonely, Grant and I always had each other’s backs. We were into our second decade as brother-close best friends, and I couldn’t imagine my life without the man in it.