Page 86 of Heist in Paradise

“Can you swim at all?” I asked him, struggling. He wasn’t exactly small.

“Yes.” His teeth flashed.

“Then why haven’t you?”

His silence was pointed.

His body collided with mine under the water, all hard muscle and bone. My frustration mounted when he refused to let go of the railing. “Will you swallow your humongous man pride already?” I snapped at him. I was losing feeling in everything, and not in a good way. “I will let you drown.”

His eyes narrowed. “Big sis still up there?”

I grimaced and nodded.

He stared at me for a moment. Then he sighed and loosened his grip before grabbing my shoulder. I sank immediately under the additional weight before my legs remembered how to be legs and kicked us back to the surface. It was awkward and clunky—our chins knocked together, and Madoc growled when my hand slipped low on his back. “Watch it.”

“You could help me!”

“My left arm is numb,” he growled in my ear. “I can’t move it.”

Shit. That meant the bullet had lodged somewhere vital.

Somehow, miraculously, I managed to drag us to the shore in one piece. Madoc didn’t struggle but his breath grew short and choppy near my ear, and I knew he was in pain.

When my knees hit the ocean floor, his weight became crushing for a moment before he lifted himself up and staggered the remaining distance to the sand. He clutched his limp arm to his chest.

I struggled after him, pausing only long enough to gag at the sickly pulse in my stomach. There was nothing left to purge, but my body didn’t care. It wanted to remove the gross feelings, the swirling relief, betrayal, and a man dying at my feet.

Sandy boots appeared in my line of vision. I looked up at Madoc, who returned my stare coldly. His skin was tinged green under the moonlight. He didn’t express any gratitude, but he was there—he was always there. Behind the door, in the shadows, in the wardrobe. How could one person be so constant and so unreliable at the same time?

“Are you okay?” I wheezed up at him.

“Are you?” His tone dripped with scorn. It was rather touching.

“I don’t know.” That was the truth.

“What you did was stupid.”

“Oh yeah? Which part?”

“Exactly.” Madoc glanced away, toward the water. The breeze moved his wet-stiff hair, revealing the striking portrait of his face. Even wounded and bleeding, he was beautiful. Vulnerability lurked beneath his skin, bruises that mottled his jawline, deepened the crescents under his eyes. He looked tired and angry and beautiful.

And he was hurt.

My heart slammed into my chest. The urge to comfort him was overwhelming. Luckily, I wasn’t a total idiot, or I would’ve acted on it and probably lost my fingers.

Then there was movement behind me, and just like that, his face snapped shut, returned to familiar territory. He stepped in front of me, ripping a gun from somewhere near his boot. He aimed it at the dock where a listless Molly stood, watching us with an unreadable expression. Her gun was gone, her hands dangling uselessly at her sides.

I grabbed Madoc’s wrist. “No.”

“She hurt you.”

“She didn’t—”

“She did.” His tone was cold, final.

Something about his words jarred with me. It wasn’t she shot me. It was she hurt you. Like Molly’s actions against me far outweighed what she’d done to him.

“She’s not herself,” I said, trying to be soft, coming across desperate. “She’s dissociated. Traumatized. They hooked her on something.”