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Chapter Thirty-Three
Coop
As soon as Zee ran the Sea-Doo up on the shore, she bailed and flat-backed it on the sand. I went to my knees next her and frantically searched her for injuries. I couldn’t see any obvious ones, but her wetsuit covered most of her. My fingers quaked as I pushed the wet black strands from her face. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I just need…” Talking made her cough, so I held her up and helped her through it. “Solid ground.”
Even thoroughly worn down and in the midst of a hacking fit, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Her fingers reached to feel my face as she finally opened her eyes and looked at me.
“Your eye, it’s bleeding.” She winced as she studied it. Then she checked me over for more injuries. “I thought Jim shot you. I thought you’d been killed.”
“He tried. Knocked me out pretty good and I’m lucky I didn’t drown. But how would it look if, after all these years, a tough Navy SEAL let himself be taken down by a cheesehead from Weyauwaga with a flare gun?”
That made her smile. And Zee’s smile fed life into me every time. But it was short lived. “He was following Hayes’ directives. They killed Jim right after I escaped.”
“Hayes?” He’d been my top suspect, too, but I had no proof. “And you’re sure?”
“A thousand percent. He tried to throw you under the bus and make me doubt you.”
“Tried,” I said, turning on my side to smile at her. “See, you knew.”
“He tried to call me out to Zaki, too.”
Now that made me laugh. “And how did that work out for him?”
“I gave him the shovel and let him dig his own grave. But this is bad. Hayes has access and information we can’t let out.”
“We have to alert Wolfe, Colt.”
She lifted up her wrist. “Already did. Zaki has let Wolfe, Colt, Vivi, Nik, and Gray all know Hayes can’t be trusted and must be brought down.”
“Wizardry to the rescue again. And what happened with the rest of the crew—Cait, Kai?”
“When the stowaways got word the transport plan for the Ozma Emerald had changed, they came out and tried to take over the yacht. Some of the crew had injuries, mostly flesh wounds and such from trying to fight the pirates off, but everyone is alive. Nothing too serious, except for Kai. He must’ve taken quite a beating and was unconscious. I’m worried he might have internal bleeding. They’re all on the tender heading to Marakata.”
I traced her jawline with my fingers. “You should’ve gone with them, Presh.”
“I was going to. I thought I’d killed all the pirates. But the one I’d harpooned and sent over the railing, he managed to get back on board and pull a gun on me.”
“Harpooned? Damn, I would’ve loved to see that.”
“Yeah.” She chuckled. “It was pretty epic. You met him. He was the guy, the one you killed in the water. He’d kept me from getting on the tender. He was going to use me as leverage since Hayes had no use for him without the emerald being on the Zamarad. Didn’t work out so well.”
Confused, I squeezed my brows together. “Presh, I didn’t kill anyone in the water.”
“Sharky, I saw you…I lured him to you. I touched you!”
“Touched? That wasn’t me, Presh.”
“Yes! You were swimming next to me and I ran my hand across the back of your wetsuit.”
“No, babe.” I laughed at the insanity of it. She had to have swum to the sharks. It was incredulous but it had to be true. “Between the guy with the slit throat and Jim, there was a lot of blood in the water. Sharks were in the area, I spotted them when I was swimming toward the Zamarad. Tiger, I think. But I wasn’t one of them.”
Her dark eyes went wide. “Are you saying I pet a tiger shark?”
“Sounds like it.”
Her hands went to her face as a wide smile spread. “That’s freaking awesome!”
