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I packed up the tools, shoved them into the drawer, and left Beacon Bay.
ChapterFourteen
MARCELLO
Strong arms wrapped around me, lifting my lifeless body from the stone floor. My eyelids fluttered and snapped open. White light poked through a hole in the cave the size of a crater, revealing the terrain outside.
Am I dreaming?
Dead?
I blinked a few times.
My arms and legs were useless, so heavy I couldn’t stand on my own. A man laid my head on his shoulder and tightened his grip around my middle.
“I got you, brother.” He patted my back. “It’s going to be okay.”
“Cole?” I croaked.
My voice was raw from dehydration.
“Yeah, Marcello. It’s me.”
After the Frenchman killed Tate, he took turns with Drake and me. They moved on to me whenever Drake couldn’t take anymore and blacked out. My jaw felt broken. Every bone and muscle in my body ached. I couldn’t see clearly out of my eyes. The lids drooped, making it hard to focus.
With another man’s help, Cole lifted me through the hole in the cave. A member of Alpha Command waited on the other side. He took me from Cole’s arms and put me on a stretcher.
Staring up at the sky, I let out a relieved breath.
I made it.
By some miracle, I survived the lack of oxygen, water, and all the torture. An angel must have been sitting on my shoulder. There was no logical reason for why I made it out alive.
“Drake,” I whispered as they rolled me across the bumpy terrain toward a medical transport van. “Did he make it?”
“Yes,” the man said.
Thank God.
He pushed the stretcher up a ramp and into the mobile medical unit. Two men dressed in scrubs hooked me up to an IV line and pumped something into my veins.
“You’re going to be just fine, Marcello,” the man said. “We’re going to take good care of you.”
That was all I remembered before I passed out.
* * *
Hours after I escaped the cave, I woke up on a jet. From the look of the interior, it was one of Atlantic Airlines’ planes. I sat up on the mattress, surprised to find Drake sitting at the end of the bed.
He propped his elbows on his knees, hiding his face with his hands, sobbing.
“Drake,” I muttered, my voice raspy.
His head slowly turned to face me, and his eyes widened. He put his hand on his chest, breathing deeply. “I wish I died in that cave with Tate,” he said with pain in his voice. “It should have been me. He didn’t deserve that.” Drake’s body shook from crying so hard. “What am I going to tell his sister? Liv will never forgive me.”
I hugged him, and his sobs shook through me. “Don’t do this to yourself, Drake. Tate knew what he signed up for when he took the job as your head of security. He died with honor.”
“But his death was in vain,” he shot back. “He would want it to mean something.”
