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“They found the box deep in the jungle in a Mayan ruin. Gatlong didn’t even enter the jungle—too much of a coward—he just waited for my father in the Port of Veracruz. And when my father told him what he’d found, showed him, Gatlong killed him without a thought, without the slightest consideration for spilling blood. I watched it through a wooden screen. And then the scum made his daughter rip the box out of my father’s bloody hands. Cold, dead hands. Gatlong wouldn’t even bend over to do it himself. To soil his own hands with the blood.”
“Jules?” The word whispered from Des’s mouth and he leaned slightly to the left, cracking a space Elle could see through again.
Rune nodded. “She was young then. So young. A few years older than me, but still, so young. I saw it in her eyes. The horror. I watched Jules bend, watched her free my father’s bloody fingers from the box and take it.”
Elle’s head started to shake. “No. No. Not Jules. She couldn’t have done that. No. I don’t believe it.”
Rune found her eyes through the sliver between the men’s shoulders. “Yes. I watched it happen. She never told you?”
Her face contorted. “Why would she tell me that?”
“Exactly. I’m sure she wanted to forget it just as much as I did. But it wasn’t her fault—she didn’t have a choice—she was just as much in shock as I was.”
Des’s face turned back to Elle, his voice grave. “It’s true. She told me.” His head swiveled forward, his eyes narrowing on Rune. “So Jules knew you then?”
He looked to Des. “No. I never met her. Not until she landed on theFirefoxyears later. My father kept me hidden away from his clients. And I was held back from the scene—on the other side of the wood screen that ran along the room.”
His eyes closed and his chest lifted high as he slumped the crown of his head back against the wall. “I tried—I fought so hard to get to my father—to see him, to touch him before he died. Before he took his last breath.”
Elle gasped, her heart shattering for Rune and all that he’d suffered in that time. First his mother, and then... Tears spilled over her lower lashes. To not only watch his father murdered, but to see the life go out of him and not be able to get to him. She shuddered, wiping away the wetness on her cheeks.
“Why couldn’t you get to him?” Weston asked.
Rune’s eyes opened and he looked from Weston to Des. “It was Hoppler. We were just boys then, but he knew. He knew to hold me back. He knew what would happen if I charged into that room at that moment. The next bullet would have been in my chest. He saved me from myself.”
“So you do know Hoppler.”
“Since we were eleven.” Rune nodded and he shifted his feet, pushing himself up along the wall until he was standing near to his full height. “We met on the docks in Belize Town. He was an orphan, same as me. He saved my life as many times as I saved his. We were inseparable—we only survived because we were together in those years.”
“Until?” Des asked.
“Until I boarded theFirefoxand he didn’t.” Rune’s gaze darted back and forth between Des and Weston. “Hoppler was supposed to be on the ship—told me he was coming, five minutes behind me. But he wasn’t. Captain Folback set sail and Hoppler wasn’t on the ship. He would have been your mate just the same as me if he’d made that tide. Our paths split at that time. Mine went with theFirefoxand my shipmates. All of you. His went a very different direction.”
“To a despicable low-life.” Weston growled. “I don’t care who he was to you, Hoppler tried to have us killed for that damn box.”
“That was never supposed to happen. His men were supposed to wait. They were never supposed to go after the box. Yet they took it upon themselves to get the box when they knew I was the one that was supposed to deliver it.” Rune’s mouth pulled back to the side. “Hoppler can’t always control the idiocy of his men. That’s why I was there accompanying you to Seahorn, to make sure they stayed in line. To make sure they didn’t touch you or Laney.”
“A hell of a job you did at that.”
His stare never leaving Rune, Des grabbed Weston’s arm before he made motion forward to hit Rune again. “Why was Hoppler after the box?”
“Hoppler never wanted the box. Gatlong was making him do it. Gatlong has—had—something over Hoppler. Enough to make Hoppler go after the box for him. Hoppler was supposed to get the box and then hand it over to Gatlong. He didn’t have a choice but to comply.”
“And you chose to help him—help him over protecting your own mates,” Des said.
“Except that’s what I was doing—or trying to.” Rune’s head shook, his look going to the ceiling. “My loyalties have been split for a long time and I was trying to help everyone—help myself—keep everyone safe.”
“How?”
Rune’s look dropped to Des. “Hoppler did what he needed to in order to survive. It’s how he is. He survives. But he knows everything about me. And he knows that the day my father died I was left with two goals. One, get back the Box of Draupnir and fulfill my father’s life mission.”
“And two?” Des asked.
“Kill Lord Gatlong. With the box in-hand, Hoppler could deliver Gatlong to me. It was the only way I was ever going to get close to the bastard.”
At that, Elle shoved between Des and Weston and set herself in front of Rune. Des didn’t stop her.
She pinned him with her stare. “What was your father’s mission?”
