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I didn’t have friends, not ones I trusted with the truth.
Leave.
Stay.
Stop.
Run.
The tug-of-war ripped me apart. I stopped, my shoulders hunching as the sobs came.
“Oh, honey.” Kat was there. Her arms felt so good…so damn good as they wrapped around me, holding me as I cried.
I held onto her until the shudders slowed and the tears finished trailing down my cheeks. Out of the tears and heartache…came his face, his tortured, beautiful face. Those dark brown eyes stayed with me as I lifted my gaze to hers. I knew what I'd seen when he'd kissed me. I knew there was an entire uncharted galaxy just waiting for someone brave enough.
“Kat,” I started.
“Yes, honey?” she responded, and stepped back.
I swallowed hard, my heart hammering, and whispered, “I need your help.”
13
Finley
The speedboat’s engine spluttered and surged, slamming the hull against the dock with the choppy swell of the waves. Still, with all the battering and the obviously incompetent helmsman, the damn thing didn’t die. I was impressed.
Dillon Shaw was frantic, his hands flailing in the air inches in front of the Commander’s face, as he demanded his daughter off the island…and far away from me.
I didn’t blame him.
I wouldn’t want her here either.
Not with the way I wanted her.
Yet…here she was.
“I want her in my goddamn boatnow!”Dillon screamed. “Right this fucking minute.”
“The rules, Mr. Eden.” The Commander’s tone was unshakeable, hiding the Ghost’s real name. The guy was dressed in his usual immaculate steel gray suit. He adjusted the jacket. “Cannot be broken. Not for you, not for anyone. It was made perfectly clear in our conversation.”
“Fuck your rules!”Anna’s father spat.
Still, the man looked ridiculous. Dressed in sodden brown trousers and bare feet, he’d left in a hurry, that’s for sure. It was both obvious and interesting as hell.
Two years, I’d known him. Two years, I'd watched as he turned frantic in front of my father, explaining howhismillions of dollars were laundered in cryptocurrency, hidden in layers upon layers of accounts. An idea forged by his daughter. An idea my father had benefited from. Two years, I’d watched him haunt my family home, but I’d never seen the man this panicked.
His daughter had arrived on the island’s cruiser along with all the other sons and daughters of those who made up the Commission. The thought of her here made me feel fucking enraged. I didn’t want her here, or anywhere nearthem. Vipers, every single one of them. One whiff of someone like Annalise and they’d tear each other apart to sink their fangs in deep.
But my father had allowed it, sending her at the request of her father. Now, here I was, following her every goddamn move, watching and aching, desperate to corner her in one of these classrooms once more to find out the real reason someone as smart and as sweet as Annalise Shaw was here.
I'd told my father it was a bad idea she was here, said it was even a worse idea to send me to guard her. I didn’t want to protect the woman. I didn’t want to be that fucking nice.
The Commission spared no expense on the transfer, sending four armed bodyguards to collect the descendants of the Mafia bloodlines. After all…the island was sacred—it was one of the goddamn rules.So, if Dillon Shaw’s daughter was protected on the island…why wasn’t he back homegetting my father his fucking money?
I shifted my focus to Anna, and my damn pulse sped.
“Your father should know about this,” Max growled at my side.
