Chapter 30
Geri must’ve fallen asleep for a few hours, because when she opened her eyes again, the sun was coming up. She was still on the boat, still wrapped in the coarse blanket, but the warm light of dawn was beginning to come in through the windows and illuminate her surroundings.
One of the men who’d helped her noticed she was awake. “Morning. We’ll be ashore in a few hours.”
She frowned. “I didn’t think we were that far from dry land.”
He chuckled. “We weren’t. We stopped in Petit Tabac for fuel, but we’re heading to St. Lucia. Your friend will meet us there.”
Her friend. Quinn.
Geri closed her eyes and exhaled. Quinn was alive. They’d made it out. In a few hours, she’d see him, and they could get the hell back to the U.S. Maybe together, they could tell the world what Rich Price had done to them and the others.
“I’m surprised we didn’t wake you up,” the man said. “We weren’t exactly running silent.”
“I slept right through it?”
He grimaced sympathetically as he nodded. “You seemed like you needed it. When we realized you weren’t coming around, we figured we ought to let you sleep.”
“I appreciate that.” She got up and shook off the blanket. Her bones were stiff and everything ached, but she’d slept. Really slept. She’d been a light sleeper for a long time, but she could probably sleep through anything now, thanks to the noise and projections in her hotel room.
She shuddered. That was over. Thank God, it was fucking over .
Someone brought her some more water and a small plate of fruit and a couple of hard-boiled eggs to eat. She had to force herself to eat and drink slowly; hungry as she was, there was no point in making herself sick.
As she was finishing the bottle of water, the engines abruptly cut off, and the vessel began to lose speed.
Her heart did the opposite—speeding up with both relief and excitement. They’d already reached dry land?
She hurried out of the cabin and onto the deck.
There was no land in sight. Not even the fuzzy hint of it on the horizon in any direction.
There was, however, another boat bobbing on the waves maybe twenty or thirty feet away. Without the wind or the engines, the world was silent apart from the water sloshing against the rocking hulls beneath the word Miss Decadence .
Though she wasn’t sure why, cold fear wrapped tendrils around Geri’s heart. What was happening? Why had they stopped?
Maybe they just needed to swap something with the other boat. She was probably just jumpy and paranoid after everything she’d been through.
But then some people emerged from the cabin of the other yacht, and Geri’s stomach dropped when Tyson shoved Quinn up against the railing.
Every feeling of safety and relief evaporated into pure horror as she put her hand to her mouth. Oh no. Oh, shit.
From across the expanse of water, Quinn met her gaze. Her own terror reflected back in his expression; what was going to happen?
A hand appeared on her shoulder, straightening her spine and driving a yelp of fear from her. She spun around and—
Oh no…
Rich Price grinned. “You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?”
She stared at him, unable to speak. Unable to breathe.
He laughed and squeezed her shoulder. “I told you from the start, Ms. Cole—I thought of everything.”
Right then, the two men who’d helped her onto the boat emerged from the cabin, both carrying buckets. They went to the railing and dumped them over the side, pouring out chunks of meat along with a nauseating amount of blood.
Pieces of someone who’d “lost” the competition, maybe?
The thought had her stomach lurching up her throat, and she covered her mouth in a feeble attempt to keep from vomiting.
Across the water, two more buckets were dumped overboard as Quinn watched in horror.
Then… oh God.
They heaved Kyle’s bloody body into the water. As it bobbed on the rust-colored surface, a piece clicked into place, and renewed acid burned in Geri’s stomach.
The men weren’t disposing of bodies—they were chumming the water.
That horrifying theory was confirmed in a matter of minutes when movement beneath the water became large gray shapes. Three of them. A triangular dorsal fin pierced the surface. Then another.
The sharks circled the floating chum. They grabbed chunks. Swam away. Came back for more. A fourth joined, and the sharks ate and circled between the boats.
Someone shoved Geri up against the side. She yelped and struggled, but she couldn’t get free. Her arms were pinned behind her back. The men leaned her forward enough that her center of gravity teetered precariously over the railing.
On the other boat, Quinn was in a similar predicament, arms pinned by two men as he was held over the edge.
All the terror she’d experienced at Faraway Resort had her well beyond panicking. This time, though, there was also the visceral, primal fear of an apex predator, the bone-deep terror lodging her voice in her throat and darkening her vision at the edges.
The largest of the four sharks surfaced, grabbed Kyle in its jaws, and pulled him under. A moment later, his body floated back up, minus a large chunk of the torso.
Sick with terror, Geri locked eyes with Quinn.
Kevin appeared beside him and exchanged a few words with Tyson.
And then, light glinted off metal a split second before one of the men holding Quinn shoved a long blade deep into his side. Quinn screamed, trying to pull away. The knife was yanked out. Plunged in again. Quinn’s cries seemed to echo from everywhere and right through Geri’s bones.
Geri thought she heard herself screaming his name. Thought her throat burned from the strain of her voice. But she didn’t even feel like she was in her body right then.
The men on the other boat heaved Quinn overboard.
In an instant, the water was churning violently. He thrashed, and when he broke the surface, he cried out, the agony and terror in his voice echoing right through Geri. The sound was cut off when he was yanked back under. The water darkened, the pink foam turning a rusty red. The sound of water splashing had never filled her with so much horror.
This time, she did scream, calling out his name.
After long, terrible seconds, Quinn broke the bloodstained surface again, and the agonized, guttural scream he released would haunt Geri long into her next life. So would the vision of his arm outstretched—hand open as if searching for someone to pull him to safety—just before he was again yanked under.
The water calmed a little, and Quinn surfaced again, trying feebly to swim toward either boat. Or just away from the pain. He called out, but his cries were weak and strained in between the water and blood pouring from his mouth.
Something moved again beneath the water. One of the big shapes. The dorsal fin pierced the surface, and the shark’s visage emerged from the crimson water just before it pulled Quinn down, silencing his final cry into a strangled gurgle.
When Quinn came up this time, he was facedown. He wasn’t moving. Maybe not dead, but probably unconscious, which was a small mercy.
Rich’s hand landed on her shoulder again. “Well, Ms. Cole. You’re the last one standing. Now let’s take you home.”
Home. Home?
“So I… Does that mean I won?” She looked up at him. “I’m just… going home?”
His grin reminded her of the sharks that had just ripped Quinn to pieces. “Well, with both Mr. Hayworth and Mr. Aimes dead, there won’t be two of you returning to the shore.” He smirked and half-shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out which fate is waiting for you when we get there.”
Terror curdled Geri’s stomach. All his threats and promises banged around in her head. Prison. Treason. The impossible prospect of returning to the life she’d left behind.
Fuck either of those options.
She grabbed the railing and started to vault over it, but Rich and Mark pulled her back over.
“Let me go!” she screamed. “Let me go! ”
They didn’t. Once they’d overpowered her, Mark handcuffed her to a seat. For good measure, he cuffed one of her ankles, too. She screamed and sobbed, fighting the cuffs, but she couldn’t get free.
She couldn’t get off this boat and let the sharks end it all. They wouldn’t have ended it quickly, never mind painlessly, but they’d have ended it.
The boat engines fired up again.
They started moving, the hot air turning into a cool wind as they left Quinn and Kyle and the sharks behind.
No escape. No way out. No undoing a thing.
She’d never imagined it was possible to be too scared and too devastated to cry. To even make a sound. To be so shaken all the way to her core that all she could do was sit there, staring out at the sky and the water as hopelessness dug into her bones.
Sometime later—hours, maybe? she’d lost track—something on the horizon began to take shape. Faintly gray at first. Then blue. Then, as they drew closer, green and brown.
Land.
The nightmare was over. She’d survived, which meant she might have won the game, but none of this felt like a victory. Not after bearing witness to horrific cruelty and violent deaths. Even now, she could still hear Quinn’s screams and the awful splashing.
He screamed and died over and over in her mind as she got closer to home. As close to home as she’d ever be again. She doubted anything had really changed since she’d been gone, but she had. Profoundly and irreparably.
Over the sounds of Quinn’s agonized screams in her mind, she heard his whispered words:
“We’re never going home. Not completely.”
Geri squeezed her eyes shut, letting some hot tears fall down her sunburned cheeks. She’d known in the moment that Quinn was right, but it was only now that she understood how right he’d been.
When the boat docked, she might be be met with cops and reporters, every last one of them eager to throw the scandalous story wide open and crucify her in the public eye. Prison would be the best-case scenario because treason would absolutely be on the table. Or maybe she’d set foot on dry land and return to people who loved and respected her, none of them knowing about the deep fakes, about the horrible ordeal she’d survived, or the horrors from which her fortune had risen. She’d return to the comfort and safety of the life she’d always known, carrying with her only the trauma of a reality no one would ever believe and bearing the crushing weight of more shame and regret than she could carry.
She’d either be destroyed publicly, financially, and legally for the path of destruction she and her family had left in their wake. Or she’d resume living that life, buoyed by the bloody money from the violent empire she’d helped to build.
She didn’t want to die, but the two possible futures awaiting her onshore would be their own flavors of hell.
And there was no escape.