Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
RAFFAEL
The corridor echoes with every thunderous step as I descend to the crew quarters.
It’s quiet. Deserted.
Except for one of the deckhands at the galley bench, hunched over a plate of something greasy and drowned in ketchup. He looks up, mid-chew, and startles.
“Are you the only one awake?” I demand.
He swallows, hard, and nods through a choked cough. “We’re on skeleton crew until sunrise, sir. But they’re on standby if required.”
“I need the tender dispatched back to the marina immediately. A woman—Quinn—will be arriving with a bag that has to be delivered to our guest.”
He scrambles to his feet, wiping his hands on his pants. “Yes, sir. I’ll wake Mitch and make sure it’s handled right away.”
I incline my head and start to leave, only to stop short and turn back. “Also, I want our guest’s cabin manned until morning.”
He hesitates. “Manned, sir?”
“She’s drunk enough to be a danger to herself. I don’t want her deciding it’s a good night for a swim.” Hell, given Isla’s mood, I wouldn’t put it past her to sneak into the bridge and try to take the yacht for a joyride. “She’s not to leave her room. Understood?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll see to it personally.”
Satisfied, I turn on my heel and head back to my cabin, tension snaking through every muscle. I want to slam the door. Splinter the wood. Let the sound tear through Requiem like a warning shot.
But I don’t.
Isla doesn’t get the satisfaction of draining the last drop of my control.
Instead, I strip off my clothes and head straight into the bathroom, the polished marble tile cold beneath my feet.
I enter the oversized rainfall shower, crank the water to cold, and step beneath the cascade.
The temperature punches through me. My muscles lock tight.
I stare down the cream tile and let the glacial spray do what my discipline can’t—freeze her from my system.
She’s getting in too deep.
She doesn’t understand the danger she’s in. She thinks this is still about CrossPoint and the Cavallo Group. About strategy and pride.
It’s not.
It stopped being business the moment she opened her mouth at that press briefing.
After five minutes of the cold not doing its fucking job, I shut off the water and grab a towel. I pull on boxers and flop onto the bed, an arm thrown over my eyes.
Sleep doesn’t come.
My mind won’t shut down. Not with her a deck below me and my brothers circling like sharks.
I hear the muted sound of the tender pulling away from the yacht and try not to let it get to me. To not allow Isla’s scheming strategy to claw its way further under my skin.
Best-case scenario? She wakes up in the morning and plays ball.
Worst case? I don’t let myself finish the thought.
My body continues to fight sleep. The what-ifs pick at me like vultures.
“Fuck.” I shove from the bed and pace.
There’s too much to fucking contain—Isla, my brothers, the future of the Cavallo Group. And that’s before any of this leaks.
“Sir?” A knock sounds at my door.
For the love of fucking Christ.
“What?” I bark.
“I’ve just heard word from Mitch on the tender.” The deckhand speaks through the door. “He’s on the way back with the bag and…”
“And?”
“And… the woman who delivered it… She was irate.”
I close my eyes. Force my fists to remain at my sides and not plunged through the paneling of the wall.
Maybe I can’t fix this after all. At least not without becoming a person I always swore I’d never be.
I measure my stride to the door and pull it wide, coming face-to-face with nervous agitation. “Why would a woman dropping off a bag be irate?”
He wrings his hands in front of him. “She demanded to see her friend, sir. She said she wants proof Isla is okay or she’ll call the cops.”
The news doesn’t hit in an adrenaline-fueled explosion, like the plethora of detonated time bombs from the past twenty-four hours. Neither does the hard pulse of concern reach out to grip me by the balls.
I’m burned out. Worn thin.
That doesn’t bode well for Isla.
“How did the bosun handle the situation?” I ask.
“The woman is currently on the tender approaching the yacht.”
I raise my brows. Breathe. Nod.
Isla has successfully flipped a switch. Unlocked a goddamn family trait I never wanted to claim.
“How far away are they?” I retreat into my cabin and pull on the dress shirt and pants splayed across the bed.
“Roughly ten to fifteen minutes. Do you want me to return to manning the guest cabin?”
“No, I’ll handle it from here.” I stride back toward the door.
He nods. Practically bows.
This time when I walk for Isla’s cabin, it’s not with simmering anger and boiling blood. It’s with sterile resolution.
I shove open the door to the darkened room and find her curled in the bed, half-tangled in the sheets.
She’s asleep, her blazer removed, her hair fanned across her back as she hugs the pillow to her chest like a shield.
I don’t see the woman who stood at the press briefing. There’s no cutthroat determination or moralistic aura.
What lays before me is the girl I’ve known since I was a teenager. Since Giancarlo first dragged CrossPoint into our world—quiet, stripped of armor and weaponry.
I kick the end of her bed.
She jolts upright, eyes dazed.
Breathless. Disorientated. Beautiful.
“You have a problem,” I growl.
She blinks up at me, pulling the pillow closer to her chest as if it’s a barrier that can protect her. “You’re storming suites now?”
“Your friend is on her way here after demanding to see you.”
The bewilderment of sleep bleeds from her gaze. She scrambles from the bed, hope flashing in her expression.
“No.” I warn. “This isn’t good news, Isla.”
“Are you sure? Because it seems like a win to me.” She throws the pillow to the mattress, reclaiming that ball-busting attitude she’s perfected over the years, the gape of her blouse buttons providing a show of cleavage I should ignore. “My eyes are up here, yacht boy.”
I take my time, letting my attention crawl over her body. “I’ve tried to do this the nice way—”
She scoffs.
“—I’ve given you space. Time. Patience. But let me make something very fucking clear—if you don’t get rid of Quinn without raising suspicion, you’re going to learn exactly how volatile this situation is.”
“You messaged her—not me.” She buttons up quickly, smoothing her blouse with an errant hand.
Something noxious and cloying rumbles in my chest. Not rage, but reckoning.
The low burr of the approaching tender rolls in, as unwelcome as the woman who summoned it.
“How do I get to her?” Isla skirts the bed and makes to walk between me and the mattress.
I could laugh at how she still doesn’t get it. Doesn’t understand. Doesn’t fucking listen.
I grab the crook of her arm, stopping her dead in her tracks.
She gasps. Flinches.
“You think you know me, Isla. That this side of me is performative. Or maybe that I’m bluffing.” I lean in, those stark gray eyes of hers glossy in the dim light. “I promise you’re mistaken.”
She raises her chin, her throat working over a heavy swallow.
I tighten my hold. “If Quinn leaves here suspicious of what’s going on, she will go missing.”
Her lips part, her gaze frantically trying to read me. Question me.
“I won’t be the one to do it,” I add. “But make no mistake, you’ll have ended your friend’s life.”
The color drains from her pretty face, that once sun-kissed skin now pale and ghostly.
“You have five minutes.” I release her arm. “I’ll be listening.”