Chapter 5
Tris grunted, swearing as he did his part to help drag Albertini’s body toward the nearest exit with access to the water. “You know, when you said, ‘get rid of the body,’ I was picturing something cool—like Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs. Not Weekend at Bernie’s.”
Cade snorted. He wouldn’t have bothered dumping the body at all if he were the only one at risk of spending a decade behind bars.
He wasn’t in the system. And Cade knew the law—intimately.
There was nothing the police could do to compel him or Tris to submit to fingerprinting or DNA without a warrant, and they’d have no reason to single them out.
It was Tris he worried about. When Cade had asked, Tris couldn’t remember whether he’d ever been fingerprinted for a job before.
With a body came evidence, and if Tris popped up in a database somewhere, it wouldn’t matter how good Cade’s clean-up was, Tris would burn for it. He didn’t say that, though.
“Weekend at Bernie’s?” Cade asked instead, doing his best to keep Tris preoccupied while his own mind spun through contingency plans.
Even without evidence, the cops could invent a reason to hold Tris for twenty-four hours, and Cade had a sinking suspicion that Tris would either charm them all or confess to fifty unrelated crimes by accident.
He’d waste their time, sure, but Cade didn’t trust him to survive the anxiety of an interrogation room.
Tris stopped abruptly, gulping air. “It’s this hilarious eighties movie where these two guys haul their boss’s dead body around—just like this—and convince people he’s still alive so they can finish out their vacation at his beach house.”
That was a comedy? “That’s…dark.”
“I know, right?” Tris said, eyeing the distance they still had to travel to the door. “I seriously don’t think this is going to work. I thought murder would feel less like a Tom & Jerry cartoon and more badass.”
Cade laughed. “You watch a lot of television, huh?”
Tris glowered at him. Cade let him catch his breath, smiling to himself as he noticed the wiggle starting in Tris’s fingers.
Tris was Newton’s Law in the flesh—a body in motion stayed in motion.
And those motions weren’t graceful. Tris bounced, he picked at his nails, he chewed on his lip or the inside of his cheek.
He was chaos wrapped in a hoodie, and it was the most mesmerizing thing Cade had ever seen.
If Tris’s mouth wasn’t moving, the rest of him had to be. His brain ran in overdrive, spitting out random facts and existential dread like sparks off a live wire. He wasn’t just unpredictable, he was alive in a way Cade didn’t think people could be anymore.
“Cade.”
The almost panicked sound of his name dragged Cade’s attention back to him. Tris’s eyes were wide and uncertain, his voice shaking as he asked, “Am I going to jail?”
It hit Cade low and sharp, the real fear behind the sarcasm. He’d heard men beg for their lives before, but this was different. Tris wasn’t scared of dying, he was scared of disappearing. Of being forgotten.
Cade reached out, brushing a thumb over Tris’s wrist to ground him. “Not if I can help it.”
His bleak expression was like a baseball bat to the knees, almost taking Cade off his feet.
He didn’t ever want to be the reason Tris looked like that.
He’d never cared about someone before and didn’t know what to do with the knowledge now.
It lodged under his ribs, sharp and unfamiliar, this aching need to protect something he didn’t even understand yet.
All he knew was that if Tris decided dating a murderous psychopath wasn’t for him, things might get dicey.
Shit.
“I promise I won’t let that happen,” Cade said, meaning it more than he’d ever meant anything in his life.
“Good. I’m too pretty for prison,” Tris said, trying and failing to sound like he was kidding.
“I think you’re just pretty enough,” Cade teased, shifting his weight, his back screaming from the effort. “The faster we dump this guy, the sooner we can stop worrying.”
Tris gave a stiff nod, then lurched into motion once more, groaning.
Cade wasn’t worried. Well, not about getting caught, anyway. The ship was old, there were no security cameras outside of the main exhibit, and there was no connection between Cade, Tris, and the victim. If they could toss the body before reaching shore, they’d be home free.
Literally.
After they’d rubbed off on each other like horny teenagers, they’d scoped out Albertini’s associates, finding them glassy-eyed and tipsy as they lazily explored the exhibit.
Nobody appeared to miss the man, which came as no surprise to Cade.
Men like Rocco were never missed. They were tolerated.
And Cade made his living fixing that problem.
They finally made it out the door to the narrow deck that led to the larger viewing areas on the stern and the bow. Now, they had another problem.
“How are we going to hoist him over the railing?” Tris asked, winded.
Cade peered overboard into the dark, churning waters below, then took the man’s arm from around his shoulders to slump his upper body over the railing. “Gravity and lower body strength.”
Tris relinquished the man’s other arm, and together, they crouched to grab his calves. Tris’s abrupt giggle pierced the otherwise quiet night.
That wasn’t good. Cade shot him a look that was equal parts warning and worry.
The laugh wasn’t amusement—it was shock cracking through the surface.
He supposed he was lucky Tris had kept it together for as long as he had.
Sometimes, Cade forgot that killing was an activity most normal people found abhorrent.
“Hang on just a little longer, puppy. Help me get him over the railing, and once this guy is fish food, you can have the biggest nervous breakdown ever. I promise.”
Tris took a deep breath and let it out. “Yeah. No. I’m good. I’m good. Totally fine. To—tally fine.”
After a minute, Tris nodded and took the man’s leg once more.
It took a surprising amount of time to wriggle the man to the tipping point where physics did its job and Albertini’s body began its descent.
Unfortunately, he didn’t fall in a perfect swan dive as Cade had hoped but instead sort of cartwheeled, his head hitting the railing of the deck below and making a sound like a sledgehammer hitting an overripe melon before continuing into the ocean.
The noise echoed across the empty deck, and Tris froze. Cade’s first instinct wasn’t panic—it was to reach for Tris, to steady him before he shattered. Because as horrifying as the sound was, the look on Tris’s face was worse.
This wouldn’t have been an issue if not for the piercing horror movie scream that cut down Cade’s spine and turned Tris’s already sweaty face ghost white. Frantic voices came from the floor below, growing closer to the railing by the moment.
Shit.
Cade hadn’t thought to check if people were on the deck below. It was a dumb rookie fucking mistake, but he’d been more than a little preoccupied since the moment he’d laid eyes on Tris.
Tris couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away from the turbulent waters.
Cade could hear the excited murmurings of the other passengers.
What happened? Did someone fall? Was it an accident?
Are you sure it was a person? A woman was crying.
Probably the one who’d had the misfortune of meeting Albertini on his way down.
Heads began appearing from the deck below, peering into the black water, but there was nothing to see. Albertini’s body had been sucked beneath the ship almost instantly. With any luck, he was a surprise feast for a dozen sharks right now.
Cade watched in what felt like slow motion as a man below, staring down into the water, began to tilt his head up, as if to look for where the body had come from. Cade slammed his hand into Tris’s chest, shoving them both back against the cold metal siding.
He didn’t think they’d been seen, but they needed to get out of there before—
A siren sounded, and then a voice boomed overhead, demanding that all passengers return to the main exhibit hall immediately.
Well, before that.
“That’s bad, right?” Tris asked, panic leaching into his voice.
“Well, it’s not ideal,” Cade said, snagging Tris’s hand.
He cracked the door open to retrace their steps, then slammed it shut again when he saw three uniformed men heading straight for them.
Instead, he turned left, dragging Tris toward the stern.
There had to be stairs somewhere that led to the main deck or the upper level from earlier.
Anywhere but here. Anywhere but where the body had fallen from.
They made it around the corner just as the door opened behind them, but they weren’t out of the woods yet. Footsteps and shouting came from above. Tris’s eyes were wide, saucer-round, silently begging Cade for a plan.
They were essentially trapped.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Tris seemed to break from his trance, jerking Cade toward a shadowy alcove beneath the staircase, giving them the briefest reprieve. It wouldn’t last. There were dozens of ship personnel now sweeping the decks, all holding mag lights with bulbs bright enough to be seen from space.
Cade’s pulse hammered in his ears. He was calculating, scanning, mapping escape routes, when Tris suddenly shoved him against the wall hard enough to knock the air from his lungs.
Before Cade could even guess his intention, Tris was on his knees, clawing at his belt buckle, lips brushing his abdomen in a way that made his muscles jump and his dick harden fast enough to make him dizzy.
The realization hit an instant later: Tris was trying to sell the illusion. If anyone caught them here, it would look like two lovers sneaking off to fuck, not two suspects dumping a body.
“Jesus Christ,” Cade hissed, his hand tangling in Tris’s hair, half to stop him, half because he couldn’t fucking help himself.