Chapter Thirty-Four
Isla
I was on my back, floating in the pool when I heard the muffled yell of a man.
Picking my head up out of the water, I heard the voice again, but this time I heard his words.
“Don’t make me fucking come up there,” Helios bellowed.
Was he….
“I know your psychotic, trespassing ass fucking hears me!”
Oh my God. I stood up in the shallow end of the pool. “Helios?” Then I yelled. “Are you yelling at me?” From the floor below?
“Who the fuck else do you think it is? Put your goddamn clothes on, and get your ass down here! NOW.”
“Seriously?” Did he have bionic hearing? “Are you even human?” I got out of the pool and walked to the glass railing surrounding the deck. Leaning over, I tried to figure out where he was, but the overhang extended out too far for me to see the two floors directly below. “Where the hell are you?”
“Not fucking around,” he warned.
“Didn’t think you were, and I’m not the one who’s psychotic.” He was. Unless you thought alpha-to-the-extreme, unhinged SOF operators prone to shooting at anyone was par for the course, then I guess Helios would seem almost normal.
“I’m fucking armed, woman. If I have to come up there, I’m retrieving a goddamn body.”
“You do realize other people can hear you?” As soon as I said it, I became acutely aware of my nakedness as I glanced around. But the way the building was angled, where the penthouse was, only ocean in front of me, no one could see me except for some high-rises behind me.
“Don’t fucking care. Nix is on his way. Get your ass down here!” The muted sound of a slider door being yanked shut with overt force echoed up the side of the glass-and-steel building.
I walked over to the basket of rolled-up towels by the pool and grabbed one. Wrapping the soft, fluffy material around me, I stood for a minute and stared.
In direct contrast to my now-racing heart, the moonlit waves gently undulated to lap at the shore before lazily sliding back out to join the inky sea.
The mere thought of Nix coming had my core clenching and my nipples pebbling as my mind raced.
I was still angry.
And humiliated that he’d left me in the restaurant. Which, I knew, was horrifically selfish when I wasn’t the one he’d left first. But he hadn’t explained who she was, and her beauty alone had been intimidating. But her poise? Her aloofness? She matched Nix.
She knew his real name.
The worst part, though, was me.
I should’ve left the restaurant the moment I saw them together. And I definitely shouldn’t have let her leave. I should’ve excused myself, but I didn’t.
I never thought I was that kind of woman.
I’d never gone after a taken man. Not that I could imagine Nix being taken by any woman. He took. God, did the man take. In ways that had me rolling onto the tips of my toes with unspent anticipation. But that didn’t excuse my behavior.
I should’ve left.
Instead, I was sailplaning above this terrace with a currant of titillating ardor.
Oh God, what was I doing?
What was I doing here?
Wrapping the towel tighter, I picked up my dress, draped it over one shoulder, then grabbed my shoes. With one last look at the perfect nighttime ocean landscape, I headed to the elevator. A moment later, I stepped inside and reached for the buttons, but then it happened.
Crippling indecision.
My finger hovered, the weight of the nothing dress became a scarlet A, and the strappy heels in my other hand suddenly felt like a noose. Staring at impossible options where no choice was right, I hesitated.
Going one floor down to the second floor of the penthouse suite where the bedrooms were was a statement. And a commitment.
Two floors down, presumably to where Helios was, where Nix could be, was defeat.
The lobby, without my backpack, was only a temporary escape. And a potential landmine if I ran into a green-eyed SEAL before he headed up here. It also meant leaving behind the cash Wolf had given me, which might or might not still be in the two-bedroom suite’s safe.
Damn it.
Inhaling, I embraced the suck. Then I pressed the call button for the floor directly below. A shower would give me time to think, and chlorine-free skin would make me feel better about slipping the expensive dress back on.
The doors whooshed shut, and too few seconds later, they were sliding open to an angry Helios.
Arms crossed, stance purposeful, jaw rigid, the former not-SEAL glared at me. He’d also moved his 9mm to his front waistband, where it hitched up the hem of his T-shirt just enough to not get caught if he drew, and more than enough to make a statement.
“Stalking me now?” How did he know I would come to this floor?
“Why the fuck aren’t you dressed?”
Suddenly, I got it. A smile slowly leaked out as I pasted on more attitude than I’d ever had. “What’s wrong, Marine? Afraid Nix will shoot you if he sees you looking at me?”
“One. Not a fucking Marine. Two. I draw faster than Nix. Three. Why the fuck would that sniper care if I shot you?”
I had to fight to hold the smile as my partial dinner soured in my stomach. “So you did stick around long enough to hear me.” I thought I’d dodged my dance with fire. “Did you get a nice view?” I winked, but my skin was suddenly crawling. “How long did you watch me?”
“Who the fuck is the sniper?”
“You know, for a Ranger, I’d would’ve thought you’d be more resourceful. Especially with all the fancy radar and electronic equipment you had on that big boat.”
“Not a Ranger, not my fucking boat, and not a hacker.” The beast of a man leaned threateningly toward me.
“You want to fuck with Nix? Good goddamn luck. There won’t be shit left to mop up when he’s through.
But you fuck with me? You lie one more goddamn time about that sniper?
I’ll paint this fucking suite with your blood while I keep you alive long enough to witness it. ”
“Helios.”
Startled by the sudden appearance of Nix and the cold, locked expression on his face as he stepped behind Helios, I jumped.
Helios didn’t. Glaring at me, predator still, he answered Nix. “What?”
“Enough.”
“Ask her again,” Helios taunted. “One more time.” He lowered his voice and spoke lethally slow. “Ask her who the fuck the sniper is.”
As menacing as Helios’s glare was angry, Nix’s icy gaze was detached as he stared at me. “I don’t need to.”
“Cypher?” Helios asked cryptically.
“No.”
“You?”
“Yes.”
Helios stood back up to his full height and aimed a demand at Nix as he kept his glare on me. “Name.”
Nix countered with an order. “Leave.”
Helios palmed his Glock.
I sucked in an involuntary breath.
A second later, the 9mm was repositioned to his back waistband and he was facing Nix.
“Almost ten G’s cash, ninety-five hundred in the bug-out bag, four hundred in the purse, one suite card key, a burner with a three-call history, and the same shit in the pack as last time.
” Abruptly turning, he moved past me and hit the wall panel next to the elevator.
“Don’t fucking call me to babysit again.
” The doors slid open, he stepped inside, then him and his anger were gone.
I looked back at a SEAL. Channeling every reason why I was here, I crossed my arms and aimed my damnation. “You kidnapped me. Again.”
“Where did the money come from, Isla?”
Shit.
He silently moved.
His dress shoes backfilling where Helios’s boots had been, his cologne all dry vetiver and power, his suit so expensive, the material draped like water, his eyes full of raw fury, I realized my mistake.
Helios wasn’t the predator.
Nix was. Him and his voice as his tone became a plunging knife of condemnation. “I asked you a question.”
“I….” Suddenly, I couldn’t swallow down any of my mistruths or diversions.
His hand wrapped around my throat. “Who the fuck gave you the money, intruse?”