Chapter 36
The sea wanted him dead. Might succeed too.
Ryder braced against the boat’s console, one hand white-knuckled on the rail, the other clamped around the binoculars.
Black water boiled around the Vega’s failing legs, and spray slashed sideways through the spotlights, turning the air into a misty wall.
The deck pitched hard to port, snapped back.
His boots slid on wet fiberglass before he caught himself.
He’d fought worse.
But not with Ivy out there.
Wyatt battled the helm, shoulders hunched and jaw set. The engine whined against the current’s force, a high, desperate sound that meant they were pushing the limits. Six-foot swells slammed the side every eight seconds. Ryder had counted.
“That’s as close as I can hold without risking the hull,” Wyatt shouted.
Ryder nodded his agreement.
“She’s listing fifteen, maybe twenty degrees. Any closer and the suction’ll take us with her.” Tendons strained in Wyatt’s neck.
Ryder didn’t answer. He swept the binoculars across the rig’s upper deck and helipad, searching for any sign of movement, any hint that someone was still alive up there.
The structure listed hard to starboard, and over the rage of the storm, metal screamed from somewhere deep within.
The sound cut through the wind like a knife dragged across bone.
The radio crackled with a broken transmission. “—platform integrity compromised…all personnel accounted for—”
Ryder’s blood went hot. He reached over and killed the volume. Accounted for. Like she was a line item, not a heartbeat.
“They left her. And Jack.”
“Copy that.” Wyatt shot him a look.
The rig groaned again, longer this time, a dying animal making its last sounds. His gut told him Ivy was still alive. Had to be. Because the alternative wasn’t something he could let himself think about and still function. “Keep her steady, Wyatt.”
The boat surfed another swell. Visibility had dropped to fifty meters at best. Just steel and water and death in the space between them.
Then the sky tore open.
A red flare streaked upward through the sleet, so bright it burned afterimages into his vision and turned the rig’s skeletal frame blood-orange. Every shadow went black.
For a second, time broke—the world reduced to that single point of light.
“Contact!” Ryder pointed. “Port side—helipad!”
Two figures. One standing. One collapsed beside guttering flares.
“Jesus Christ,” Wyatt hollered. “They’re still up there.”
Ryder’s chest unlocked. Air rushed into his lungs as he staggered back a pace. “She’s alive.” He turned. “Get us in.”
A second flare punched into the sky, defiant.
She’s fighting. Of course she is.
Wyatt jammed the throttle forward, and the boat surged toward the Vega. The bow lifted as they hit the next swell, and a wave smashed against the windscreen hard enough to crack it.
Wyatt flinched. “Fuck.”
The boat shuddered—a deep metallic grind beneath the hull. The pitch changed, and the bow slewed sideways as a hungry undertow grabbed them.
Alarms screamed.
“Prop foul!” Wyatt barked. “We’ve lost steerage!”
The rig loomed closer, debris raining off the listing deck. If they couldn’t control their approach, the collapsing structure would drag them under.
“How bad?”
“Feels like cable or line in the screw.” Wyatt yelled over his shoulder, legs wide. “Starboard side’s chewing water.”
Ryder’s brain snapped into triage mode. Distance, current, risk. None of it mattered. Ivy was up there. “I’ll clear it.”
He clipped the safety line to his harness, checked the tension once, and shoved his knife into his belt.
Wyatt’s voice came from behind him. “Negative, don’t you fucking—”
“No time. Keep tension on the line.”
Move. Cut. Get her back.
He went over.
The sea sucked him down in a suffocating embrace of industrial cold that knocked the air from his lungs. The shock clamped his chest, every nerve firing wildly.
Exhale, kick down, locate the obstruction.
His headlamp cut a tunnel through black water seething with oil and debris. Pressure crushed his skull, even his teeth ached. He worked by feel, hand over hand to the prop.
Cable and netting snarled the propeller, snagged tight so the blades couldn’t turn. He sawed at the mess with his knife, feeling for tension in the strands.
His lungs convulsed, his heartbeat thrumming in his ears, too loud and fast. The knife slipped, slicing across his knuckles, blood mixing with the oil.
One more cut. Come on, come on—
The cable released. The prop jerked free, spinning.
Ryder pushed for the surface, lungs on fire, spitting filthy water, his eyes scalded by oil.
Wyatt’s hand locked on his harness and hauled him aboard. Ryder hit the deck, gagging black water, hands shaking so hard he could barely unclip.
Behind him, the engine caught—roaring clean and strong.
Wyatt gripped his shoulder hard enough to grind bone. “You’re insane.”
“It’s clear.” Ryder spat filthy water on the deck. “Keep her nose into the wind.”
Wyatt stared at him as if trying to decide if he’d lost his mind, then turned back to the helm, checking his watch. “We’ve got half an hour, tops.”
“So, we don’t waste a minute.” Ryder scanned the distance. The lowest gantry—forty meters. One chance. “We need to get close enough so I can jump.”
Wyatt shook his head. “You’re out of your mind.”
Ryder joined him at the helm. “I have to try.”
“Ryder, it’s a suicide mission—”
“I have to try.”
Wyatt’s mouth thinned, and he nodded. “I can take her in hard and fast. The gantry’s close enough to jump if the timing’s right. Close enough to die if it isn’t.”
“Do it.”
Wyatt palmed the throttle. “No changing your mind?”
Ryder closed his hand over his brother’s and pushed the throttle forward toward the sinking rig.
Debris rained into the water around them as they closed the gap—chunks of railing and sections of deck plating that hit the surface like gunshots. Scaffolding tore loose and spun down into the dark. The tilt worsened with every second, the Vega screaming as the sea tore it apart.
Ryder unclipped his safety line, the weight of his trauma pack against his hip. He wouldn’t need the line.
Not for this.
He had a daughter waiting. A woman he couldn’t stop thinking about trapped above.
He couldn’t choose between them.
So he didn’t.
He breathed out, finding his center.
Instead, he chose to fight.
Calm, he timed the swells. Counted—one, two—
The wave lifted the boat as Wyatt closed the distance at speed, six feet, eight.
For a beat he was level with the gantry.
Ryder jumped.
Air.
Cold.
Impact.
Metal slammed up to meet him. Pain detonated through his shoulder, blue and blinding. He’d bitten his tongue—tasted copper. But he had the rail. He had it.
Teeth gritted, he looked back.
Wyatt was gone—the boat lost in the spray. No way back now.
Just him and the storm and the dying rig and sixty feet of ladder between him and the helipad.
Ivy was up there.
Nothing else mattered.