Chapter 11
KAI
The last of the charter guests drifted down the dock, sunburned and smiling, cooler bags swinging at their sides.
Their laughter carried faintly, slurred with exhaustion and beer, drifting into the salt-heavy breeze.
The scent of sunscreen and fresh fillets hung thick in the humid air, a cocktail of Florida summer that usually brought relief at the end of a long day’s work. Not today.
I rubbed a hand over my face, dragging the sweat with it.
My nerves were shot. Three nights in Jasmine’s bed should have left me loose and satisfied, but the truth was rawer than that.
I hadn’t slept much at all. Every time I closed my eyes, the memory of that pistol pressed to her temple replayed like a bad movie.
She woke choking on nightmares, and I woke beside her with my fists clenched, unable to do a damn thing except hold her until her breathing eased.
It was a new hell. The guilt weighed heavier than the fear ever could. Knowing she’d been dragged into this mess because of me. Every time her body jolted in the dark, it carved the reminder deeper: I’d put her in the line of fire.
The sound of whistling snapped me out of the loop of dread. Dad strolled down the dock with a spring in his step.
“What are you hangin’ around for?” He called from thirty feet away. “Don’t you have something better to do?”
“Are you trying to run me off?” I called back, painting on a smile.
“Naw. I was just coming to say hi, and bye. I’m heading out to dinner with Corinne’s parents and the kids.” I noticed he was wearing a nice shirt. It was still a fishing shirt, but a high end and never-been-fished-in one. And khaki slacks. Spiffy for my dad.
“That sounds awesome. Tell them I said hi.” I’d met them once, at the wedding.
“Don’t hang around here too late. You ought to be out doing something too.” I couldn’t tell him that I was doing something… waiting for Reef to see if his efforts to find info on the missing coke had been more fruitful than mine.
“Yeah, yeah,” I agreed, half-hearted. He’d told me I needed to get a life more than once. “Have fun, Dad. I won’t stay late.” That seemed to satisfy him, and he left with a smile. I could finally let mine go.
The sun was getting low and there was still no sign of Reef. I grabbed a deck brush and set in scrubbing hatches that were already clean. Anything to keep my hands busy while my brain spun.
When Reef’s flats boat finally eased into the canal, just before sunset, I felt a wave of relief. He was the one person I could talk about it with, and we hadn’t had the chance to talk the past two days.
He offloaded his charter guests, smiling and shaking hands like nothing in the world was wrong. Only when his mate disappeared up the dock did his expression harden, shoulders tight as he joined me.
“Any luck?” I asked, scrubbing at a spot on the boat deck that didn’t exist.
“No. You?” His shake of the head was sharp, clipped. “All I’ve managed is making people suspect I’m trying to deal coke. This is stupid, dude. You need to tell Waylan. He’ll get someone to look out for you at least.”
“I don’t want a twenty-four-seven security detail any more than I want to find their cocaine. And if the smugglers were tipped off, they’d have my head.”
Reef sprayed the deck around my feet, water splashing up on my shins. “Well, have you had any luck?”
“No, same.” I scrubbed harder, more to burn off adrenaline than clean anything.
“We’re not going to find their drugs, Kai.
You realize that, right?” Reef’s voice dropped to a whisper-shout, frustration bleeding through.
His eyes cut toward the dock, scanning for eavesdroppers even though no one was close enough to hear.
“There’s no way. Best case, I find someone who can supply.
But we don’t know where they got it. We don’t know shit.
And what if they act on it? Unleashing smugglers on our small-town dealers could end up in a bloodbath.
” His jaw flexed, the spray nozzle trembling in his hand. “It’s fucked up.”
My pulse thudded in my throat. He wasn’t wrong. Every word painted the nightmare I’d been shoving down—my family getting roped into this terror.
“You got that right,” I grumbled, scrubbing until sweat stung my eyes. “I’m just buying time, trying to come up with a plan. We might be able to throw them off with a false lead.”
Annoyance and fear laced his retort. “You want that pistol pointed at your head again?”
That was when Spence’s voice cut in, sharp as a knife. “A reporter from the Miami Herald called,” he said, eyes trained on me. “They want to interview you tomorrow for an exposé about recent drug busts. They’ll be here when you get back from your charter.”
My brush stilled. I shot Reef a worried look as a lump lodged in my throat. This was not good.
“Fuck that,” I said, shaking my head. “No way.”
Spence’s brows shot up at my bluntness. “It’ll only take a few minutes, and it’s good for business. Free advertising, dude. Suck it up.”
“We don’t need that kind of publicity,” I said, avoiding his gaze as I returned my focus to the nonexistent spot on the deck. “Besides, I’ve already told the story. It’s all in the Coast Guard reports. Cancel the interview. I’m not talking to them.”
Spence followed me down the dock, circling around the piling to block me at the stern. “It’s the front page of the Herald. And you’re the hero. Just tell the story and be the fucking hero.”
My heart pounded. “Spence, you’ve got to trust me. It’s complicated. I don’t want my name in the press right now.”
He looked at me like I’d lost my goddamn mind, then swung his gaze to Reef, eyes narrowing. “You know what’s going on, don’t you?”
Reef’s poker face was better than mine, but Spence knew us both too well. His patience was thinning. “Damn it! What the hell is up with you two?”
I met Reef’s eyes. His shoulders lifted in a helpless shrug, his wide eyes begging me to spill.
Spence was the one we usually leaned on for advice, especially in the past year since Mom died and Dad checked out. We were in over our heads. We needed him.
“You can’t tell anyone else if I tell you this. I mean anyone.”
“It’s fucked up I even have to answer that,” Spence snapped. “Of course you can count on me. Now tell me what the fuck is going on.”
“It’s just… critical,” I said, pacing the stern. “This is our secret.”
“I got it, Kai. Spit it out.”
I drew a breath and said it straight. “According to the intended recipients, the square grouper I found should have contained twice as much coke as what was reported. And they think I took it. Or, thought. I managed to convince them I don’t have it.
But they expect us to help find it. They said they’d use the Glocks if we went to the cops. ”
Spence blinked at me, like I’d just spoken a foreign language. “Who exactly is they?”
“I didn’t get a card. I did get a good look at their nine millimeters, though. They were convincing.”
His eyes widened, color draining from his face. “Armed men showed up to shake you down?”
“More like broke into his house, waited in the dark, then tied them up at gunpoint,” Reef said flatly.
I cringed at the blunt reminder. The memory of Jasmine’s wide, terrified eyes slammed into me fresh. If it had just been me, maybe I could have stomached it. But knowing she’d been dragged into the nightmare because of me? That guilt cut deeper than any threat those men had made.
Spence’s hands flew into the air. “What the fuck? When?”
“A few days ago,” I said as evenly as I could. Three to be exact. And exactly the number of days they said they’d give me to find their drugs.
“A few days?” Spence’s voice echoed across the dock. “Why are you just telling me now?”
“The guys with the guns were pretty explicit about being discreet,” I said, holding his stare. “They said they’d come after us if we told anyone.”
“You were there?” Spence turned on Reef.
“No, no. Kai had a date… Jasmine. She was pretty shook up when I showed up the next morning,” Reef said. “Otherwise they probably wouldn’t have told me either.”
“Who the hell is Jasmine?” Spence asked, trying to make sense of it all.
“New bartender at the Whistle,” I said quietly. Even hearing her name worsened the guilt of dragging her into this.
Spence nodded, rubbing his forehead like this was giving him a headache. “Any word from them since?”
“No, but they said they’d give me three days. Today is the third day so…”
Spence paced like a caged animal. “We need to call Waylan.”
“Did you miss the part where I said they threatened to shoot us if we went to the cops?”
“Yeah, but he might be able to open an investigation on the down low,” Spence offered.
“Right.” I scoffed. “Nothing stays quiet in Smugglers Cove. Would you bet your life on it?”
He scowled, but after a beat agreed. “Good point. We can’t tell Waylan. Which means we can’t tell Coulter either.”
“Yeah, if either Waylan or Faith catches wind of this, they’ll have a field day,” Reef added.
“But they might be able to do something covert. Just keep an eye on you,” Spence reconsidered. He was the level-headed one, and normally I’d agree with his assessment. But he wasn’t the one with a gun pointed at him three nights ago. He hadn’t heard the threat that was clear as day.
“Nah, fuck that. That’s exactly why we can’t tell them. A security detail would paint a target on my back.”
Spence let out a heavy breath. “Alright, then what’s your plan?”
“Look for the coke while I figure out a better one.”
“That’s fucking stupid. You’ve got smugglers chasing you. They’ve been in your house. We all assume they’re watching you, agreed?” He waited until both Reef and I nodded. “This isn’t going to just go away.”
“Do you have a better idea?” My tone was sharper than I meant, but if he had one, I wanted it.
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Not really. Let’s just play along, keep looking for the bale.
Maybe we can dig something up on them in the meantime.
But I agree—we can’t say anything to Dad or Coulter.
I guess we keep it between us for now.” His brow creased even deeper with worry. “What about the girl?”
“I’m keeping an eye on her.” Her little cottage had become our refuge, among her sketchbooks and easels, and the thought of it gave me a brief reprieve from the stress of rehashing the situation. “She’s asking around too, discreetly.”
“It might be safer to keep your distance. Leave her out of this.”
I didn’t answer. How could I tell him she was too afraid to sleep alone? That she woke with nightmares because of me? That every time she jolted awake in the dark, I was reminded it was my choices that put her there?
My jaw clenched, the truth loud in my chest but unsaid: I had to protect her.