Chapter Forty-Four
Feralyn
I watched the Citation Longitude until it melted into the wispy white clouds high in the bright morning sky.
Silent in his sentry, Saint didn’t comment until I glanced at him.
Then he scanned the airstrip and the untouched land beyond before nodding toward the SUV. “Time to head back.” Keeping an eye on me, he took a step, but when I didn’t follow, he stopped and put his hands in the pockets of his dress pants.
His movements calculated like those of a predator, his golden eyes the color of a tiger’s, his black hair glinting in the sun like onyx, he didn’t look like a saint.
He looked like a mythical creature. “I wish I had my camera.” Saint made me rethink my self-imposed ban on shooting portraits, but Helios had taken my camera after giving the memory card to Ares.
“Better not to have any digital documentation of the island,” Saint casually replied.
That gave me pause. “Helios called it the Bahamian house.” Not the Bahamian island.
“There is a house,” Saint agreed noncommittally.
I glanced down the long asphalt airstrip.
Then I looked all around us. Footprintless white sand beaches, miles and miles of crystal-clear turquoise water, unspoiled bright-green vegetation, and on an outcropping in the distance was the house.
There was also a guesthouse or caretaker’s cottage next to it.
But there wasn’t another soul in sight. “Where are we? Exactly?”
“The Exumas.”
That wasn’t specific, and it was on purpose.
“There are three hundred and sixty-five cays in the Exumas.” The number had stuck with me for obvious reasons when my father had told me about the Bahamas years ago, before he’d gotten taken up with the building boom in Costa Rica.
I wondered what it would be like to step foot on a new island every day for an entire year.
Back then, it’d sounded like an adventure.
Now, as I looked at open waters, no civilization, and miles of beach, it just felt… unsafe.
“You’re on Blue Island.”
I glanced back at Saint. “Did Helios name it that?” This had to be his island.
He hadn’t said. In fact, Helios had never mentioned the island, but I had a feeling.
There was something about him not entering the house to clear it when he’d opened the door.
Helios never did that. And his movements, the way he’d driven directly to and from the house when you couldn’t see anything on that sanded road except the encroaching vegetation, how he’d opened that front door, it all had a certain familiarity.
“No,” Saint replied cryptically.
“It’s… private.”
“Yes. Walk with me.” He gestured toward the Toyota Land Cruiser Prado that Helios had driven less than a half hour ago, but it already felt like eons since he’d left.
Missing Helios horribly, I followed Saint toward the passenger side of the SUV and tried to get more information out of him. “How private is the island?”
Opening the door for me, he didn’t respond.
I got in. “Does anyone else live here?”
Not answering that question either, Saint started to close my door.
Even though I knew the answer, or surmised, I kept pointlessly fishing. “Does anyone else own this island? Or part of it?” I couldn’t begin to imagine what a private island in the Bahamas cost.
Without answering or making eye contact, Saint shut my door. Then he walked around the front of the vehicle as he scanned north and east before looking south and west. Getting behind the wheel, he turned the engine over, and the air-conditioning came on.
It suddenly occurred to me. “Where do you get gas for the car?” Or his helicopter or Saint’s jet?
“There’s a fuel farm on island.”
“Fuel farm.” An isolated, uninhabited island with only a house perched on a hundred-foot elevation of limestone outcropping had a fuel farm.
“Fifteen thousand gallons of gas, sixty-five thousand gallons of diesel,” Saint explained as he turned the vehicle around and drove down the airstrip like he knew everything about this place.
I looked out the window at the incredible vista of turquoise ocean and cerulean skies for a moment before I realized the implication of the latter part of his statement. The diesel fuel wasn’t for the Land Cruiser. “The island runs off generators?” How long could we stay here?
“Backup only. The island has a fully functional infrastructure. Power via underwater cables, water systems, and communications.”
A virtual self-sustained city. And Helios had kept all of it from me. “How long have you known about this place?”
Even though he wore a watch, Saint didn’t glance at it. “Few hours.”
“And yet, you know more than me.”
“It’s my job to know.” He turned onto the dirt road that wasn’t dirt at all but a slightly more beige version of the white sand I’d seen on the beaches.
“So you can play babysitter?”
The former Marine glanced at me with his golden-eyed gaze. “So I can protect you.”
I wondered if people thought my amber eyes looked like a tiger’s. “How long are you on protection detail?”
“For as long as it takes.” He drove up the driveway to the beautiful Caribbean-style house with wraparound decks, crisp white siding, and powder-blue painted trim. But unlike before, when Helios had brought us, Saint pushed a garage door opener that was clipped to his visor.
A hurricane-impact door rolled up, and Saint pulled in, except it wasn’t a normal garage.
After three car lengths of downward-sloping cement, the space evened out to a cavernous underground parking lot.
Two golf carts, two UTVs, a new grey Suburban, an older Jeep, and another Land Cruiser Prado were all neatly parked under fluorescent lighting.
Whoa. “There are a lot of vehicles.” Minus a utilitarian shed next to the hangar, the house, and the small guesthouse or caretaker cottage, the island had looked uninhabited. “Who are all the cars for?”
Saint cut the engine on the Land Cruiser, then pressed the same remote to close the garage door. “The keys are in each vehicle, but until Helios gets back, don’t go anywhere without me.”
It wasn’t what I had asked, but where could I possibly go?
“I think we already covered the only road on the island.” Beyond that, I’d need a boat, jet, or seaplane to get out of here.
The thought alone made me nervous, but the garage that was now sealed off from all daylight made me downright claustrophobic.
“There’re four miles of roadway.” Saint grabbed my go bag that Helios had brought, then opened his door.
I opened mine, and we both got out. “Good to know.” Maybe I could get a decent run in before it got too hot. Then maybe the anxiety that was making my skin crawl and my heart jump around would take a back seat while I pounded the pavement—or sand.
Carrying my bag, Saint opened one of the doors at the rear of the garage. “This way.”
Following him down an interior hallway, I didn’t bother asking or offering to try to carry my own bag. I had enough experience with Helios and Ares—and Saint as well—to know it would be a losing battle. “You’ve only known about this place for a few hours, and you know which way to go?”
“House schematics. Helios shared them.”
We went up a flight of stairs. “And you memorized them?” I wondered what else Helios had shared with him.
Saint opened a door, and we were suddenly in a spectacular open-plan living area with endless views of the famous waters surrounding the Bahamas.
“You’re going to be in the main bedroom on this floor.
” With quick efficiency but without looking like he was rushing, he stepped around a corner, then reappeared seconds later, sans my bag.
I glanced from the very expensive but beach-casual furnishings to the state-of-the-art kitchen, then back toward the glass sliders that opened onto a deck with stairs that led down to an infinity pool.
Everything beyond that was unobstructed views of the brilliantly colored ocean that was so turquoise, it was surreal. The house, the view—they were stunning.
I looked back at Saint. “Where will you be sleeping?”
“I won’t.” Without his steps making any sound, he moved into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and retrieved two bottles of water. Walking back toward me, he held out one of the bottles.
“Thank you.” Taking the water, I glanced at his heavy-looking boots that shouldn’t match his dress pants, but they somehow did.
“Ares walks the same way as you.” I uncapped the bottle.
“Without making sound.” I took a swallow, and the cold water cooled my throat. “Helios does too, but only sometimes.”
Drinking his water, Saint looked out at the ocean. “Great view.”
“I have a feeling we’re each seeing it in a very different way.
” Helios always talked about the “unprotected” strip of ocean in front of the house in Miami.
He’d beefed up the security system several times because of it.
I wondered now if Saint was looking at the miles of open ocean surrounding us and thinking something similar.
Or maybe he was simply enjoying the beauty of the view.
I didn’t know why Saint, out of all the men I’d met who worked with Helios and Ares, was the one I was the most comfortable with.
There was nothing comforting about him. Austere, unapproachable, untalkative, Saint was every bit the trained mercenary.
But there was also something else about him that I couldn’t quite pinpoint.
Except that he was calm in the same way Ares was calm, but Saint was more so.
Or maybe Saint was more reserved with his emotions, which was to say, he showed none.
Silently drinking his water, Saint didn’t comment, and suddenly, I was both overwhelmed and exhausted.
Capping my bottle, feeling a bit like a prisoner, and desperately trying not to think about why I was here, why I was separated from Helios at all, I nodded toward what I hoped was the bedroom I was supposed to sleep in. “I’m going to lie down. Thank you for… being here.”
“You need to eat.”
“I’m fine for now. Maybe later.” I was so thoroughly not fine, but I wasn’t selfish enough to say that when Helios, Ares, and Chaos were going after a terrorist.
“I’ll make dinner, then.”
“You cook?”
Saint glanced at me and smiled with a closed mouth. Then he nodded toward a short hallway where he’d gone earlier with my bag. “Get some rest.”
“All right, but can I text Helios first?”
“If you use the Wi-Fi.” He recited a nine-digit passcode.
“Thank you.” Repeating the numbers in my head, I headed the way he’d indicated and found the bedroom. Then I closed the door, pulled out my cell, and typed in the code.
It didn’t work.
I tried again, but it still didn’t work.
“Shit.” I walked back to the main living area, but Saint wasn’t there. “Hello?”
No response.
I raised my voice. “Saint?”
Still nothing.
I headed back to the bedroom and tried what I thought was the passcode again, but it didn’t take. Then I remembered Helios telling me my cell phone was encrypted. In fact, after the hospital, he’d said to never use a non-encrypted cell again. That I should only use a phone he gave me.
The cell in my hand, like all the ones I’d had over the past eight years, was from him.
So I typed out a text. But then I hesitated at both my choice of wording and not being logged into the Wi-Fi.
I bit my bottom lip. Then I hit Send.
Me: Why didn’t you tell me about your island?
I didn’t know if Helios would directly answer my question.
And it was selfish to harbor any insult or resentment about him not telling me about the island, if it was his, let alone text him about it.
But that was what my mind was grasping at for a distraction.
This island and the secret Helios had kept.
A moment later, my cell lit up with an incoming text alert.
Helios: I was saving it.
So it was his island. Which meant this house, the airstrip, the hangar, all of it was his.
I looked around the bedroom.
King-sized bed, two nightstands, two dressers… and an empty bookshelf. His bedroom at the house in Miami Beach only had one nightstand because he’d removed the second one to make room for a small gun safe. It also didn’t have any bookshelves. But my bedroom did.
Gooseflesh that had nothing to do with the air-conditioning raced across the back of my neck. Hearing his text as if he’d spoken the words to me, I dared to type back.
Me: For?
I waited.
He replied.
Helios: Tell you when I see you.
Taking the text as a promise and a presage that he was coming back to me intact, that this island was more than the Bahamian house, I set the phone on the nightstand.
Then I crawled onto the bed that had the same ocean view as the living room, took my hair out of the bun Ares had twisted it into, and inhaled.
I couldn’t smell Helios.