Chapter 148 The Edge of the Abyss
Teresa was captive. The cold sea spray stung Teresa’s face as Daniel Cross violently dragged her up the rusted steel steps of the cargo freighter's gangway.
Her hands were bound tightly behind her back; the coarse rope biting deep into the delicate skin of her wrists, but she refused to stop fighting.
"Let me go!" Teresa screamed against the howling wind, her dark eyes flashing with that fierce, unyielding Quinn pride that Carlos had fallen in love with. "My husband will tear your entire network to pieces for this, Cross! You won't leave this harbor alive!"
"Your husband is currently boxed inside a dark tower auditing a hollow boardroom seat, Mrs. Mason," Daniel Cross sneered, his grip tightening like ice around her arm as he pulled her onto the rain-slicked iron deck.
"He cares about his father’s legacy and his thirty-five percent voting block. He doesn't possess the metrics to find you here."
Teresa’s heart contracted with a sudden, devastating ache at his words.
The memory of the Marital Mitigation file - the proof that Carlos had calculated their beautiful, passionate intimacy specifically to build a corporate shield - flashed through her mind like a knife.
Cross was right. Carlos was a strategist. He played for crowns, not queens.
Suddenly, a massive spotlight cut through the darkness of the pier below, illuminating the entire deck of the freighter in a blinding, white glare.
The heavy iron doors of the shipyard gate violently crumpled inward, and a sleek black executive vehicle roared onto the concrete. The door flung open, and Carlos Mason stepped out into the pouring rain.
He didn't have his legal briefs, he didn't have his compliance detail, and he didn't have his corporate armor.
His suit jacket was gone, his white shirt was soaked through against his broad chest, and his dark eyes were burning with an absolute, unhinged fury that made the mercenaries step back in terror.
Carlos looked up across the rain-slicked distance, his gaze locking onto Teresa’s pale face.
"Cross!" Carlos’s baritone roared across the open water, a terrifying column of pure, protective rage that drowned out the thunder. "Take your hands off my wife, or I swear to God I will sink this ship with your blood inside it!"
Teresa stared down at the broken, furious titan standing on the pier, her breath catching sharply in her throat as she realized the absolute truth: Carlos wasn't fighting for the inheritance anymore. He was fighting for her.