Chapter 16
KAWEHI
She saw him look over her shoulder and saw the smile on his lips.
She knew that Kaneohe Bay was behind her.
It was a not so inside joke in her family that she was useless at the beach not because of her aversion to glaring sunlight, but because she could barely swim. It had taken her three times to pass the swim test in high school so she could graduate. A fact that Nick knew.
Given his dark look, she worried that he might be remembering that fact at that exact moment.
She wasn't sure what she'd be able to do to defend herself if he decided to get violent with her.
And that thought brought up another one.
If she was dead, he wouldn't have to worry about her signing anything.
He'd be free to do anything he wanted and not have to worry about her.
"Look," she swallowed and tried to make her voice as calm as possible, "I don't want to argue. If you want to talk. Let's talk. I can't read anything in the dark. We can talk here and then go back to my house and look at the documents you brought."
"You mean our house." He pulled her in close and smiled. The moonlight made his expression look sinister. "Remember, Hawaii is a community property state. What's yours is mine, too."
She tried to smile to ease the mood. "Right. Our house."
She knew she couldn't avoid this conversation, but she had to figure out a way to get some help because the more Nick talked, the more she thought she might be in some real trouble.
"Can we just sit down somewhere and talk?"
He shrugged. "Fine by me."
"Can you..." she looked down at their hands, "can you let my hand go for a while."
His jaw tightened and she recognized the tension building up again.
"If we're going to sign something, I'm going to need some blood flowing in that hand to be able to write."
She watched his expression change as he thought through her words. Kawehi knew that if she got her hand free, she might be able to make a call on her phone if she was lucky and had a signal. It wouldn't be a call that she could talk on, but someone might be able to hear her.
She'd just have to use the speed dial and hope.
He lifted their hands between them and turned so pain shot through her wrist before kissing the back of her hand. "Don't fuck with me, Kawehi. I'm not in the mood for any bullshit."
Well good, she thought, neither am I.
She nodded and he let go of her hand.
MAILE
She pushed through the crowd and tried to shout out her apologies as she moved, but she couldn't exactly care whose toes she was stepping on. She'd dropped her purchases when she saw Kawehi walking down the hallway and she'd seen a man in uniform with her, but instead of looking like Dom or any of his friends, she knew that tight-legged stride anywhere.
Nick.
Nick was back and he was taking Kawehi out of the hangar to God knows where.
That's when she started pushing through the crowd. She had to find Dom or any of the guys. They'd know how to help her get Kawehi away from her piece of shit husband.
"Hey! The fuck! Watch it!"
"Sorry," she pushed on, "you can get mad at me later! Got to get through!"
When she took in her first in drawn gasp of fresh air, she wanted to cry, but a second later she was hauled up against a hard, muscular body.
"What the hell are you doing?"
She'd know that angry growl anywhere. Axl.
"Dom. I need to talk to Dom!"
Axl reacted like she'd slapped him. "Why him?"
Maile glared at the man who made her stupid hot even at the worst possible time. "Because my cousin's husband is back. He dragged her out of the hangar!"
"Well fuck!" Axl wrapped his arm around her and moved so fast that she was pretty sure her feet didn't even touch the ground. "Pallas!"
They passed by people in uniform, families, couples, and big pieces of equipment, only to come to a quick stop at the backside of some kind of truck.
"Pallas!"
Dom looked up from a group that he was talking to, but as soon as he saw her standing there, he rushed over.
"Maile? What's going on?"
She opened her mouth to speak and felt hot tears roll down her cheeks.
She lifted the hand she had her phone in and dashed the back of it across her eyes. "Nick took Kawehi out the back door of the hangar, I-"
Maile was almost bowled over as Dom moved past her.
Axl was quick enough to grab his arm and drag him to a stop. "Hey!"
Dom turned around, his expression full of fury.
Axl was the first to speak. "Slow down. Think."
Buck and Riptide were suddenly there. Neither asked questions, just listened in.
"He's got her but think about it. He took her out the back door of the hangar, right?" Axl looked at her.
She nodded. "It looked like he was pushing her in front of him."
Buck and Riptide shared looks before Riptide weighed in. "Out that back door is just the air strip and the bay. We can box them in."
Dom nodded. "I don't want him to think there's no way out. I don't want to spook him."
Buck agreed. "He might panic."
Maile stiffened with fury. "He knows she doesn't swim."
Axl looked down at her. "Okay?"
"You guys are a bunch of single men." Maile poked a finger in his chest. "Hawaii is a community property state. If she dies-"
Axl had to hold Dom back. "Hold on. We can do this."
When Axl turned to her, she knew it wasn't going to be good. "Does he know how much you hate him?"
"Dom? I don't-"
"Nick! Does he know how much you hate him?"
"He knows."
"You need to stay back."
She opened her mouth to tell Axl to shut up, but it killed her to realize that it made sense. "Fine. I'm not going to stay here, but I'll stay out of sight."
Dom looked at her and nodded. "Thank you."
Buck put his hand on her back. "Stay with me."
She moved with him as Dom, Axl, and Riptide moved quickly ahead of them, walking and talking quietly amongst themselves.
Maile looked up at Buck, taking comfort in his reassuring presence. He was a good guy, sweet and gentle even though she knew that he could kill someone as easily as the other guys. Buck was a little older than the others, but that only added to his appeal.
"Thank you," she murmured to him. "Mahalo, Buck. I'm glad you're here with me."
He smiled at her, and she felt even more comforted. "We'll take care of your cousin, Maile. Don't worry. We'll figure it out."
She smiled, a little of her anger peeking back through. "I hope you leave me part of him to kick, like his balls."
Buck winced at her words. "Yikes. You're dangerous."
She nodded, moving as quickly as she could. "She's my cousin, but she's also my best friend, Buck. I need her to be okay."
KAWEHI
He didn't let her sit down, which gave her hope for a moment, thinking that they'd be at least visible to other people if they looked in their direction. But then she realized that he was moving her closer and closer to the water.
"What's in the paper?"
"The paper?" He shook his head, a little confused. "Oh. The paper I needed you to sign?"
Needed.
She might not be a lawyer or a writer, but she knew from her eighth-grade English teacher's pointed comments that words make a difference. He said it in past tense. He didn't need her to sign it anymore.
Kawehi was trying to keep calm and not let him know that he might have tipped his hand. She just knew that she couldn't let herself think that they were going to go anywhere else.
She swore she could feel the water behind her, looming in her mind.
"I think if you told me what was on it, I could just sign it and you can get on a plane tonight and be back home in Florida by morning. Everything done and taken care of and be with your wife."
Kawehi heard her voice shaking. "That feels weird, you know. Talking about someone else as your wife."
He scoffed at her words. "Miss me?" He smiled at her.
Her instinct was to bite back at him with her words, but she was between a rock and a hard place. "I miss what we used to have, Nick. I've never felt that loved before."
"Well it has to go both ways, baby."
"I loved you!" She drew back, covering her mouth with one hand, hoping that he wouldn't see her other hand pushing into her pocket. "I loved you, Nick! What are you saying?"
"You were always at work. I wanted to go away for a weekend, and you'd say you had to work."
"Of course I did."
He shook his head. "You could have gotten someone to work for you. You own the place; you don't have to work like a servant."
"A servant? My family owns it, Nick! We all put in the work to make it a success. That's how a family business runs!"
"You've got a bunch of high school kids working tonight. Another worker behind the counter. You could-"
"We have high school kids because they need work experience. They work for us and go off to school. They're friends come to work after them and the other worker? Cyma is working at a bar down the street. She's helping out tonight so Maile and I could go out together and have some fun."
"Baby-"
"No!" She gave him a shove back, her anger overriding her caution. "You never wanted to understand what it's like for me. You wanted to go away for a weekend and told me on a Thursday. I didn't have time to get coverage and plane tickets were expensive."
"You own a-"
"We don't exactly rake in money, Nick. Until the Marines started to come in for food and bowling, we were struggling to come up with the money for the property tax bill. Thanks to the guys who've been coming in, we have a full house a couple nights a week and make some good money, but it wasn't like that when we were together. Do you get it, Nick?"
"I get it." He puffed out his chest and glared at her.
It was hard to remember thinking he was handsome before.
Seeing what was under it all made him look really ugly.
"Okay, so you want money from me? I don't have any."
"But you were able to buy the house without me on it for credit."
"You mean I was able to buy it even though you had bad credit. I did that because I'd saved a bunch of money. I had a scholarship at UH. I didn't go beyond my bachelor’s in hospitality management and went to work. I don't do much more than work. Something you apparently thought was me withholding love from you. I loved you, Nick. Now, I'm seeing that I didn't even know who I was in love with, but I don't think you ever tried to get to know me.
"You made a lot of assumptions about why I did things instead of asking and then one day, you walked away. What did I do to deserve that?"
The question flew out before she could think better of it.
She certainly didn't expect an answer.
But he certainly gave her one.
"You were boring. And I got tired of you."
Tired of you.
"I came to paradise and thought I'd found the perfect woman. I gave you all the love I had and then there just wasn't anything left, so when they told me they were moving me to the East Coast, I packed my bag like a deployment and walked out of the house."
"A house you want now."
He shrugged. "A house I deserve for all the time and energy I put into you."
She shook her head.
"This wasn't a... a transaction," she told him. "It was a relationship."
"Marriage," he shot back, "is a contract and you... weren't worth it."
If he'd punched her in the face, it wouldn't have hurt as much as the way his words cut into her.
"And now, thanks to that stunt you pulled with the process servers, I'm in some fucking hot water with my wife and her father."
Kawehi stood there taking hit after hit unable to react anymore.
She heard a hushed sound, but it didn't draw her attention.
"So I think you owe me, Kawehi. And I don't think we need to worry about talking you into signing the document that Charmaine's daddy had me bring to Hawaii."
Kawehi nodded, almost numb as if she'd been standing for hours and hours.
"Why don't you take a step back?"
His words didn't make sense.
Kawehi looked up at him and her jaw dropped.
That soft sound she'd heard was his gun clearing his holster.
"How?"
PALLAS
Pallas felt his breath catch in his throat when he saw Nick pull out his gun and aim it at Kawehi.
Nick was focused on her and wasn't paying attention to his surroundings. That could mean a number of things.
He might not be interested in actually using it on her, that was what Pallas was hoping it meant.
But that didn't make things foolproof.
Just because he didn’t want to use it, didn't mean that he wouldn't.
It was just putting things slightly in their favor.
Pallas knew that he could hold his own against Nick. Anyone on his team could take him on without a worry, even with a gun in his hand, as long as they got the drop on him, he'd bet money on any of his team taking the man to the ground.
Kawehi and Maile were the people he was worried about.
They were innocents. His team was trained for this.
Nick? Well, he didn't worry about what happened to him. Nick couldn't even be called a man in any real sense of the word.
Leaving his wife. Marrying another woman.
And now, coming back to Hawaii and drawing a gun on Kawehi?
Pallas would be more than happy to stop him from hurting anyone ever again.
"Are you actually going to use that?"
He hated hearing the fear in Kawehi's voice.
She was being beyond strong by keeping her voice level and her gaze fixed on Nick. Pallas just needed her to remain calm for a little while longer.
"I don't think I need to if you just follow my instructions." He waved the gun at her earning a glare from Pallas. "Start walking."
Kawehi took one step back and stumbled over what was uneven ground behind her.
Pallas kept silent, biting into his cheek.
"Where... I mean how did you get a gun into the festival?"
Pallas knew, but he was proud of her for keeping Nick distracted and talking.
Even though she didn't know that he was there, Pallas knew she was doing her best. He couldn't love her more than he did at that moment.
Nick pointed his free hand at his uniform. "I used to work security for these events. I know what to say and where to go. So they just thought I was on duty. It pays to blend in. It helped me get on base and I can carry around a weapon without anyone looking at me twice."
"Okay, but are you really going to use it?"
Her voice was tight and thin. Shaking a little.
He couldn't wait to hold her when this was over.
"I don't think I need to," Nick took a step closer to her and Kawehi stepped back reflexively, stumbling again, "unless you make me."
He advanced another step, and she backed up again, this time her foot plunking down into the water of Kaneohe Bay.
She yelped and then clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle the sound.
If he wasn't already there, Pallas would have been listening for a sound like that, but he knew what Nick's reaction would be to the noise.
"Shut up." He hissed the words through what sounded like clenched teeth. "Just walk."
She took another step back and Pallas saw movement out of the corner of his eye, even in the dark.
Buck was holding Maile against his side with one hand over her mouth to keep her quiet.
Any sound now could prove to be disastrous.
The other movement he saw was Riptide.
Pallas had never been as grateful to have a squid on his team as he was at that moment.
Riptide faded into the shadows and Pallas put his attention back on Kawehi. He had to be ready to move in when she needed him.
KAWEHI
It didn't take long for her to feel the water of the bay touching her knees.
It wasn't cold in temperature, but the emotions she was feeling certainly were.
Nick said he loved her and that might be in the past, but she couldn't imagine how he wanted her dead. That's what he wanted. He knew that she couldn't really swim and if he got her out far enough into the bay, that the ground was further below the water than her height, she could only last a little while before she'd drop down below the surface.
"Come on," he lifted his chin at her, pointing at the area behind her, "keep going."
"Please, Nick. Don't-" She gasped as her foot slid along the ground. "Don't do this. I'll sign the paper. I'll give you the house. Please."
"Right. Like I can trust you to let this go."
"You can." She reached her hands out to him. "I don't care about anything else. I just want to live."
"Live, right." She heard the hard edge of his voice. "You work every damn day. What kind of life is that?"
"It's a life that makes me happy, Nick. I know you never understood it, but I'm happy."
"It's this new guy, right?"
She slipped half a step back as he advanced closer to her. "Being happy? Yeah..." She wasn't going to lie. "He makes me happy, and we don't get to spend as much time together as I wish we could, but the time we have together makes me happy. We can both be happy, Nick. You can have the house and walk... walk away."
He wasn't stopping. He just kept walking toward her, that gun pointed at her chest.
She knew that if she tried to make a run for it, he could shoot her or push her into the water. With the water of the bay up to the middle of her thighs, she'd be slow, and she'd stumble.
He could push her under, and she'd be done.
If he used the gun, she'd fall back into the water anyway.
For the first time in a long, long time, she wished that she'd learned how to swim. Or at least do more than doggy paddle. "Nick. I'll sign. I won't complain or say anything to anyone, even my family."
He scoffed at the idea as he stepped up to the water's edge, his gun pointed down at her, square at the center of her chest. "Your cousin would badger it out of you." He laughed, bringing the back of his free hand to his mouth to stifle the sound. "That bitch can talk you into anything. I know she could."
Kawehi felt tears fill her eyes.
God... what would Maile think when they found her body in the bay?
"I wouldn't tell her, Nick. I promise. Please."
"Hurry up, Kawehi. I just need you to get a little deeper into the water so I can get out of here. The last thing I need is for someone to see me here at the base."
She looked up at him, ready to say no just so she could have a chance of surviving this.
But he must have read her intent.
She heard the distinctive sound of the hammer clicking back on his pistol.
Kawehi might not know how to use a gun, but she knew the sound of it.
She knew what came after that noise.
All it would take was him pulling the trigger and she'd be shot and bleeding in the water.
"Move." He took a step into the water and looked down his arm and the barrel of the weapon. "Do it, Kawehi. It'll be better this way than bleeding out. Remember why you never learned how to swim?"
He said the words to put fear into her.
Oh, she was already afraid and shaking, but she'd confessed her childhood fear to him one night when he insisted on watching JAWS while she was trying to get to sleep one night.
She'd told him about her one and only camping experience with the Girl Scouts as a Brownie. Their volunteer swim teacher had drilled into the girls the importance of not being in the water when they were bleeding.
"At least if you're swimming you have a chance, Kawehi. If I shoot you, think of the sharks. Think of how far away they can be and smell it in the water. It's one thing to drown. It's another to be torn to shreds and-"
Kawehi was suddenly underwater.
She opened her mouth to scream for help and her mouth filled with water.
PALLAS
As soon as Kawehi's head disappeared beneath the surface of the water, he slammed into Nick's back and took him down to the ground. They both ended up half in and half out of the water.
Nick was sputtering and fighting underneath him, but Pallas got the better of him quickly, reaching around the other man to get control of the weapon.
"Let it go, Carter. Let. It-"
A dull report sounded and Pallas waited for a sting of pain or something else, but it didn't come.
Nick sagged beneath him, groaning and trying to push himself onto his side.
"Fuck you, man."
Pallas let him move, but he took control of the gun as soon as he saw it emerge from under the other man's body.
"Here. Give it here."
Pallas held it by the grip and handed it back to Buck. "Axl?"
"Here." He moved into Pallas' sight and got down on his knees. "I'll take him. Go."
Pallas waited until he was sure that Axl had the man under control before he got up and turned toward the water.
Maile was wading into the water as he made it to her side.
Pallas caught her arm, holding her back.
"Get the fuck off me, or I'll kick your ass!"
If he wasn't so worried himself, Pallas would have laughed at her threats. "Just wait a second."
Maile looked at him with murder in her eyes, but as she lifted her knee, probably to kick his leg, the smooth surface of the water exploded like a fountain.
He felt Maile's arm go slack in his hold as two heads emerged, and Pallas saw the most beautiful sight he'd ever seen.
"Holy sh-"
Pallas moved out into the water and met Riptide halfway as he worked to pull Kawehi out of the water. "Here," Pallas reached out his arms, "let me take her."
Riptide gave her over without a fight.
As Pallas moved up toward the grassy bank, he worked to keep his feet squarely under him.
Riptide called out from behind him. "She sucked in water going under. I tried to give her air beneath the surface, but I think she's got too much in her lungs."
Pallas nodded his head knowing that Riptide probably couldn't see it.
He got Kawehi down on her back and leaned over to listen near her mouth and nose, his fingers feeling for a pulse.
She had a pulse, but she wasn't breathing.
Okay, he told himself. You've done this before.
He shook her shoulder. Held her face and gave her a shake. "'Wehi? Baby! Look at me, honey. Open your eyes!"
She lay still beneath him, but he wasn't going to stop then.
He wasn't going to stop until he had her back with him.
"Come on, baby. Look at me!"
Riptide dropped down beside him. "You want compressions or breathing?"
He'd rather do both, but it made sense to have help.
"Compressions." He needed to keep his hands busy, or he'd wrap them around Nick's throat and choke the life out of him. He easily found her breastbone and used his fingers to position his hands for compressions. Without a moment of hesitation, he started compressions.
Maile sat down beside him and took Kawehi's hand in his. "Come on, Cuz. Don’t you do this to me!"
Buck called out from somewhere in the dark. "Emergency personnel are on their way."
Riptide gave her a rescue breath twice before EMTs took over and Pallas reached out to put an arm around Maile for comfort. "She's going to be okay."
"She has to be!" Maile's hand gripped his arm like a vice.
"Pallas!"
Buck's exclamation turned his attention back and Kawehi lurched up, water bursting from her mouth.
Pallas and Maile reached for her hand at the same time.
When he felt Kawehi's hand on his arm, Pallas found himself weak with relief.
"Sir? We'll need to move her."
Pallas didn't turn to look at the EMT, he kept his gaze on Kawehi's face and saw the tears in her eyes, but he also saw the relief and love shining in them as well.
"I'd like to go with you."
The EMT shrugged. "We can take one person with her, but we need some space."
Pallas backed off and saw Maile rise up beside him.
He braced himself for a fight with Kawehi's cousin. She put her hand on his arm. "You go. She'll want to have you close."
Pallas looked at Maile and smiled, grateful for her understanding. "If they ask, they can take her to Castle Medical Center. It's the closest."
Axl stepped closer and put a hand on Pallas' shoulder. "I'll bring Maile with me."
Pallas was surprised to see Axl there. His friend gestured off to the side and Pallas watched the Military Police hauling Nick up onto his feet. The other Marine wasn't struggling or trying to get away. He looked... exhausted or defeated, Pallas couldn't tell which and he really didn't care.
If Kawehi wasn't being moved to a gurney for transport to an ambulance, he might want to lay the man out with a punch to his face or a well-placed boot to his dick. He'd make sure Nick got what was coming to him later, but until he was sure that Kawehi was going to be okay, he had his priorities in place.
"Sir, if you're coming-"
"I'm coming."
When they got Kawehi a room at Castle, Pallas went with her.
She tried to stay awake to comfort him, but he wouldn't hear of it.
He also didn't pay much attention when one of the ward nurses tried to get him to stay in the chair that was set beside the bed for him. He'd showered and changed into a set of borrowed scrubs, so he wasn't going to waste the opportunity to get his comfort and give it in return.
Pallas settled Kawehi against him and made sure that she was comfortable.
The nurses that came by either smiled at him and waved or glared at him and looked as if they wanted to shove his head in the bay.
The only person whose approval he wanted was asleep peacefully in his embrace.
Maile hadn't agreed to leave and was camped out in the waiting room, spread out and sleeping across a few chairs. Buck had passed on that bit of information before he went back to the base to fill Wolf in on the eventful night. That left Pallas to keep a watch over Kawehi and make sure that she got the best care possible.
He'd already heard back from Axl, who was also in the waiting room, that Wolf was going to approve some emergency leave so he could take care of Kawehi until she was ready to go home.
He loved his team and knew that they'd be in for visiting hours once they started in the morning.
His whole team loved Kawehi as much as he did, and he was good with that as long as they remembered that she was spoken for.
"Mmm..."
He looked down as Kawehi's eyelids fluttered and her hand moved higher on his chest. Pallas moved his hand against her back, trying to sooth her and himself.
"Mmmm... Dom?"
"Hey, gorgeous." He smiled at the way she murmured his name. He didn't think he'd be back much to his apartment on base unless she tried to chase him off. "You, okay?"
"Tired..." She yawned and tipped her head back to rest on his arm. "So tired..."
"Then you should go back to sleep."
"Hmm... I dunno. 'm not sure... I had a bad dream."
"A bad dream?" He had an idea what she was talking about. He knew he'd likely have nightmares about the scene at the edge of the bay. Seeing Nick holding a gun on her up to the moment he saw her cough up the water and come back around, it was all going to haunt him. "I've got you in my arms, 'Wehi. You don't have to have any bad dreams. I've got you."
"You've got me, huh?" She yawned again and snuggled closer to his side. "I think I've got you, too."
Her hand moved over his chest, warming his heart inside and out.
"I can see that you are a competitive woman at heart."
"Oh?" Her voice was softer and slower. "How so?"
"Well, I'm going to do everything I can to show you how much I love you."
Her eyes opened and he could see her gaze clearly for the first time all day.
It made him so very grateful for the miracle they'd experienced.
"I love you, too, Dom."
He closed his eyes for a long moment, soaking in the sound of her words.
When he opened his eyes again, she was still looking at him. "I love you so damn much." He felt his voice catch on the knot in his throat. "I was ready to kill him to make you safe." He felt her tense against him. "I didn't though. He's-"
"I don't need to know. I'm not sure I want to know. At least not right now."
He nodded. "Anything you want. Just say the word."
"You." She smiled at him, her eyelids dropping down slowly. "I want you, Dom. That's all I need."
He held her until he drifted off to sleep, exhausted.
Neither one of them had a nightmare that night.