Chapter Thirty
Skye
The black water is suffocating, but it doesn’t stop me. My second dive is filled with pure fury. Wanting to ring the necks of anyone who put Violet in this position. Who put me in this position.
I kick down, deeper than before, feeling the cold against my hands as I sweep one stroke at a time.
Slow your breathing. It’s endurance training. Nothing more than getting to the bottom of a pool.
My lungs are screaming as the pressure increases. I can’t see or hear, and the crushing weight of failure is heavy with each added foot of depth coming up empty.
There’s muffled noise coming from the surface, and I feel hope that maybe Violet floated up from the bottom of this ravine.
I break through the surface, gasping. Ollie is screaming from the dock as she tends to Cassie, who seems to be coming back into consciousness, “Skye! The light! I have a light!”
A powerful beam cuts through the gloom, piercing maybe five feet into the murky water before dissolving into useless particles. It’s nothing, a child’s toy against the bottomless grave.
“I’m not coming back up until I find her,” I yell up toward the dock, gasping for air between my words. “Send in help when they get here.”
Ollie starts yelling instructions, but I suck in a breath and dive.
This time, I don’t fight the cold. I let it in.
Ice is in my veins. I crush people on it. I set records on it.
And this time, I’m using it to channel everything I have until I reach the bottom, where Violet waits for me.
As long as I’m not too late.
I orient myself by the slimy pilings of the dock, and I swim straight down, following the concrete into the abyss.
Deeper. Past where the light can reach and into the true dark.
The cold is paralyzing. My muscles burn, and my mind flickers. Thoughts that scatter like the bubbles from my lips.
I’m too deep.
It’s too late.
Until my hand sweeps something that isn’t stone or weed.
Fabric. Soft cashmere, like the sweater she had hung over her bag the last time I was in her hotel room.
My heart gives a single violent kick. I claw toward it, my fingers finding an arm, a shoulder, tracing the line of her body. She’s floating, eerily upright. Her hair is a pale cloud around her face.
Just below her, the twin cinder blocks rest on the muddy bottom, the rope holding her in this suspended, drowning pose.
I don’t think. I fumble for the knife I grabbed from Theo when we left Violet’s hotel room. Honestly, I didn’t expect this to come in handy since I thought I was bringing a knife to a gun battle, which I technically did. But now that I have it, Theo has no idea what this means to me.
In one quick motion, I whirl my hand through the water and see the thick, wet rope where it bites into her ankles. The fibers resist, then parts with a final gritty tear.
The blocks settle into the mud as Violet becomes free, lifeless in my arms.
I hook an arm across her chest, locking her against me, and kick for the surface with everything I have left.
It’s a mile. An eternity.
My vision tunnels to a pinpoint of distant, faded orange. Like a lantern light in the woods, guiding hikers home.
My lungs are collapsing, and my legs feel like lead. But I have her. I have my girl, and I’m not stopping now.
We burst into the air with a gasp that is more like a death rattle. I haul her backward, one arm under her chin, my other scrambling on the slick, wooden edge of the dock.
Ollie is there on her stomach, reaching with a mask of terror across her face.
“Grab her!” I roar, the sound tearing my burning throat.
Ollie’s hands close around Violet’s shoulders. Together, we haul her dead weight up and out of the water, onto the splintered planks. She lands with a sickening thud.
I scramble up after her, water pouring off me as my body shakes violently from cold and adrenaline.
Violet lies perfectly still. Her skin is a horrifying shade of blue, her lips are parted, and her eyes are closed.
She’s not breathing.
“No, baby, no,” Ollie chants, her hands fluttering over Violet’s face, afraid to touch her.
There is no time for gentleness. No time for fear.
I shove Ollie aside. “Where is the God damned ambulance?” My voice is a guttural command that leaves no room for argument.
Dropping to my knees, I tilt Violet’s head back, pinch her nose, and seal my mouth over hers. I breathe into her, forcing my own air and life into her lungs.
Her chest rises and falls.
Nothing.
I shift, lacing my hands over her sternum, and begin compressions. The rhythm drilled into me from a hundred team first-aid courses.
Thirty compressions. Two breaths.
The count is a metronome in my skull, the only thing keeping me focused on anything but the possibility that Violet hasn’t made it. That I’m too late.
Come on. Come ON!
Her body is so cold. So limp. I feel a rib give a faint, terrible creak. I don’t stop.
Ollie is on the phone, screaming at someone in Italian as her voice cracks.
Thirty. Two breaths.
I breathe for her again, watching for any flicker. Any sign. But there’s nothing.
Just the pale, drowned doll on the dock.
You do not get to leave me. Not like this.
I start another set of compressions, bearing down with all my weight, my own breathing comes in ragged sobs that mix with the rhythm of my pounding hands.
“We are not some sappy romance book,” I hiss at Violet in between compressions. My eyes burn as I stare down at the one person I thought had cracked through my shell. The one person who had me opening up and becoming someone I always thought I could be.
“Violet,” I growl between clenched teeth. “You fight. You fight!”
The private ICU room hums with the low beep of the heart monitor, the soft hiss of oxygen, and the ghostly sensation of Violet’s limp body in my arms.
She’s lying in the bed, small and pale against the white sheets. Tubes and wires snake from her arms and under her nose. A ventilator does the breathing for her, and the rhythmic sound of the machine is the loudest thing in the world.
Her chest rises and falls with precision. The doctors call it “therapeutic hypothermia”. They lowered her core temperature to protect her brain.
I sit in the hard plastic chair beside her, my knuckles white where they grip the seat. I haven’t moved or changed out of my clothes. The nurse provided me with a hospital blanket an hour ago, but the cold from the water is still inside me.
Outside the door, I can hear the muted chaos of my team. Paige’s low, urgent questions. Rissa’s voice, higher and frayed with panic. Riley’s attempt to calm them, yet unable to come anywhere close.
The nurse keeps shushing them, a constant repeat of “Signorine, per favore, silenzio.”
They were told nothing except that it was a serious accident, no visitors allowed. I can feel their confusion pressing against the glass.
My mind keeps replaying flashes of the brutal memory, no matter how many times I try to push it away.
Her blue lips under mine. The awful, dead give of her ribs under my palms.
The wail of the sirens cutting through the afternoon air, and the paramedics prying me off her. Their hands taking over, loading her onto a gurney.
Ollie, standing on the dock like an avenging angel in a ruined cream pantsuit, her face streaked with tears and gunpowder.
The two men. The sidekick is attempting to get Michel out of there with his injured leg.
He never got within twenty yards of the ambulance.
Ollie had emptied her magazine into the car, the shots echoing across the water like a declaration of war.
The last I saw, she was being put into a police car, her head held high as she gave statements in rapid-fire Italian.
I have no fear that Ollie will find a way out of this. And if not, she has my number.
Cassie is down the hall with a mild concussion and a sprained wrist from the struggle. She was conscious by the time the ambulance arrived, sobbing Violet’s name. They sedated her for shock.
But here, in this silent room, there is only the breath of the machine and waiting.
Violet’s mother is airborne. Ollie had made the call before the police took her phone. She was still over the Atlantic the last I’d heard, hours away.
I stare at Violet’s hand where it rests on the sheet, IV taped to the back of it. I remember the feel of it in mine, warm and alive. Now it’s cool and still.
I don’t sit here and pray that she’ll make it out. I make her promises instead.
You come back. You hear me? You fought your way out of one cage. You fight your way out of this one. Your mom is coming. Our people are in the hall. I am here. And when you open your eyes, I will burn their world to the ground.
The monitor beeps steadily as I continue to stare. Outside, a nurse finally succeeds in herding the team further down the hall, their worried murmurs fading. The room is left with a terrible, breathless quiet, and the slow mechanical proof that Violet’s heart is still beating.
The fluorescent lights of the hospital corridor buzz like angry insects all around me. I’d finally been persuaded to leave the room, shower, and change into the team sweat suit Paige had thrust into my hands.
I’m meeting Violet’s mother, taking her to see her baby girl lying in a hospital bed.
The thirty minutes I’ve been gone from Violet’s room have felt like a gamble. But I can’t imagine the thoughts and panic rushing through the woman who’s currently stepping into my view.
Linda Lockwood is a storm contained in a travel-wrinkled blouse. Her eyes, so like Violet’s, are wide with a terror she’s fighting to control. She sees me, a tall, grim stranger in athletic wear, and latches onto me like a lifeline.
“Where is she? Is she awake? The doctors wouldn’t tell me anything over the phone. Just ‘critical condition’.”
“She’s stable,” I tell her, squeezing her arms to ground her in place.
I fall into step beside her, guiding her toward the ICU wing.
“They had to cool her body to protect her brain. She’s not awake yet.
” The words are thick on my tongue. I’d left her pale and still, a porcelain doll connected to machines.
“Cool her body? What does that mean? What happened? They said she was drowning, but how? Violet hates open water. She never goes near—” Her questions come in frantic bursts as she clutches my arm.
“It wasn’t an accident.” The flatness in my tone stops her, and she looks at me as the color drains from her face. “Men took her. From the cafe. They threw her into the canal… weighted.”
A choked sound escapes Linda, and her steps falter. I tighten my grip on her elbow, hating that I’m the one to give her all this news. Keeping her upright, I help move her forward.
“She’s alive.” My tone is soft and reassuring. Linda needs to hear those words. “She’s fighting. That’s all that matters right now.”
We turn the corner into the quieter ICU hallway. The team is clustered near the waiting area. They see us and go silent. Their faces all painted with worry. Paige gives me a tight, supportive nod.
We are ten feet from Violet’s door when I hear it.
A voice, slurred, but unmistakable. “Don’t want another blanket. Scratchy. This thing in my nose. Take it out.”
My heart stops dead in my chest, and Linda freezes beside me.
A nurse’s calm, professional reply filters through the door. “Ms. Lockwood, you need the oxygen. Your levels are still low, and the blanket is keeping you warm.”
“I’m not cold. Where’s my phone? I need my mom. I need Skye. I have to tell her something.”
I move before I know it, pushing the door open.
Violet is propped up, the ventilator tube gone, replaced with a simple nasal cannula.
Her skin is still too pale, and the dark circles under her eyes look like bruises.
But those eyes are open, blinking slowly and unfocused.
Most likely swimming with morphine and confusion, but they’re open.
She’s weakly batting at the nurse's hand, which is trying to keep the blanket tucked underneath her.
She turns her head toward the sound of the door, and her gaze slips past me, landing on her mom.
For a second, there is no recognition. Just a doped-up, cross-eyed stare.
Then, her brow furrows and her lips tremble. “Mom?” Her voice is small, cracked, a childlike sound. “You’re… you’re really far away. Did you get smaller?”
Linda lets out a sob that’s a half-laugh, half pure relief. She surges forward, gently but firmly bypassing the nurse, and gathers Violet in her hands.
“Oh, baby. Oh, my sweet, impossible girl.”
Violet blinks up at her, then her hazy gaze drifts past her mom and finds me. The confusion hasn’t cleared, but something sharpens. A memory, fighting its way through the chemical fog.
“Skye,” she mumbles, her voice thick. She tries to lift a hand, weighted down by the IV. “My collar. The water was cold.” Her eyes start to drift shut again, then flutter open with effort. “Don’t be mad. S’not my fault.”
I can’t speak. The vise that has been crushing my chest for hours shatters. I take a step closer, my own breath coming unevenly. The nurse, seeing the moment, gives a soft smile and slips out of the room.
Linda is crying quietly, stroking Violet’s hair, whispering endearments.
Violet’s eyes find and hold mine, glazed over but present. “You came and got me,” she whispers, as if confirming a dream. Then, her eyes grow heavy. “S’good. Knew you would.” Her breathing deepens, evening out into natural sleep.
I stand there, the roar of the water finally receding, replaced by the soft sound of a mother’s tears, and the steady, strong beep of a living heart.