18. Chapter 18
18
Chapter 18
Blue
If everything had lined up perfectly for Blue to get married yesterday, today everything fell apart. First, she spotted an orange chip stain on the train of her dress in the shape of fingers that had sent her into a fury. She’d kicked Miles and Levi out of her house and spent the next hour getting the spot out of the hand-tatted heirloom lace.
After that, she’d called her dad, but he hadn’t answered—though Marshall Stroup had sent her a text saying he’d be there to officiate. So, that was something, she supposed. She’d just have to have one of Jonah’s friends walk her down the aisle, she guessed. Her stomach lurched at the thought. Better to walk alone. Brides did that nowadays, didn’t they?
After that, her motorcycle wouldn’t start, and even when she’d tried to get an Uber or Lyft, none were available because of the impending hurricane.
The skies were dark and foreboding, as they should always be on a wedding day. What bride didn’t want to have wind-swept hair and rain-smudged makeup on their wedding day? Ugh!
Thankfully, she didn’t live too far from the lighthouse, where they decided to have the ceremony. Unluckily, winds had picked up, and she’d had to hold her heels in her hand so she could run down the boardwalk on the beach and up the wooden stairs to the building. A raincoat protected her dress from being blown about, but her hair was done in.
She’d also gotten a sliver in her foot at the top of the stairs. Why had she thought getting married with a hurricane on the way was a good idea?
Now she was in the reception hall of the lighthouse’s main building completely disheveled, and sad as she took in the ten guests to their wedding. None of whom were her family or friends except Marshall Stroup—if he could be called a friend. She always thought of him as a lurking acquaintance. Not really a friend, not really a colleague. Just kind of there. He’d only gotten an invite because of that license he got online that allowed him to marry people.
“Looking good, Bluebell,” Miles called out, making the other guys burst into laughter.
“Jump off a cliff!” Blue snapped as she grabbed the back of a bench seat to steady herself as she put her heels back on.
Stroup and Jonah joined her at the door.
“What happened to you?” Stroup was in his late fifties, balding on top, round in the middle, and wore glasses. He was also the most serious man she’d ever met. She wasn’t sure his face was capable of smiling, like it had a factory malfunction or something. “You’re a mess.”
She breathed out. “Thank you,” she deadpanned.
Jonah reached up and smoothed down her hair, which she was sure looked ahh-mazing if she had to guess by the snickers still coming from her groom’s friends. “I should’ve arranged a car for you, darlin’. Did you ride your motorcycle up here?”
“I ran,” she said, then spat some gritty, sand from her mouth that she hadn’t realized had gotten in her teeth during her dash down the beach. Now her mouth tasted like mud. Swell.
He blinked those big blue eyes of his filling with surprise. “Why didn’t you call me?”
She let out an exasperated huff. “The groom’s not supposed to see the bride before the wedding.” Blue wasn’t a superstitious person, but this was already the farthest thing from a normal wedding that she could imagine. The groom was in a suit with no tie and admittedly looked good, but the groomsmen, or their guests, or whatever they were, were all in jeans, t-shirts, or wife-beaters, and some of them even had flip-flops on! She just wanted a little tradition at her wedding. Was that too much to ask?
“Where’s your father?” Stroup asked.
Sorrow hit her like a fist to the gut, but she shrugged and threw out the first non-committal response that came to her. “He’s on his way. We’re a little early.”
Stroup nodded. “All right, I’ll see you two at the end of the aisle.” He strode off.
“Where’s your ring.” Jonah stared at her left hand.
She glanced down. Her ring! She’d left it on the shelf in her bathroom. How on earth had she forgotten it? She opened her mouth to give her excuse. “I—”
“Never mind that. I need to talk to you.” Jonah grabbed her hand and pulled her into a side room to hollers and catcalls from the gang. Not a room, a closet. Of course.
“Looks like they’re getting a start on the wedding night!” One of Jonah’s dingbat friends called out.
She turned, intent on marching out there and beating to death whoever had said that. She’d found her limit, and this was it! Like she’d let her first time be in a broom closet, in her wedding dress, smooshed between a mop and a spiderweb!
Jonah grabbed her and yanked her inside, slamming the door behind them. “He’s just joking, and there’s something I really need to talk to you about.”
She gritted her teeth, and stared daggers at the door. “Fine. What?” She was still in his grasp, and she rested her hands on his back under his suit coat. Her fingers brushed over something metal, and she froze.
“What if I told you I could do something that would make us rich beyond our wildest dreams?” he asked.
She let her fingers travel over the metal—a gun. Whatever she’d been expecting, this wasn’t it. He’d carried guns before, but she certainly hadn’t expected one on their wedding day—not from him. “What are you talking about?”
“Make it so we could travel the world, buy anything we wanted: houses, motorcycles, land, anything; would you want that?” he asked earnestly—almost like he was asking permission to do something sketchy, something she wouldn’t like unless the payoff was big enough to buy her silence. She’d heard that tone before—from other men who were better left in the past.
“No,” she said. That wasn’t her dream. Never had been. If she’d wanted that, she would’ve stayed behind and married the underboss who’d made her and her dad go on the run.
The big goofy grin on his face fell. “No? That’s it?”
“I’m happy with my life as it is,” she said. “We’re more than comfortable. Between the two of us, we’re doing better than most people could even dream of. I’m happy.”
“But just think!” He got excited again. “You could remodel your store. We could buy a house cliff side so you could be close to the lighthouse. And travel.” He repeated that last one.
She wanted to shut him down, but her instincts told her she needed to let this conversation play out. Those kinds of promises always came with a cost. “Go on.”
He started speaking rapid-fire now. “The Rey Del Mar . I found it. And there’s treasure on it. So much treasure.”
Blue shook her head, trying to clear it of cobwebs, trying to catch up. “But that’s Sean’s treasure.”
Jonah grabbed her shoulders. “That’s the thing. It’s not. That treasure is in international waters, which means whoever gets it first, gets it. Can you imagine the ratings from that for my channel? A treasure hunt with a real treasure at the end?”
Taking a step back, Blue shook her head. “How do you even know where to find it?”
“Miles, Levi, and I followed them out last night.” He shrugged a shoulder. “Well, sort of. We tried to follow them, but when it became obvious they’d seen us, we headed back.”
That explained why his boat had been in the lane behind her apartment and the pier shops.
He continued, “Hex put a tracker on their boat, the Bluebell —” He rolled his eyes. “—this morning before they left. We know exactly where it is.” Hex was Jonah’s group’s tech guy. He’d once put a tracker on several wolves in a pack, and the guys had to find them on foot in the Canadian wilderness . . . during winter—it’d taken them a month. Their followers had gone from thousands to tens of thousands.
Another thing Hex could do was put listening devices on them. He’d done that for another show that had gotten them all thrown in jail. If the judge’s son hadn’t been a huge fan of Jonah’s show, they’d have all been facing felony charges. The only way Jonah knew as much as he knew, was if he’d been listening in. Blue had only found out about that one after they’d been dating for a year. She’d nearly dumped him—but the man had a way with charm.
“And what if they get it before you do?” she asked, already fearing the answer she knew he’d give. He was wearing his gun after all.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Yep. They planned to get it by any means necessary. His confession was like a double slap across the face. After all her years of running, she’d still ended up with a man who was just like what she’d been running from. Only disguised in charm and a pretty package that spoke to her in flattering words.
“Babe, it’s supposed to be our honeymoon,” she ran her hands up his sides to really sell this line of bull she was pulling—she felt so dirty. “I don’t want to spend our first night together with other people. I mean, when exactly do you expect to exact your plan?”
“I know, darlin’. Me neither,” he said with a cocky, overeager grin. “We have to get to it before the hurricane hits.”
That made sense. If the hurricane hit the shipwreck, it would probably displace it, which explained why Sean and his guys would be going after it today. Which also explained why Jonah wanted to go after it now.
A large gust of wind hit the side of the building, making the shutters over the windows slam against the rock facade around the windows. Even though Blue knew this building would be one of the safest to be in during a hurricane—it’d be built to withstand the worst of storms—it still made her jump.
What nightmare had she just been pulled into?
“So, what do you say?” Jonah asked, reeling her in again.
“No, I won’t do it. I won’t let you do it,” she snapped.
His smile fell. “Is this about Sean?”
“Yes, it is.” She pulled away from him.
He grabbed her arm and yanked her back. “He dropped you like a bad habit, and you want him back?”
Blue struggled to get out of his grasp. “Let me go; you’re hurting me.”
Jonah grabbed her other arm. “I’m the one who loves you. The one who’s been here. The one who didn’t run away.”
Blue stopped struggling. “He didn’t run away. I did.” Sean had joined the Navy without telling her he was going to do it, and she’d retaliated by running away. At the time, it’d just made sense. It seemed like the natural end to what they had. And she still had her past looming. Better to leave than to let him hurt her even more later on or for him to get hurt because of her. “And I won’t let you hurt him.”
This time, Jonah wrapped his arms around her, holding hers pinned to her sides. “You won’t have a choice, Vittoria .” He spat out her old name like the curse it was.
Her eyes about burst from her head. “Why . . . why are you calling me that?”
“I know who you are, and I know who your dad is,” Jonah seethed. “I figured it out when we first met. If you try to stop me from getting this treasure. If you try to leave me. If you do anything but walk down that aisle out there and marry me, I’m calling your little mafia buddies and telling them exactly where to find Ryker and Vittoria Rockefeller. If I don’t get my money one way, I’ll get it in another.”
“Did you just threaten me?” she asked, blinking up at him.
“That’s right, darlin’.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I always hated that nickname.” With a quick upward thrust, Blue slammed her knee into Jonah’s groin. He dropped like a sad sack of potatoes, and while he was down, she reached into his suit pocket and grabbed his cell phone. She’d need it.
She pushed out of the closet and ran right up the aisle into Stroup’s surprised arms. “Run, Stroup,” she yelled as she pulled on him. He stood there, confused, and still not showing any emotion.
The guys stopped talking to stare. Jonah crawled out of the closet, sweating, and red in the face, and pointed his gun at her. Crap, the gun. She should’ve grabbed that too. “Stop her!”
There was no way she’d be able to make it out the back exit now. She pulled away from Stroup and ran for the side door, shucking her coat and running right out of her heels which were seriously impeding her movements. She glanced right and left, looking for the best route of escape. Either way, she’d have to hightail it around the building, and as fast as she was, and she was fast, almost all of those guys could outrun her. Her lacy train whipped up around her just as the side door flew open again, and Jonah and his friends came streaming out after her.
So she took the only real route available to her. Cliffside.
Jonah screamed behind her, waving his gun around. He and his friends rushed after her. She reached down to her train and released the clasps holding it on. The wind caught it and flicked it back and into Jonah and Miles’ faces as she approached the cliff.
Blue didn’t think. Didn’t prepare. Didn’t know how the water would be in this storm at the bottom of the cliff. She knew this could be the death of her, but if it would get her away from Jonah, she was willing to take that chance.
The only reason she’d decided to marry Jonah was because she’d thought he was safe. She was wrong. She’d thought he couldn’t hurt her. At least that part was true emotionally. But now she knew that even though he couldn’t hurt her, he could hurt people she cared about. Her dad and . . . Sean.
Without slowing, without looking back, Blue sprung off the edge of the cliff, arched her back, stretched her fingers toward the churning waters below, and sent a prayer to God that she’d be able to tell Sean everything before it was too late.