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“You do realize this is my island?” Markus asked. “I’ll walk where I please.”

I expected the bravado, the banter, even the smile. But I had time for none of those things.

“I need your help.”

His smile got bigger. Brighter. He even laughed.

“My help?”

“Yes.”

The ex-mercenary folded his arms. His tattoos stretched with the flexing of his tan skin.

“And so you flew all the way here,” he said mockingly. “To my island. Nearly wrecking your seaplane on that hellacious landing by the way,” he added bemusedly. “Just so you could enlist my… help?”

I stared back at him coldly and nodded. “Yes.”

His smile widened. As I expected, he was enjoying this enormously.

“And exactly why should I help you?” he shrugged. “If anything I should take you. Take you the way I almost took you last time. The way I should’ve taken you last time.”

“You won’t,” I said confidently.

“Oh no?” Without thinking, he rubbed at the scar on his chin. I realized it was the same scar Jason had given to him nearly four years ago, when he’d seized control of Di Spatia.

“No.”

“And why’s that?”

The breeze picked up again, blowing everything around us. I ignored the distraction.

“Because Dakota Bradley has his crosshairs trained on your skull right now.”

Markus tried to maintain his composure, but I saw him stiffen. His grin shrank by a quarter-inch before artificially widening again.

“Of course he does,” he said simply. “And I’m supposed to believe—”

I swung my arm downward, pointing my finger at the ground. A shot rang out, and a clod of dirt exploded between us. Not necessarily in that order.

His men jumped, raising their rifles, pointing them in useless directions. But Markus merely sighed. Resignedly, he peered upward at the rocky outcropping that overlooked the entire island.

“Next one goes in just below your left ear,” I told him. “It travels downward, tearing off your lower jaw as it exits, shutting you up for good.” I winced at my own description. “Yikes, that was graphic. Sorry. Dakota words, not mine.”

Markus growled, somewhere deep in his throat. “I should’ve known you’d never come alone,” he said. “Hell, I should’ve known Bradley was here by that shit landing.”

More men came running out from the gates, but the ex-mercenary captain stopped them all with an outstretched hand. He looked back at me again, but now his mouth was twisted with an all new respect.

“What exactly do you want, Sammara?”

“To strike a deal with you.”

He nodded appreciatively. “Is this a deal I’ll like?”

“Very much.”

“Because the last time we—”

“Markus,” I interjected. “Stop talking and just listen.”