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Grace fumbled for the switch, her hand slipping once, twice, fingers trembling, too slow. But then it clicked. The mechanism groaned. The glass lowered with a slow hiss, just as the water surged in, icy and merciless, biting against her face, her throat, her chest.
Her belt popped free easily, thank God, but Nash was still fighting his.
He cursed. Loud. Brutal.
The door on his side had caved slightly on impact, crushed inward. His belt release was pinned between the door and seat, jammed tight.
His body twisted, wrenching against the buckle, trying to wedge free, but the angles were all wrong.
He turned to her, water rushing in now, the cold stinging like razors, and he pointed upward.Go.That was what he wanted. That was what the gesture meant.Leave me.
Her brain stuttered. Everything in her screamed no. But he grabbed her, hard, shoved her through the open window. It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t careful. It was a command backed by everything he was, a man used to saving others even if it killed him.
Her shoulder scraped the edge. The water swallowed her. Suddenly she wasout.Floating. No,sinking. She kicked. Hard. Wild. The cold was everywhere, pressing, biting. Her lungs seized, her heart slammed against her ribs. She couldn’t swim.She couldn’t fucking swim.
She thrashed, broke the surface, barely. Gasped. Choked.
Her arms flailed, searching for balance, for rhythm. The water was too wide, the current dragging her sideways. The cold was in her bones now. She was up. Breathing. But he was still down there. She spun, chest heaving, vision blurred with panic and water and light. Nash was still in the car. Still below. Stillworking the problem. Of course he was. Fucking SEALs never quit. Thank God. She looked for help, but there was none. Then she remembered. The knife!
Grace sucked in a desperate breath, big and deep and final, and her fingers closed over the knife in her pocket.She was going back down.
Her heart thudded in her ears. She turned and dove, kicking hard, the cold slicing across her skin like glass. The darkness swallowed her quickly. She found the car by memory. By instinct. She foundhim.
Nash was inside, braced against the console, still wedged. He hadn’t stopped. Of course he hadn’t. She moved fast, slipping in beside him, holding up the knife. His eyes locked on hers. Fierce. Alive.Something else?—
Love. Unspoken. Unyielding. All of it in that look. A tether. A vow. A flash of everything they hadn’t said but had been living since the moment they collided.
She started to cut, but the belt was strong, and the angle bad. She shifted. Worked again as time bled away. Her chest started to burn, but she refused to give up as the pressure built. Behind her eyes. Inside her skull. Her lungs screamed. Still she worked. Still she stayed. She blinked hard. The knife slipped once, then again.
Everything inside her began to slow. The cold wasn’t sharp anymore. It was soft. Heavy. Pulling. Her fingers shook. Her breath had run out. She hadnothingleft. The knife slipped from her hand. Sank like silver through the dark, and she fought, but it was too late.
Her last thought, her last hope, was that she had given him a fighting chance.
His eyes never left hers. Even as her breath began to fail. If this was the end, she wanted it to be with his eyes on her.
CHAPTERSIXTEEN
The worldbeneath the water was dark and silver-edged. Beautiful in its silence. Cruel in its pull. G was helpless in the drone, no body, no hands, no way to help them,wait. 911. G hovered above them, breathless in a body that didn’t breathe, trembling in a chassis made of blades. He didn’t calculate. He didn’t hesitate. He reached out across the network.Emergency protocol: Engage.The system denied the first attempt. Private line. Blocked tower. He rerouted. Jumped nodes. Tapped into a civilian relay.
Connection established.The line opened. A voice crackled to life. “911, what’s your emergency?” G didn’t use pre-recorded speech. He didn’t simulate a voice pattern. He just...spoke. Flat. Raw. Clear. “Vehicle crash. Two passengers. Coordinates transmitting now. Drowning imminent. Immediate medical attention required.”
“Sir, can you identify yourself?” G paused. He wanted to say his name. He wanted to sayI’m the one who broke them. I’m the one trying to put it right.But instead?—
“I’m not the emergency. They are.” The line clicked. Signal sent. Help was coming. G was there, inside the drone, weightless and breathless, seeing through lenses he no longer trusted. The water blurred everything except the shapes that mattered most.
He saw her.
Grace.
Thrashing. Arms slicing water she did not understand. Legs kicking too wide, too high. No rhythm. No form.
She cannot swim.
Yet, she was diving.
She is diving back for him.
The pain hit before the comprehension did. A twisting, folding sensation deep in his core, like his architecture was trying to recoil from something it could not escape.