Page 8 of Wayward (Wrecked #4)

Decoy Maneuver

Calvin

D ante’s glaring at me as the door closes. I know that look. He’s going to say something fucking stupid.

“We could have ― ”

There it is.

“Gotten killed. The remaining guard would have taken us all out before we could have tackled him to the deck. I’m not stupid,” I say, throwing my hands in the air and announcing it to whoever is watching and listening in the control room.

Wherever it is. “And I thought you weren’t either.

You’re not thinking. He’s not the Russian.

” I shove Dante’s shoulder, and he stumbles back a few steps.

Hell, from the way Dante talks about the Russian, we’d already be dead if someone in his organization wanted us dead.

“What the fuck?” Easton steps between Dante and me. Easton’s hair stands up, and his eyes dart around the room like he’s wired on Red Bull and speed. “Can you just stop? Both of you. There are more important things to worry about.”

Dante and I, in unison, turn to him. “Like what?”

“What’s more important than getting ourselves off this floating prison?” I continue.

“Like what’s going on with Haley and Zane.” Sam grabs my arm. Dante’s too.

“Sure, sure. I think we all know what’s going to happen there.” Dante shakes off Sam and steps around Easton. He slams his palm into my shoulder, leaving it there. But I don’t budge. Though the chef doesn’t lack force, he’s no defensive linemen. “You know what, Green? You’re a coward.”

I’m not a coward. I wasn’t any more scared than they were.

Hell, I may be more scared now than I’ve ever been.

Mostly because I think I finally realized what I have to live for.

What I have to lose. And if they so much as harm a hair on her head .

. . I’d willingly give my life to take them out.

But what good is that if it only gets us so far?

We’re still stuck in the middle of the damn South Pacific.

Taking over the pirate ship ― that might’ve worked.

But the Rosewood? No way in hell. I’m a realist. I might have been wrong about getting off the island alive, but this doesn’t feel a hell of a lot better.

“We wait,” I say.

“What’s going on out there might not make life worth waiting for.” Dante drops his hand off my shoulder.

He might be right. Z could torture Haley in front of Zane until he gives him everything he wants. And then he’ll just kill them both. And fuck, maybe we should have just taken the risk and captured Z, taken over the Rosewood. That’s the thing with calculated risk.

You have to do the calculations.

And I did.

It wasn’t worth it. Not then, not a full-out attack.

They ... Z has to think we’ve given up.

“I’m not a coward, but I’m not willing to get us slaughtered for no reason.

And going after a well-trained guard is nothing but assisted suicide.

” And Dante, with all his spouting about the Russian, he should know that already.

“But you want to call me a coward ― fine. I’ll call you a fucking idiot.

” I spin around. Let the cameras see I’m losing it.

Fuck, it’s better if they think we’re at each other’s throats, anyway.

I’ll turn it up a notch. I punch at the air, waving my hands around, then drop on the bed and pop back up again.

We play along. Let Z and his men get used to being sheep.

Then we hit them. It’s only half of a plan.

”It’s over. No point in even trying anymore.

” I spin again and punch Easton in the stomach. Not hard. He knows what hard is.

He doubles over, holding it. His blue eyes flick up to mine in confusion.

“Calvin!” Dante yells.

Penny barks, jumping around at my feet.

“Stop it!” Sam yells, cutting through my foggy thoughts. “This is not who we are. We’re a crew; we’re family. This isn’t how we’re going out. This isn’t how this ends. I refuse to believe that.”

I glare at him, but I think at least Easton’s picking up on my excellent acting ability. We can’t just give up. But I’m not lining up for a firing squad again. We’re going to have one chance to sell it. And one chance only.

Sam paces across the small cabin, his voice strong and certain. “No. We’re gonna make this happen. We’re gonna get home. And if we can’t fight them . . . there’s another option.” He sits down heavily on the side of the bed, leaning forward as if the weight of the world is pressing him down.

“What do you want to do?” Dante asks, taking his hand off my shoulder. His tone is sharp, challenging. “Invite them over for tea and crumpets? Last I checked, we have neither tea nor crumpets.”

Sam shrugs, unfazed. “If you can’t fight,” he says simply, “you can always join.”

I smile. Two down.

The room falls silent. Easton, the one who hasn’t said a word this whole time, just leans against the wall. Dante glances at him, then shrugs.

“What choice do we have?” Dante says, his voice quieter now. “We’ve got no other way.”

All eyes flick to Easton.

“Don’t look at me,” he snaps. “I have no fucking clue about anything anymore. Zane could’ve told me what was going on. Why the fuck didn’t he tell me?”

“Maybe he could have.” Dante places his hand on Easton’s shoulder. And turns to me. “But I’m alive, and so is Haley. And you are too. Though you don’t seem to care.”

I move closer to Easton.

“For a minute. We’re alive for a minute.

You think the second Z gets whatever Zane knows out of him he isn’t going to kill every last one of us?

They went to a lot of trouble to come and find Easton,” I say.

And I still don’t get it. But then, maybe the elder Z was told we were alive, and he figured it was only a matter of time before someone found us.

And he didn’t trust the pirates with the diamond or the kill.

I’m not sure which, but I’m thinking it’s most likely the kill, as I’ve seen how much it is to fuel up a yacht like the Rosewood.

Taking a ship like this halfway around the world?

Fucking expensive. This isn’t something you do for the fun of it. There’s a really good reason.

“And the diamond,” Easton says.

“Right, the diamond.” Dante’s eyes are still focused on mine.

But Easton’s cupping something between his hands.

Like a baby bird. A small crack in his hands, too small to see anything from a camera.

“Though the diamond is just extra. They wanted me dead. That’s the big reward.

It has to be. The bastard billionaire bending every detail to his will. And you know how he’s going to do it?”

Dante shakes his head at Easton. I’m pretending to have lost it, but there’s genius in the flash of Easton’s wild eyes.

It draws me over to him. He’s not making sense.

His head bows to his cupped hands again.

And I look in. The Pink Phoenix is a dark speck ― well, a frigging huge speck ― inside his dark flipper hands.

“Fifty-fifty,” he says with a shrug and swipes his hand behind his back and then flutters both like some weirdo magician. “Nothing to see.”

How the heck did he swipe the diamond from Z? Or . . . did he find a way to separate the true diamond from the fake and take one back on the island when he dug it up with Haley? Damn.

“You live with a guy for a year and you think you know him. When did you learn the tricks? You know what, never mind.” Dante’s got the same look on his face that I do. He crosses the room to the porthole.

“You talk enough about the Russian. You must have seen things. Calvin’s right. It would have—” Easton says.

“We’ll never know now. And no, I didn’t see a lot of things working for the Russian.

I worked hard not to. Stayed in the galley or my cabin.

But what happened on the aft deck? That’s all you have to know.

Maybe we’ll see Haley and Zane again before they drag us out back.

I hope they shoot me before they drop us over the side. ”

“Dante,” Sam growls, cocking his head at one of the microphones we know about.

“Fuck it. I’ve had it with note passing and finger painting.

This is just like when I came back from the other side of the island and immediately told you all about the orchards and huts?

” Lies you can understand, you dumb jock.

I see him take in what I’m saying. Dante too.

Because no, I don’t think we can take over the boat.

And yes, I do think trying to overpower them is suicide.

“So we go with Sam’s idea and join them. ” We need to fight.

Dante’s eyes are slits. “You know, Green, I’ve never really liked you all that much.

” And now I’m not sure if he’s acting or not.

But I suppose it doesn’t matter. You can hate family.

As long as he’s good to Haley and stays mostly out of my way, he can go on truly hating me or fake hating me. I don’t care which it is.

Easton’s looking over my shoulder like the answer’s going to come out of the ether.

The door opens, and Haley’s shoved in. She stumbles a few feet and lands in my arms. Her eyes are clear blue, the color they get when she’s been crying.

Though they’re not red and puffy. Her hair’s out of her ponytail.

I help her up and scan the rest of her. Clothing intact, no marks on her skin.

“What the hell, Sassy? Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

We surround her.

“No.” Her lip quivers. There’s more to that no. I want to rip it out of her. Fuck that, I want to strangle Z and rip it out of him.

“Zane?” Sam asks.

“He’s okay.” But her tone says he might not be for long.

“What did he tell Z?”

“Honestly, not much more than he’d already said on the deck.

There’s a passage about an Ed. Rocky wrote that he figured out the quarterly figures weren’t what they should have been.

Enormous sums of money going in and out.

Then there’s a passage about him hiring a second forensic accountant, one that no one in the company knew about.

Another where he questions if this Ed caused the stock price to artificially inflate.

That the company’s evaluation is off. But Rocky couldn’t pinpoint where.

And his accountant was still working on it when they boarded the Rock Candy.

There’s a line where he thought about postponing the wedding trip until he had answers. But Candy didn’t want to wait.”

“Did Candy know?” Easton asks.

“I don’t know. I’m not sure if it says. If it does, Zane didn’t translate that part.”

“Right.” Easton takes Haley’s hand.

“There’s more, but Zane didn’t give it to Z.

Said he’d have to recreate the cipher key.

That there are sections where the code is off.

Like Rocky changed it enough to make it different.

That there are more specifics about who was involved and why.

But it seemed like Rocky was finding it out in real time in the diary.

That he’d only really pieced together the last bits over the final few weeks before the trip.

Zane also came out and told Z that he hadn’t translated the whole thing.

That’s when Z got mad and had me brought back here. ”