Page 55

Dread coils inside me as I slip onto The Delfina.

A hazy fog rolls over the river, the Statue of Liberty distant and spectral in the mist.

Like a ghost watching over us.

Get a grip, Lexy. Ethan needs you.

I called Charles on the way over and, as expected, he went ballistic when he found out I was heading here by myself.

I’m sure he’s on his way with reinforcements, along with whoever Elias is sending.

But I can’t wait.

Deep in my gut, I know Ethan needs me.

That only I can get us all out of this mess.

I’m the key to everything.

The sharp, briny scent of the Hudson floats to my nose and I hold my breath as I tiptoe on the deck toward the singular room with the lights on.

Pepper spray. Check.

Panic button. Check.

It’s only Dayton. He won’t hurt me.

I know he won’t.

I hear voices as the suite door comes into view.

Someone groans.

“You don’t need to do this.” A strained exhale.

“We can work something out.”

Ethan.

But he sounds like he’s in pain.

“Shut up. Let me think!” More muffling sounds.

“One mistake. One damn mistake and I’m stuck in this fucking mess,” Dayton mutters .

My pulse clatters inside my ears.

Ethan knows nothing.

I do. And I have the evidence.

Dayton doesn’t need to hurt him.

I need to calm him down.

Dayton will listen to me, I know it.

Determined, I take a deep breath and stride into the room.

“Dayton, whatever you’re thinking, don’t do this.”

The two men swivel their attention to me.

Dayton pulls his hair, his eyes wild with disbelief.

Ethan is tied up on the floor, blood seeping from his temple.

Upon seeing me, he strains against the binds around his wrists and ankles.

His mouth is now gagged, but I hear him yelling my name.

Automatically, I take a step toward him, but then I remember why I’m here.

I need to talk some sense into Dayton.

I remember the charming guy who whisked me down the halls at Broadbent, cheering me up whenever my parents made me upset.

The guy with dreams of becoming something great when he grows up.

I can get through to him.

“Dayton, don’t do this. I don’t know why you stole from Fleur. But it’s not worth it. Don’t throw your future away.” I look at Ethan, who’s still struggling unsuccessfully with his binds.

“We’ll forget about this, okay? None of this happened. We can all walk away.”

Fifteen minutes.

The average response time of the NYPD.

I remember reading this somewhere.

I just need to hold on for another five to ten minutes and the cops will be here.

“Lexy,” Dayton buries his face in his hands.

“You remember that fund I started in college? I only wanted to make it successful. I invested everything into it—it was my ticket to make a name for myself. When he reached out to me, saying he could fill in the gaps of my initial losses, that I could pay him back with the profits later on, I didn’t hesitate.”

“What? Who?” I reach inside my bag to grab the pepper spray.

Dayton doesn’t have a weapon.

Maybe I can incapacitate him if talking doesn’t work .

Dayton ignores my question and continues rambling.

“I didn’t even think about why he’d want me to help him, but you know what? When I asked, he said it was because I had access to you and Charles—that your family’s Bank of Columbia was also on their target list. I thought it was just introductions he needed. I didn’t know he’d—”

“Who on earth are you talking about? Who’s ‘he’?” The answer is at the tip of my tongue.

The Association. Bank of Columbia.

My family. Ethan’s family.

“Me.”

Another man steps out from the en suite bathroom and my mouth drops.

The light blond hair.

Lips usually tilted into an easygoing smile.

A face I’ve seen time and time again walking down the halls of Fleur.

Trey Spencer, Ethan’s VP of Finance, the guy everyone likes at Fleur.

“Trey? What? Wh-Why? Aren’t you Ethan’s friend? His mentor?” I grip the pepper spray and step backward.

His jaw works, his normally jovial face austere and angry.

“Take your hand out of your purse, Alexis. I won’t ask twice.”

Slowly, he unbuttons his jacket and pulls out a gun from his holster.

A deadly click echoes in the air.

He’s disengaged the safety.

Ethan throws himself across the floor in front of me, his hands and legs still bound.

“Lexy, go!” he mumbles through his gag.

My eyes burn. He’s still trying to save me.

He spent a decade waiting for me, a decade loving me when he could’ve moved on.

I won’t abandon him now.

Slowly, I raise my hands in the air.

“Trey, we can talk through this.”

“I wish you didn’t wake up,” Trey mutters, hurling a hateful glare at me.

“Ethan was investigating—I knew that, I was part of it, but he wasn’t desperate like a man possessed until he found the link to Dayton. And you know why? ”

At my silence, he continues, “He needed to protect you. The Andersons don’t care about the millions they’ve lost. It’s loose change to them. But you ,” he spits out the word in disdain, “you’re precious to him. Irreplaceable. At the thought of you being in danger, Ethan pulled all the stops, even enlisting the help of the Elias Kent. And who the hell wants Elias’s wrath?”

Trey barks out a deranged laugh and shakes his head.

“Even The Association is wary of Elias. The man holds too many secrets. Time’s running out. There are only so many ways someone can embezzle from a company. Elias has already started poking around in the HR files. It’s only a matter of time before this useless prick,” he jabs his thumb at Dayton, “will crack and give me up.”

“But why ?”

Buy us time.

A few more minutes. Rescue is coming.

I try to convey those thoughts to Ethan with my gaze, but the man I love shakes his head vehemently, his eyes darting to the door, pleading at me to leave.

Trey’s hand trembles, the barrel of his gun wavering.

My breathing is thready as my attention rivets on the weapon that may very well end our lives tonight.

“The Association has invited The Andersons and your family to join them for years. Years . But you all resisted. Your grandmother, Charles, and the great Linus Anderson and his impeccable children have too much honor and pride to join the ranks of other powerful businessmen and politicians in the plan to reshape the world as we know it. No one defies The Association.”

He leans down and pistol whips Ethan’s jaw and I shriek, watching the blood oozing from his lips.

“They got to me when I stole the first ten thousand to shut my ex up during our divorce. She was threatening to air out some dirty secrets I had.” Trey shakes his head.

“I was supposed to help them with one transfer, but I was too na?ve. Like the idiot over there who unfortunately caught my attention with his up and coming mutual fund, promising returns that were unheard of. Too damn good to be true.” Trey glares at Dayton.

“I dug around and found his connection to you and Charles. I told The Association I could get them in the door with your family—that I’d do them a favor in exchange for them destroying the evidence they had on me.”

Trey snarls.

“But there’s no such thing as one favor for The Association. Once you’re in, you can’t get out…unless you’re in a body bag. Ever since then, I was at their mercy—moving funds, doing whatever they asked me to do. A pathetic lackey.”

Ethan grunts in the background, and I know he’s trying to escape.

I step in front of him, blocking Trey’s view.

Trey adjusts his grip on the gun, his face mottled as he reflects on the past. I can’t believe this is the same guy we all joked with in the office.

The guy who took my dinner order in Ethan’s office.

“For the last ten years, I was instructed to dirty Fleur up for them. Infiltrate. Destroy it from within. If I said no, all the evidence of the embezzlement—among other illegal things—would be aired out. It’d be life behind bars. But you know what? If I couldn’t escape, I might as well get rich doing bad shit, right? The end goal is to leave Fleur—and your family’s bank—with no choice but to join us.”

He towers over me, his eyes maniacal.

“Do you know those funds we siphoned off Fleur’s accounts were used to traffic women? All in the name of the precious Vaughn’s Bank of Columbia Equitable Investment Fund? There’s a paper trail miles long implicating Fleur and BoC in this shit?”

Ethan stills behind me, and despite his disadvantaged position on the ground, I feel the wrath wafting off him.

Without a doubt, if he were unbound, he’d kill Trey.

Trey tsks. “Ethan, I wish things ended differently. I enjoyed working with you. But you stuck your nose where you didn’t belong. And it appears,” he glances at me, “the woman you love has the same problem as you. ”

He cocks his head to the side and steps closer to me.

“Why didn’t you die the first time?”

“T-The first time?”

“Still don’t get it? Your little party in the Hudson ten years ago… Who did you think gave you that send-off? Knowing you couldn’t swim?”

My mind swirls, trying to process his words.

My car plummeting into the Hudson wasn’t an accident, that much I already figured out, but then his comment about me not being able to swim.

I whip my head toward Dayton, who hangs his head, not looking at me.

“You fucking shit!” I yell at him.

“You knew I couldn’t swim. It was you who ran me off the road that day, wasn’t it?”

“Goddamn it, Lexy. You saw too much! You saw what happened at the hotel lounge—you saw Archambeau, one of their top enforcers. You saw what the guys were doing to the girls. You interrupted an initiation for The Association just because you saw your uncle joining their ranks. You recorded it. You think you would’ve gotten away?”

“They were assaulting them!” I scream, thinking back to my memories.

Taylor was assaulted.

Violated. By none other than Uncle Ian, the man I’d looked up to all my life.

The man I thought died tragically while I was in a coma.

The person no one in my family would mention every time I asked about him.

It all makes sense now.

Everyone knows. The father figure I had, my father’s brother, was a monster.

Just like the people in this shady organization called The Association.

“Trey got orders to get rid of you. But he didn’t want to get his hands dirty. He would’ve turned me over to the cops if I didn’t follow his instructions. I had to get rid of you.”

“You bastard! ”

Dayton crumbles, his eyes glistening.

“I-I’m sorry, Lexy. Goddamn it, I’m so sorry. I really liked you. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and now you’re in love with the wrong person. But in the end, I couldn’t go through with it…I couldn’t kill you.”

Trey scoffs.

What? My attention bounces from the two men—one with a crazed gleam in his eyes, the other looking like he’s seconds from collapsing onto the floor from guilt.

“The useless idiot fished you out of the water. Couldn’t hack it.” Trey snarls in derision.

“ You’re the Good Samaritan?” What the fuck?

That’s why he didn’t stick around for the ambulance.

That’s why no one could find this mysterious savior.

“All because of one terrible choice I made in college. And now I’m stuck in this shit forever,” Dayton mutters, rocking on his feet.

A thought occurs to me.

“Is this why you wormed your way back into my life? To see if I remembered anything? What were you going to do if I remembered it all? Kill me?”

Dayton doesn’t answer, but his silence is a response by itself.

Suddenly, Trey claps, the sound drawing our attention back to him.

“Story time’s over. Chop chop.” He drags Ethan up and shoves him out the door, his gun still pointed at me.

“No funny business, Anderson, or she dies.”

Ethan’s face pales, the dark blood still dripping from the gash on his temple.

He staggers out, following Trey’s directions.

“Come on, Alexis. You too,” Trey commands.

A minute later, he has us crowded against the cold railing separating The Delfina and the icy depths of the Hudson River.

The waves crash against the ship, the sounds harsh and violent, and a sudden wind kicks up.

Ethan shoves himself in front of me, still intent on protecting me with his life.

I shiver and inhale his reassuring scent of leather and amber .

I can’t let our story end this way.

But what can I do? Where are the damn cops?

“Aw. How sweet. Gallant to the very end.” Trey lets out a deranged laugh.

“I’m sorry it had to end this way.”

He cocks his gun and points it at Ethan’s head.

No!

“I-I have evidence! A hard drive!” The words burst out of me, adrenaline fueling my bravery.

Trey freezes, a hard glint in his eyes.

“What?”

“I-If we die, the contents of that drive will be released into the world. If you let us live, I’ll burn the evidence.” My heart quakes inside my rib cage.

“I don’t believe you.”

Stiffening, I jut my chin out, my fingers grazing Ethan’s hands tied behind his back.

He clutches me and squeezes, as if letting me know he’ll protect me.

I squeeze him back, telling him this time I’ll protect him.

“Try me,” I whisper to the madman in front of us.

Trey’s eyes rove over us, his lips pursed.

I hold my breath, hoping he’ll cave.

But then he straightens, his finger steady on the trigger.

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to take the risk, won’t we?”

He swivels the gun toward me and fires, a loud boom echoing in the night.

Before I can react, I hear a loud roar followed by a grunt, then Ethan drops to the ground.

“No!” I scream, watching crimson blood seep out through his white dress shirt.

He threw himself in front of a bullet for me.

Ethan gurgles, more blood dripping from his mouth.

I crouch and clutch him in my arms.

“Ethan!” I tug out his gag.

His breathing is harsh, the color fading fast from his face.

“Trey… Sh-she doesn’t know anything. She’s bluffing. Your secret dies with me. Let her go. ”

“The downfall of Anderson men. Their women,” Trey murmurs, and I hear the telltale click of the gun again.

With strength I don’t know I possess, I hoist Ethan up and spin toward the inky waters of my almost-grave.

I hurl us over the railing as the second shot rings out.

Icy water swallows me as I clutch the man I love, the currents dragging us under into the dark depths. Swim, Lexy. Swim.