Risky Obsession (Wolf Security #3)

31. Lacey

CHAPTER 31

Lacey

I held the phone to my ear and someone breathed on the other end.

Rage reared inside me like a tsunami. “I’m going to get you, Hughes. You messed with the wrong woman.”

The caller clicked off.

I sprinted back to the man I’d restrained and took a couple of close-up photos of his face. Then I changed the phone passcode, so I could gain access again. I shoved the phone into my back pocket and using the anger coursing through my body, I scrambled up the rocky avalanche, aiming for the hole we came through.

I needed to get help. But I had no idea how.

Images of Kane beneath that water flooded my mind. I saw his hair drifting around his head and his eyelids forced closed. I felt his stress deep in my bones.

I’m coming, Kane. I’m coming.

“Please be okay,” I muttered as I raced up the uneven terrain. My waterlogged hands became raw from gripping jagged rocks.

I found the gap between the boulders. Salty breeze froze my wet skin as I stepped into the open air. Gasping for breath, I squinted against the glare and scanned the ocean.

A massive luxury yacht was anchored directly offshore with a chopper on the helipad on top.

Archer? It had to be .

“Help!” I screamed until my throat hurt, waving my arms over my head.

I couldn’t see anyone on the yacht.

“Fuck!”

“Archer!” I shouted across the distance.

Still, nobody appeared.

Shit! With the top part of the ladder missing, I’d never make it back up to the castle.

I couldn’t wait any longer. Kane needed me. I had no choice but to jump and swim out to that yacht.

I plucked the phone from my back pocket and secured it next to a rock. I removed my shoes and without another thought, jumped off the cliff. A scream tore through me as I plunged twenty feet into the dark surface.

Freezing water slammed into me with the force of a sledgehammer, driving the air from my lungs. In a burst of bubbles and panic that strangled my chest, I kicked for the surface.

I pushed through to fresh air and yelled for help again as the salty swell slapped into me.

Putting my head down, I swam like crazy, aiming for the massive yacht. Every stroke was a second too long for Kane, and my mind crashed through one rotten thought after the other.

The knot burning in my throat made every breath painful. Exhaustion made my arms floppy. Each movement hurt like hell, but I kept going, forcing my thoughts onto saving Kane. As I closed the distance, the yacht grew larger.

My lungs burned beyond painful, and when I turned to the side for air, water shot straight down my throat and into my lungs. Gasping and coughing, I fought to breathe.

As tears stung my eyes and I sucked in short sharp breaths, I waved my arm over my head.

“Help!” I called, but my voice was a brittle whisper. Forcing my voice off my salty tongue, I punched the water. “Help!”

A man with wavy blond hair and a trimmed beard appeared on the side of the yacht. He waved at me, then sprinted away.

“Oh, thank god.” My breaths were like rusty nails scraping my throat as I stared at the yacht, trying to make my limbs take me forward. My adrenalin had turned my arms and legs to jelly and as I tried to ride the swell, the water just crashed into me .

“Please hurry,” I said as I forced my body to keep moving.

A rubber boat darted out the back of the yacht and as it raced toward me, I prayed the man really was Archer. As I fought to keep my head above the surface, exhaustion gnawed at the edges of my consciousness.

Upon its approach, the boat slowed, and the man leaned over the side with an outstretched arm, ready to catch me.

“Are you Archer?” I croaked, taking his hand.

“Yes. Where’s Kane?” He guided me to the back of the raft and lowered a rope ladder.

As he helped me climb up, I said, “Kane’s in trouble. He’s trapped underwater in a submerged bunker and is breathing through a pipe. We need to get him.”

I collapsed in the bottom of the raft.

“Hold on!” he yelled, pointing at a handhold.

As I scrambled to the handle, he revved the engine and raced back to the yacht.

“How long has he been under?” Archer bellowed over the engine noise.

“I don’t know, twenty minutes. Thirty.”

“Fuck.” He leaned forward as if urging the raft to go faster.

My heart pounded furiously and as we approached the yacht, the sun disappeared behind a thick blanket of clouds, casting a veil of darkness over the world that added to my sickening dread.

As he guided the raft to the back of the yacht, Evangeline’s Sister , I explained the shaft I’d climbed out of, and that Kane was about two feet below that.

Archer didn’t waste any time on words. At the rear dive platform, he hooked a rope onto a bracket, leapt onto the yacht, and sprinted up a set of stairs.

I chased after him, and he stopped at double doors centered between two curved sets of stairs. He yanked the doors open, and from inside, he pulled out two scuba tanks and other diving apparatus.

“What’s going on?” A gorgeous woman with olive skin and long dark hair sprinted toward us, her warm brown eyes filled with worry.

“Kane’s trapped underwater,” I said. “We need to save him.”

“Grab the gear,” Archer yelled as he marched away, carrying two scuba tanks .

“I’m Rosalina.” The woman pulled a band from her wrist and tugged her hair into a ponytail.

“Lacey,” I said as I scooped the equipment Archer had removed into my arms.

“Here, take this.” She added more diving equipment into my arms, then she tugged out another tank.

Archer sprinted back to us.

“What are you doing?” He glared at Rosalina.

“Coming with you.”

Archer didn’t argue. Instead, he took the tank from her and ran back to the rubber boat.

We clambered into the raft with all the gear, and as Archer drove toward the cliffs, dread gripped me.

What if we’re too late?

Ice-cold terror flooded through me.

No! I refused to believe that. He would make it.

He had to.

The wind howled in my ears and salty sea spray stung my face, blending with my tears that streaked down my cheeks.

Rosalina placed her hand over my arm. “He’ll be okay. He’s strong and smart.”

I sucked my lips into my mouth, fighting the emotions setting to swallow me whole.

“Tory,” Archer said, “tell me about the cave in.”

I didn’t waste time correcting my name. “It was an explosion set off with dynamite.”

“What the fuck?” Archer said.

“I knocked out the bastard who did it, and he’s restrained.”

Archer eyed Rosalina. “You’re not diving in that mess.”

“Then neither are you,” she spat.

He growled. “For fuck’s sake, Rosalina, it’s unstable.”

“Exactly, that’s why you need my help.” She jutted her chin.

Archer yanked his gaze away from her, and I had a feeling he knew he would not win that argument.

As we approached the cliff, I searched for the set of stairs carved into the rockface, but they blended in so well they were barely visible.

“Over there.” I pointed ahead .

Archer aimed the raft that way, and every second took an eternity.

At the base of the cliff, the boat lurched to a stop. The three of us worked together to tie up the boat and carry the gear up the rocky landslide.

By the time we slipped through the gap into the hidden submarine pens, the angle of the sun barely penetrated the holes in the ceiling.

Darkness shrouded the area. I couldn’t even see the Nazi flag at the rear of the chasm.

My heart squeezed to a lump. It will be pitch black in the water.

Oh God! How will Archer get Kane out of that bunker?