She was curled up on her side, her messy blonde hair covering her face so I couldn’t see it.
I reached inside and touched her.
She didn’t move.
Panic was like ice-water in my veins as I dragged her from underneath the bed.
“What’s wrong with her?” Nico asked, his voice tight with the same feeling.
I gave Cini a hard shake, afraid that maybe she’d had a seizure or something due to the stress.
But Cini just huffed a breath, her brows drawing together as she snuggled into my bloody arms.
A sigh of relief whooshed out of all four of us.
“She’s sleeping,” I said, mostly to myself as I held her close.
“Only she would sleep amongst all of this carnage,” Ranieri muttered with a shake of his head. “I guess that’s one benefit to her not being able to hear anything.”
“Let’s get her out of here,” Elio said as he reached out to slide a hand down her cheek.
For now, things were fine, but I also knew that this was far from over. This was just the beginning.
Twenty-One
When I had fallen asleep, I had been curled up underneath the massive bed in the primary bedroom. Despite the situation, my brain had been exhausted from nearly being kidnapped again and it seemed to have forced me into sleep.
I fully expected to wake up either in the bed or still underneath it, but instead I felt as if I was being rocked.
It was a familiar sensation that I knew well because I’d had the same feeling when Nico and I were out on our boat day.
My eyes flew open and I sat up on the net of the same catamaran boat as before.
It was daytime and I was wrapped up in the soft duvet that had previously been on the bed.
Confusion filled me as I glanced around, trying to figure out where exactly we were because there was no land in sight.
‘You’re awake finally,’Elio’s voice filled my mind.‘We were starting to get worried.’
The net compressed behind me as Elio pulled me into a hug.
‘We’re on a boat,’was all I could think to say in reply.
Elio’s laughter was soft as it floated through my head.‘You are correct, we are on a boat.’
I turned to look at him. He looked just as relaxed as he had when we were playing in the ocean before he’d gotten the call from my father.‘What happened? Why are we on a boat?’
‘It was the only way to get off the island without your father finding us,’he explained.‘We stole it.’
‘Youstolethis boat?’I asked, gawking at the alpha before looking around at the catamaran that had been the setting of one of the most romantic days of my life.
Elio’s dark brows rose.‘You do realize we’re quite literally criminals… right,peanut?’
Iknewthat, but for some reason when I thought about them breaking the law I always figured it was more nefarious than stealing a boat. That almost seemed… petty.
‘We needed to get off of the island and this was the best way I could think of to do it. We’ll give it back—well—we’llprobablygive it back.’
With a sigh, I sent whoever owned the boat a mental apology.
