My hand brushes against my wrist, and through the haze of pain and disorientation, I register something significant.
My watch is still there.
The custom Patek Philippe that cost more than most people make in a year, the one I never remove, survived the wave that should have torn it from my wrist. But it's not the monetary value that makes my heart stutter in my chest. It's what's inside.The GPS tracker Cyril insisted on after the last assassination attempt, when a rival Pakhan’s men cornered me in a parking garage and put three bullets in my chest before my security could intervene.
"You're too valuable to lose," Cyril had said, his gray eyes cold with the kind of logic that keeps men like us alive. "And too stubborn to call for help when you need it. So I'm making the choice for you."
The watch tracks my location constantly, feeding data to a secure server only Cyril can access. If I'm in danger, if my vital signs indicate distress, he knows. He comes. It's saved my life twice in the three years since he had it made.
The knowledge settles in my mind, significant but secondary to the more immediate problem of not dying in the next few minutes. The tracker won't help if we drown before rescue can arrive, won't matter if Aria's strength gives out and we both sink beneath the waves.
It won't help if I don't turn it on.
Through the rain and spray, between the swells that try to push us under, I spot something.
A dark mass rising from the water, solid and unmoving against the chaos of the storm. Land. An island, maybe, or a large rock formation. It doesn't matter what it is, only that it's not water, not this endless churning death that surrounds us.
I feel Aria see it too. Her body shifts against mine, her legs adjusting their angle, and suddenly, we're moving with purpose rather than just fighting to stay afloat. She's angling us toward the dark mass, using the current instead of fighting it, and Irealize with a start that she knows what she's doing. This isn't blind panic. This is strategy.
The current fights us anyway. For every foot we gain toward the island, the ocean tries to drag us two feet in the opposite direction. My legs are cramping now, muscles seizing with the cold and exertion, and I can feel Aria's movements growing more desperate. She's running out of strength. We both are.
But she doesn't let go.
Her arms remain locked around my chest, her body pressed against mine, and even as her kicks grow weaker, she holds on. The determination in that simple act does something to me, cracks something open in my chest that I've kept sealed for twenty years. No one has fought for me like this. No one has chosen me over their own survival.
The realization is terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure.
I force my legs to kick harder, ignoring the screaming protest of my muscles. If she won't give up on me, I sure as hell won't give up on her. On us. The word feels foreign in my mind, a concept I've deliberately avoided my entire adult life. There is no "us" in my world. There's me, and there are people I use to achieve my goals. Allies are temporary. Loyalty is purchased. Trust is a weakness that gets you killed.
Except Aria isn't any of those things. She's not my ally or my employee or someone I'm using. She's a woman who jumped into a storm-tossed ocean to save a man she barely knows, a man whose background check probably revealed exactly what kind of monster he is.
The island grows closer, details emerging from the darkness. Rocky outcroppings, black and jagged, rising from the churningwater like teeth. The shore beyond looks narrow, more stone than sand, but it's solid ground. It's survival.
We're maybe twenty feet away when I feel Aria's strength finally give out.
Her legs stop kicking. Her arms loosen fractionally around my chest. Her breath against my ear becomes shallow, rapid, the kind of breathing that precedes unconsciousness. She's given everything she has, pushed past the point where her body should have quit, and now there's nothing left.
Terror floods through me, cold and sharp.
I twist in her grip, my arms finally responding to commands, and manage to turn enough to see her face. Her eyes are half-closed, her lips tinged blue with cold, and she's barely keeping her head above water. Beautiful even now, even like this, with death reaching for us both. The thought comes unbidden, unwelcome, and absolutely true.
I grab her, my hands finding her waist, and pull her against my chest. Our positions reverse. Now I'm the one holding her, keeping her head above water, and my legs kick with renewed desperation. The island is right there. So close. I can see individual rocks, can hear the crash of waves against stone.
A wave rises behind us, larger than the others, and I have maybe two seconds to make a decision.
I wrap my body around Aria's, my arms caging her against my chest, my back to the wave. If we're going to hit those rocks, if this is how we die, then I'll take the impact. She saved me. The least I can do is try to save her in return.
The wave lifts us like a giant's hand, impossibly high, and for a moment we're suspended in the air, weightless and doomed. I see the rocky shore rushing toward us, see the jagged stones that will break bones and tear flesh, and my last conscious thought before impact is a prayer to a God I stopped believing in twenty years ago.
Please. Let her survive this.
The world explodes in pain and darkness, and I know nothing more.
5
ARIA
My arms scream in protest as I drag Nikolai's unconscious body across the narrow beach, each pull sending fire through muscles I didn't know I possessed. The stones beneath us are slick with rain and seawater, treacherous and unforgiving, but I don't stop. Can't stop. His weight is substantial, all solid muscle and dead weight, and my lungs burn from the salt water I swallowed, from the exertion of keeping us both alive in that churning hell.
