The objection is visible on his face. His lips thin. His nostrils flare.
But I’m already striding away, Phoenix shaking in my arms. If Mason wants an explanation of my reasoning, he can wait until we’re the fuck away from here.
The shoreline appears through a gap between the last row of containers, rocky beach that is practically inaccessible, which is something I know the Sinners counted on.
Too bad for them.
The Second Chancebobs gently on the water, anchored about 50 feet away from the shore. Judah stands at the helm, one hand on the wheel, scanning the darkness. Atticus paces the stern deck like a caged animal.
The second Atticus spots us, he’s off the boat and splashing through the shallows.
His hands are already reaching for Phoenix as if he needs physical contact to believe what he’s seeing. “Is she hurt? Let me see her.”
“She’s okay,” I say, hefting Phoenix higher to keep her out of the hip-high waves as he splashes through the water beside me. “Just crashing from the adrenaline, I think.”
Atticus’s jaw clenches, his green eyes sweeping over the bruise blooming on her cheek, the abraded skin at her wrists. Something dangerous and barely controlled flickers behind his expression before he wrestles it down.
“I’ll help you get her up.”
Phoenix clinging to me limits my use of my hands, so Atticus has to grip under my armpits and pull me up on deck while I try not to slip on the metal ladder. Mason clambers up behind us.
Judah is already hauling in the anchor. “Take her below deck, but I need someone to watch the side as I navigate the rocks.”
Atticus and Mason exchange a look. It only takes a second for Atticus to let out a sigh at the bulldog expression on Mason’s face and volunteer himself to stay on the deck.
I carry Phoenix down the narrow steps into the cabin below. Mason is right behind me, practically pressed against my back in his eagerness to get to Phoenix as we duck into the galley.
The cabin is small and smells like diesel and old plastic. A narrow bunk lines one wall, stacked with the kind of heavy blankets fishermen use during winter runs.
When I try to lower Phoenix onto the bunk, her arms only tighten around me, which is the only sign she gives of still being conscious.
So I sit down on the edge of the mattress myself and reach for a blanket to drape across her shoulders and tuck underneath her so she isn’t sitting directly on my soaked jeans.
Mason drops onto the wooden bench across from us. His hands press flat against his knees, knuckles white. In the dim cabin light, his face is carved from something harder than I’ve ever seen on him.
“Why aren’t we talking to the police?”
“Because the second Phoenix’s name appears in a police report, this becomes a media circus.” I keep my voice low, one hand rubbing slow circles across Phoenix’s back. She hasn’t loosened her grip, but her breathing has gone shallow and slow against my neck, which I hope means she has finally allowed herself to relax. “And do you really want to make her relive this over and over again through a trial?”
Mason’s jaw grinds. “So we just let the Sinners get away with this?”
“I didn’t say that. Aaron and the Sinners will get what’s coming to them.”
Mason’s eyes narrow. “What does that mean?”
I open my mouth to answer, but Phoenix shifts against me. Her legs unlock slightly from my waist as she shifts in my lap, but her fists stay knotting in my shirt, practically daring me to try and lay her down on her own.
I’ll never let her go again if that’s what she wants.
I return my attention to Mason.
“It means that none of them will ever touch her again, I promise you that.”
An hour later, Phoenix’s grip hasn’t loosened.
We rushed to the salvage yard, heedless of the danger of driving the Second Chance right into the rocky beach. Now that the danger has passed and we have her back, the journey back to town is slow going. It’ll be another few hours before we’re docked back in the harbor.
I’d hoped to tuck her into the cot and let her sleep, but Phoenix has other ideas.
