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“You holding onto me pretty hard for somebody who's good.”

“Boy, shut up.” She mushed me playfully.

I laughed and helped her with her mask.

Whatever attitude she had dissolved the moment we started swimming around the reef. She pointed excitedly at an eel poking its head out and a school of fish circling her feet. It was cute, and watching her made warmth spread through my chest.

We stayed in the water for close to an hour before climbing back onto the boat.

“Okay,” she said as she toweling herself off, “that was worth getting my hair wet.”

The staff brought out lunch, and we sat and ate while the captain circled us back toward the marina.

“Do you guys want to play any music? We have a Bluetooth speaker,” a staff member asked as they gave us bottled water.

I looked at Belle. “You feel like playing DJ?”

She was already reaching into her beach bag for her phone and started scrolling before she’d even been given the pairing information. A minute later, some bad bitch anthem I’d never heard in my life came through the yacht’s speakers at full volume.

Belle stood, threw her hands up, and started twerking and rapping along bar for bar. I leaned back and watched her, amused and more than a little turned on by the way her ass jiggled in her swimsuit. I glanced back and caught the one male staff member not-so-discreetly watching her too—and felt my whole body go hot.

I knew exactly what he was thinking because I was thinking it too, which was a problem.

I stood and pulled Belle into my lap.

“Hey!” she yelped, squirming against me.

I wrapped in my arms and put my lips to the back of her neck. “You see that nigga over there?” I kept my voice low enough for her to hear. She stilled and turned her head slightly. He’d gone back to what he was doing, probably realizing that I’d caught him. “You keep dancing like that and I’ma have to pluck his eyes out for looking at you.”

Belle spun around to face me. “You wouldn’t.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Wanna find out?”

“Leave that boy alone,” she hissed and threw her arms around my neck. “I’m here with you, psycho.” She kissed me. “Didn’t peg you for having a violent streak.”

“I don’t play about things that are mine, Belle.”

Something I couldn’t place flashed across her face before she kissed me again. “There, now it’s clear,” she whispered against my lips. “Happy?”

“Very.”

We got back to the villa with a little under two hours before we needed to leave. Belle disappeared into the bathroom to shower, and I sat on the edge of the bed to check-in with Marco. Yomi had decided to fly back early this morning, so I had extra boots on the ground.

“Boss,” he answered.

“You got any updates for me?” I asked.

“Kev and LJ are dead,” he said grimly. “Their bodies were found in the East River last night.”

“Fuck,” I muttered. Those two were some solid young dudes. I made a note to send money to their families to cover their funeral arrangements. “Anything else?”

“There was probably about fifty-thousand in product, not including the guns. Shit is burned up too bad, so I don’t know if they stole any or left them to burn.”

I swallowed down my anger as the urge to knock somebody’s head off came back to me.

“Call a meeting for tomorrow. I’ma holla at my pops.”

That might prove to be a pain in my ass, but it was definitely some bullshit going on, and I needed him there.