It was three in the morning and Rocco swam straight down into pitch black. The water was colder at night, mid-seventies. He wore a wetsuit, weight belt, a backpack with two SCUBA tanks, a mask, a knife on his hip, jet fins on his feet, and clipped to him in four different spots were high powered flashlights. If he lost his light where he was going he would die.

There was nothing to see at this time of night. All he could see were the bits of drift that shone in the narrow 800 lumen LED beam of his flashlight. The flashlight was bulky, solid, looped to his wrist with a rubber strap. The body was all-aluminum and rated for high pressure, which he needed because he was going deep. Deep enough that the last time he’d been here his light had popped. That’s why he always had backups.

There were rules of diving and he was breaking them. The most important: he was diving alone and that was always bad news. He was no Navy SEAL, but when he’d been recruited from Delta to join the ‘Team’ with Killian and the others he’d been provided extra training. He’d spent three weeks in San Diego with real SEALs learning the in and outs of SCUBA and diving. He’d been deployed on three missions where he’d had to utilize SCUBA in the ocean and each of those times he’d excelled. He wasn’t a SEAL but he would have made a good one if he started out in the Navy. He had lungs, one of the instructors had told him, like huge hot water bottles.

The depth gauge on his wrist showed him 140ft and he knew he would be near the bottom soon. He kicked his fins and wiggled his way deeper until at last the beam ahead of him lit up the sandy floor. On his other wrist was a Navimate, a display on it bigger than an iPhone. It was lit up with a topographical map of the area and there was only one personal indicator on it that he’d entered himself. It showed as a red dot on the screen and he swam towards it. GPS didn’t work deep underwater but this used radio signals broadcast from his boat’s GPS so he could navigate at night.

Soon he found the wreck of an old fishing boat, its wooden ribs curling up out of the silt like a hyena-gorged carcass. He found the prow and followed the direction it pointed, kicking along and trailing a finger in the sand until he came to a rocky ridge. He followed it upward, crested it. The top of the ridge was blossoming with Purple Coral, lit up the shade of lilac in his beam.

It took a minute but he found it. The narrow mouth of a cave, a black hole that headed down at a steep angle. The rim of the cave was lined with the long bent fingers of the coral and partly obscured by a patch of Red Sea Whip, a blossoming coral that raised up off the ridge like shrubs.

He unhooked a coil of bright orange Dacron line and swam into the black hole. Near the entrance there was a stalactite with a nice rough edge to it and he tied one end of the line off. Once it was tugged and he was sure it was secure he headed into the dark hole and spooled line out behind him so he would find his way back out of this network of caves.

The one he was in now was a narrow tunnel, not much bigger than his bulky frame and the tanks on his back. He guided himself along with one hand pulling, his fins gently kicking and the flashlight lighting the way. He came to a narrow. A pinch in the passage where there had been a stone-fall and he struggled to squeeze himself through it. Not far on the other side the cave opened to a less frightening width, almost the size of a hotel hallway. He made left turns and right turns, the tunnel sloped up, then back down. He came to forks where the tunnel broke in two. He’d memorized the path through, but he was thankful for the line in case he got mixed up. The GPS from the radio signal wouldn't reach this distance and his navigation screen just showed a blank topographical map with no indicators, not even the location of his boat. There was nothing in Special Forces more dangerous than cave diving. And he was doing it at night, and he was doing it alone.

At last he came to the end of the line. The tunnel narrowed again so that he was just able to pass and he kicked through and it was like he’d leapt off a cliff. He shone the light around and there was nothing but black all around him. He whisked the light up and saw the rocky stalactite ceiling. Shone it below and saw nothing but the bright white specks of silt kicked up by his passage through the tunnel. This space he was in was enclosed on all sides, sized and shaped like a big city cathedral. His depth gauge showed he was at 220ft. This was deep. Past 300ft was theoretically bad news. Something that shouldn't be done. He jackknifed and kicked himself straight down. The pressure grew intense. He passed 250, 260, 270...it was here, he knew, if he were to explore, that the cathedral bottom opened out. The cathedral above, bottomless, as if it hovered over a rocky space the size of a football stadium. He dove deeper. 290 his gauge read, then he was below 300. This was where it got real tricky. This is where he could get narced. Nitrogen narcosis could rob him of his ability to think. Like he would be so confused he wouldn't know if he was swimming up or down...or who knows what he might do. He could get so stupid he might take all his things off and lie down for a nap.

He kicked deeper, went past 310. Then ahead he saw the rocky and silty floor of the cave. Coming straight down from the center of the dome above should put him roughly where he would want to be. His hands worked over the rocks at the bottom looking for one particular...

He found it at last, a boulder, squat but oblong, roughly the size and shape of a barrel. He sunk to its base and he tucked the torch under his chin while both hands dug at the sand. Fingernails scrabbled across something hard and flat and he worked them quickly, discerning its shape, smoothed the silt out, the water growing muddy in his mask. He went by feel until he had it dug. He waved his hand and tried to clear the rising fog of silt. In his hands was a metal ammo can. US Army.

The pressure at this depth was enormous. His fingers and toes tingled as his body pulled away support to them to try and keep the rest of him alive. His chest felt squeezed, his hot water bottle lungs crushed like soda cans. But they worked. And tough as it was they could draw air from his regulator for now. He popped the clasp on the ammo can with his clumsy fingers. He had to pry the lid open with his fingertips, the pressure keeping it closed was five times as great as if they were on land. He popped the lid free, swinging it wide on its hinge. Inside was a black cloth bag. His vision had gone very narrow but he found the mouth of the bag, it had a drawstring tying it tight, and his fingers poked in and searched. He withdrew a stone as broad as a quarter that sparkled and shone in the light beaming from under his chin. It was a diamond. Three carats. Not ostentatious enough to draw unwarranted attention, but the diamond was internally flawless. He could sell it for a quarter million dollars but that was just money and all he wanted from this diamond was to mirror the perfection of the woman he loved. The two of them internally flawless, astoundingly beautiful, and men would kill for them. He laughed at the thought, laughed at the idea that he could compare the two. One thing a rare rock, a beautiful one at that—one he and his friends had risked their lives to attain and one that others would kill for. But ultimately, he thought, rolling the dazzling diamond between thumb and forefinger and watching the twinkle from the LED light, it was absolutely valueless compared to his Daniella. It was nothing compared to the woman he loved. He thought of scale and worth for a while, watched the winking light, thought of his future, thought of what might be between them, him and his woman, thought of all that lay ahead and all the happiness that would be his and all that ... And that was when he panicked that he was getting narced.

He willed his wrist to bend, found it difficult and unwilling, turned his hand and bent his neck to read his depth gauge and try to remember where he was. He was in the ocean, right? He was sure of that. Okay, okay, he was deep in the ocean...get it together, Rocco! His vision was a narrow pin point and he struggled to read his gages. Plenty of air left.

Maybe he wasn't narced. Maybe he was just dumbfounded by his love for Daniella. It would be impossible to tell them apart. Being this deep put you under the Martini Law, where every 33ft below 66ft was like having a martini. He was astoundingly deep; 329ft to be exact. How many martinis was that? Shit, he couldn’t do the math and he felt anxiety. His brain struggled wildly to figure out how many drinks that was. But then again he was never that good at math, even on dry land. Didn’t even make it out of high school. Shoot, it had to be what? ...seven, eight martinis? He would be drunk. Drunk on love for his woman. Ha, ha. Shit, he was starting to think he was definitely narced. He focused hard, so hard his dim eyes narrowed. He tied up the bag again, hands moving quickly, stuffed the bag that was full of the remaining diamonds into the can, closed it up with increasing difficulty, got it hidden, arranged the sand the way it should be and began kicking his fins.

He shone the beam ahead of him, swimming towards his own cone of light and soon he came to a black maw poked into a charcoal face. The limestone cliff, the wall of the underwater cathedral. His way out. His orange line was tied to a rocky outcrop and he didn't remember doing that. He pat the front of his wetsuit, felt the hard stony lump of that perfect diamond stab the muscle of his chest. Didn't remember putting it in there either. He swam.

Inside the black mouth he untied his line, gathered it. Swam his way back through the tunnels, working his way up and down and sideways through the winding maze, following his line. When he got to the mouth that opened to the ocean floor he stopped and wound up the line again. He folded the line to a hank and looped it through the clip on his belt and kicked his fins, heading to the surface. He checked his gages. Pressure was good, lots of air left, but he was on his reserve tank. At 70ft he paused and swam laterally, watching the navigator on his wrist which had come back to life.

Finally he found, floating ghostly in the beam of his lights, a set of tanks suspended by a rope. They were in a harness suited for sidemount and he clipped them to his webbing, took a good breath from the depleting tank on his back and then switched to the new regulator and breathed. The air flowed freely. After the depth he had swam at, the depth he’d hidden the treasure at, you had to decompress slowly or you would get bent. The gases in his blood could bubble and he could die from an embolism, so he would have to slowly decompress, let the gases escape him from natural breathing. He didn’t need to check his decompression tables, he’d gone no deeper than the last time he’d been down, when he’d hidden the diamonds. So he slowly kicked and he waited. Ten minutes at seventy feet, ten at sixty, ten at fifty and so on. At ten feet he hovered below his boat, the black shape of it clearly silhouetted above him. He thought of Daniella and the significance of this diamond. Put his hand over it and pressed it into his flesh right over his heart. He watched the sunrise from under the waves. Watched the ocean turn from colorless gray, then fill with pale red, turning to rose, then burning orange. He smiled dumbly.

There was no numbness, no dizziness, his blood was clear, his fingers and joints pain free. He wasn’t narced. He wasn’t bent. This dumb smile was from love.

* * *

She knew he wasn’t really gone, even though when she woke she found his spot in their bed cold and empty. He would be near. He wasn’t ever going to leave her again. If there was one thing clear in their three months in this new home it was that Rocco would never leave her.

She rolled to her back and stretched her legs til they shook under the soft cotton sheets. Now she did the same with her arms, thrusting them above her head, twisting her back left and right. The low morning sun came into the bedroom window and cast a golden glow on all the polished surfaces of their bedroom. The windows were open and a wind chime gently howled low undulating notes. Under that sound she was sure there was the drone of a distant motor, chopped and broken like it was bouncing on waves.

Rolled onto her tummy and looked out over the top of the headboard, holding herself up on her hands. Their bedroom looked out over the ocean. The window was framed with the sharp sagging fronds of palms but between them, out on the water, there was a white dot on the horizon. It rode the choppy turquoise swell, jouncing between the line of the waves and the vast dawning azure sky above. The sound of his motor came and went with the wind. He must have been out diving. Or fishing maybe...and then she was suddenly ravenous. Rocco might bring a fresh-caught bonefish and they could cook it up for breakfast. Though it wasn’t even seven in the morning she would fry the fish up in butter and they could eat it out on the patio. She’d been having strange appetites recently. Appetites she supposed that weren’t entirely her own.

Daniella rose, sat up in bed and put her bare feet down on the white wooden floor. The whole bedroom was white-painted wood, the outside of the house a brilliant tropical mango color. There was a caftan laying draped over the back of a chair next to her bed and she snagged it between her fingers, stood and admired her deep tan (practically lineless, thank you) in the mirror over the dresser before slipping it over her head.

Crossing to the kitchen she heard the motor growing closer now, filling up their oceanfront bungalow through its open windows. She ran a kettle and put some ground coffee in the French press, her eyes fixated on something across the room. The kitchen was separated from the living room by an island, and she could see, sitting on an easel, the ocean and palms and sky behind it, her most recent painting. It was work like she had done before, scattered and colorful, explosive at times. But these days it was confident, controlled; the appearance of chaos, maybe, but it showed that the hand that moved the paint around the canvas knew what it was doing now. Knew what it wanted. She smiled.

They had pooled what money they had together. Rocco had a lot. He’d squirreled away quite a bit while he was in the Army. What he made he never spent and he sat on a substantial stash that he’d accumulated before he left and joined the Army. His mob money. She had some too. Her own personal accounts that were separate from what had been bequeathed to her and that had, in turn, been handed over to her half-brother. It was enough to sustain them. They had rented this little home on the sea, on a small quiet island, one side facing Tarpum Bay, and almost a straight line from their dock to Nassau. The back side of the island faced the Northeast Providence Channel, the Atlantic Ocean beyond.

After they settled, she took up painting and spent everyday in an ocean breeze cutting through their pretty home making these paintings. They were big and modern and they had a fun energy. A gallery in Nassau took her on, and just last week she’d sold one.

Rocco had opened a gym. He found an industrial space and he turned it out with the hottest machines, Olympic equipment, and strongman stuff as well. Renovations had taken a month and they were just open three weeks now but his business was exploding. He was getting all the tourists who wanted something more intense than what the pampered hotels and resorts offered. He had a job and a commute for the first time in his life. His morning commute launched from their thirty foot dock that wandered off their beach. He had a power boat, some fast sleek thing with four racing outboard motors on the back. He was happy. He’d still made no mention of what Killian had told her but she figured that whatever needed to be done just hadn’t been settled yet and when it did he would tell her. She wouldn’t press.

Standing on their covered porch, leaning on their white railing, she watched the white dot grow and heard the motors come closer. The sky was a bright Caribbean blue, the water the same shade as the sky but injected with bright emerald. There was an early morning haze that would burn off shortly, the sun was picking up its heat.

The boat jetted to the base of their dock, throwing up a white rooster tail of spray. It was him. Bronzed now, gleaming, black lustrous hair whipping in the wind. The boat was geared down, the rumble of its motors changing note entirely as they worked to slow the boat. It slid to their dock and she saw her Rocco throw a line out.

She walked their sun-grayed dock in her bare feet. By mid-day its surface would be too hot to touch. Watched her man as she went. He was as muscular as ever. Leaner now too, and she had the hardest time keeping her hands off him. He had his back to her, bent over and pulling his SCUBA tanks to the side of the boat so he could load them onto the dock. He had a wetsuit on but it had been unzipped and the torso had been peeled off and hung around his waist, the two sleeves swaying like tails. His back was broad and deep brown, glistening with sweat, and the sun put highlights on all the billowing humps of hard muscle as he worked. His hair was short at the back and sides and the top was long and thick and hung forward in shining black curls that gently swung as his strong hands flexed and gripped at the harnesses for his breathing tanks.

“Permission to come aboard, Captain?” she said slyly putting one bare foot up and curling it over the white fiberglass lip of his race boat. Her caftan rode high and settled where her thigh met her hip.

He stood and turned to her, a sly smile of his own curling one side of those plump berry-colored lips. There was that familiar confidence in his sparkling black eyes, but something else too, a glimpse at little boy Rocco, getting caught doing something. She wondered what he had been up to this morning.

His hand came out to take hers, the big round muscles of his shoulders jumping and striating, throwing off a shine despite the heavy black lines drawn on them. She put her hand in his and stepped her other foot over and down onto the padded bench then hopped down onto the deck in front of him and into his huge arms.

He said, “I don’t think you’re wearing anything under that...whatever you’re wearing...”

“A gentleman doesn’t look up a lady’s skirt,” she said, staring into his eyes.

“You think I’m a gentleman?” he said with a cocky sneer.

“You’re one to talk...we going to discuss what’s under this wetsuit? Cause I don’t think it’s anything...” she said and let her hand fall and find the squashed shape of his cock down one side of the crotch of the wetsuit. He smiled so wide his white teeth shone and he looked like he might burst with laughter. His cock swelled under the neoprene and she could feel the flared ridge of his corona press out.

He said, “And you think you’re a lady...”

She laughed out loud now, let her cheek press against the hot skin of his chest. Then she was lifted up like she was weightless and he cradled her in his arms. She hugged his neck.

“Did I wake you?” he asked.

“Unh-unh,” she hummed, shaking her head. “Who wouldn’t want to be up on such a beautiful morning?”

He kissed her and she squeezed him tight. When he let her lips go she said, “What were you doing out? You went diving?”

“Yup,” he said, struggling to contain a smile that seemed to want to stretch right around his handsome head.

She narrowed her eyes at him, but said, “I was hoping you brought me back a fish.”

“Fish for breakfast?”

She shrugged and smiled.

He nodded his chin to the side, pointing out to the ocean, said, “You want a fish, baby, I’ll get you one. Let me get my gear—”

“I don’t want a fish now,” she said, and she scratched her nails lightly across the muscles of his neck. “Now I want you.”

“My baby’s got all kinds of appetites,” he said, kissing her in her elbow.

“You don’t even know,” she laughed, then watched his face grow puzzled.

“What don’t I know?”

“Nothing,” she said coyly. “You don’t know how hot you make me is all...”

His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You’re so hot, we should cool you off,” he said with a smirk, teasing her by bringing her to the edge of the boat.

“Rocco if you throw me in the water I will fucking kill you!”

“No, you wont. We’re not doing that anymore, remember? No more killing.” He winked.

She grimaced, tried to give him her meanest face. He swayed her.

“Rocco!” she shouted, but it was too late. She was airborne and a warm blast of Caribbean breeze lifted her caftan up and exposed her naked body to him and then in the next second she was splashing through the crest of the water and her ears were filled with her own yelling voice and the rushing sound of bubbles.

She kicked her legs and came to the surface, spitting and sputtering, ran her thick hair back off her face and squeezed her nose. Through her blinking eyes she saw her man stepping out to the prow of his boat. He was a dark masculine shape silhouetted against the brilliant sky. He pushed the wetsuit down to his knees and kicked it away, his big half-aroused cock slapping off his thighs. Then, totally naked but for his dive watch, he dove off and his pointed hands pierced the water, his body slipping into the ocean a dozen feet to her right. She doggy-paddled and rotated, waiting for him. He didn’t surface and she began a panic. Not for his safety, but for her own. Suddenly getting an anxious and vulnerable feeling that she was going to be tickled by his hidden hands.

“Rocco? ...” she said nervously, kicking and paddling herself in circles. “Rocco?” she repeated. He was still underwater.

Then she was suddenly gripped in his strong arms as he came up grabbing her and locking his mouth on hers at the same time. She clung to him, let him keep them afloat while she grabbed those big muscles where his shoulders met his neck and he held her face and kissed her savagely. She hooped her legs tightly around his waist and hooked one foot over the other. His hands went to her back and caressed her. Then one went low and she broke their kiss with a shocked sound. The glans of his cock was thudding between her legs, looking for her opening, the tips of his fingers guiding it into place. She locked eyes with him, both of them looking deeply into one another, both conspicuously longing for their union, concentrating on the feel of their sexes coming together. He found her, his big blunt tool pressing against the weakness of her aperture, hurting for a brief moment, then parting her. Ah, she gasped, her eyebrows bouncing, both of their smiles beginning to curl their lips. She hugged his neck tighter, eased herself onto him as he thrust himself up, his cock squeaking as her membranes were deeply breached in sea water.

“Fuck, you feel good,” he said, and their passionate kisses resumed.

“I was made for you,” she said.

“I fucking love you so much,” he said.

She laughed, arched her back and reached down to grab the floating hem of her caftan. “I love you so much,” she said. Then she pulled her caftan up and over her head, her breasts swaying in his face. As he held them, took a nipple in his mouth, she spun the caftan around her head in a circle like she was going to do a rope trick, then flung it as far as she could towards the shore.

They made love in the water. She rode him, wriggling on his hips and he thrust as best he could without anything to brace himself against, their two bodies floating in the warm waves, the water crystal clear, the sand below bright, almost-white. They took their time. Enjoying the feel of each other’s body, hands exploring, lips pulling and tugging at one another, tongues dashing, mouths sucking. Soon they drifted and the motion of the water swept them to shallow depths and Rocco stood with her. He walked, his cock buried, and they made their way up the soft beach and then Rocco got to his knees, the thudding driving his size deep inside her, bumping her cervix, then he lay her back gingerly against the macadam. Her knees came up to his armpits and she exposed her sex to him fully and he claimed it. His massive thing goring her wetly, stretching her fully, her nails scrabbled his hard muscled arms and shoulders and he drew a rising excited breath from her that became ragged and lusty.

The breakers crashed at their feet and washed up around her ears and tugged at her hair. Sand worked its way into their union, shredding their sexes but they were both so close to orgasm neither of them could care. They settled in the soft sand, he thrust and thrust, and her cries met his action, each deep plunge drawing out a breathy bellow that she shouted to the endless sky.

“Oh God, Oh Rocco,” she cried when it came. Arched her back, dug the crown of her skull into the yielding soaked sand and thrust her hips, moiled them against his as she orgasmed. She clawed him, she shouted his name. Her astounding arousal drew it out of him too and his breath scored his nostrils like a bull and then while she was still riding the crest of her own orgasm he came inside her, shooting his hot wet jets so deeply that her orgasm rose again and she was surfing, riding it, and the wind soughed against her ecstatic upturned face. Rocco roared and plunged, she clamped him with her thighs, ran her nails along his neck and when she found the focus to open her eyes again she looked longingly into his eyes with unambiguous love.

They remained joined, Rocco planted his hands into the beach on either side of her and she stayed clamped to him. They kissed, his hair hung in her face and she swept it back. Finally, he collapsed next to her and they lay side by side in the surf and watched the sky. A seagull soared close, wings outstretched, feather tips curled, close enough they could see the sun wink off its black eye.

She lay a forearm across her brow to shield the sun from her eyes. She moaned with pleasure, her mind going over the day’s schedule and realizing there was nothing to do but things she loved. She sighed, then said, “I made coffee.”

Rocco laughed, grinned, rolled to face her and she did the same. He took up her hand and wove his fingers between hers. He admired their joined hands, examined her fingers, and it occurred to her he was gaging her ring size. He lay his other hand on her waist, said, “After breakfast I have to go into Nassau and get someone to make something for me.”

“Oh yeah?” she said, “What is it?” She lay her hand over the one he rested on her side.

“Mm,” he surmised, thinking something over. “It’s a secret,” he said finally. “That okay?”

She moved his hand lower, lay it on her tummy below her belly button. She smiled, looked in his eyes, said, “I think we’re both full of surprises.”