Keeping his hand on my shoulder to prevent me from standing, he nodded at the mercenary to pass a spare handgun to each pilot. “Stand with me, gentlemen, and you won’t have to shoot anyone. You’re there for show, that’s all.”

The men accepted out of ingrained decorum, cringing against the arsenal. “What do you expect us to do?”

“Just have my back.” Drake grinned, his fingers digging deeper into my shoulder. “They won’t put up a fight. My brother hires pussies. Geeks who jerkoff into their test tubes. I promise.”

“It’ll be easy.” The mercenary chuckled. “In and out. We’ll be done in five minutes flat.”

“Get off me.” I struggled, shoving Drake’s hand away and swooping to my feet. “Don’t touch me.”

Blood trickled from my grazed knees.

Sickness splashed up my throat.

Drake just laughed as if I was a silly gerbil caught in his paws.

Ignoring him, I locked eyes with the pilots, and snapped, “Sullivan Sinclair will pay you an exorbitant fee if you use that gun you’re holding and kill the man holding me prisoner. Take me back to Sully, and you’ll be rewarded—”

“Stupid, stupid Eleanor.” Drake slapped me around the head, sending me tumbling forward, my skull throbbing. “Don’t listen to her, gentlemen.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll give you a bonus when we disembark in Jakarta. How about that? Help us gather this last item, and I’ll pad your payday with another twenty grand each.”

“Sully will give you a hundred,” I hissed. “Kill Drake and—”

“Shut the fuck up, bitch.” The mercenary tried to strike me, but he missed.

I ducked and ran.

A gunshot cracked in the night, kicking up grass and soil by my feet.

I froze.

Drake’s footsteps padded lazily behind me.

My skin crawled as he moved in front of me and reached out like a considerate confidant, taking my hand in his. “First and final warning, Eleanor Grace. Move without my permission again, and the next bullet goes into your back. You’ll either die or be disabled. Either way, I’m past caring.”

He jerked me into him, his palm gluing itself to mine. “I’m getting old, you see. After fucking that goddess last night, my urge for sex has been well sated. I get hard at the thought of a billion dollars, not your pussy...even if my brother has become obsessed with it. When I’ve had some sleep, I’m sure your little outbursts will turn me the fuck on, and I will enjoy finding out why my baby brother couldn’t keep his hands off you, but I will warn you, in my current mood, I honestly don’t fucking care what state you’re in when I do fuck you. Alive, bleeding, or quadriplegic, so I suggest...” Leaning putridly close, he ran his nose along my cheekbone before whispering in my ear. “...you listen to me and be a good girl if you want to stay alive.”

Tearing myself away, I tried to unlock our hands, but he dug his fingernails into my knuckles.

I despised him.

I cursed him with a thousand hexes.

“That goddess you slept with was called Jess. You shot her. She’s probably dead. Just like Sully is—”

“Dead. Yes, I truly hope so. A tad inconvenient seeing as I didn’t get everything I needed, but...ah, well.” Flicking his gaze to the pilots behind me, he asked, “Can a man survive a fall from that height?”

I looked over my shoulder, hope flaring, despair cloying.

The pilots threw each other a look before the older, greyer one shrugged. “We were over a hundred feet high.”

“So...is that a yes or a no?”

“Depends.” The younger pilot scowled. “Our velocity was still increasing, the tropics mean the ocean is warm not cold...the other man fell before him and broke the surface tension of the water.”

“Yes or fucking no?” Drake growled.

The older pilot shrugged again. “Depends if luck was on his side. As far as preferred conditions went...yes, he could have survived. Water temperature, breaking surface tension, and velocity all play a part in the outcome. However, bones are brittle things. If he landed head first, his neck would’ve snapped, and—”

“And if he landed feet first?” I interrupted, unable to listen to his morbid conclusion.

The younger pilot pinned me with an apologetic stare. “His legs are most likely broken. Feet and ankles, too. He might have survived, but...he probably won’t be able to swim and will drown as a secondary cause of impact.”

I went arctic blizzard cold.

A pitiful moan escaped me as Drake chuckled. “Excellent. Let’s hope the bastard chokes on his precious ocean.” Dragging me toward the hulking lab in the distance, he added, “Let’s get this over with.”

The mercenary sandwiched me next to Drake while the pilots trailed us.

The older pilot said, “We’ll walk with you, Sinclair, and we agree to carry a gun, but under no circumstances are we pulling a trigger.”

Drake looked behind him. “You’ll do as your fucking told.” His cold bark was smoothed by a slithering smile. “But as I said, you won’t have to shoot anyone if you play your part.”

“And if you don’t play, I’ll happily give you a different type of bonus.” The mercenary with his brown buzz cut snickered, enjoying his promotion to second-in-command.

I struggled as Drake carted me up the gravel path linking the helipad with the fortified door of the laboratory.

I winced as my tender feet bruised thanks to sharp pebbles instead of silky sand. My wardrobe of a simple yellow shirt left me exposed in all the wrong ways.

Hiding my pain, swallowing back my rage at Drake, I glanced at yet another diamond in Sully’s crown of islands. The building was an oddity. The largest of Sully’s villas—not that it could be called a villa with its sweeping white walls, barred windows, and keypad for entry outside. It looked clinical instead of tropical. Convinced on its purpose of housing drugs and specimens rather than fading into the scenery with thatched roofs and coconut wood.

A shadow of someone walking past a window appeared and disappeared, no doubt alerted by our presence thanks to the helicopter.

Had they heard the gunfire?

Did they see me as the damsel in distress?

Was Drake right when he said the men and women on this island were test tube geeks, or were there guards standing watch?

I peered into the pruned undergrowth, searching manicured bushes and pretty flowers, hoping to see men loyal to Sully and his enterprise.

Nothing.

Choking on my disappointment, I hissed again as Drake dug his fingernails into my wrist, breaking my skin. He dragged me the final way to the forfeited door. “No one speaks. I’ll do the conversing.”

“Sure.” The pilots nodded.

Drake shook me. “Answer me, Eleanor. You’ll keep that pretty little mouth shut, won’t you?”

I bit the inside of my cheek and didn’t reply. Once again, I would enlist silence to be my shield. If I spoke another syllable to this creep, I’d snap.

I’d scream.

I’d leap on him and beat him senseless. I wouldn’t stop until someone shot me.

His threats of hurting me. His joy at his brother’s death.

It all pushed me closer and closer to a ledge labelled mental breakdown.