Page 124 of The Wrecked One

“Why not?” Jessica asked, but we all knew, we just didn’t want to hear it.

“It’s an ally of ours. A French ship.” Wyatt shook his head. “POTUS is getting their president on the line to alert her that she has a rogue captain—which she no doubt already knows about—but we can’t kill all the other innocent men and women on board who are just following orders, likely clueless about their actual intent.”

“We need to get a hold of our people. Pull them out now. Screw getting our hands on a Soren.” I held my throat, feeling the need to gasp for air. My father’s admission had sucked all the oxygen from the room.

“You only need me. You don’t need one of them,” my father—no, you don’t deserve that name—quickly revealed. “You want to take down The Collective, I have access to everything. And I mean everything. I’ll help you. It’s the only way to finally end this.”

“You secretly stockpiled an arsenal on The Collective,” I said, understanding that was how he’d planned to eventually take them down. I could only hope he was being honest about that part of the story, and not looking to secure sympathy from me.

“Be pissed at me later,” Tony said in a low voice, “and just be thankful I can help you.”

He was right. We’d get to part two of his story later. I had to keep it together so we could focus on reaching out to our people to pull them out. But that meant actually getting through to them on comms, and they’d still yet to respond to our transmission.

“I have to head to the island and warn them myself.” Wyatt started for the door to head up top, but Gwen blocked his path.

“Dad.” She held her hands in front of him.

He dipped in and kissed her forehead. “I have to go.”

“I know.” Gwen nodded. “Just be safe.” She stepped aside, watching as he quickly ran up the stairs, not wasting time.

I turned to face Tony, itching to ask him more questions, but I bit my tongue when Easton called out, “They’re on the line. They’ve made contact!”

I nearly collapsed at his words, not willing to be relieved until I knew everyone was okay. Plus, they still had to dodge the aerial attack to exfil.

“What’d they say?” Jessica hollered back, beating me to it.

I trailed behind her to the stairs, wiping away my tears the best I could, with Gwen right behind me.

“It was Gray,” Easton announced.

Wyatt was still on deck, standing next to him, but oh God . . . the look on his face said it all. Bad news.

I startled at the cacophony of sounds as missiles exploded in the sky off in the distance, their fragments raining down in balls of fire. The war with The Collective was far from over.

“We let them know they need to exfil now and not to worry about the Sorens,” Wyatt shared in a rush while prepping his equipment to re-access the island via underwater scooter.

“If word got out, why are you still leaving?” Gwen asked him.

“Because you never leave a man behind,” Jude spoke up from where he was on the upper deck, flat on his belly behind a long gun. “And they’re missing someone. A missile managed to cut through the overhead defenses, and the chance of survival is . . .”

I banded my arm across my abdomen, bracing for impact. “Who?”

Wyatt locked eyes with me and shared, “Michael Maddox.” He huffed out a deep breath. “And like hell are we leaving his body behind.”

48

OLIVER

TEN MINUTES EARLIER

Stef Soren had been left for dead, but he was still hanging on. Probably a tougher bastard than both his sons combined.

Kneeling alongside Stef, half his body buried under rubble, I set a hand on his chest and leaned in as he coughed up blood. I had to make this quick before he died. “We didn’t do this to you. Someone on your side double-crossed you. They killed your sons, not us.”

Stef’s eyelids slowly parted, and I knocked my night-vision goggles up to get a better look at him. It was dark out, but there were enough fires blazing on the island to illuminate the sky around us, providing some visibility. “You killed my sons by ever coming after—after . . .” he stuttered, fading fast.

I dodged the blame and pleaded, “Get your retribution by telling me something.”

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