Page 37 of Silent Vows

Despite everything—the military jets on our tail, my missing daughter, the fuel hemorrhaging from our wing—I feel my lips twitch. “Not the romantic getaway you imagined?”

“Please.” She manages a smirk even as the plane descends sharply, making everything not bolted down slide toward the nose. “Most women get roses and champagne. I get gunfights and water landings.”

“When this is over,” I promise, cupping her face with my free hand, memorizing every detail in case it’s our last moment, “I’ll give you any honeymoon you want.”

“I just want us both alive.” She leans into my touch, and fuck, the trust in her eyes undoes me. “And Bianca safe.”

The fact that she includes my daughter—after everything she’s learned about Bianca’s parentage, about the lies I’ve told—does something to my chest that I can’t afford to examine right now. Not with our death spiraling closer with every passing second.

“Brace for impact!” the pilot shouts.

I pull Bella tight against me, shielding her with my body as the jet hits the water. The impact is brutal, like hitting concrete at speed. The noise is deafening—screaming metal, shattering glass, the roar of water rushing in through the damaged fuselage. My injured arm screams in protest as I hold Bella steady, but I barely feel it through the adrenaline.

“Move!” I order, helping her out of her seat as icy water starts flooding the cabin. The sun streaming through the broken windows turns the rising water pink, like we’re drowning in blood. “Through the emergency exit. Now!”

She doesn’t argue, doesn’t hesitate. We splash through the rising water toward the exit, my body between her and the military jets still circling overhead like vultures. The water is shocking cold as we emerge onto the wing, the metal groaning beneath our feet as the jet starts to sink.

“We need to get clear before it sinks,” I shout over the wind and the sound of military engines overhead. Water sprays around us as the jets make another pass. “Can you swim?”

“Better than I can shoot,” she returns, already slipping into the water. The sight of her—my bride of less than forty-eight hours—diving into a freezing lake while being shot at makes me want to kill everyone responsible for bringing us to this point.

We strike out for the shore, staying low in the water to avoid being spotted from above. The lake is larger than it looked from the air, each stroke a battle against the cold and our waterlogged clothes. My injured arm feels like it’s being torn apart with every movement, but the pain helps me focus. On surviving. On getting Bella to safety. On finding Bianca before it’s too late.

Finally, we drag ourselves onto a rocky beach, both gasping for air. In the distance, our jet makes its final descent, slipping beneath the surface like a dying beast. The evidence of our passage disappears with it—exactly as planned.

At least something’s going right.

“The pilot and flight attendant?” Bella asks between breaths, water streaming from her hair. Even half drowned and shivering, she thinks of others. It makes me want to kiss her and shake her in equal measure.

“Have their own escape routes.” I help her to her feet, noting how she tries to hide her trembling. “They’ll meet us at the rendezvous point.”

“Which is where?”

Headlights suddenly appear on the road above the beach. I pull Bella behind a large boulder, pressing her between my body and the cold stone. Her heart hammers against my chest, matching my own rapid rhythm as voices carry down to us.

“Find them,” Carmine’s distinctive voice slices through the morning air. My uncle-in-law sounds different now—gone is the oily charm, replaced by something colder, more calculating. “I want confirmation they’re dead before nightfall.”

“And if they’re not?” Another voice that makes my blood boil—Father Romano. The man who blessed my marriage to Bellaless than two days ago, who’s heard every confession I’ve made since I was fourteen, who’s been playing us all for fools.

“Then we move to plan B.” Carmine’s footsteps crunch on the rocky beach. “How’s our insurance policy?”

“Sedated, but safe.” The priest’s response makes my muscles lock with rage. “Bianca’s quite upset about her father’s…unfortunate accident.”

Bella’s hand finds mine, squeezing hard enough to ground me before I do something stupid—like emerge from cover and tear Romano’s throat out with my bare hands. They have my daughter. They’redruggingmy daughter.

And they’re going to use her to destroy everything.

“Check the shoreline,” Carmine orders. “They had to have made it to land somewhere.”

We press tighter against the boulder, hardly daring to breathe. Bella’s soaking wet body trembles against mine, though whether from cold or fear, I’m not sure. Probably both. Water drips from her hair onto my neck as footsteps crunch closer to our position. One beam of light passes inches from us, and I feel her hold her breath.

My mind races through options, each worse than the last. We’re trapped between armed men and deep water, with my injured arm making swimming back out nearly impossible. The guns I managed to keep dry during our swim are professional grade, but we’re outnumbered at least five to one based on the footsteps I’m counting.

But it’s not the odds that make my blood run cold—it’s Carmine’s casual mention of Bianca being sedated. My daughter, who’s already lost one parent to violence, who doesn’t know the truth about her parentage, about why Sophia really died. Now she’s drugged and being used as a pawn in Carmine’s power play.

The rage that builds in my chest is almost overwhelming. I want to step out from behind this rock and empty both clips into Carmine and Romano. Want to make them suffer for touching my daughter, for threatening my wife, for thinking they could take what’s mine.

Bella must sense my tension because she turns her face into my neck, her lips brushing my skin as she mouths silently: “Together?”

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