Page 59 of The Vipers' Vow

I’m doing my best not to worry about Phoenix and Zoo.

I don’t want to keep looking behind Jarl and give anything away, but they should be onboard by now.

They slipped into the water before we reached the yacht, but I have no idea if they’ve made it onto the boat. What if something happened to them when they tried to climb onboard? They might have slipped and hit their heads and both drowned.

Okay, I need to get a grip. I’m spiraling. I know it would be almost impossible for that to happen to both of them, and if one of them had gotten into trouble, the other would have helped, but it still worries me. Without them, we are truly fucked, and now we don’t know what’s happened to Lex either. Is Jarl telling the truth? Did he really escape? If he did, why the hell didn’t he contact us and tell us he was safe?

The problem we have is that now we’re at a standoff. We can't even run because we’re on a small boat in the middle of the lake. Yes, we might be armed, but so are Jarl and his crew. And they have the high ground, literally.

It feels like this is all slipping out of our control. Jarl could shoot us now and be done with it.

But something is stopping him. Something is keeping us alive, and I don’t think it’s just that he doesn’t want to get blood on his teak floors. I glance over at Saint. No, he wants what we promised him—that we’d find out who really hurt Reagan.

But, despite what Saint said, we don’t have that information to give him…do we? I glance at Saint, and his face is a blank. A far too careful blank. What gives?

I haven’t had time to ask Saint what he was doing while we were away. What reason did he have for not answering his cell phone when I kept calling him? It’s not as though I expect him to be at my beck and call, but considering everything that’s going on, I had thought he’d be sitting by his phone, waiting to hear from us. I most definitely thought he’d call me back.

I shoot him another look, hoping he’ll make eye contact with me and I’ll be able to read his thoughts in his aqua gaze, but he stares resolutely ahead.

“Fine.” Jarl jerks his chin at his men then lifts his hand and lowers it back down to demonstrate what do to with their guns. “But you fellows need to leave your own weapons in the tender.”

Jarl is only addressing Saint and Zane. It hasn’t occurred to him that I, as a woman, could possibly be carrying, or that I pose any danger to him whatsoever.

I do my best not to let my feelings show.

I can tell by Zane and Saint’s body language that they’ve also realized I’m now the only one who’s going to be armed. They close in around me, as though they’re trying to shield me with their bodies. If I’m the one who pulls a gun, I’m also the one Jarl’s men will be aiming at.

“We have to find out what’s happened to Lex,” I say under my breath. “We don’t have any choice.”

It’s not like Jarl is going to let us turn around and beat it out of here. Plus, we have Zoo and Phoenix, hopefully, about to show themselves, and we need to be onboard when they do.

“If we put our guns down,” Saint throws back at him, “then you have to do the same.”

Jarl hesitates then says, “Deal.”

Zane and Saint exchange a look and a nod, and then they remove their guns from the holsters. They hold them into the air so Jarl and his men can see, and place them down on the seats of the tender.

Jarl and his men also place their weapons on the decks and hold their hands up to show they’re also unarmed. There’s a strong possibility they have other guns hidden about their person, but there’s nothing we can do about that. After all, they’re not the only ones being sneaky. We have Zoo and Phoenix—wherever the fuck they are.

I’m sure my old friends won’t let me down. They’re some of the toughest motherfuckers out there. They’re not the kind who would run from a fight—they’re the ones who’d be starting it.

“Okay, we’re coming aboard,” I call back to Jarl. “But if anyone starts shooting, I’m throwing the cross overboard.”

“No one is going to shoot,” Jarl reassures us, but hopefully he’s wrong about that, and it will be our side who makes that move.

We climb the ladder, one by one. Zane insists on going first—mainly by muscling me and Saint out of the way, and then Saint gestures for me to go next. They’re protecting me. As I reach the top, Zane reaches down and gives me his hand, helping me up. My other hand is still tightly curled around the cross.

Jarl puts his hand out for the necklace immediately, his eyes focused sharply on the item, but I shake my head. “Why should we keep our side of the deal, but you haven’t kept yours? You said you’d keep Lex safe.”

He snickers at that. “You’d have preferred it if your boyfriendhadn’tescaped?”

“I’d prefer to know exactly what happened to him.”

I glance up at one of the men on the sundeck. Did I just catch a shadow coming up behind him? But no, I can’t see anyone now. Is this all the men Jarl has? There’s a huge one at Jarl’s shoulder with… I pause and frown. What the fuck is that around his neck? My stomach does an uncomfortable flip.

I’m pretty sure I haven’t been able to hide my thoughts from my face this time. Are those dried dicks? I pray Lex’s gorgeous cock hasn’t made it into this freak’s collection.

Jarl has a third man just behind his other shoulder, and there’s a fourth on the bow. The million-dollar question is whether there are any more. If Jarl is lying and Lex is still onboard, is there someone guarding him?

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