Page 18 of The Mercenary's Guide to Mishaps and Romance

“Nope! I’m perfectly fine. Totally fine. My eyes are just bleeding a bit from the spray, so I didn’t see the wall there.”

“I see,” I say as my hand bumps something hard on his leg and I realize it’s a phone. Absolutely thrilled, I dig it out only to see that there’s no reception. “Do you know how to get off this island?”

“I sure do,” he answers.

“Are you lying?”

“I sure am.”

“Come on, man.”

I turn the flashlight on and tuck it between my shoulder and my chin so both hands are free as I reach out to the wrap around his shoulder. I don’t peel it off but peek under it and see that he’s still bleeding a fair amount. Probably from using it so much. I grab both ends of the cloth he has tied around it and give it a good snug pull, tightening it, which makes his eyes go wide.

“You… fucking…”

“I’m going to go try to find some medical stuff. And if I save your life, you’re getting me off this island. Do you understand?”

“Sure, sure. So you’re going to go… do something… and I’m going to… do something… and that man is gonna suck some other man’s momma’s toes.”

“You might be dead before I get back and if you are… I want you to know that you really fucking suck at your job.”

“But I don’t suck as bad as that guy sucking them toes.”

I squirm out from under him and leave him, then decide that there’s no reason he should have a gun when I don’t, so I go back in and grab his gun. He doesn’t put up much of a fight besides a“You’ll shoot your eye out,” so I hurry off before he can register that I’m taking both his phone and his gun.

Honestly, I don’t know what to do now, but I feel like if I don’t do something, he’s going to keep bleeding, and I will have, oddly, a worse chance of getting out alive.

I listen carefully before pulling open the door and come face to face with a man who looks as shocked to see me as I am to see him.

SEVEN

LELAND

I hurry down to the main office space where Jackson and Cassel are balls deep in work. I just smack Cassel’s papers out of his hand so he’s aware of the gravity of the situation.

“What the fuck was that for?” he cries.

“We have a situation,” I say as the two men watch me with bated breath.

“Which is?” Jackson asks.

I continue to hold the pregnant pause as all eyes fixate on me before Cassel turns back to his computer, clearly no longer interested, leaving me highly offended.

“What the hell, Cassel?”

He just shakes his head at me like the brutal man he is. “There’s no way I’m feeding into your bullshit. It’s probably something like ‘Jackson looked at the fence’ or ‘Did I tell you about the time I murdered fifteen people from the back of a bull while blindfolded and handcuffed?’”

“How would I do that?” I ask, interest piqued.

Cassel shrugs. “Maybe you’d use the bull? I mean, those fuckers hit hard.”

“That’s true. Ooh, I’d have knives strapped to the tips of my shoes so I could shiv the people as the bull charges by.”

“Hey, love. I feel like something important was going on and you have gotten horrifically sidetracked,” Jackson reminds me.

“Oh yeah, Tavish got fucked over. The job he was on went wrong, and now he’s been stabbed and is bleeding on some private island or something and needs us to come save him. Hilarious, right?”

“You didn’t think to open with that?” Jackson asks.

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