Page 61 of Christmas Harbor Secrets
Rone took Isobel to the ground and covered her head.
The gunfire stopped. The silence that followed was worse.
Isobel’s pulse thundered in her ears as she pressed into the mud, every breath shallow and burning. Rone’s hand was still on her back, solid, grounding, but the night had gone still—too still. No rustling from the reeds. No distant calls. No radio chatter.
Something had changed.
Rone rolled off, and Isobel caught Blake lift a hand, signaling his men forward, but before they moved, a flare hissed to life overhead. Blinding red light flooded the clearing, painting everything in blood.
“Down!” Rone barked, but it was too late.
Voices erupted from every direction—sharp, commanding, confident. “Hands up! Weapons down!”
Shapes emerged from the trees—black uniforms, rifles raised. Laurel Tide. A dozen at least. Maybe more. They’d been herded, just like Rone had feared.
Isobel’s stomach dropped as Blake cursed under his breath and raised his weapon halfway before freezing. They weresurrounded. No cover. No escape. The sound of boots splashing through water drew closer.
Rone stepped in front of her, lowering his own weapon slowly, his body a shield even now. “Don’t,” he said quietly. “They’ll gun you down.”
She wanted to argue, to fight, but the look in his eyes, the grim resignation there, stopped her.
“Drop it,” someone ordered, voice slick with confidence.
A man stepped into the light. Thin shoulders, salt and pepper hair with a gray beard. A scar down his cheek that made his smile look crueler. She knew that face.
The docks.
The man who’d watched her when the sparks flew from the pedestals. He’d appeared helpless and broken and confused, but now he stood straight and strong and sure. No deadly.
Lucky.
Her blood turned cold.
“Well,” Lucky drawled, his grin widening as his men swept their rifles across the group. “Ain’t this a Christmas miracle. Three ghosts walk right into my swamp.”
Blake said nothing, just tightened his jaw and lowered his gun the rest of the way. His men followed.
Lucky’s gaze slid over to Isobel and lingered, deliberate and heavy. “Shame your daddy didn’t teach you better than to play in other people’s waters.”
Her chest constricted. “Where is he?” she demanded before she could stop herself.
Lucky smirked, then lifted something from his pocket—a smartphone, screen cracked but glowing faintly in the red light. “Since you asked so nice.”
He tapped the screen.
Static crackled. Then— “Isobel… I need?—”
Her father’s voice.
Her breath caught, a sound too sharp and broken to contain. The voice was faint, recorded through interference, but there was no mistaking it. Her father’s low, rough tone. The way he said her name.
Rone went rigid beside her. Blake didn’t react.
Lucky paced closer, letting the phone dangle casually from his hand, the recording still playing. “Took me a while to find this,” he said. “Guess your old man thought he could send messages where I wouldn’t find them. Shame about that.”
Her pulse roared in her ears. “Where is he?” she said again, voice cracking. “What did you do to him?”
Lucky stopped right in front of her. The phone’s glow lit his face, throwing shadows across that cruel smile. “Sweetheart,” he said softly, “you’re a smart girl. You already know the answer.”
