Page 63 of Christmas Harbor Secrets
They dragged Rone and Isobel past Blake and shoved them against the opposite wall. A ring bolt had been driven low into a cross brace; they clipped Rone’s restraints to it, then Isobel’s. He tested the give. It bit back. The plastic tightened, grinding into bone. He looked down at his hands briefly—the wrapper of gauze on the burn gone gray with swamp and blood—and flexed his fingers to keep feeling. He kept his face bland, bored even. The urge clawed at him to save Isobel because the thought of the plastic digging into Isobel’s skin made him squirm, the thought of her being hurt making his blood simmer. Men like Lucky liked reactions. He gave them none.
“Now.” Lucky clapped once, sharp. “Since our little family’s assembled, here’s the play. Sweetheart.” He cocked his head at Isobel without looking at her, like he already owned whatever answer she might give. “Dad left you keys. Hidden compartments. Clever little riddles on that rust bucket you got sentimental over. You help us open what he shut, and we all get to go home alive.”
Did they not know about the drive? Did Blake keep that part to himself? If so, that meant the man he knew as his brother really did have his back, which gave him false hope of a better outcome to this situation. “And if she doesn’t?” Rone asked, just to hear the lie.
Lucky’s eyes slid to him with lazy interest. “You won’t like the variation.”
He stepped closer to Isobel. Rone shifted his weight, ready to throw a shoulder into Lucky’s ribs even if all it earned him was a broken jaw. A guard came in on instinct, muzzle finding Rone’s sternum like a magnet.
Lucky lifted a hand. “Easy.” His gaze touched Rone’s bandage. “You keep putting your hands where the fire is, don’t you?”
Rone didn’t respond. He watched the corners of the room, the catwalk, the door with the padlock that didn’t match the rest of the hardware—too new. He listened for the sound underneath the building’s breathing. Wind. Water. Insects. And… there. Soft. Low. A whine he knew in his bones.
Echo.
The sound came again, softer this time, from outside the broken window near the ceiling where hurricane boards had rotted to pulp. Rone lifted his eyes like he was measuring the room and let them snag on the gap. A shadow ghosted past the torn screen—ear, muzzle, the patience of a hunter who’d learned the price of mistakes.
Rone exhaled slow, control harnessed tight. He didn’t move his head. He shifted his shoulders an inch as if easing the bite of the restraints, then another. Body language dogs knew—a slow, weight-forward nod.Yes. With me.
Echo stilled. Muzzle lifted. One ear flicked toward Rone, the other toward the yard. Good boy.
“Look at me.” Lucky’s voice went amused again. He’dleaned close enough that Isobel could have counted his pores. “You going to be smart about this?”
She looked him in the eye. Rone felt the temperature of it from five feet away. “My father didn’t hide anything for you. And he didn’t raise me to hand over a knife and say thank you.”
Lucky’s expression didn’t change, but something small hardened behind it. He straightened. “You can do grief later. Right now, you’ll save this man by your side. I mean, he’s done everything but sacrifice himself to save you. Too many heroes in this room; I’m counting on a woman to be the wiser member of this group.”
“I don’t?—”
Lucky grabbed her. Rone lunged, but his restraints didn’t let him move far enough to stop him. His hands were on her, searching her. Rone’s blood boiled over with rage. “Get. Your. Hands. Off. Her.”
“Ahh, there it is.” Lucky held up the drive between his fingers. “Gotta love those hidden pockets. Not really much of a hiding place, though.”
He glanced toward the far door and snapped his fingers. A guard opened it and wheeled in a metal cart with a laptop bolted to a plate and a tangled nest of cables. The Laurel Tide crest sat in the corner of the login screen like a watermark made by greed. Lucky tapped the touchpad and the screen brightened. “You’ve got an hour to remember whatever bedtime stories Daddy left you.”
Blake found Rone’s eyes over the cart. He shook his head once—barely there. The look in it was apology and warning and the kind of ruined loyalty that left blisters. “This is wrong,” he said to Lucky, tone low. “You said?—”
“I said exactly what you needed. And you did exactly what I needed. I was your only rat left standing in that marina, but Iwasn’t yours. Circle closed.” Lucky turned his smile back on Isobel. “Clock’s ticking.”
Rone shifted his weight again, scuffing the heel of his boot along the cracked concrete to cut through what he wanted to do and what he could. Close enough to Isobel now that his shoulder brushed her arm. He didn’t look at her. He let his forearm press, a fraction of pressure.With you.
She leaned into it. Not much. Enough. The grief in her had cooled to something else, a heat. Fire under ice. Ready to bend or burn, whichever got through.
He set his jaw. If he got her out of here, he’d never put her near anything with Laurel’s stink on it again. He’d find a lake somewhere that took winters seriously, find a cabin with a stove that sang, and keep the world far enough away that bullets turned into old stories. It was a lie Shade once embraced, and one he let himself touch for a heartbeat because touching it made it sharper to lose, and he needed that sharp to stay awake.
Outside, the wind shifted. The screen at the high window fluttered, tore a little more. Echo’s whine filtered in again, thread-fine. Rone tipped his chin.Wait.
Lucky circled the cart with the exaggerated gait of a game-show host and tapped a key. The password field blinked open. “We’ll start easy. Daddy liked dates. Anniversaries. Birthdays. Try not to disappoint him.”
“Your boss going to want to be here for this?” Blake said, stalling, eyes flicking toward the door and the newer padlock bolted across it.
Lucky’s grin widened. “He’s already here.”
Isobel cleared her throat and lifted her chin. The defiant, beautiful set of her face made him tighten. “I can’t enter anything with my hands bound.” She held up her wrists, palms open, and glowered at Lucky. Rone felt the line of muscle at herjaw, the same stubbornness that warned she wouldn’t take things without a fight.
She shot Blake a nearly invisible nod, the sort of signal only someone who’d spent time with her would see.
Lucky nodded to the man at Isobel’s side. The man produced clippers; plastic shrieked and fell away as the restraints parted. Isobel tripped, knocking the clippers from the man’s hands. She grabbed the rifle and shouldered it in one fluid motion. Blake kicked out, catching a man who lunged; both went down in a tangle of limbs.
