from chewing, a small smirk on his handsome face.
“Alek, I…” I clear my throat as my voice is suddenly hoarse.
He waits for me to continue while I wonder where my Dutch courage is.
I just need to say it without thinking about the repercussions. If he says it’s too late, at least I know, and I can take this bottle of vodka and nurse it in the bedroom alone.
“I wanted to say—” But my sentence remains in limbo because Alek turns his head as if listening intently to something in the distance.
“Did you hear that?” he asks, standing up slowly.
I shake my head because I didn’t hear anything.
He seems to have regained his balance but still has a limp as he hobbles toward the middle of the room, listening closely. Just when I think his head injury is playing tricks on him, I hear a faint horn sounding in the distance.
“I definitely heard that,” I exclaim, running toward the window.
I know better than to be seen, so I part the curtain an inch and look out. When I see a bright light, I turn over my shoulder and say, “I think it’s another boat. It’s far away, but something is definitely coming toward us.”
We should be happy, but we don’t know if this vessel is friend or foe.
Alek storms over to the coffee table and shoves it aside. He quickly rolls back the rug that conceals a small compartment. He punches in the code and opens the door, which houses an array of weapons and stacks of money.
“Here,” he says, offering me a small gun. “Do you know how to use it?”
I shake my head nervously, eyes wide.
He retrieves one of his own, placing it at the small of his back. “This,” he says, pointing at some lever on the side. “This is the safety. When it’s in this position, it means it’s on. You can’t shoot. But when you flick it this way”—he flicks it, moving its location—“it’s ready to use. Aim and shoot the bad guys. Got it?”
I open and close my mouth because I’m afraid I’m going to fuck this up.
“Hey, you’ve got this, okay?” he assures, walking toward me and placing the gun into my hand.
It’s lighter than I thought it would be.
Taking a closer look at it, I marvel at how something so small can cause so much destruction. Aim and shoot, he said. It’s that easy to end someone’s life.
Memories of Frank assault me, and I blanch because his death was a lot more complicated than a bullet ending his life. It wasn’t quick. It was bloody. Brutal. He suffered, suffered because I killed him.
“Ella,” Alek says, gently placing his hand over mine on the gun. “If you don’t feel comfortable doing this, it’s all right. I understand this is difficult for you.”
Peering up at him from under my lashes, I shake my head. “I want to help.”
I’m actually happy he wants to work together, instead of sending me away to safety. I can’t now cower when given the opportunity to show Alek he can rely on me.
He squeezes my hand with a half-smile. “This is just in case. Stay behind me, okay? I wish I didn’t have to flag them down, but this may be the only chance we get at passing another boat.”
He’s right. But I’m wary of strangers, especially after what happened in Latvia. That was someone who was supposed to help us and look what happened.
Alek lets go of my hand, ensuring I’m okay with this plan as he watches me closely.
“I trust you,” I say with a nod, placing the gun into my back pocket.
He surprises me when he reaches out and brushes his knuckles along the apple of my right cheek. His touch is welcome, and I lean into it, which seems to catch him off guard. He doesn’t know I was seconds away from apologizing before we were interrupted.
I hope we live long enough for me to finish what I started—in every sense of the word.
Alek leads the way to the upper deck, ensuring I’m close behind as he looks over his shoulder. When he sees that I am, he walks over to the yacht’s spotlight. He quickly switches it on and off three times, before he repeats the same action with longer flashes. Then he ends the sequence with three more short flashes—I know this is Morse code for SOS.
The boat is heading toward us, and as it gets closer, I can see it’s also a yacht.