for money and power. You think I kill for the thrill of it.”
“Don’t you?”
“No, I was just taught an important lesson early in life—love always fails. It’s the cruelest monster alive.”
“I agree; falling in love is incredibly cruel. But it’s too late to stop me from suffering the hardships of love.”
“I know. I failed. I should have stepped in sooner.”
“Why do you want me to take over for you when you’re gone? Why does it have to be a family member? Couldn’t your second in command take over for you? Then you could leave my family and me alone.”
“I’ve tried that. I took some time off when I was first diagnosed with cancer and let my second lead.” He stares off into the ocean. “I lost twenty men. More than I’ve lost in a decade, he lost in less than a month. He didn’t understand his responsibility to the organization, not just himself and power. You understand that, though. It’s why you agreed to come out here with me by yourself, instead of risking your friends or lover’s life. You’d rather risk your own life than those you love.
“I think I’ve been going about this the wrong way. The way to get you to take over for me when I’m gone is not to get you to stop loving, but to get you to love my men, my world, as much as I do.”
“I’ll never love ruining people’s lives for profit. I will never love stealing from them, selling them addictive drugs that will eventually kill them, or selling people like property. I will never love being a monster like you.”
“Then it seems we are at an impasse.”
“It seems we are,” I agree.
“You think you’re dying from your own illness; or you think I’m going to be the death of you. I can see you’re prepared to die, but you don’t realize love is going to be what kills you. Love makes you weak, dependent, selfish. You’ll do things you wouldn’t otherwise do because you fell in love. Let me help you, teach you, and you can learn to be the greatest—”
The roar of an engine interrupts him.
He squints his eyes in the sound’s direction. I don’t have to turn around to know who is coming toward us. I’m running out of time to kill my father before I’m risking Langston, Corbin, and Maxwell’s lives too.
I see my father reach for something, assuming it’s a gun.
It’s not.
It’s worse.
I jump, but I’m not sure I’m going to be able to save them. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to save any of us.
29
Langston
I hold my hands behind my back, pretending they are tied together, while Corbin and Maxwell pretend to be my captors.
We make our way quickly down the hallway until one of the guards walks toward us.
“We found him trying to break into Liesel’s room. Where is Mr. Dunn?” Corbin asks the man.
The man frowns, looking at us suspiciously. He can’t make sense of the situation, and I doubt he’ll give us any answers, so I shoot him. Luckily I came prepared to be stealthy with my gun’s silencer.
“Well, that was effective,” Corbin says, reaching down to grab the man’s gun.
“We need to hurry; I don’t trust Dunn with Liesel for a second longer than necessary,” I say.
I move to the front now that two of us have guns. Corbin follows with Maxwell, holding only a knife, trailing him.
I practically run down the hallway and up to the top deck, looking for Liesel. I see two more guards and shoot them both before they even notice us. Maxwell collects one of their guns, and then we split up, all searching for Liesel and her father.
Five minutes later, we are all huffing as we meet back on the top deck.
“I found nothing,” I say.
Both Corbin and Maxwell shake their heads.
“Where could they have gone?” Maxwell asks.
I run to the railing of the yacht and look down. “One of the lifeboats is gone. Let’s go.”
I run down the stairs with Corbin and Maxwell following me. Thankfully there are two lifeboats on either side of the yacht. We can still find them; although, we have no idea which direction they went. They also could have hopped on a bigger, faster ship. They could have gone to land and be driving on the island. They could have gotten on a helicopter. They could already be long gone.
I try not to think about that.
We’ll find her.
We have to.
We all jump on the small