Chapter 3

The deck cleared in less than sixty seconds.

When a boss looks ready to put a hole in someone's chest, nobody stays around to finish their drink.

Cyrus Duvall came after us, his heavy boots ringing against the companionway stairs. Reid stopped him at the office door, his broad frame blocking the threshold entirely.

"You don't question my wife on my boat," Reid said.

"Your wife stole mine," Cyrus spat, his jaw working as his pinpoint pupils locked onto my face. "Midnight, Varden. After that, every crane on the south slip stays still."

Reid shut the heavy oak door in his face.

The brass lock clicked into the plate.

Sabine sat on the leather couch, her hands clamped tightly over her green dress, her face paper-white.

"Wren's car was found empty on the shoulder near the Greyhaven Bridge," Reid said, turning his back to the door. He stood behind his desk, wrapping a white linen napkin around his bleeding palm.

"The driver grabbed Wren's daughter when they tried to leave," I cut in.

Reid stared at me.

"Wren hit him with the car door and took back her passport and cash," I said, keeping my eyes locked on his.

Reid's jaw tightened. "My sister is gone, Corinne. And so is her little girl."

"Good," I said, leaning my shoulders back against the wood-paneled wall.

"Cyrus has thirty men sitting at the south slip right now," Reid shouted, the calm, collected boss completely gone. "If his wife isn't home by midnight, the Duvall family shuts down our crane access. We lose the harbor."

"Then lose it," I said.

"Corinne, you don't know what you've done," Sabine said from the couch, her voice rising. "Cyrus will tear this town apart."

"Shut up, Sabine," I told her, without turning my head.

I took one step toward Reid.

"Wren came to my shop on Tuesday," I said. "She had two cracked ribs and dried blood under her hair. Her six-year-old was hiding behind my bolt racks, her red sneakers pressed against one leg of my cutting table, shaking every time a truck drove past."

Reid's throat worked.

"Cyrus has a temper," he muttered, looking down at his blood-stained desk blotter. "It was family business. I was handling it."

"You weren't handling anything," I said. "You traded your sister to an addict who beats her because his father owns the cranes. And now you're trading me for this girl because you want a boy with your name."

Reid crossed the floor in two strides.

Reid's fingers tightened around my arms. I felt one of my sleeves begin to tear at the seam.

"Give me the address," he growled. "I'll put Wren in the shore house. My men will guard the road."

"And the doors?" I asked.

"What?"

"Will the locks be on her side or yours?"

His grip tightened further. "She'll be alive."

"Until Cyrus shuts down the cranes. Then you'll trade her back."

"Give me the town, Corinne," he said, shaking me once. "I'll send two of my own boys to watch the house. I swear on my mother's grave Cyrus won't touch her."

"You're a liar," I said, looking straight into his dark pupils. "The second Cyrus threatens your shipping contracts, you'll drag Wren back by her hair yourself."

"Corinne, don't push me tonight."

Wren's daughter had crawled beneath my cutting table that afternoon and wrapped both arms around one of its wooden legs. Will Daddy find us here? she had asked. I had told her no.

Giving Reid the address would make me a liar too.

The key to my shop pressed against my palm inside my pocket. Reid could take the lease, the house, and every person who still answered my calls. I knew that before I refused him.

"Kill me then," I told him, leaning into his hands. "Throw me in the water. You're not getting that address."

Reid stared down at me, his chest heaving.

Behind him, Reid's phone buzzed on the glass table beside Sabine.

The notification filled the screen:

STERN WINCH INSPECTION—

Sabine glanced at Reid. He still had both hands clamped around my arms.

She swiped the screen, deleted the notification, and turned Reid's phone facedown. Then she placed one hand beneath her belly and looked up at him.

"Reid," she whispered, her voice trembling. "If the captains see that your own wife can defy an order and hide a Duvall bride... nobody is going to fear you tomorrow."

Reid's hands loosened on my arms.

The anger left his face. His eyes went gray and flat, the way they looked when he had to order a man out behind the warehouse.

"You've forgotten where your food comes from, Corinne," he said softly.

He reached over and hit the wall intercom.

"Kellan. Bring the dive gear to the back deck."