Fifth a Fury (Goddess Isles, #5)

by Winters, Pepper

  “Depends.” The younger pilot scowled. “Our velocity was still increasing, the tropics mean the ocean is warm not cold...the other man fell before him and broke the surface tension of the water.”

  “Yes or fucking no?” Drake growled.

  The older pilot shrugged again. “Depends if luck was on his side. As far as preferred conditions went...yes, he could have survived. Water temperature, breaking surface tension, and velocity all play a part in the outcome. However, bones are brittle things. If he landed head first, his neck would’ve snapped, and—”

  “And if he landed feet first?” I interrupted, unable to listen to his morbid conclusion.

  The younger pilot pinned me with an apologetic stare. “His legs are most likely broken. Feet and ankles, too. He might have survived, but...he probably won’t be able to swim and will drown as a secondary cause of impact.”

  I went arctic blizzard cold.

  A pitiful moan escaped me as Drake chuckled. “Excellent. Let’s hope the bastard chokes on his precious ocean.” Dragging me toward the hulking lab in the distance, he added, “Let’s get this over with.”

  The mercenary sandwiched me next to Drake while the pilots trailed us.

  The older pilot said, “We’ll walk with you, Sinclair, and we agree to carry a gun, but under no circumstances are we pulling a trigger.”

  Drake looked behind him. “You’ll do as your fucking told.” His cold bark was smoothed by a slithering smile. “But as I said, you won’t have to shoot anyone if you play your part.”

  “And if you don’t play, I’ll happily give you a different type of bonus.” The mercenary with his brown buzz cut snickered, enjoying his promotion to second-in-command.

  I struggled as Drake carted me up the gravel path linking the helipad with the fortified door of the laboratory.

  I winced as my tender feet bruised thanks to sharp pebbles instead of silky sand. My wardrobe of a simple yellow shirt left me exposed in all the wrong ways.

  Hiding my pain, swallowing back my rage at Drake, I glanced at yet another diamond in Sully’s crown of islands. The building was an oddity. The largest of Sully’s villas—not that it could be called a villa with its sweeping white walls, barred windows, and keypad for entry outside. It looked clinical instead of tropical. Convinced on its purpose of housing drugs and specimens rather than fading into the scenery with thatched roofs and coconut wood.

  A shadow of someone walking past a window appeared and disappeared, no doubt alerted by our presence thanks to the helicopter.

  Had they heard the gunfire?

  Did they see me as the damsel in distress?

  Was Drake right when he said the men and women on this island were test tube geeks, or were there guards standing watch?

  I peered into the pruned undergrowth, searching manicured bushes and pretty flowers, hoping to see men loyal to Sully and his enterprise.

  Nothing.

  Choking on my disappointment, I hissed again as Drake dug his fingernails into my wrist, breaking my skin. He dragged me the final way to the forfeited door. “No one speaks. I’ll do the conversing.”

  “Sure.” The pilots nodded.

  Drake shook me. “Answer me, Eleanor. You’ll keep that pretty little mouth shut, won’t you?”

  I bit the inside of my cheek and didn’t reply. Once again, I would enlist silence to be my shield. If I spoke another syllable to this creep, I’d snap.

  I’d scream.

  I’d leap on him and beat him senseless. I wouldn’t stop until someone shot me.

  His threats of hurting me. His joy at his brother’s death.

  It all pushed me closer and closer to a ledge labelled mental breakdown.

  Sully...you have to be okay.

  I won’t stay sane if you aren’t.

  His fall repeated again, my scream vibrating in my skull.

  Over and over.

  You’re coming after me.

  I know you are.

  You’re alive.

  I have to believe that’s true.

  “Answer me, Eleanor.” Drake shook me, his watery blue stare malicious and cold.

  I pressed my lips together and arched my chin.

  Fuck.

  You.

  “Cat got your tongue again, huh?” Drake rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Your dramatics are tiresome.” Dragging me up the three steps to the door, he tucked his gun into his waistband and knocked on the sparse white entrance as a sickly grin spread over his face.

  I shivered, doing my best to sense if Sully was alive or not.

  I wanted the taste of conviction like I’d felt when I’d raced crazily around Jakarta. Then, I’d known that he wasn’t safe. I’d felt it in my bones...but at least I’d known he was alive.

  Now all I felt was a blockage.

  Almost as if the man I’d fallen in love with had vanished.

  Please...Sully.

  An intercom crackled above us, pouring a male’s voice over our shoulders. “Who the hell are you? Get off this island. It’s private property.”

  Drake lost his grin. His pompous businessman façade crumpled as quickly as he’d conjured it. “Open the fucking door.”

  “You expect me to open for you when I heard a gunshot moments ago? Hell no. Leave. Get back in your helicopter and—”

  “Open the fucking door,” Drake snarled. “I’m a Sinclair. Your boss is my brother.” He cocked his head, doing his best to rein in his temper. “You have four hundred vials of elixir, and I’m here to collect.”

  A long pause before the intercom crackled again. “If you’re Sullivan Sinclair’s brother, why didn’t he come with you?”

  “Because Drake’s a psychopath!” I yelled. Call the police—”

  “Shut the fuck up.” Drake growled beneath his breath and lost any hint of executing this burglary with calmness. “Just remember, you made me do this.” Ripping out his gun, he drove the muzzle against my temple, forcing my head sideways.

  My neck blazed with discomfort, the cold bite of the weapon sending my heartbeats wild.

  “Open the door, please,” Drake clipped. “Otherwise, you’ll hear another gunshot...and see the consequences of a bullet.”

  “Don’t hurt her!”

  The intercom screeched.

  A click of a lock.

  The swish of a door being opened.

  Drake grinned, his lips spreading with gloating triumph as a man with a widening waistline and white lab coat appeared. “Wise choice.”

  Giving up his attempt at being a chameleon and playing nice, Drake looked the man up and down.

  With his dumpy frame and stained lab coat, the scientist looked like a peace-loving, petri dish enthusiast who played with Bunsen burners and beakers because he didn’t like the messy mayhem of the outside world.

  His gaze fell on me, panic blazing through a pair of yellow-lensed glasses perched on his nose. “Look, I don’t want anyone to get hurt, and I don’t want any trouble. Let her go.”

  Drake drove the gun deeper into my temple, making my entire body twist. “I’ll let her go when you give me what I want.”

  “I can’t.” The man licked his lips, nervousness making him jumpy. “You’re not on the list of approved visitors. I can’t just give you—”

  “Give him the vials, nerd.” The mercenary swung his weapon upward, pointing it directly at the scientist’s face.

  Oh, shit.

  The scientist blanched, his hands diving into his lab pockets. “If you are who you say you are, let me call Mr. Sinclair, and he can authorise—”

  “Sullivan is dead.” Drake grinned. “He died in an unfortunate helicopter accident. Just like this girl, who happens to be the love of his pathetic life, will die, and then you will die. Every fucking geek in that stinking lab will die unless you give me four hundred vials of elixir. Right. Now.”

  “We have other drugs. I can give you those—”

  Drake let his head fall, sighing dramatically as if the man tested his already
frayed patience. “I don’t want any other drugs. I want that drug. Elixir. Lust in a tiny bottle. Liquid fucking orgasms.” He smiled a crocodilian grin. “My brother is dead. I am now in charge of this lab, and you work for me. That means whatever you’ve cooked is my property. Just like this girl is my property. Just like I can shoot anyone I fucking want because you all belong to me.”

  The scientist gulped. “I’ll trade you.”

  “Trade me?” Drake laughed coldly. “For what?”

  “Elixir for the girl.”

  His temper flashed, driving the gun deeper into my skull. “Now, why did you have to try to be a hero, huh?” He twisted the muzzle, catching my delicate flesh with the coldness of metal. “No trades. No bargains. You have one last chance to get me what I want, or not only will I shoot you, but I’ll also return with an army and blow up everything on this island.”

  Drake smiled icily. “You might have heard the explosion a few days ago? That was my handiwork. Serigala is no more. So many animals...it’d be sad to add scientists to that count. Especially seeing as you still have employment working for me now that my brother is gone.”

  “I refuse to work for men like you—”

  “Men like me?” Drake yanked my hair back, exposing my throat and running his gun down toward my breasts. “Men who aren’t afraid of power? Tell you what, I’ll let you choose. My version of a trade. Thanks to your refusal, Jinx here is gonna die. Do you want me to shoot her in the heart or the head? I’m more of a skull shot kinda guy, but I can—”

  “Stop!” The scientist’s shoulders sagged. “Please stop.”

  My heart couldn’t figure out a healthy beat.

  I expected to drown with fear. Instead, everything shut down. Everything apart from my livid hate for this madman.

  “Told you Sullivan hired pussies,” Drake muttered to his mercenary.

  The pilots stood well back, their willingness to be a part of murder waning.

  There had to be other men and women in the lab. Were there enough to stop Drake? I might be a lost cause, but they didn’t need to be. Where were Sully’s guards? Surely, he’d protect this place with a trained militia?

  “Run!” I blurted. “Get help—”

  Pain.

  Instant walloping pain on the back of my head as Drake cracked his weapon into me.

  I groaned, tumbling forward in his embrace.

  “Hush.” Drake stabbed the gun into my head again. “You just keep pushing my limits, don’t you, Jinx?” With me prone in his control, he snarled at the guard. “Right, I’m done negotiating.” With disgusting aggression, he trailed his gun from my head, down my front and kept going. Lower and lower until he dipped under the hem of the man’s shirt I wore and nudged the bare lips of my sex with the muzzle.

  I jerked.

  Snow settled on my skin.

  Shock and stupor.

  Hate and horror.

  I wanted to attack him, but I daren’t move.

  The world swam.

  Sickness drowned.

  How could you fight a crazy person?

  How could you win against someone who had no boundaries and followed no rules?

  How the hell did Sully survive a childhood with this lunatic?

  Drake drove the gun deeper into me, making me moan with disgust. “Vials. Now. Or I shoot her in the cunt right here, right now. She might not die, but it would be a horrific injury, don’t you agree?”

  “Fine! Fine!” The scientist vanished into the lab, yelling at max volume for elixir.

  “Finally.” Drake huffed, thrusting the gun into me one last time before removing it and wiping his forehead with his arm. “Was that so difficult?”

  I swayed as Drake let me go.

  I swallowed back a rush of loathing, doing my best not to run or attack him.

  Nasty silence fell as we waited on the stoop, listening to the quick scurry of feet in the lab. Would help arrive? Was there anyone here with a damn weapon?

  A minute later, a trolley with two large boxes shot from the lab, pushed at warp speed by the poor scientist. No one else. Just a terrified chemist with no background in warfare.

  “About fucking time.” Drake stepped aside, jerking me with him as the trolley came to a stop, the boxes clinking and clanging with glass vials inside. “The second you get back inside that little lab of yours, I expect you to make more of this stuff.”

  “But I can’t. Not without—”

  The mercenary angled his gun at him. “Get cooking, nerd. Your new boss expects a thousand more boxes of elixir.”

  Drake snickered, grabbing a box and shoving it into the older pilot’s hands. “Carry this, please.” He gave the younger pilot the second box. “And you.”

  Gripping the seemingly heavy boxes, the pilots turned and practically ran back to their helicopter as if they couldn’t wait to be airborne.

  Four hundred vials of a heart-crippling, body-hijacking drug.

  And Drake has it.

  Shit.

  “See ya ’round.” Drake waved at the scientist, then spun me around and dug the gun into the base of my skull. “Walk, Eleanor.”

  I had no choice.

  I walked under his instruction and away from potential help.

  The mercenary protected Drake’s back as we marched, sweeping his gun at the lab.

  Drake won again as we piled into the helicopter and took wing.

  Chapter Two

  I WATCHED MY LIFE instead of lived it.

  I watched as a man who’d just sold his soul to fury broke the surface of his ocean.

  I watched as a speedboat with five police pulled up beside him in a wash of wake and bubbles.

  I watched as he was pulled from the sea and deposited dripping wet and clothing sodden on a bench.

  I watched as the speedboat gathered inertia, carrying its drowned passenger toward the islands that’d become his hell.

  I watched as that same man fell off the side of the boat when he went to stand and found that he couldn’t.

  That same man felt no pain as two policemen hauled him from the shallows and carried him up the beach. He felt no comfort when a green caique landed on his head, squawking in fear, cooing for comfort. And he felt nothing but cold-hearted fury as his body was dragged into Campbell’s surgery and placed upon the very same bed where Eleanor and he had slept in each other’s arms.

  Eleanor.

  Fuck...Eleanor.

  My watching shattered.

  I was no longer voyeur to a man who’d lost everything.

  I was that man who’d lost everything.

  I felt the pain.

  I lived the misery.

  Yet...everything was distant.

  Muted.

  Sound far away.

  Sensation dulled by the cape of absolute rage.

  Fury.

  Motherfucking fury.

  I didn’t care about the pats of concern or worried questioning.

  I didn’t speak a goddamn word as police hovered like gnats and Campbell came bowling from other patient rooms.

  His white coat held streaks of crimson.

  Blood.

  Jealousy’s blood.

  The metallic life force woke me up a little more, slicing through my fury-fugue. Not entirely. Not completely. Just enough to remember how to speak, how to function, how to be a man instead of a singular emotion.

  “Is she alive?” I croaked.

  The police began jabbering in Indonesian, one moving close to begin his interrogation. “Mr. Sinclair, we need to know—”

  “Leave.” I bared my teeth. “Leave this surgery. Leave my islands. You’re too fucking late.”

  “We weren’t too late. We saved your life.”

  “You let my life fly fucking away.” I quaked on the bed, the frame creaking under my soaking, furious weight. Little plops of seawater splashed on the tile, ruining the sterile environment, unwilling to relinquish me just yet.

  The ocean understood me.

  It was li
quid in its power. It filled my veins with briny fury.

  “Go!” I snarled.

  “But we really must insist—”

  “GO! Your questions are worthless.”

  “There is a dead man with a gunshot to his abdomen and yourself who, according to requests for our help, have been dealing with a coup—”

  “A coup that you’re too late to stop.” I dropped all my guards. I stopped pretending to be tame. I revealed the nastiness, the malice, the manslaughter I wanted to reap. “Get the fuck off my island! I won’t ask again.”

  “But—”

  “LEAVE!”

  The men in their matching uniforms and polished buttons scampered. An odd sight to see—law enforcement used to being in charge and prosecuting all the rules jumping at my savage command.

  I couldn’t see it from their point of view.

  Couldn’t know that to them, I was the worst kind of case.

  I was a man who’d touched death and hadn’t returned. A man who now waded in graveyards and welcomed power from ghosts. A beast who no longer had any morals or desire to obey the laws of man.

  I was distant.

  I was unreachable.

  Dr Campbell was the one to show me, to dip into my fury-blackened numbness and reveal just how far I’d fallen. “Sullivan, snap out of it. You’re scaring them. And scared police are dangerous police.”

  I snatched the finger he dared waggle in my face. “I will ask you again. Is Jess alive?”

  He nodded, yanking his hand out of my icy fist. “Barely. I’m still working on her. I need help, Sinclair. I need another doctor.”

  “Contact the ruins on Serigala. They’ll send the two vets who weren’t killed.”

  “A vet won’t—”

  “A vet is all you’ll get.” Pushing off the bed, I snarled as if every predator and monster lived within me.

  My legs buckled.

  Pain.

  Motherfucking mind-deadening pain.

  “Sinclair!” Campbell caught me as I plummeted toward the salt-covered tile. He couldn’t hold my bulk, doing his best to slow my trajectory until we both sprawled on the floor. Pika flew around the room, jumpy and unhappy, his chirps echoing off the walls.

  “Fuck!” I blinked through the curtain of charred fury, pissed off at my useless body, cracking beneath the time I was losing not chasing Drake. “Fuck!”