TIGHT PRESSURE SQUEEZED MY ARM.

It was instinctual.

My hand flew out, and my eyes popped open as I grabbed for the source. I was gripping some asshole’s neck, crushing his windpipe before I took in his uniform.

“Where is she?” I rasped.

The paramedic grabbed my wrist and dug his finger into the flesh between my thumb and forefinger.

The sharp pain made me let go of his neck. I pulled the oxygen mask off my face, and the blood pressure cuff off my arm. “Where is she?” I repeated, fucking panicked.

He tipped his chin. “She’s here.”

I turned my head.

Wrapped in a blanket, shivering, her hair wet, her eyes were even bigger on her face.

I held a hand out to her and pain shot up my side. “You okay, sweetheart?”

She nodded, but she didn’t look directly at me and she didn’t take my hand.

“Hey.” I grabbed her knee. “Look at me.”

At first she didn’t move, then slow and scared as fuck, she lifted her head and her eyes met mine.

“You’re okay. We’re okay.” I didn’t know what the fuck we were. My ribs were killing me, and my head was pounding. I squeezed her knee once before I looked back the paramedic. “I need your cell.”

“I’m not authorized to—”

“It’s a matter of life and death. I’m Ty Asher with Luna and Associates, a personal protection firm based in Miami, and my client’s life is in danger. The second this ambulance stops, we’re gonna have a situation on our hands that neither of us will want. I need your phone to make a call.”

He pulled his cell out of his pocket and handed it over.

I dialed Luna’s personal cell.

One ring.

Two.

Three.

The ambulance started to slow down.

Fuck.

Four.

Luna picked up. “Yeah?”

“It’s me. Mercy and Nash?”

“Handled, they’re in one of the client apartments upstairs. But Jesu-fucking-cristo, what happened? You okay? His daughter? Preston said all the boats were gone from the island when they passed and bodies were on the dock.”

“Client secured.” No fucking thanks to me. I was so goddamn busy getting my mouth on her forehead that I’d missed the other boat coming at us from the opposite direction. “But I need backup STAT.”

Luna turned all business. “Location?”

I looked at the paramedic as the ambulance came to a stop. “Location?”

He rattled off the name of the small hospital in Key West. “We just pulled up.”

“I heard that,” Luna clipped. “Put him on the phone.”

I handed the phone over and swung my legs off the gurney. Pain lancing across my ribs, I held my side and sat up. With my free hand, I brushed the blanket off her shoulder to look at her arm, but she was still wearing my Henley. “Did you let them look at your arm?” I felt my makeshift bandage still on her under the damp shirt.

She pulled out of my grasp and said nothing.

“Still not talking?” I asked quietly so only she could hear me.

She didn’t nod, she didn’t even move. She stared at my hand on my ribs, and a tear slid down her face.

Shit. “Hey, hey, hey. None of that.” I forced a smile. “I’m good.” Not that I knew how the fuck I’d gotten out of the water. The last thing I remembered was taking a head dive after the collision.

Handing the phone back to me, the paramedic cut in. “I wouldn’t exactly say good. You have a concussion, possible rib fractures, and a laceration to your—”

“I’m fine,” I clipped, cutting him off, taking the phone. “How far out are you?” I asked Luna.

The paramedic glanced at the driver. “Hold here a second.”

The driver nodded.

“Too far,” Luna answered.

“I can’t go inside the hospital with her,” I warned. There was no way I could secure a whole damn hospital solo, and who knew how far-reaching Dante’s connections were.

“Concur,” Luna agreed. “You mobile?”

“Yeah.” I’d dealt with way worse than a few bruised ribs. “All good.”

Luna called me out. “The paramedic said you were pulled unconscious from the water.”

“Now I’m awake.”

Luna paused.

“I’m good, but I’m blind and naked.” No phone of my own, no wheels, no weapon in my holster. “I don’t know what followed us from the marina.”

“That’s where you landed?”

If you could call it that. “Yeah.”

“I’ll get some of the guys on it. We’ll check security cameras in the area. In the meantime, I’m heading down now, but I’m three hours out. Christensen and Preston are closer. They’re still in Marathon. They can get down to you in an hour.”

“I don’t have an hour, let alone three.” And I wasn’t fucking anxious to get back on a goddamn boat tonight. I wanted wheels under me, eating up pavement, but I wasn’t going to risk taking her back to Miami solo on a two-lane highway out of the Keys. If tonight taught me anything, it was that I needed fucking backup.

“Copy. Can you get to Roark’s?” Luna rattled off a local address. “He won’t be there, he’s flying a charter for me, but there’s a key on the back porch under a side table.”

“Hold on,” I told Luna as I looked at the paramedic. “You got your own ride?” No way was I calling a cab that could be traced or having an obvious as fuck ambulance drop us off.

He frowned. “Excuse me?”

“Car. Do you have one?”

The paramedic frowned. “Yeah.”

I fished my soaked wallet out of my pocket and took the two grand I kept for emergencies and tossed the wet bills on his lap. “I need to borrow it. If I wreck it, I’ll replace it.”

“It’s a new Charger,” the paramedic protested. “I’m not going to—”

“Vouch for me,” I told Luna, handing the paramedic his phone back and turning to Ludeviene. “Okay, listen, sweetheart. I’m going to send you inside the hospital with the paramedics.”

Her face, already pale, blanched.

“Just for a few minutes,” I explained. “I’m going to get us a ride, then pull right in front and pick you up.”

She was shaking her head before I’d finished talking.

Reading her anxiety, I took only a second to address it. “Only a few minutes, I promise.”

She looked at me for a beat, then she parted the blanket. In her trembling hands was the 9mm I’d given her.

Damn.

I smiled—no, I fucking grinned.

“Good girl.” I took the gun, put it in my back waistband, then I glanced at the paramedic who was pulling his keys out.

“It’s the black Charger on the south side of the lot.” He eyed my gun.

“Thanks, man.” I took the keys. “Take her inside, wait close, don’t leave her alone, but get her some dry clothes if you can. I’ll pull up to the emergency entrance.”

He stared at me a moment. “You okay to drive?”

I tipped my chin. “I’m good.”

He glanced at Ludeviene before leveling me with a look. “She saved your life. She was keeping your head above water until a few locals fished you out. Your boat’s totaled, and she’s not speaking. She’s pretty bruised up.” He said it like an accusation, like I was the fuck who did it to her. “She wouldn’t consent to me checking her over.”

After what she’d been through, I wouldn’t have wanted to be checked over either. “She’s good. I’ll take care of her. Wait till I tell you it’s clear.” I moved to the back doors of the ambulance and looked out the window. Opening one door, I scanned the loading zone and the parking lot beyond. No sign of Dante or any of his men, I stepped out and held the door. “Clear.”