Chapter 14 - Blood for Blood
""I didn't know about Elena!"" Naomi said, backing away toward the edge of the raft, her hands raised defensively. ""Julian forged my name! Look at the dates on those transfers—I wasn't even in the country when the Sardinia accounts were opened!""
Mateo pulled a survival knife from his belt. The serrated steel blade caught the dull green glow of the raft’s emergency beacon.
""It doesn't matter what the paperwork says,"" Mateo muttered, his grief hardening into ruthless resolve. ""Julian Vance is dead at the bottom of the Atlantic. Marcus is shark feed. The only person left to pay for Elena’s life is his partner.""
""I survived him tonight!"" Naomi yelled, her voice raw and furious. ""I broke his face, I shot out the breakers, I took his poison and threw it in his eyes! I am not his accomplice, Mateo—I was his next target!""
Mateo paused, his knife hovering at his side, his eyes studying her battered face, the charred skin along her jaw, the bruises ringing her throat where Julian had choked her.
""He was going to kill me at midnight,"" she continued, tears finally cutting through the salt crusted on her cheeks. ""Look at the burner phone in my clutch. Look at the text sent to me! If you kill me now, you aren't avenging Elena. You're just finishing Julian's work for him.""
Mateo stared at her for five long, suffocating seconds. The swell lifted the raft high onto a crest, revealing the gray light of dawn beginning to crack across the eastern horizon.
Slowly, Mateo lowered the knife.
""Open the clutch,"" he commanded.
Naomi reached into the soaked metallic bag and pulled out the small black phone. She unlocked the screen and held it up. Mateo took it, reading the incoming messages, his jaw tightening as the timeline aligned with the truth.
He let out a long, ragged breath, throwing the knife into the floorboards where it stuck quivering in the rubber mount.
""Dawn is here,"" Mateo whispered, looking out through the raft’s hatch. ""The current is pushing us toward the French side of the island.""
""Then we make a pact,"" Naomi said, leaning forward, the fire returning to her eyes. ""We tell the authorities everything. We give them Julian's offshore empire. But we do it together.""
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Mateo looked at her, his face unreadable. He began to nod slowly.
Then, a low, rhythmic thumping sound began to vibrate through the water, echoing against the rubber hull of the raft.
