HER STEPMOTHER THREW A 3-YEAR-OLD GIRL OFF A PRIVATE ISLAND INTO THE OCEAN! Her father jumped into the raging waves to save her, but when they reached shore, the little girl pointed at a fleeing speedboat and whispered something that made his blood run cold. What she revealed next exposed a terrifying secret about her dead mother! / Chapter 10 / 40

Chapter 10 - Blood on the Rocks

"You're working for Marcus?" I said, keeping my hands level with my shoulders, my fingers hovering inches from the hidden tactical blade strapped to my wrist.

Keller chuckled, the wind whipping his wet hair across his face. "Marcus pays in untraceable bearer bonds, Daniel. Vanessa pays in corporate shares. Julian pays in political protection. It’s a syndicate. And you were just the dumb war hero who got in the way of a hundred-million-dollar buyout."

"Where is Lily?"

"On her way to the hotel penthouse with Marcus," Keller sneered. "By the time you bleed out on these rocks, the succession papers will be signed, and Marcus will deliver the girl to Vanessa. A tragic family overdose in a luxury suite. Daniel Mercer’s grief turns homicidal... he kills his daughter and vanishes. The press will eat it up."

"You forgot one thing, Keller," I said softly.

"Oh yeah? What’s that?"

"You're standing on wet slate."

I dropped straight down onto my back as my wrist flicked. The combat blade flashed through the rain, striking Keller dead in his right kneecap.

Keller screamed, his rifle firing wild into the night sky as his leg gave out. He slipped on the algae-covered rock, tumbling backward.

I scrambled forward, tackling him before he could regain his footing. We slammed into the gravel path, rolling toward the edge of the sixty-foot drop into the raging ocean.

Keller gouged his thumbs toward my eyes. I caught his wrists, slamming my forehead into the bridge of his nose. Cartilage crunched. Blood sprayed across my mouth.

He roared in fury, pulling a combat knife from his belt and slashing at my ribs. The blade cut through my jacket, slicing a searing line of fire across my chest, but the adrenaline drowned the pain.

I twisted his arm behind his back, locking his shoulder against the cliff edge.

"Who has the digital key for the hotel penthouse?" I snarled into his ear, pressing his face into the sharp rocks.

"Go to hell, Mercer!" he spat.

I shoved his arm higher until the shoulder popped with a sickening *CRACK.*

Keller shrieked into the storm. "Marcus! Marcus has the master fob! He’s using the private freight elevator at the harbor slip! Don't drop me, Daniel! Please!"

"Claire asked you for mercy two years ago on these same rocks," I whispered into the darkness. "What did you tell her?"

Keller’s eyes widened in sheer panic. "Daniel, wait—"

I didn't push him. I just let go of his collar.

The wet slate gave way under his boots. Keller slid backward into the howling void, his scream cut short as he hit the jagged reefs forty feet below, swallowed instantly by the roaring surf.

I stood up, clutching my bleeding ribs. The rain felt like needles on my skin.

I had forty minutes before midnight.

Forty minutes before Marcus delivered my daughter to her mother's killers.