The Palm Paradise Yacht Club and Marina at Lake Worth Lagoon was huge, with two floors and several rows of yachts of various sizes docked at the marina, starting from smallest to the bigger ones farthest out. The lagoon ran parallel to the coast, separated from the Atlantic Ocean by barrier beaches, one of them being West Palm Beach. The somewhat cooler late November air was accompanied by the breeze coming off the ocean, and it whipped at Mason’s face, the feel of it wet and salty. They were surrounded by the smell of the ocean and the not so subtle aroma of fresh fish.

  Mason leaned into Lucky, his voice low as he motioned to one of the yachts they walked by. “I’m surprised you don’t have one of those.”

  Lucky let out a snort. “Yes, because when you look at me, you think ‘guy who likes to fish.’”

  Mason chuckled. He scanned the area around them, and with the coast clear, grabbed a handful of Lucky’s ass and murmured in his ear. “I was thinking more, ‘guy who likes to get fucked on the deck.’”

  Lucky groaned and shoved him playfully. “I may have to reconsider this not-having-a-boat thing.”

  “Are Colton and I that embarrassingly sweet when we flirt?” Ace asked Red, his voice loud enough for Mason and Lucky to hear.

  “No, bro, you’re way more embarrassing,” Lucky teased, earning the middle finger from Ace.

  The Kings brought everyone in for a meeting before the guests were due to start arriving, and all personnel were assigned specific posts. Equipment was distributed, and they all wore white vests beneath their suits, though no firearms were on the premises. The security teams were divided up with two team members checking the guest list, bags, purses, and pockets, while others stood stationed at doorways, exits, and entrances. Jack and Joker remained inside Jack’s truck parked in the club’s parking lot where they’d monitor the security feed. Mason, Lucky, and Ace were on the ground floor, while Red and King were on the second floor. Their job was to make the rounds and check in with the rest of the security team.

  The party was spread out across several rooms in the club, one for cocktails and “the good stuff” as one guest stated while looking longingly at the shelves lined with whiskey and brandies. After the schmoozing and aperitifs, a three-course meal would be served in the dining room, followed by more drinks and schmoozing in the Commodores Room. Mason made sure to drool all over Lucky in his tux back at the hotel. Damn, the man looked fine. No wonder guests kept mistaking him for one of their own. At least until they saw the black earpiece in his ear.

  Mason made his rounds, smiling politely when a guest greeted him or smiled at him. He realized then how comfortable he felt in his own skin. How had it taken him forty-one years to figure himself out? He liked who he was with Lucky, working for Four Kings. Thinking about his life as a cop, as a detective for Major Crimes, it felt like a lifetime ago. Like he’d been a different person, which was kinda crazy, considering that life he felt so far removed from had been a few short weeks ago. Was he crazy for feeling like a chapter of his life was ending and a new one was beginning? This was certainly one hell of a time to have an epiphany.

  “Mason Cooper?”

  “Yes?” Mason turned, expecting to find one of his fellow security officers there, but instead a man he’d never met stepped up beside him, his smile familiar. Mason tilted his head, studying the guy. “You look familiar. Have we met?” The man was about Lucky’s height, his build similar. Mason would estimate he was roughly the same age as Lucky. His jaw was chiseled, his hair pitch-black to match his thick eyebrows, and his eyes were stunning. They were gray with amber around the iris, except for the left one, which appeared half amber, half gray. He was very handsome, dressed in a tailored gray suit. Something in the way he stood seemed familiar as well, a stiffness Mason had seen before, the way he carried himself.

  “We should chat.”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m part of tonight’s security detail. I can’t leave my post.”

  “I think you can.” The man leaned in, the barrel of a gun pushing against Mason’s hip. “Why don’t you escort me outside?”

  “You don’t want to do this.”

  “It’s in your best interest, and the interest of those you care about, to come with me. If your boyfriend or any of his friends come near us, I will put a bullet in them. You try something, anything, and someone is going to get hurt. Don’t fuck with me, Mason. I know who you are and what you’re capable of. One wrong move, and someone else is going to die. Do you really want another man’s blood on your hands?”

  Mason froze, something about the way he’d said the words alluded to so much more. “You really think no one’s going to come looking for me?”

  “I’m sure they will, but by then it’s going to be too late for you.”

  The guy meant to kill him.

  Mason snorted. “If you think I’m just gonna follow you to my death, you’re dumber than a box of rocks.”

  “Oh, you’re going to come with me, all right.”

  “How do you reckon that?” Mason sneered. He subtly scanned the room as he put together a plan of action.

  “Because you killed my father.”

  Mason’s blood turned to ice, his heart in his throat as he realized who held the gun to his side. “Ryden?”

  “Oh, so you do remember me,” Ryden hissed, grabbing hold of Mason’s arm in a tight grip, his gun jabbing into Mason’s hip again. “You’re going to escort me out to the marina like we’re a couple of pals catching up on old times. I know you want to hear what I have to say.”

  Mason slowly walked with Ryden toward the door, turning his back on the floor of guests. “Of course I remember you. Not a day goes by where I haven’t thought about you or your family.”

  “Bullshit!” Ryden’s voice was low but filled with venom. He stayed close to Mason as Mason escorted him from the room and out into the hall. Mason couldn’t believe Ryden was here. Last time he saw the guy, Ryden had been a scrawny teenager. “You never gave a fuck about me, Mason. If you had, you wouldn’t have done what you did!”

  “I’m so sorry, Ryden. I am. I know what I did was unforgivable, but I swear to you, it was—”

  “Shut up!”

  They were starting to get odd looks, making Ryden more and more agitated, and that was the last thing they needed. There was no telling what he would do. Mason needed to get Ryden away from the guests, and a foolish part of him wanted to hear what he had to say. The guy had every right to loathe him, but maybe Mason could help him in some way.

  “You’ve been following me,” Mason said, keeping his tone quiet and steady.

  “Nice work, Detective.” Ryden walked him down the hall and downstairs toward the yacht club’s side doors that led out to the docks. They stepped out into the cool night air, the marina lit up beautifully, the lights reflecting on the water. It was a gorgeous night for a stroll—not so much for dying. Lucky was going to be so pissed at him, but he needed to talk to Ryden. After years of trying to outrun the ghost of his past, it had finally caught up with him.

  As they headed toward the end of the dock, Mason’s earpiece came to life, Lucky’s concerned voice on the other end.

  “Everything okay? Jack says you’re outside.”

  Mason pressed his PTT button, his heart squeezing at the lie he was about to tell the man he loved. “Yeah. Just escorting a guest to his boat. I’m okay.”

  “You should have let one of us know,” Lucky informed him, his tone laced with suspicion. His instincts were probably kicking into overdrive, and Mason couldn’t let Lucky run out here. He might be a former soldier, but he was unarmed, and Mason wouldn’t take that risk. Lucky would probably call him an idiot. Like the guy had never faced off against someone with a weapon having been unarmed, but the thought of Lucky getting hurt because of Mason’s actions was not acceptable to him.

  “I know,” Mason replied. “I’m sorry. I’ll be right back, and then you can yell at me some more.” Tears welled in his eyes, but he blinked them back. They reached one of the huge yachts at the very end of the dock, the door of which was open at the top of the stairs.

  “Get on the boat,” Ryden grumbled, his voice rough, and Mason had to wonder if maybe Ryden wasn’t as prepared to kill a man as he thought. If he wanted Mason dead, why hadn’t he done it already?

  Mason climbed the stairs, Ryden at his back. The luxury yacht they were entering was at least a hundred and fifty feet. Hey, at least if he bit the bullet, he’d be doing so in style. Yeah, Lucky was so going to kick his ass. Ryden led him into what looked like a living room area, a dining room off to one side. He’d made sure to secure the doors on the way in, and the blinds on the windows were closed. It was all polished cherry wood, marble tabletops, and expensive upholstery.

  “So this is how the other half lives, huh? This your boat?”

  Ryden scoffed. “Yeah, all us homeless vets have a two-hundred-foot yacht docked near the park bench we sleep on.”

  “Jesus, Ryden.” Mason shook his head, his heart hurting for the guy. “I’m so sorry. Let me help you.”

  “Help me?” Ryden laughed before he started pacing, the gun held at his side. “My whole life has been a lie, and it’s all because of you. Because of you, I spent my life hating him.”

  “Hating who?”

  “My father. I blamed him for destroying our family. If he hadn’t died by falling asleep at the wheel, his career would have been over anyway. No one was going to hire a ranch hand who’d been fired for negligence, for getting a kid hurt. I hated him for setting me on the path I ended up on, when in reality he was an innocent victim. That was my welcome home gift, you know. Discovering that you were the one responsible for the clusterfuck that is my life.” Ryden thrust the gun in his direction, and Mason slowly put his hands up, his tone soothing when he spoke.

  “Ryden, put the gun down and let’s talk about this.”

  “Fuck you, Mason! You have no idea what I’ve been through! What you set in motion!”

  “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “Why? So, you can buy yourself enough time for your Green Beret to save your ass? Ain’t no one coming to save you, Mason. Fucking snake eaters think they’re hot shit.”

  “You seem to know a bit about them.”

  “Only because they think they’re so much better than us when everyone knows we’re better.”

  “You’re a Marine?”

  “Was,” Ryden murmured, his bottom lip trembling. He sniffed and blinked away the wetness in his eyes, his expression quickly turning to stone. “Can’t fly for Uncle Sam if you only got one eye.” He pointed to his left eye, the one that was half amber and half gray. “Trauma, they said. Complete loss of vision. Flying was all I had left, and then I lost that along with everything else.”

  “I’m so sorry, Ryden.”

  “Don’t you dare fucking pity me,” Ryden spat out. “Do you know why I joined the Marines? So I wouldn’t be a piece-of-shit fuckup like my daddy. At least that’s what I kept telling myself. Then it was all over. I came home, only to find out my momma had passed away while I was on a RECON mission. She left me a letter. A goddamn letter.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a letter that had been folded and unfolded so many times it was on the verge of falling apart. Ryden’s face crumpled, but he pulled himself together. “You know what her dying words to me were? ‘Forgive me.’ She died thinking I would hate her for what she did, but how could I?”

  Ryden was filled with so much fury and hate that Mason wanted to do something for him. The way he paced, how he fought to keep the tears from his eyes. Ryden was a man on the verge of breaking. He believed he had nothing left to lose, and that made him dangerous.

  “Of course you couldn’t hate her,” Mason offered gently. “She was your mother, and a good woman.”

  “A good woman who sold her soul to the devil for her son,” Ryden spat.

  Mason stilled. “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t act like you don’t know. Your whole goddamn family’s made up of liars, especially you and your bastard father. It wasn’t bad enough you fired my father knowing he was innocent, and then got him killed, but then your father uses my mother’s grief against her, buying her silence.”

  “That… that’s not….” Mason felt sick to his stomach. He shook his head, but deep down he knew Ryden was speaking the truth.

  “My mother was distraught and grieving. She went to your father to give him a chance to come clean, and what does he do? He convinces her to take his blood money. How else was she going to take care of her son as a single mother with no income coming in? Who would pay for the funeral expenses? For my education? All she had to do was say nothing.”

  Mason swallowed past the bile in his throat. He would apologize again, but his words held no weight. They wouldn’t undo what had been done to Ryden and his family. Did his father’s ruthlessness know no bounds?

  “My entire life since that night has been one miserable circumstance after another, like I’m fucking cursed. You know the saying, if it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all? That’s me. After I read her letter, I was so fucking angry! I told myself, I’m going to hunt that son of a bitch down and make him pay. So I did. I found you.” Ryden shook his head before spinning and aiming the gun at Mason. It shook in his hand.

  “You did find me, but I’m not the man you think I am. What I did was unforgiveable, but I’ve spent every day since trying to make up for it, trying to be a better man. It’s why I left, why I changed my name. If I’d have stayed, I would have ended up like him, and I never wanted to be like him. Your father was a good man, and I did him wrong. My father did this to us. He’s hurt us both, but are we going to let him keep hurting us like this, Ryden? Don’t we deserve to heal and be happy?”

  “You were supposed to be a monster! You should have been a dirty cop, or a fucking addict, or drunk, or something! It aint’ right. You ended up with everything. A career to be proud of, people who love you, a boyfriend who’s crazy about you. Me? I lost everything, Mason. My family, my career, my apartment, my fucking eye!” Tears streamed down Ryden’s cheeks, his resolve faltering as his hand shook.

  Movement behind Ryden caught Mason’s eye, and he screamed for Lucky just as Ryden spun, gun in hand.

  “No!”

  Chapter 12

  Lucky ignored Mason, launching himself at the man with the gun in his hand, making sure to grab the guy’s wrist and jerk it to one side to avoid getting shot. He had no idea why the guy hadn’t fired, but Lucky wasn’t about to wait around to find out.

  “Lucky, don’t hurt him,” Mason called out from somewhere behind the guy. Whoever this man was, he was obviously trained in combat, evident by the way he blocked each of Lucky’s blows, his grip firm on his weapon.

  “Now is not the time, Mason.”

  “You two need to stop this right now.”

  “Are you crazy?” Had Mason lost his mind? “This guy kidnapped you at gunpoint and dragged you out onto a boat to kill you.” Lucky managed to land a punch in the guy’s ribs, but he didn’t go down. It only made him more pissed.

  “Ryden’s not gonna kill me. He’s not a bad guy.”

  “The fuck he isn’t. Give me the gun, Ryden, and I won’t fucking shoot you with it,” Lucky snarled, bringing his knee up to block Ryden’s kick. Fucker knew what he was doing.

  “Bring it, snake eater,” Ryden growled.

  “Fucking jarhead.” Okay, now Lucky was even more pissed. Fighting with one hand was certainly a challenge, but nothing Lucky hadn’t done before. He called on his training, keeping an iron grip on the wrist of the hand holding the gun. Close quarter combat was one of his proficiencies, and he was going to use every move in his arsenal to bring this guy down.

  “For fuck’s sake, will you two quit it already? Use your damn words.”

  “I have a few words for you,” Lucky told Ryden. “Hijo de puta.” He slammed his head against Ryden’s, and the guy stumbled back. Without hesitation, Lucky tackled him to the ground, knocking the gun out of his grip, and punching him in the jaw. How the fuck did he dare kidnap Mason? And point a gun at him? Try to hurt him. “Motherfucker!”

  “Lucky, stop!”

  Lucky pulled back a fist, only to have Mason grab his arm.

  “Baby, please.”

  That split second of hesitation was enough for Ryden to land a punch square across Lucky’s jaw, followed by a kick that knocked the wind out of Lucky, and he fell to the floor, wheezing for breath. Lucky cursed under his breath, and quickly scrambled to his feet just as Ryden swiped the gun off the floor, but not before Lucky lunged at him, the gun going off when the two of them slammed into each other. A gasp jerked Lucky’s attention away from Ryden.

  “No, oh God. No, no, no,” Ryden cried, falling to his knees as Lucky darted over to Mason, catching him before he crumpled to the floor.

  “No. Mason, love. Look at me.” Lucky pressed his hand to Mason’s left shoulder and the pool of crimson spreading across Mason’s white shirt.

  “I’m so sorry,” Ryden cried, his hands on his head. “I didn’t want to hurt him. I swear to God I didn’t. I mean, I wanted him hurt, but I didn’t want—oh fuck.”

  Lucky ignored Ryden, too busy assessing Mason’s injury. He lay Mason’s head on his lap and pressed his PTT button. “I need Red and a fucking ambulance! The last yacht in the marina, Paradise Island. Now.” Lucky shook his head, blinking back the tears. “It’s going to be okay, mi amor. Tranquilo, todo va a estar bien.”

  “On my way,” Red replied through the earpiece. “Ambulance is en route.”

  “Lucky,” Mason said through a groan. He sucked in a sharp breath as he tried to get up.

  “What are you doing? Stay down.”

  “You have to help him.”

  “What?” Lucky ran a hand over Mason’s hair. “The bullet went straight through, thank God, but you’re bleeding very heavily. Just don’t move.”