Marcus looks at me, eyebrow raised. He's got thick eyebrows that really need to be trimmed, and their thickness is even more stressed by his short-cut hair. I make a note to remind him to do that after his shift guarding me. He beams a ready-to-laugh smile at me.

  "Eight hours in and you're already ready to get drunk?"

  "Or even anything related to alcohol?" I add. "Anything at all? It really doesn't matter. I'll drink mouthwash at this point."

  "What the hell happened to you, Maddy?"

  "Rook happened."

  "If he hurt you, Bullet will kill him."

  "The wounds are all on the inside. I asked him about his past."

  "Oh shit. Yeah. It's best to just not do that. Or talk to him at all."

  "I could've used a warning."

  Marcus chuckles. "His face should've been warning enough. I mean, you took one look at his angry mug and decided: I want to know what made someone that unpleasant? Come on, Maddy, I thought you were smarter than that."

  "I'm studying finance, not psych," I say. "Hell, I don't think even the psych professors at Costa Oscura University could handle him."

  "They'd be smart enough not to try. But I'm sorry to tell you I did not bring some alcohol with me." He then opens up his pack, pulling out six bottles filled with various beautiful shades of brown and clear liquor. "I brought all the alcohol."

  "I want to drink all of that," I say, more than half meaning it and already reaching for a bottle. “But before I start, did you bring anything to eat? Otherwise, I am just going to have to deal with the world’s worst hangover.”

  "I also brought snacks, water, Gatorade, mixers, and coffee. Oh, and a tablet loaded with movies. Yes, I might be stuck in some shitty old building guarding your fancy ass, but I'm going to do it in comfort, damn it."

  I laugh, clap my hands, and grab a bottle of bourbon, my eyes scanning the bevvy of mixers and cocktail ingredients that Marcus unpacks from his enormous bag; there are even fresh herbs, which are a nice touch and makes me smile knowing that I can mix an actual cocktail; I spy mint; I spy simple syrup; there’s even a tiny cooler of ice. "I'm making mint juleps. You want one?"

  "Fuck, you're a fancy lady," he says. "Hell yes, I want one."

  "Of course I'm fancy. I'm a Sinclair, haven't you heard?" I say, affecting a terrible twist on an elegant accent like I'm in a Jane Austen novel. "Only the finest for me."

  Then, like the fine lady I am, I whip up a pair of mint juleps. Because there's nothing finer in life than drinking cocktails with a kidnapper in a moldy, leaky, abandoned building. Outside, thunder rumbles and a flash of lightning sends an electric white burst of color flickering through the spiderweb-cracked window pane.

  "Cheers," Marcus says as he taps his glass to mine.

  "Cheers." I take a sip and feel a little more human. "Can I ask you something?"

  "You just did."

  "Shut up. I mean, an actual question.”

  "Fine."

  "What the hell are you doing here? Why are you mixed up in this?"

  "Good question. I need more alcohol if I'm going to answer that one," he says, taking a titanic sized drink of the mint julep, finishing it, then pulling a long chug from the bottle of bourbon, before ending with a flourish—a thunderous belch that makes me cringe. "Don't look so high and mighty. You're drinking cheap bourbon and sitting on a pile of old blankets in a crumbling lighthouse. You’ve got no room to judge."

  "I’m here because your best friend kidnapped me."

  "There's your answer: my best friend kidnapped you. That's why I'm here."

  "He abandoned you just like he abandoned me, right? Left after saying nothing to you? And then he just shows up after four, almost five, years, like nothing's happened, and just expects you to be fine with it. What the hell is that?"

  Marcus shrugs. Takes another pull of bourbon and releases another belch.

  "I don't know which is louder—the thunder or your burping," I say, snidely.

  "Oh, I like that. Since everyone else has a nickname—Bullet, Rook—call me Thunder."

  "Will it make you have some manners?"

  "Yes. And it'll get you an answer to your question."

  "Fine, Thunder," I say, hardly able to believe I'm calling him that. Who the fuck just picks their nickname? It's unnatural. "How is it you came to be here?"

  "Came to be here?" He chuckles. "Well, that happened about twenty-five years ago. You see, Madison, when a man and a woman fall in love, or even have too much Jaeger after a Motley Crue concert, they…"

  "I know what sex is."

  "Then why'd you ask?"

  "I hate you."

  "I hate you, too. You nearly got my best friend killed," he says.

  I stiffen, my eyes flare, my lips tighten. "Don’t put that on me. I didn't make Jackson do anything. I didn't even know he was alive until yesterday. Everything that happened to him is because of his decisions."

  "No. It’s because of you. This is all for you."

  "Maybe he deserves to suffer a little for what he put me through," I say, bristling. "No, that doesn’t mean I want him to die. But he hurt me. He hurt me so bad. I know it hurt you, too, when he disappeared. So tell me: why the hell have you forgiven him so quickly?"

  Marcus takes a long drink of bourbon, stifles a belch, and shrugs. His eyes thoughtfully follow a rivulet of water seeping through one of the many cracks in the lighthouse wall. "Jackson grew up next to me. We're from the same crappy neighborhood in Costa Oscura. Briarlane. Beautiful name, shitty everything else. And when I was little, I was little. Short, scrawny, light as a feather. So little that I was scared that when I hit puberty, the best I was going to do was grow up to be the world's shortest man. But I loved to ride my bicycle, and damn, I was fucking good at it. Built a big ramp in my driveway, practiced on it every day. Jackson would watch me from a distance, sometimes, but we never said anything to each other. Me being so short, I was kind of a liability to hang out with. Now, this one day, I was practicing a double barspin. It's a pretty advanced trick, but I was pretty advanced by then, too. I'd just nailed this trick when some neighborhood boys rolled up and started some shit. They beat me up bad, spit on me, took my bike. It happened so fast, but just as they were really hitting me, I saw Jackson watching, our eyes met, and then he came charging in. He was a big boy back then, and he nailed them like it was nobody's business. Whooped their asses. From that point on, we were a team: he protected my ass, and I taught his ass how to ride." Thunder sips more bourbon and pauses, a smile on his face. "So, when the guy who saved my ass countless times when I was growing up called me and said he needed my help, all I needed to know was when and where."

  I feel a twinge of jealousy at the end of his story, jealous that he and Jackson have such a close bond. I’ve always wanted something like that in a partner, someone to protect me and stand up for me no matter when or where. Yes, I have it with Elena and Ashley, but it's a different thing entirely to go to sleep with, and wake up next to, someone who will take on the world for you every day of the week. Someone who is a partner, a lover, a best friend, a protector, all rolled into one. Instead, I'm stuck with Alexander, a man who only cares about his own ego.

  "So, you're just here to help Jackson?" I ask, trying to keep my voice steady.

  "Yeah. He needs me, and I owe him. Plus, I'm curious as hell about what's going on with you and him. I mean, you're about to be married to some narcissistic Napoleon like Alexander Covington, and now you're in a lighthouse with the guy you actually love? That's some soap opera shit."

  I roll my eyes. Love Jackson? Those feelings died years ago. Even if looking at him stirs many indescribable emotions inside me, I'm certain that none of them are love. Or even anything close to it. Frustration? Yes. Anger? Definitely. Gratitude at being taken away from Alexander? Yes, though it's made my future impossibly murky. Physical attraction? Well, duh, I have a functioning libido. But none of that is love.

  "It's not like that. It’s just something I have to do. Jackson disappeared without a trace, and my family needed money to keep their business afloat. Alexander was the solution, and I thought I could make it work."

  Thunder scoffs. "Money isn't everything, Madison. You should know that by now."

  "I do," I say quietly, knowing there's so much more to life than money. There's freedom, there's curiosity, there's self-respect, there's love, yet all of that is something I am trading for the money my family needs.

  Even now as I’m removed from Alexander, even being given a distorted glimpse of freedom that this kidnapping offers, thinking about what is going on in the real world and the painful compromises I've made puts my heart in a vise and squeezes it until it feels ready to burst with oppressive sorrow.

  "I don't feel like talking anymore," I say, half for Thunder's benefit, half to remind myself to keep my mouth shut and stop saying things aloud that'll only hurt me.

  Then I hide inside my drink.

  * * * * *

  Jackson comes at the worst time, which seems like it's becoming his thing.

  Maybe, instead of calling him 'Bullet,' I should start calling him calamity, or catastrophe, or misery. Those qualities seem tied to whenever he appears in my life.

  Because when he steps through the door to relieve Marcus, I'm in far too deep with mint juleps. So much so that my breath smells like mouthwash, my sweat stinks like I've rolled around in bourbon and mentholated cigarettes, and my heart has accepted the truth that I am a hopeless nobody whose only asset is her last name and who has completely, in every conceivable way, fucked up her future.

  Maybe I will get my degree, but what then?

  I have no actual prospects. Neither does my family, aside from the Covington’s charity.

  Yet still, that degrading charity is mine and my family’s best chance at something.

  When he steps in the door, Jackson gives me a look and a comforting smile, like he knows exactly what I'm thinking. Maybe he does, or maybe I'm just so drunk that my thoughts are written on my forehead.

  "Marcus, can you give Maddy and I some space?" He says.

  Marcus nods. "By the way, I’m not Marcus anymore. I’m Thunder, now."

  "Thunder?"

  "If you don't believe me, ask Maddy. She'll tell you."

  I respond to Jackson's questioning look with a half-hearted nod.

  "Okay, Thunder, can you give us some space? You good to ride?"

  "I'm good. You take care, Bullet."

  When Thunder leaves, Jackson sits down beside me on the cot and blankets that have become my little nest of despair. He puts his hand near my leg. Not on it, not touching it, just close enough that I know it's there, and he looks into my eyes with those blues that are deeper than the sea.

  "Rough night?"

  "Yes. The worst."

  "I thought it might be hard. There's a lot of shit going through your head right now, isn't there? It was the same way for me back then, back when I... Anyway, I have a few things for you. Just sit and relax for a second, okay?"

  As if I have a choice. Being unwilling to speak any more than the few words I’ve already said, that way he can’t hear just how low I feel, I simply nod.

  Satisfied, he gets to work.

  He leaves the lighthouse for a moment, and returns with several boxes, a picnic basket, and a small cooler.

  I raise an eyebrow at him.

  "What?" I rasp. Even that comes out slightly slurred, thanks to the mint juleps that are sloshing around in my stomach. Drinking this much was a bad, bad idea.

  "Do you remember our first actual date?"

  I frown, thinking. Some of those memories are hazy with grief, others even more hazy with drink. I shake my head.

  "It was maybe our third or fourth time together, depending on how you count it. After I found you when your car broke down, after I had it towed to my dad's mechanic shop, after we went out for drinks so you could vent, and after you came by to pick up your car. You wrote your phone number on the receipt, which you didn't need to do because I'd already memorized it from the work order, but still, I took it as a sign."

  My eyes go wide. "The picnic? By the beach?"

  "You told your parents you were going to meet your friend to have a study party."

  I smile as I remember the sight of Jackson waiting for me at the dirt stretch that passed for a parking lot at the little beach park where he had me meet him. He was leaning against his bike, a basket in one hand, a cooler at his feet, a beguiling smile on his face. We ate fancy breads, cheeses, meats, even little finger sandwiches and some blinis with caviar. He was everything confident, charming, and real.

  "You told me you didn't know what any of the stuff in the picnic basket was."

  "True. I'd gone to the gourmet grocery store—the one by the pier that all the tourists from San Francisco go to—and I paid the woman behind the wine counter to help me put it together. Because we both know there’s no way I'm going to know what a coronet is."

  "Cornichon," I say, correcting him. "They're like pickles."

  "Then why don't they just call them pickles?"

  "Because they're not pickles. They're different. They’re cornichons."

  "Exactly why I needed help. Radiators, exhaust manifolds, transmissions—that's my language. But having funny French names for pickles that aren't pickles? That's not for me. I told the lady behind the counter I was nervous and needed help to put together a picnic for a beautiful woman who was way out of my league."

  I roll my eyes.

  "You were then," he says. "Still are now."

  "Even more out of your league, now," I say, both teasing and maudlin. "Look who I'm marrying. It’s going to be like the corporate merger of the century, but with people."

  Jackson gives me a kind smile that, on anyone else, would seem pitying, but on him, it seems understanding and without judgment. From the moment we met, he knew I hated the prolonged engagement and arranged marriage I was being forced into. He pats the picnic basket. "In here is the same meal that we ate that day on the beach. Everything is exactly the same."

  My mouth waters at the memory of all that was in the basket the first time; the rich creamy cheeses, the buttery smooth pâté, the crunchy-on-the-outside-soft-on-the-inside baguettes, the salty-savory caviar. Drunk, as I am, I would be satisfied if Jackson told me the basket held nothing but cold chimichangas from a gas station; that I can enjoy that meal from that special day has me so hungry my stomach audibly growls.

  "Exactly the same?"

  "I saved the receipt. Kept it in my wallet. Never wanted to forget that day with you, Maddy." He sighs, then opens the basket, revealing sights and smells that force me to swallow all the saliva that's suddenly pooling in my mouth. "Let's eat. You'll need the food so you don't get hungover. Then you should sleep. We have a busy day tomorrow."

  "What's tomorrow?" I say, through a mouthful of pâté-covered baguette. As I chew, Jackson opens the cooler, revealing it's full of bottles of water, Pedialyte, and cold brew coffee; everything you need to fight off a hangover.

  I grab a bottle of water and a bottle of Pedialyte, taking a grateful gulp from each. He’s thought of everything. As I eat, as I drink, he watches me with a twinkle in his eyes. Something stirs inside me, a warm, uncomfortable sensation, and I repress that feeling because, whatever it is, I absolutely can't afford to feel anything warm or affectionate for Jackson Reid.

  This is just business, I remind myself. Ridiculous, insane, sure-to-fail business, but business nonetheless. If it somehow pays off and you wind up with enough money to make your problems go away, maybe then you can feel something.

  Maybe.

  "You and I are going to take some photos, maybe a video," he starts. I raise a warning eyebrow at him, because we are not together and I sure as hell am not the type to make any kind of video with an ex. He chuckles and holds up a hand in a calming gesture. "Not that kind of video. A proof-of-life video. There's a copy of today's newspaper here, too."

  "And then?"

  "Then Marcus and I are going to deliver the ransom demands. In person. Right to Covington Corporation headquarters."

  Chapter Twelve

  Bullet

  "Let me be honest with you, Marcus," I say as I take a bite of taco, some meat juice dribbling down my chin. “I don’t think you’re going to enjoy hearing this, but I have to tell you, anyway.”

  The two of us stand at a taco truck, Tacos Ricos, which sits on the outskirts of Costa Oscura's downtown core, close to the Covington Corporation headquarters. It's only the second bite of my taco that I've taken since we've been here, my eyes are locked on their target down the block, so much so I can hardly enjoy my carnitas tacos. Not even the juicy pork and the crispy cracklings bring me joy. The weight of our mission bears down right on my gut, making each bite a chore, which aggravates me even more, because tacos should never be a chore—they're pure joy.

  “Yeah?”

  "I didn't think this thing through.”

  “That doesn’t shock me. At all.”

  “Other than how to steal Madison away from Alexander. Getting her away from him is all that I could think about. But the rest of it... I have no fucking clue."

  "You sure seemed to know what you were doing earlier with getting Madison to make that video," Marcus says, eyeing the thumb drive that I have clutched in my left hand. "It isn't the first time that you and her have made a video, is it?" He raises a mischievous eyebrow at me and grins. "By the way, out in public, where anyone could hear, I'm going to have to insist you call me by my road name: Thunder."

  I snort. Thunder? He says it so casually, as if I won't question anything about it. "Really?”

  “Really. I’m Thunder, now.”

  “That’s the dumbest name I’ve ever heard.”

  “Oh yeah, Bullet? You know what, it doesn’t matter—it’s my name. Learn to love it.”

  “Maddy told me how that name came about. You can't go giving yourself a nickname, Marc—" Quick as a snake, he punches my shoulder just hard enough to make me stop talking and his eyes pointedly dart to somewhere behind me. With a quick glance, I see a cop standing in line at the taco truck. "—Thunder.”