Chapter 22: The Broken Tail

Private Island. 04:11 AM.

A thick, visceral mist of blood hung over the shark tank, so dense it seemed to stain the moon a bruised, arterial red. The scent of iron and salt was a living thing, choking and omnipresent.

Skylar stood amidst the jagged ruins of the command center, her silhouette sharp against the flickering emergency lights. She was draped in Sebastian’s oversized black trench coat—a garment heavy with the scent of gunpowder and rain. The hem of the coat hit her at mid-thigh, failing to hide the fresh, dark finger-marks and bite scars that marred her pale legs. Yet, she didn't look like a victim. She looked like a blade newly unsheathed, glittering with a lethal, cold light.

Landon Voss was no longer the master of this domain.

He was shackled to the very interrogation chair where he had once watched Skylar suffer. The titanium chain—the same one that had bound Skylar’s ankle for thirty days—was now looped tightly around his throat, just below the Adam's apple. Any movement, any struggle, and the metal would bite into his windpipe.

His white dress shirt was ripped open, exposing a chest crisscrossed with shallow, bloody gashes Skylar had carved using a sharpened shark tooth. It looked like an abstract map of pain. Despite the blood, despite the predicament, Landon was laughing. His eyes were wide, glittering with a terrifying mixture of madness and a deep, erotic satisfaction.

Skylar crouched down in front of him, her movements fluid and predatory. She hooked a finger under his chin, tilting his head back to meet her gaze. Her voice was soft, intimate—the voice of a lover sharing a secret in the dark.

"Dog," she breathed, the word a delicious insult. "Where is Summer Sinclair?"

Landon licked a smear of blood from the corner of his mouth, his smile as polished and polite as if they were at a charity gala in Manhattan. "Little Rose... guess? If you guess correctly, perhaps I’ll tell you."

Sebastian stood three paces away, a dark sentinel. His silver-gray eyes were twin chips of ice, devoid of anything resembling mercy. He didn't have Skylar's patience for games. He raised his suppressed pistol, the muzzle cold and uncompromising as it pressed against Landon’s kneecap.

"I’m only giving you three seconds," Sebastian said, his voice a low, dangerous growl that vibrated in the small room.

One. Two—

PHUT!

The muffled crack of the suppressed shot echoed through the ruins. The bullet didn't shatter the bone; it grazed the outer edge of the patella, tearing through muscle and skin in a spray of crimson.

Landon let out a muffled groan, the veins in his forehead bulging with the effort to suppress a scream. Yet, his smile didn't falter. He gasped for air, his eyes locked on Skylar’s. "Two seconds... remaining."

Skylar raised a hand, signaling Sebastian to hold his fire. She leaned in, her lips almost brushing Landon’s ear, and then she kissed the corner of his bloody mouth. The gesture was sweet, sickeningly so.

"A good dog shouldn't wait for the whip," she whispered.

She stood abruptly and turned to the wreckage of the control console. Her fingers flew across the partially melted keyboard, bypassing fried circuits with the ease of a master hacker. Within ten seconds, she had bypassed the primary encryption.

The island’s massive PA system crackled to life.

"Attention all units," Skylar’s voice boomed from every speaker on the island, amplified and cold as a winter gale. "Bring Summer Sinclair to the top level of the shark tank. You have ten minutes. If she is not here, I will feed your employer to his pets, piece by agonizing piece."

The broadcast hadn't even finished when the remaining mercenaries on the island began to break. The panic was instantaneous. They had spent years fearing Landon Voss—the man who ruled Wall Street and the underworld with equal ruthlessness. Now, they were seeing him through the security feeds: a broken man, collared like a common cur, kneeling in a pool of his own blood and smiling at the woman who had conquered him.

Fear was a virus, and it infected the entire island in seconds.

04:19 AM.

Two mercenaries appeared at the edge of the shark tank, dragging a limp figure between them. It was Summer. She had been heavily sedated; her face was a ghostly mask of white, and the bandages on her wrists were soaked with fresh blood. Yet, the moment her eyes found Skylar, she began to shake her head frantically.

"Skylar... Skye... go..." she wheezed, her voice thick and slurred. "It’s a... trap..."

Skylar’s pupils contracted into needle-points. She whirled around to face Landon.

The man’s grin widened, the chain around his neck cutting a thin red line into his skin as he chuckled. "My clever Little Rose... did you really think the shark tank was my only card?"

Before he could finish, a deafening roar erupted from the horizon.

Twelve combat helicopters emerged from the darkness of the Pacific night. Their high-intensity searchlights sliced through the mist like twelve glowing swords, pinning the island and everyone on it to the sea. Simultaneously, the underwater minefield surrounding the atoll began to detonate.

Columns of fire shot hundreds of feet into the air. The shockwaves were massive, flipping the heavy debris of the shark tank like it was made of cardboard. Blood-stained seawater began to flood the floor, swirling around their ankles in a cold, salt-choked tide.

Sebastian stepped in front of Skylar, shielding her body with his own as he aimed his weapon at the sky. "Landon, you're insane! You’re going to kill us all!"

Landon’s laughter turned into a jagged, haunting sound. "I told you, Sebastian! As long as you’re alive, I’ll always have a contingency! Now... either you kill me right now, or we all rot at the bottom of the ocean together!"

Skylar stared at him for three long seconds. Then, a slow, dark smile spread across her face. She stepped out from behind Sebastian and delivered a stinging, open-palmed slap across Landon’s face.

"A dog is still just a dog," she said, her voice a mere sigh that sent shivers down the spines of the men around her. "I forgot to mention... I added a little something to the blood bait in the tank."

She snapped her fingers.

Inside the churning red water, the remaining eleven Great Whites—Margaret having already been devoured by the pack—suddenly went into violent convulsions. Their gray-blue eyes rolled back in their heads. Their massive bodies thrashed against the cracked acrylic walls with suicidal force.

A second later, they began to expel thick white foam from their gills. Their bodies bloated and floated to the surface with sickening speed.

THUD. THUD. THUD.

A series of eleven muffled explosions rocked the tank as the sharks' internal organs detonated from the chemical reaction of the toxins Skylar had introduced into the feeding system. A rain of shredded meat and blood cascaded over the room.

Skylar stood in the center of the gore. Bits of flesh clung to her hair, her eyelashes, and the corner of her mouth. She didn't flinch. She simply looked up at the circling helicopters and let out a sharp, piercing whistle.

VROOOOM—

An even more terrifying engine roar drowned out Landon's fleet. From the clouds above, thirty modified Black Hawk helicopters, emblazoned with a matte-black rose insignia, tore through the sky.

The red targeting lasers of anti-ship missiles locked onto Landon's fleet. Below them, on the sea's surface, a hundred depth charges breached the water simultaneously.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Landon’s private navy didn't even have time to mobilize. They were vaporized in a spectacular inferno of fire and steel.

Skylar turned back to Landon, whose smile had finally, utterly vanished. "So sorry, 'Master,'" she purred, her voice sweet as poisoned honey. "But I decided to borrow your contingency plans. And improve upon them."

She reached down, and with a heavy click, the magnetic lock on the floor re-engaged. But this time, the titanium chain was locked around Landon’s throat, tethering him to the floor of the sinking ruins.

"A dog should always wear his leash," she whispered, her fingertips tracing the raw red line on his neck. "From this moment on, you have exactly one life. And it belongs to me."

The searchlights from the Black Hawks converged on Skylar and Sebastian, bathing them in a blinding halo of light. Skylar stood on her tiptoes, pressing a kiss to the hollow of Sebastian’s throat.

"Sebastian... the second drop of blood... I’ve claimed it."

In Sebastian’s silver-gray eyes, there was a terrifying mixture of pride and a darkness that matched her own. He leaned down, pressing his forehead against hers, his voice thick with a promise of carnage.

"Then I will give you everything else that remains."

The rain of blood and seawater continued to fall. Skylar stood in the center of the devastation, feeling the weight of the invisible crown she had finally seized.

In the distance, Summer was being lifted into a medical helicopter. She reached out a weak hand toward Skylar, tears streaming down her face, but she was smiling.

Skylar winked at her, her lips moving in a silent promise: Wait for me.

The helicopters ascended, pulling away from the doomed atoll. Behind them, the island began its final collapse. The shark tank, along with Landon’s pride and his empire, was swallowed by the hungry Pacific.

But Skylar knew this was only the prelude.

Landon Voss wasn't going to die. Not yet. She had simply, for the first time in history, put a collar on the devil himself.