My Husband Gave Her My Parachute Chapter 02

I plummeted.

Wind battered my helmet with a constant roar. Clouds rushed past my eyes.

I spread my arms and adjusted my position to steady myself and keep from spinning.

The numbers on my altimeter kept dropping.

2,500 meters.

2,000 meters.

I’d reached the planned deployment altitude.

I reached behind me, gripped the deployment handle, and pulled hard.

The familiar tug of an opening canopy never came.

Just a faint sound.

I jerked my head around.

Nothing had opened above me. Two cleanly cut lengths of nylon cord whipped in the wind.

It wasn’t just the main parachute that had been sabotaged.

The reserve’s release mechanism was locked, too. A knot had been cinched tight beside the safety pin. Industrial zip ties had been wound around it three times.

Both ways of deploying a chute had been blocked.

This wasn’t a malfunction.

Someone wanted me dead.

My headset gave a brief crackle, followed by Mia’s laughter.

“Ryan, she sure jumped out fast. Is something waiting for her down there?”

She laughed again.

“I told you she wouldn’t check. She makes us check our gear three times before a jump, but she didn’t even check hers once. Well, I win. You’re buying seafood tonight.”

Ryan gave a low laugh, his voice mingling with the wind noise.

“You actually thought to cut her parachute lines with scissors. A scare will do her good. She’s been at the club so long she thinks everyone has to put up with her judgment.”

He went on as if this were just some humiliating game.

“Don’t worry. She can swim. Once she hits the sea, she’ll just choke on a little seawater and get a few scrapes. I’ve already sent Rescue Boat Two. Let her spend a little time in the water first.”

I clutched the two severed cords as I hurtled toward the ground at nearly sixty meters a second.

A few scrapes?

Choking on a little seawater?

Through my goggles, I strained to see past the last thin layer of mist below.

No waves.

No beach.

No rescue boat.

Only dark granite stretching for dozens of kilometers. Ridges jutted from the ground, their edges sharp.

It was Black Hawk Canyon, a dangerous wind shear zone in Southern California’s coastal mountains. The club’s flight charts clearly marked it as a no-drop zone. The canyon floor was all bare rock and loose stones.

Ryan had taken Mia to see the sea of clouds. Our flight had actually veered off its planned route.

We weren’t over South Bay at all.

There was nothing below to break my fall.