The Billionaire Who Killed Our Son Now Begs Me To Save His Daughter Chapter 05

The Billionaire Who Killed Our Son Now Begs Me To Save His Daughter Chapter 05

Grant froze.

“You know my daughter?” he said. “You’ve got something against her? Is that why you wouldn’t take the job?”

Liana’s eyes went wide. She lunged forward and grabbed me.

“Who are you?” she demanded. “Why are you trying to set my daughter up?”

I looked down at Chase on the ground.

He didn’t say anything. He just stared at me. His eyes were nothing but fear and desperation. Every second mattered. His daughter’s life was hanging by a thread.

I pushed Liana’s hand off me.

“I didn’t say I’d hurt anyone,” I said. “I said I can’t save her.”

“You just said you’d finish her yourself!”

Grant’s face twisted. The violence in his eyes was almost raw.

“Are you threatening me?” he asked.

“Not a threat. Just the truth.”

I stepped back and leaned against the equipment rack.

“Say you force me down there. And my hand slips when I’m lining up the docking bolts. What do you think happens then?”

Grant’s pupils shrank.

He worked in deep-sea equipment. He knew exactly what that meant.

Docking fails. The crew compartment ruptures again. The pressure crushes everyone inside in three seconds.

“You don’t have the guts,” he said, his voice tight.

“Try me.”

The room went quiet.

Then Liana broke down crying.

“Please,” she sobbed.

Tears ran down her face. Her makeup was a mess.

“Cora didn’t do anything wrong. She’s only twenty-three. She doesn’t know anything.”

“Twenty-three.”

“Yes. Twenty-three.”

Liana nodded hard. She thought I was going soft.

“She just graduated college last year,” Liana said. “This is her first time on a research ship.”

“Small world.”

“What?”

“I knew someone who died at twenty-three too.”

Liana went still.

Grant’s head snapped up. He stared at me.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked.

“Doesn’t matter. What matters is letting Chase’s daughter go.”

“Promise you’ll dive first,” Grant said.

“Let her go first.”

“Why would I—”

“Because you’ve got no cards to play.”

I held his eyes. Every word came out slow and cold.

“Your daughter has less than twenty hours of oxygen left. I’m the only one in this stretch of water who can save her. You kill me, she dies. You hurt me, I can’t dive, she dies. You go after Chase’s daughter? That won’t get you anywhere. All it does is make sure I never lift a finger for you.”

Grant’s fists clenched.

Those eyes that made so many people look down. For the first time, I saw something desperate in them.

“You—”

“Grant.”

Liana got up off the floor and grabbed his arm.

“Just let the girl go,” she said. “Stabilize the situation. Cora’s life is what matters.”

Grant closed his eyes. Took a long breath.

“Make the call,” he said through gritted teeth, turning to his guard. “Get her off the platform.”

The call connected. Grant gave the order in a voice pressed down to its breaking point. Chase’s daughter was to leave the Poseidon immediately.

Five minutes later, Chase’s phone rang.

“Dad?” Her voice came through the line. “They’re putting me on a helicopter. What’s going on?”

Chase crouched on the ground with his phone pressed to his ear. He was crying too hard to speak.

“Go,” he finally got out. “Go. Do as they say. Hurry.”

The line went dead.

Chase looked up at me. Tears and dirt all over his face.

“Thank you, Syl,” he whispered.

Grant turned to me.

“She’s free,” he said. “You got what you wanted. Now it’s your turn.”

“I told you. I’m not diving.”

His face went dark.

“Are you playing me?” he asked.

“No. Letting her go was letting her go. Diving is diving. Two different things.”