# Chapter 360: The Depths of Us The sea was a black god, and it wanted to swallow them whole. Alec King had never been a man who prayed. Prayer required a belief in forces beyond his control, and control was the currency he had traded in for thirty years. But now, with the Atlantic churning around him like the mouth of some primeval beast, his fingers numb around the rope, his lungs screaming for air that came in ragged, salt-crusted gasps—now, he understood the futility of his arrogance. Miguel was slipping. The deckhand's eyes had gone glassy, his grip on the floating debris loosening with each wave that crashed over them. He was nineteen years old, with a girlfriend in Cartagena and a mother who had kissed his forehead when he left for this voyage. Alec knew these details because Miguel had told him, two days ago, while polishing the brass railings on the promenade deck. Alec had nodded curtly and walked away, because that was what he did—he walked away from people before they could matter. *Don't apologize. Just hold on.* The words had left his mouth before he'd decided to speak them. Miguel had been sobbing, apologizing for falling overboard, for needing to be rescued, for being weak. And Alec, who had spent fifty-two years building walls out of ice and indifference, had felt something crack open in his chest as he tied the line around both their waists. *Just hold on.* He was holding on too. To the rope. To the splintered wood. To the image of Ella's face that flickered behind his eyes like a candle in a hurricane. --- On the bridge, Ella Reed was learning something about herself that she had never known: she was capable of terror so absolute it felt like a second skin. The radar screen showed the storm's eye passing over them, but the winds were still howling at sixty knots. The *Aurora* listed hard to starboard, and through the rain-lashed windows, she could see nothing but mountains of black water and the thin, desperate beam of the spotlight sweeping across the surface. *Where is he? Where is he? Where is he?* The question was a pulse, a heartbeat, a prayer she hadn't known she believed in. "Ella, get back from the window." Lucas's hand was on her arm, his voice tight with the same fear she felt. "The captain is deploying the rescue team. You need to—" "No." She turned on him, and something in her eyes must have been feral, because he stepped back. "He's out there because he's a better man than he knows. He jumped in after a crew member he barely spoke to. He did that. *He did that.* And I will not let him die." "Ella—" She was already moving, grabbing a life jacket from the wall, tying a line around her waist with hands that shook but did not falter. "I'm going out." "You'll be killed!" She stopped at the door to the outer deck, the wind screaming through the crack, and looked back at Lucas. His face was pale, his knuckles white on the railing. He looked like a man watching someone step off a cliff. "Then I'll die trying," she said, and her voice was steady now, clear as a bell. "That's what love is, isn't it?" She didn't wait for his answer. She threw herself into the storm. --- The rescue boat was a toy in the hands of a god who did not care. Ella had never driven anything larger than a kayak, but the engine roared beneath her palm and she aimed the bow into the waves, riding the crests like a woman possessed. The spotlight from the ship swept past her, illuminating a stretch of churning water, and she saw them. Two shapes. One large, one small. Clinging to a piece of wreckage that rose and fell with the swells. *Alec.* Her heart stopped. Started again. Beat so hard she thought it might crack her ribs. She turned the tiller, the boat heeling dangerously, and the engine screamed as she gunned it toward them. The waves were mountains, and she climbed them, fell down their other sides, climbed again. Her hands were raw, the salt spray burning her eyes, but she did not blink. She could not blink. *I have to reach him.* The spotlight found them again, and she saw Alec's face—pale, exhausted, his lips blue with cold. He had one arm wrapped around Miguel, the other gripping the debris. He was holding them both up. He was drowning slowly, and he was still holding someone else up. *That's who he is. That's who he's always been, under all that ice.* She pulled alongside them, the boat nearly capsizing as a wave hit them broadside. She leaned over the edge, her fingers stretching, reaching— "I have you!" Her hand brushed his. His fingers, cold as death, closed around hers. "I have you!" He looked up. Even in the darkness, even through the rain, she saw his eyes meet hers. And he smiled—a broken, beautiful smile that cracked something open in her chest. "I knew you'd come," he whispered. And then his grip loosened. --- The water took him like a lover, and Ella did not think. She did not think about the cold. She did not think about the waves. She did not think about the fact that she was not a strong swimmer, that she had never done anything brave in her life, that she was a dog-walker from Brooklyn with student debt and a dream of veterinary school. She did not think. She dove. The line from the boat snapped taut around her waist as she hit the water, and the cold was a knife, a blade of ice that sliced through her lungs and stole her breath. She fought against it, kicking, reaching, her fingers searching the darkness— And then she found him. His collar. His jacket. His body, limp and heavy, sinking into the black. She grabbed him and pulled, her muscles screaming, her lungs burning, and she surfaced with a gasp that was half water, half air. The crew on the rescue boat were shouting, hauling on the line, pulling them both toward the hull. But she did not let go of him. Not for a second. They crashed against the rubber side of the boat, and hands reached down, grabbing them, lifting them, dragging them over the edge. She collapsed onto the deck, Alec's body half on top of hers, and she rolled him onto his back. He wasn't breathing. "No." She pressed her hands to his chest, counting, pushing, counting. Water streamed from his lips. His skin was gray. "No, no, no—" She tilted his head back, pinched his nose, and pressed her mouth to his. She breathed into him, once, twice, three times. She pushed on his chest again. She breathed into him again. "Don't you dare leave me." Her voice broke. The tears came, hot and blurring her vision, mixing with the rain that still lashed down on them. "Don't you *dare* leave me. Not after I finally found you. Not after—" She pressed her mouth to his again, and this time, he coughed. Water erupted from his lungs, and he turned his head, gasping, choking, his body convulsing with the effort of living. She held him, her arms around his shoulders, her face pressed to his wet hair, and she sobbed. "I'm here. I'm here. I've got you." His hand came up, trembling, and touched her face. His eyes opened—that deep, storm-gray blue—and he looked at her like she was the first thing he had ever truly seen. "I'm not going anywhere," he rasped. "You're my second chance. I'm not wasting it." --- The storm began to pass as they were hauled back aboard the *Aurora*. The crew wrapped them in thermal blankets, guided them to the medical bay, and laid them on adjacent cots. Ella refused to let go of his hand. The ship's doctor checked them both, pronounced them cold and battered but alive, and left them with mugs of something hot that tasted like tea and whiskey. The engines coughed, sputtered, and roared back to life. And then Lucas appeared in the doorway, his face a mixture of relief and fury. "Julian," he said. "He tampered with the fuel lines. The ship's security has him in the brig." Alec closed his eyes. "Of course he did." "He's been arrested. Madame Delacroix is... impressed. She saw you jump in. She saw Ella go after you." Lucas paused, and a grin spread across his face. "She said the merger stands. Said a fool in love is the rarest thing in the world." Alec opened his eyes and looked at Ella. She was watching him, her hair drying in wild curls around her face, her lips still blue but curved into a smile. "I proposed without a ring," he said, his voice hoarse. "That was poor planning." She laughed—weak, giddy, the sound of someone who had nearly died and found life on the other side. "You can make it up to me. We have a lifetime." He lifted her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to her cold fingers. "We do. And I intend to spend every second of it keeping my hands on you." --- The helicopter appeared on the horizon as the sun broke through the clouds. It was military-grade, black and sleek, and it landed on the deck with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel. The rotors whipped Ella's hair into a frenzy as a man stepped out—tall, dark-haired, with the same sharp jaw as Alec but a younger, more reckless energy that crackled around him like static. He walked into the medical bay, took one look at Alec, and grinned. "Brother, I heard you finally got yourself a woman. I had to see it to believe it." He turned to Ella, his eyes sweeping over her with an appreciation that was more amused than predatory. "I'm Damon. The handsome one." Alec groaned from his cot. "Damon, I will throw you overboard." Ella raised an eyebrow. "There are more of you?" Damon laughed, and the sound was warm, infectious, the laugh of a man who had never met a rule he couldn't break. "Three more. And we're all disasters. Welcome to the family." Ella looked at Alec, who was shaking his head, a reluctant smile tugging at his lips. She looked at Damon, who was already pulling out his phone, probably texting the other brothers. She looked at the ring on her finger—the one Alec had slipped on an hour ago, his grandmother's diamond, warm from his pocket. *Welcome to the family.* She leaned back on her cot, Alec's hand in hers, and watched the clouds part over the Atlantic. The storm was behind them. The horizon stretched endless and blue. And for the first time in her life, Ella Reed had no idea what was coming next. She couldn't wait to find out.