The force knocked my feet from under me. My center of gravity broke apart in an instant, and my body pitched backward. Behind me there was nothing but open air and the black, endless sea.
In the panic I reached out on instinct. Adrian Winslow hadn't expected it. My fingers locked around her wrist like a vice.
The next second, we both went over the rail.
Two splashes and two screams shattered the calm of the banquet. Shouts erupted along the deck, overlapping, frantic.
"Someone's in the water!"
The freezing ocean swallowed me whole. I couldn't swim. All I could do was thrash, clawing my way to the surface only to be dragged back under by the churning waves.
Suffocation and terror blanked my mind. Nothing remained but the raw animal need to survive.
"Help… help me…"
When I fought my way above the surface again, I finally heard two bodies hit the water.
My vision was already blurring, but I recognized them. Julian Moretti. And Adrian Lennox.
In that moment, a faint, fragile hope caught fire inside me.
And in the next, I watched them both swim toward Adrian Winslow.
From the deck above came Adrian Ashford's voice, shrill with panic, pitched almost like a command.