I blinked again, eyes trailing over the blanket that covered me, the IV in my arm, all across the room until I found Theo.
He was sleeping in one of the chairs by the window, his long legs stretched out in front of him, arms crossed over his chest, head back, mouth slightly parted. His eyebrows were furrowed like whatever he was dreaming about made him unbearably angry. And there was a thick bandage tied around the top of his left arm.
My heart surged in my chest, the need to touch him, to hold him and have him hold me so urgent that I couldn’t move fast enough. In fact, I could barely move at all, and when I tried, I groaned as my body protested with an aching stiffness and numbed sizzle of pain.
Theo’s eyes shot open, and when he saw me, he scurried to his feet and ran to the side of the bed.
“Aspen,” he said, his voice nearly a desperate cry as he reached me. I said his name in return, but it came out just a whisper.
He swept my hair away from my face and I leaned into the touch, tears flooding my eyes once we were connected. I didn’t miss the way his own eyes glossed over, which gave me permission to let the first tear free.
Theo thumbed it away, taking both my hands in his and kissing my knuckles as he let out a long exhale. His hair was dark and oily, mussed like he’d had his hands dragged through it for days. He wore the same thing he’d been wearing the morning he left the boat when we docked in Athens, but there was dried blood on the fabric of his polo and dress pants now.
“Are you okay? How are you feeling?”
“Tired,” I croaked, trying to sit up.
Theo rushed to help me, holding me steady while he propped pillows up behind me. Once I was more upright, he dragged the chair he’d been sitting in over beside the bed, wrapping my hand in his once again.
“Do you need anything? Water?” He frowned. “Maybe I should call the nurse.”
“No,” I said quickly. “Not yet. I just want you.”
Theo nodded, his brows bending together as another long exhale left his chest. “God, Aspen, you scared me. I thought…”
He swallowed down his next words, and I squeezed his hand in mine. “I’m okay,” I assured him, and then my weak hand reached out to brush the bandage on his arm.
“It’s fine. Just a little bullet graze.”
My eyes shot open wide. “Bullet graze?! Theo!” The words felt like sandpaper against my sore throat.
“I’m okay,” he said again. “I promise. It’s you I was worried about.” He swallowed, brushing my hair back again as his eyes washed over me, over all the tubes and wires sticking this way and that. “You lost a lot of blood.”
My chest tightened at the look of pain on his face, and with that same breath my heart surged, because I’d never felt more loved — not ever before.
“What happened?” I asked after a moment. “Where are we?”
“It’s a long story. We can talk about it when you’re rested, okay?” He frowned again, looking at the door. “I think I really should call the nurse.”
“Theo,” I pleaded, squeezing his hand. “Please. Tell me.”
He sighed, but nodded, handing me a small cup of ice chips from the table next to him before he began. I didn’t realize how thirsty I was until the first chip touched my tongue, and I eagerly tipped the cup back for more.
“It’s hard to explain,” he started. “I’m still trying to understand it all myself. But long story short, Joel, Ace, and Ivy snuck onto the boat after the sun went down. They were there for the safe.”
“Celeste?”
Theo shook his head. “She wasn’t with them. Judging by the way she was acting the day we fired them, I don’t think she wanted any part of what they were doing. Not anymore.”
I nodded, sucking on another chip as he continued.
“Wayland told me on our way back to the boat that you’d given the crew the night off. What neither of us realized was that while we’d discovered four of the rats involved in that grand theft, we’d left one onboard.”
I frowned.
“Eric,” he clarified. “Our bosun.”
“No!”
Theo nodded. “Apparently, he was the head of the whole thing. He befriended Joel early on in our trip, told him about his successful thefts from yachts in the past, and before the end of the night, he had him and Ace in on the deed. Ivy and Celeste weren’t a hard sell, especially not once they started formulating a plan.”
I chewed my cheek, trying to understand through the fog in my head. I wondered what kind of pain relievers they had pumped into my system. “So… Eric was with them?”
“No, actually. He went to shore with everyone else, so as not to look suspicious. But apparently, he’d been feeding Joel, Ace, and Ivy information ever since we left. He’d even hooked them up with some of his guys to get them to Greece once we left Italy. Those same guys were the ones who provided the guns they had.” He swallowed at that. “They were just waiting for the right time to strike. And when you sent the crew to shore for a night off…”
“I gave them the perfect opportunity,” I finished for him with a groan.
“Hey, it wasn’t your fault, all right?” Theo assured me, bringing my knuckles to his lips. He kissed all four of them before resting our hands on the bed again. “But yes. I was off the boat, Wayland was waiting to bring me back, the crew was gone.” He shrugged. “No one but Captain Chuck.”
“And me.”
“And you,” Theo agreed. “Which, from what I can gather, Eric left that
