Crystal's POV

We arrived back down at the docks and stepped out of the car, watching as the driver then spend away from us. Probably happy he no longer had to drive us around. I didn't blame him.

There were clouds gathering in the sky, turning the already dark night even darker as they blocked out the stars and moon. And already I could feel it begin to drizzle. No doubt it would soon begin to pick up.

I turned the SD card over in my hands, smiling. I finally had it back. I turned my attention back to Jackson who was staring curiously at me. I didn't pay all that much attention to him though. After all, I was finally free to be out of his presence. And I was getting out of his presence before whatever plan he'd come up with sucked me in deeper.

I gave him a mock salute. "May you rot from the inside out and burn in hell," I said as I spun on my heels and started to walk off.

"So, that's it then," Jackson said. The tone of his voice suggested that this was not, in fact, it.

I turned to look at him, eyeing him with suspicion. "Unless you want me to make good on my threat of killing you," I told him.

This seemed to amuse him. His eyes lit up and he had that evil mastermind look on his face. The look he seemed to get when he had a plan in mind. "See," He said as he took a step in my destination. "I don't believe you intend to go through with that threat."

I raised my eyebrows. "Does the fact that I'm no longer aiming a gun in your direction give you this illusion?"

Jackson smirked and fixed me with a stare that spelled trouble. "You could probably shoot me, of that I'm fairly certain, but I don't actually believe you'd kill me. Marrek, I believe would do it without a problem." His eyes flashed with a look I was growing to hate. "Seeing as he's no longer here . . ." He trailed off as he continued to stare.

I found myself glaring back at him. "We're done," I stated as I started to step away from him.

"Ah, ah, ah. Not so fast." His smug voice cut through the air before I could even take a step. "I think you'll find that we're not yet finished with each other."

My eyes narrowed further, my glare turning murderous. "Yes," I stated firmly. "We are."

Jackson's smirk widened and he took another step in my direction. "That, Babe, is where you're wrong." He tucked his hands into his pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels. "See, I have a proposition for you."

"No," I replied flatly.

Jackson's smile got impossibly wider. "I haven't even told you what the proposition is."

"You don't have to. I don't want to do anything for you or with you."

"You don't even want what you won from the bet? My telling you why I was so willing to go along with what you wanted?"

I narrowed my eyes at him. Yes, I did want to know. But since I was free to be rid of him, I didn't much care anymore. "If I thought you were actually going to tell me the truth, then yes," I replied. "Seeing as I know you're not going to, we're done."

"Not yet we're not," He continued, ignoring everything I had just said. "I'm looking for someone."

"Good for you." The rain was starting to come down harder. Not enough for it to soak us, but enough that it was beginning to make me cold and I wanted to just get away from him and get indoors.

"And you're going to help me find him."

I stared at him in bewilderment. "And in what world, do tell, will I ever be helping you with anything?"

Jackson didn't reply and instead kept talking as if I hadn't just asked him a question. "I've been trying to track down a particular mercenary for a long time now," He said. "Over six years."

"Just how old are you?"

Jackson paused in his storytelling long enough to glare at me. "Originally he worked with a certain group of mercenaries. It made it very hard to track him down as they're extremely secretive and only communicate with potential clients."

"Is this going somewhere?"

Jackson ignored my interruption. "I was able to learn, however, that this particular mercenary was almost exclusively hired out by the same client and eventually left his group to work solely for said client." He locked eyes with me. "That client being Lawrence Carver."

I kept my surprise from showing outwardly. In my head, it was all starting to make sense. Jackson hadn't come to con me, he'd used me to get to my father. To ultimately try and get to this mercenary. And he obviously failed . . . there were no words to describe the feeling of happiness that spread through me.

Jackson shrugged before continuing on. "The mercenary has been working for your father for years, but only started exclusively working for him for the past five months." Jackson shot me a sly smile. "And this is where you come in."

"This is going somewhere."

"You made the mistake of telling me exactly why you needed the necklace back."

"Get to where you're going faster."

"You've been gathering information against your father for what, two years now? That means you have to have information, pictures, documents, and whatever else on the mercenary I'm looking for. So, you're going to help me get this guy."

I gave him a disbelieving look. "What makes you think I'm going to do that?"

Jackson's smirk was back. "Because if you don't," He started as he took more steps toward me till he was standing right in front of me. He leaned into me, putting his lips right next to my ear as he whispered his next words. "I'm going to tip off your father that you're the one gathering evidence against him."

I backed up, putting some space between us and stared at him, speechless. My heart stopped. My whole world came to an abrupt halt. There was no way he'd go through with that. No way he'd take it that far . . . but then, was I expecting him to be a good person?

"That's a death sentence," I said, for lack of anything else to say. I was soaking wet at this point. The rain was coming down hard now, but it was as if I couldn't feel it. I no longer felt the cold or the rain hitting me. I was completely numb. Completely in shock.

Jackson shrugged. "And your point is?"

I continued to stare at him in utter shock, waiting for him to say he was joking. Waiting for any indication that this wasn't happening.

"You wouldn't go that far," I said.

Jackson raised his eyebrows and then a wicked smile spread across his face. "No? Have you mistaken me for one of the good guys?"

He walked right up to me once again. "I want something you have." He looked down at me his eyes hardening. "And I will have it."

I glared at him, my jaw clenching. "Then why not just take the SD card? Why do you need me?"

"It's taken me six years trying to track him down. Six years of me finding hardly anything. I don't even know his name." He said as he took another step toward me. I backed up. "You've been at this two years and I bet you know more than just his name."

I looked away from him.

"So, I'm going to need you and your connections if I ever hope to catch this guy."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "So what am I to you? A human library? A source of information?"

He turned away and started down the dock. He gestured with his hand for me to follow. "Let's get going. There isn't time to waste."

I didn't follow after him. Instead, I stood there, in the rain, soaking wet, and glaring at him.

"Who is he?" I shouted.

Jackson stopped and turned to look at me. "Pardon?"

"Who is he?" I repeated. "Why is it so important that you find this guy? Who is he to you?"

There was a look that crossed over Jackson's face, but it was gone so fast I thought I'd imagined it. What I knew I didn't imagine, was his hand that had gone to his pocket and pulled something out. Something that he kept closed in his fist but seemed to shift through his fingers. I just barely caught a glimpse of it as he shoved it back into his pocket.

A chain. A gold chain. Like the one he'd been wearing around his neck. I figured it was the same one, and he'd just moved it to his pocket at some point.

I narrowed my eyes at him. But he just smiled, turned, and walked away, back toward his yacht.

And he'd left me with no choice but to follow after him. There was no way I could risk walking away and leaving him to tell my father about what who was gathering information against him.

Chances were good that he wouldn't even believe Jackson, but he'd always have a lingering doubt about me and would forever be keeping an eye on me until he caught me slipping up.

I grumbled and cursed Jackson out the entire walk back to the yacht. Imagined shooting him about fifteen-thousand times. Or maybe just tying him to the anchor and throwing him overboard. Running him over with a car. Lighting him on fire. The list was long.

Noah was sitting in the lounge when Jackson and I walked in. He smiled and then his smile faltered when he looked at the expression of murder on my face and the blood still soaked into my dress.

"What happened?" Noah asked.

I glared at Jackson. "Jackson Storm. That's what happened," I told Noah.

Noah got wide-eyed, looked like he regretted asking and went back to staring at the computer screen on his lap.

"Miss Carver is going to be staying with us for a little while," Jackson said to Noah. I continued to glare at Jackson.

Noah looked at me, a frightened look crossed his face and then he looked back at Jackson. "Uh . . . no thanks."

Jackson went over to the bar and poured himself a drink. "That wasn't a question," He said. "She's going to be helping us."

Noah just stared at me like he expected me to walk up to him and bite him.

I let out a sigh and softened my features, after all, it wasn't Noah's neck I wanted to wring. "It's not you I'd like to stab, Noah," I told him.

Noah just looked at me. "That doesn't make me feel better."

When I turned to look for Jackson (with full intentions to blacken his eyes and break his nose . . . minimum) he was gone. Disappeared below decks.

I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at the door leading deeper into the yacht. "You can run, but you can't hide," I muttered.

"I take it he went with the blackmail plan."

I snapped my gaze over to Noah, my eyes narrowing. "You knew?"

Noah shifted uncomfortably. "I tried to talk him out of it," He admitted. "but he wouldn't listen. Once Mr. Storm has his mind set on something, it's very hard to dissuade him."

"Ever tried literally knocking the idea out of his head?"

Noah's lips twitched like he wanted to smile but was stopping himself from it. "No," He said. "I haven't."

I studied him for a long while. He either didn't notice or didn't care. His fingers never stopped typing on his computer.

"How did you end up stuck with him?" I finally asked.

Noah shrugged. "Mutual friend," He replied vaguely.

"And this mercenary he's forcing me to help track down, why does he want to find him so bad?"

Noah stiffened and glanced at me, briefly tearing his gaze away from his computer screen. "I don't know."

I narrowed my eyes at him suspiciously, knowing full well he was lying, but why? Why was it so important to Jackson to find the guy? Why had he spent six years trying to find him?

My first thought was that he owed him something, but I discounted that. It didn't fit, not with the way Jackson had been acting. He needed to find this guy. My second thought was that this guy was a friend of his, someone he was trying to find and help. I discounted that thought as well. The look on his face when he spoke of this mercenary was grim, tense. Which only left one other option.

He wanted to find this guy because his guy had done something to him. And I didn't mean that he'd simply blackened his eye, stole a suit, conned him out of something, or sold him out to the police. No. This guy had to have done something very bad if Jackson had risked catching my father's attention just to get to him.

There was no way he'd have blackmailed me into helping him find this guy if he hadn't wronged Jackson in some terrible way.

Now, I just needed to figure out why, before he got me into even more trouble than I was already in.

I started to walk away, but Noah's voice stopped me.

"Where are you going?"

I turned and I couldn't help but glare at him, knowing full well that he was going to be reporting on my every move to Jackson, and that was the only reason he wanted to know.

"I'm soaking wet, I'm covered in blood, and I'm feeling murderous," I told him. He swallowed audibly. "Minimum, I'm taking a shower and making a phone call. After that," I turned and started to walk away. "you better hope and pray I don't use that stick of dynamite to sink this stupid yacht and its captain to the depths of the sea."

I walked further into the yacht, below decks, and into the room I had been using.

"You're running a con and treating me like a game Jackson Storm," I muttered as I gazed out of my open door and across the narrow hallway to his. I smirked at his closed door. "But I'm going to show you how it's played. Bring it on."

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