Forcing herself not to shake, she continued to climb, grunting with the effort, determined to make it.

The rope was within reach. One more step, one more pull, one more huge push… she finally got high enough and reached for the bottom of the rope, but she just couldn’t… get… it.

A gust of wind fluttered the rope, catching the unlatched door above the windmill shaft and blowing it open, sending Con’s voice out into the air.

“Hurry, Lizzie! Hurry!”

They were still alive! She stretched her arm farther than it seemed possible, closing her hand over the rope to pull.

It didn’t budge.

Horror rocked her. Wasn’t it the brake rope? Or was she just not strong enough? She needed all of her weight to pull on it, and if she grabbed it with both hands, she could swing right into a passing sweep.

She couldn’t let them die.

Using every muscle in her body, she levered herself against the wall, grasped the rope with the other hand, and hung from it.

It was coming down! It was moving! A grinding sound echoed as the sweeps slowed, and she looked up to see the lever attached to the rope moving down, down, down.

The sweeps grew slower. The groans lessened. The odds of Bree and Con living increased. Finally, when the brake lever was parallel to the ground and the rope had dropped so far that Lizzie was only two feet in the air, the sweeps stopped.

She did it. She did it!

“Can I let go?” she yelled up to Con. Her arms were burning, but if she let go and dropped to the ground, would the sweeps start back up again?

There was nothing but ominous quiet in response. Was she too late? Had one of them slipped and let the gears crunch them both while she was scaling the wall? She barely breathed, hanging on to the rope as if it was hope itself.

“You can let go,” he finally called out. “I’ve got her. We’re out.”

She tumbled to the ground with a moan of relief, then ran into the building, seeing images of Bree, bloody and inches from death… and Con diving into the deadly machine to save a woman he’d never met.

He’d risked his life without a second’s hesitation.

Who cared what mistakes he’d made in the past? He’d just erased them all.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

BY THE TIME the Azorean police officers left the scene, the sun was rising.

Lizzie had left with Brianna by way of the Azorean version of an ambulance, once they’d determined that the bullet had passed through her muscle tissue and the wound could be tended without airlifting her to another island. Con stayed with the police, participating in hours of frustrating communication in broken English and Portuguese, explaining that Solange was dead when they arrived.

That was, oddly enough, the easiest task of the night. The police believed her to be a recluse psycho who was rumored to have attempted suicide at least once in the past, and they were opening an investigation into the death of her nurse earlier in the week. Now they were gone.

He’d ride back to find Lizzie soon, but there was something he had to do first.

He had to call Lucy. He had to tell her he’d changed his mind.

Exhausted by the fight with the wheel to keep Brianna from being crushed, and the fight to communicate with the police, he dropped onto the stone step and reached for his phone, mentally preparing for one more battle.

His pocket empty, he tried the other one, glanced around, and realized his phone was gone.

A sign that he should skip the call?

Blowing out a breath, he stood to go back up to the top floor of the windmill where it had probably been lost in the battle to keep Brianna alive. That was probably the moment he’d made the decision, come to think of it. As he saved the life of one woman, and got blown away by the strength and determination and power of another.

He’d underestimated Lizzie Dare on every level. He’d truly thought he could use her, betray her, lie to her, take from her, and walk away-but all of that had changed tonight.

Especially after he’d thrown down the gauntlet of his inescapable past and she’d picked it up.

I don’t like what you’ve done… but I like the potential for what you could be.

The words had annihilated him, and the moment she spoke them, he made a decision. He might walk away from this woman, but he wasn’t going to screw her out of her scepter and diamond.

Looking down in case his phone was on the stairs, he noticed that one of the stones was knocked askew, leaving a gap beneath it. Great. His phone could be anywhere. He kicked the stone to put it back in place, but that just made it slide out farther. Kneeling down to do the job right, he discovered that the stone slid out of the opening as if it was designed to do that-and underneath it was a square concrete hole, the width of the stair and a few feet deep.

He looked up the rest of the curved steps. Were they all like this? He tried the next step, but it didn’t move. He tried the rest on his way up, and found another one that opened, revealing…

A metal box.

Taking it out and laying it on top of the step above, he twisted the wire latch keeping it closed, then lifted the lid. Parchment papers with dark script handwriting lay inside. He took out the first one, but it was too dark inside to read. Taking the box down to the main floor, he read by the light of a window.

And felt his jaw drop.

The El Falcone manifest. Exactly the same as the copy the Bullet Catchers investigator had found in the Havana library, but this looked like the original.

The next paper was a detailed contract between Captain Aramis Dare and Carlos Bettencourt for payment in gold bullion for the delivery of two identical scepters topped with blue diamonds for presentation to the king and queen of Portugal upon their marriage.

After that, a letter written by Captain Dare demanding payment for the scepters, stating that he waited off the coast of Corvo Island.

Con read every word as the sun rose higher and the story became clearer. According to the paperwork, one of the scepters was delivered to Bettencourt, but Captain Dare was holding the second one until payment was received.

In addition to the letters, the documents included pictures of items. Some that he’d seen in Malcolm Dare’s journal, some, like the Our Lady of Sorrows medallion, that he’d held in his own hands. And according to this, El Falcone took off in the middle of the night with only one scepter and diamond on board.

So was the other one… here?

Replacing the papers in the strongbox, he headed back to the stairs, checking every step on the way up. As he rounded the second level, he found another loose one. Pushing it to the side, he saw something white filling the hole. White velvet, he discovered. Closing his hands over the fabric, he felt something hard inside. Long and hard and familiar.

Lifting it gingerly, he laid the bundle on the stair, slowly unwrapped it and stared at the scepter that was indeed a perfect match for the one he’d already handled, topped by the very same breathtaking blue diamond.

Holy hell. It was right here under their feet all along.

He touched the gold, far brighter than the one that had spent its years underwater, and then the diamond. The value of just the diamonds was truly incalculable, he knew.

And he also knew what he had to do, to get everything he wanted.

He jogged up to the top, spied his phone, snagged it, and had Lucy on the line in a minute.

After relaying the entire story of Solange Bettencourt and making arrangements to get Brianna to a hospital in Lisbon as soon as they could, he added his final announcement. “I’ll deliver the scepter and diamond to Paxton as soon as I get back.”

“Are you certain you can get your hands on it?”