No Rules by Ridge King

Author:Ridge King [King, Ridge]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Elsinore Press
Published: 2021-04-20T22:00:00+00:00

* * *

From the bridge of Fearless, Lieutenant Rafael St. Clair watched Ensign Doheny climb back into the boat to return to the cutter.

“A waste of time,” he said to Captain Skye Billings in a conversational tone.

“Yeah,” said Billings, and Rafael was immediately sorry he’d bothered to say anything at all.

Billings turned away to speak to Chief Petty Officer Renzo and Rafael thought about the torture Billings had put him through ever since Antonia’s older sister Raven had caught them kissing in front of Il Mulino on First Street in South Beach. If it wasn’t complicated enough that he was sleeping with Antonia, while his brother Jack was sleeping with Babe, it was downright nasty that Skye was sleeping with Raven, who had taken up with Skye only after she’d jealously forced Jack out of her life a couple of years earlier. It seemed like the St. Clair and Fuentes families were destined to live in turmoil with each other, whoever was sleeping with whom.

It had been bad enough when he was posted to Fearless because Skye had it out for him as Jack’s younger brother. But at least Skye hadn’t gotten involved with Raven at that point. Now the whole damn thing was a mess. There was nothing he could do aboard Fearless to please Captain Skye Billings. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

“What course should I set, sir?” he finally asked Skye.

“I’ve already told the helmsman, Lieutenant,” Skye said as tersely as he could. “Check with him if you’re curious where we’re headed.” Skye spoke just loud enough for the other crew on the bridge to hear him. The whole crew knew the situation, and Rafael knew they were all on his side, but still that didn’t make it any easier.

Rafael decided that little jab didn’t require a response. He found himself hoping his dad actually did become the next President just so there would be some counterbalance to what he was sure were consistently negative write-ups Skye put into his file every day.

He’d thought about requesting a transfer out of Fearless, but since his dad had been caught up in the Presidential campaign, he thought the best thing for him to do was lie low and not do anything that might draw attention to himself. The media would have been all over him. His dad was the sitting governor of Florida and that was already too much visibility for Rafael’s comfort level. With his dad as a Presidential contender, every move anybody in the family made was scrutinized under a microscope.

When his dad had first got the nomination, a Secret Service detail appeared at the gangway of the ship when they were docked at the Coast Guard Station adjacent to South Beach. They were there to assess the security situation surrounding Rafael.

“It’s something we do to all the candidates’ immediate family,” the agent had explained to a livid Captain Billings.

“I think my crew will be able to protect Lieutenant St. Clair from any great bodily harm,” he’d told the agent, looking daggers at Rafael at the same time.

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