Chapter 1 - THREE HOURS UNTIL MIDNIGHT
The first thing I understood was that panic would kill me faster than Flynn ever could.
I stayed crouched beside the brass railing, one hand pressed over my mouth while my husband and his parents toasted my death below.
Their champagne glasses touched.
Three delicate chimes.
Three people celebrating the murder of a woman who was still breathing twenty feet away.
Me.
My name is Evelyn Sterling.
Twenty-eight years old.
Only daughter of Charles and Eleanor Sterling.
And apparently worth three hundred million dollars dead.
The yacht tilted gently beneath my knees.
For a terrifying second, black spots swallowed my vision.
The drugs.
Flynn had said there was extra in my soup.
I needed to move before I lost consciousness.
Slowly, I crawled backward.
One inch.
Then another.
Every movement felt enormous.
My bare knee brushed the wooden floor.
I froze.
Below me, Fiona stopped laughing.
“Did you hear something?”
My heart stopped.
Aidan answered, “Probably the boat.”
“No,” Fiona said. “Upstairs.”
A chair scraped.
I moved.
I forced myself upright and staggered down the corridor toward our suite.
Behind me came footsteps.
“Evelyn?” Flynn called.
I nearly screamed.
Instead, I reached the suite, threw myself onto the bed, pulled the blanket across my body, and closed my eyes.
Seconds later, the door opened.
I concentrated on breathing slowly.
Not too slowly.
Not too quickly.
The footsteps approached.
Flynn’s expensive cologne filled the room.
He sat beside me.
His fingers brushed hair away from my face.
Three days earlier, that touch had made me feel safe.
Now it felt like a spider crawling across my skin.
“Evie?”
I didn’t move.
His thumb pressed against my eyelid.
He lifted it.
I let my eye roll unfocused.
Flynn chuckled softly.
“Good girl.”
Rage burned through the chemical fog.
His hand slid under the blanket.
For one horrible second, I thought he was checking my pulse.
Instead, he removed my phone.
The door closed.
I waited.
Ten seconds.
Thirty.
A minute.
Then I opened my eyes.
My phone was gone.
The room was spinning.
I pushed myself out of bed and stumbled toward the bathroom.
I needed to get whatever remained in my stomach out.
I barely reached the toilet before vomiting.
Again.
Again.
Until there was nothing left.
I turned on the shower to cover the sound.
Then I crawled to the sink and splashed freezing water across my face.
Think, Evelyn.
Think.
I couldn’t call the Coast Guard without my phone.
Even if I could, we were well outside normal cellular range.
The yacht had satellite communications, but the main terminal was inside Captain Ward’s navigation office.
Could I trust him?
Flynn had said, “The crew will be inside.”
Did that mean the crew was innocent?
Or paid?
I stared at myself in the mirror.
My skin looked gray.
My eyes were bloodshot.
My wedding ring glittered obscenely under the bathroom lights.
Five days earlier, Flynn had placed it on my finger in front of four hundred guests at my father’s estate.
He’d cried during his vows.
Actually cried.
“I choose you in every lifetime.”
The memory nearly made me vomit again.
Then another memory surfaced.
My father.
Standing outside the ballroom after the rehearsal dinner.
Flynn had gone inside.
Dad had touched my shoulder.
“If you ever feel unsafe, Evelyn, trust the feeling before you trust the explanation.”
I had laughed.
“Dad, you’ve spent too many years negotiating hostile takeovers.”
“No.”
His expression had become serious.
“I’ve spent too many years learning that dangerous people almost always look harmless until they believe they’ve won.”
At the time, I thought he was talking about business.
Maybe he had been warning me about Flynn.
A sound outside the bathroom snapped me back.
I turned off the faucet.
Someone was entering our room.
I stumbled beneath the shower spray and sat on the tiled bench, pretending to be exhausted.
The bathroom door opened.
Not Flynn.
A woman stood there.
Mara Quinn.
One of the yacht’s senior stewards.
Thirty-something, dark hair tied tightly behind her head, expression unreadable.
She had worked for my father’s family for almost eight years.
I had known her since college.
But right now I trusted no one.
“Mrs. Hayes?” she said quietly.
Hearing Flynn’s last name attached to me made my stomach twist.
“I’m sick.”
“So I heard.”
Her eyes traveled to the toilet.
Then to my face.
Then toward the open bedroom door.
She stepped inside and closed the bathroom door.
“Did you make yourself vomit?”
I didn’t answer.
Mara crouched.
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
“Your husband asked the galley staff twenty minutes ago whether you finished your soup.”
My entire body stiffened.
She continued.
“He was unusually interested.”
I stared at her.
“What else?”
“Mrs. Hayes, what is happening?”
There was genuine concern in her eyes.
Or she was very good at acting.
I made a decision.
Not because I trusted her completely.
Because I was running out of time.
“If I tell you something,” I whispered, “you cannot react.”
Mara’s expression changed.
I told her.
Not everything.
Just enough.
Flynn.
The drugs.
Midnight.
The aft deck.
When I finished, Mara had gone pale.
For several seconds she said nothing.
Then she whispered, “Jesus Christ.”
“Can I trust Captain Ward?”
She hesitated.
That hesitation terrified me.
“Mara.”
“Captain Ward hired two temporary security men in Saint Lucia yesterday.”
“Why?”
“He said Mr. Hayes requested additional protection.”
Flynn.
Of course.
“Who controls the satellite system?”
“Captain Ward and first officer Alvarez.”
“Can they contact authorities secretly?”
“Yes, but—”
“But what?”
“The backup satellite antenna went offline this afternoon.”
My blood chilled.
“Accident?”
“I assumed so.”
We both knew better now.
Mara stood.
“There’s an emergency beacon.”
“Where?”
“Bridge.”
“Can Flynn disable it?”
“Possibly.”
I gripped the sink.
“I need proof.”
“You need to survive.”
“I need both. If I run onto the bridge screaming that my husband wants to murder me, Flynn says I’m confused from medication. His parents support him. They show everyone the pills he gave me for seasickness. They tell the authorities I’m unstable.”
Mara stared at me.
I could see the realization settling over her face.
This wasn’t merely murder.
It was a story Flynn had been preparing.
The sick heiress.
The exhausted bride.
The tragic accident during a storm.
Maybe even a grieving husband begging the ocean to give his wife back.
I whispered, “I heard everything, but I didn’t record it.”
Mara looked toward the bedroom.
“Then we make him say it again.”
I almost laughed.
“How?”
“You keep pretending you’re drugged.”
“That gets me thrown into the Atlantic.”
“Not if we control what happens before midnight.”
She reached inside her uniform pocket and removed a tiny black device.
A crew radio.
She handed it to me.
“Channel four.”
“What happens on four?”
“Engineering. Almost nobody monitors it unless there’s a mechanical issue.”
“Almost?”
“Alvarez does.”
Another person I didn’t know whether to trust.
I curled my fingers around the radio.
Mara continued.
“There’s something else.”
Of course there was.
“There always is.”
“At breakfast yesterday, your husband asked me whether there were cameras on the aft deck.”
My throat tightened.
“What did you tell him?”
“That the exterior system covers every major deck except the swimming platform.”
“And?”
“He asked whether cameras fail during storms.”
I closed my eyes.
Premeditated.
Every detail.
Every angle.
Mara lowered her voice.
“Evelyn, I’ll help you, but we need one person on the bridge.”
“Captain Ward?”
“No.”
“Alvarez?”
She nodded.
“Why him?”
“Because three years ago your father paid for his daughter’s heart surgery.”
That sounded exactly like Dad.
“Does Flynn know?”
“I doubt it.”
Mara checked her watch.
9:07 p.m.
Less than three hours.
“Stay here. I’ll reach Alvarez.”
I grabbed her wrist.
“What if he’s with Flynn?”
“Then we’re already in trouble.”
She left.
For the next twelve minutes, I sat beneath the cold shower shaking so violently my teeth clicked together.
At 9:19, the door opened again.
Flynn.
He entered carrying a glass of water.
“Hey, sleepy girl.”
I lowered my head.
“Still sick.”
“Poor thing.”
He smiled.
I had loved that smile.
I suddenly wondered how many times he had practiced it in mirrors.
He held out the water.
“Drink.”
I looked at the glass.
“No.”
His smile weakened.
“You need fluids.”
“I’ll throw up.”
“Just a little.”
“No.”
His eyes hardened for one second.
Then Prince Charming returned.
“How about your medicine?”
My pulse exploded.
“I already took it.”
Silence.
Flynn stared at me.
“What?”
“The pills. I took them.”
“From where?”
“The bedside table.”
There were no pills on the bedside table.
I knew it.
He knew it.
For half a second, neither of us moved.
Then Flynn laughed.
“You’re really out of it, aren’t you?”
I forced a weak smile.
“I guess.”
He kissed my forehead.
“Get dressed around eleven thirty. I want to show you something outside.”
My stomach clenched.
“In the storm?”
“It’ll be romantic.”
I almost admired the insanity of it.
Romantic.
The word he used for my execution.
He turned away.
I whispered, “Flynn?”
He looked back.
“I love you.”
The lie tasted like blood.
His face softened.
“I love you too, Evie.”
Then he left to prepare to murder me.
At 9:43, Mara returned.
Alvarez was willing to help.
But there was a problem.
A serious one.
Captain Ward had vanished from the bridge.
Nobody had seen him for forty minutes.
And both temporary security men were now standing outside the communications room.
Flynn was taking control of the yacht.
Mara pressed something cold into my palm.
A tiny audio recorder from the security office.
“Keep this hidden.”
“What’s the plan?”
“You let Flynn take you to the aft deck.”
I stared at her.
“You’re joking.”
“Alvarez will shadow you from above. I’ll have two crew members nearby.”
“That still leaves Aidan, Fiona, and those security men.”
“We need Flynn talking.”
“What if he doesn’t talk?”
“Make him.”
A wave slammed the yacht.
Thunder rolled somewhere in the distance.
The storm was approaching.
I looked through the porthole.
Nothing but black ocean.
Mara touched my shoulder.
“You can do this.”
Before I could answer, a scream echoed from somewhere below deck.
A man’s scream.
Then the lights flickered.
Mara and I stared at each other.
A crewman shouted from the corridor.
“Medical emergency!”
We rushed outside.
People were running toward the stairwell.
At the bottom, near the engine access door, Captain Elias Ward lay unconscious.
Blood ran from the back of his head.
Beside him stood Flynn.
He looked up at me.
Our eyes met.
His expression changed.
Only slightly.
But I saw it.
Surprise.
I was supposed to be unconscious.
May you like
And suddenly I realized something worse.
Flynn wasn’t waiting until midnight anymore.
