Chapter 4: Midnight Has Its Own Rules
Reyes was on the satellite phone for eleven minutes.
I counted.
It was the only thing I could do while the yacht rolled beneath me and the storm pressed against the hull like something trying to get in.
I sat in the chair he'd given me and counted seconds, and when he finally set the phone down his face had changed — not softer, but settled.
The way a man looks when a decision has been made and there's no going back.
"Maritime authorities," he said.
"Not coast guard.
Interpol-linked.
They have jurisdiction in international waters and Flynn has no reach there." He paused.
"They're four hours out."
"Flynn moves at midnight."
"I know."
"That's three hours from now."
"I know that too." He stood.
"Which means we need to keep you invisible for three hours, and we need to make sure Flynn doesn't realize anything has changed."
"He'll come to the suite."
"Yes.
He'll expect to find you in the bed."
I looked at him.
"Then someone needs to be in the bed."
Reyes shook his head slowly.
"My steward.
Elena.
She's worked for your father for eight years.
I'll speak to her." He moved to the door, then stopped.
"The pills in the nightstand — don't touch them.
The document in the safe — don't move it.
We need everything exactly where it is when the authorities board."
"And my parents?"
He turned back.
His expression didn't change, but something behind his eyes did.
"I've already sent a second message," he said.
"To the security team at your father's estate.
They'll intercept the mountain trip before it begins." He held my gaze.
"Your parents will not be on that road."
I pressed my hand over my mouth.
Nodded.
He left.
I sat alone in the captain's cabin for twenty minutes.
The storm outside was building — real force now, the kind that makes a vessel feel small.
I thought about Flynn on the upper deck, checking his watch.
I thought about Aidan and Fiona in their stateroom, comfortable, patient, certain.
I thought about the document in the safe.
My signature.
My handwriting.
I pulled out my phone and looked at the photograph again.
The signature was mine — the loop on the S, the way I always ran the t and e together.
But the date at the top was three weeks before the wedding.
I had been in Paris that week.
A bachelorette trip that Fiona had organized.
She'd kept me busy every single day — museums, dinners, a spa, a private tour.
Never a moment alone.
She hadn't been celebrating me.
She'd been keeping me away from my own lawyer while Flynn signed documents in my name.
The door opened.
Reyes came back with a young woman behind him — early thirties, dark hair pulled back, wearing crew whites.
She looked at me with an expression that held no surprise at all.
"Elena," Reyes said.
"She knows."
"Your father called me two months ago," Elena said quietly.
"He asked me to keep watch.
I didn't know it would come to this." She glanced at Reyes.
"What do you need?"
"Suite 4.
The bed.
Flynn will check on her before midnight."
Elena nodded once.
No hesitation.
"He can't know anything is different," I said.
"The room has to look exactly—"
"I know what a sleeping woman looks like," Elena said.
Not unkindly.
"Go."
She left.
Reyes turned to me.
"Now we wait," he said.
But we didn't wait long.
Forty minutes later, a knock came at the cabin door.
Three sharp raps — not a crew pattern.
Reyes and I both went still.
"Captain." Flynn's voice, easy and unhurried.
"Have you seen my wife?
She's not in the suite."
Reyes looked at me.
I pressed back against the wall beside the desk, out of the door's sightline.
Reyes opened the door six inches.
"Mr.
Flynn.
I haven't been on the upper decks since the squall warning.
Is everything alright?"
"She was restless earlier.
Probably just wandered." A pause.
"You'd tell me if anything seemed wrong, wouldn't you, Captain?"
"Of course," Reyes said.
"That's my job."
A silence.
Long enough to be a test.
"Good man," Flynn said finally.
His footsteps moved away down the corridor.
Reyes closed the door.
He didn't turn around for a moment.
"He's checking," I whispered.
"Yes."
"He doesn't trust the plan anymore."
"No." Reyes turned.
"Which means he may move before midnight."
He picked up the satellite phone again.
"I'm going to ask them to push the intercept.
There's a risk — if they come in too early, Flynn's coast guard contact may have time to interfere." He looked at me steadily.
"But if Flynn moves early, we have nothing in place."
"Call them," I said.
He dialed.
And while he spoke in low, rapid sentences into the phone, I heard something above us — footsteps on the aft deck.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Stopping at the railing.
May you like
Flynn was already up there.
He was already waiting.
