Chapter 8
*We’re cut off.*
No radio. No tender. No engines.
A heavy hand clamped down over my mouth from behind, hauling me backward off the deck grating in a single, violent motion.
***
Adrenaline surged through my veins.
I didn't scream. I drove my heel down into the attacker’s instep, twisting my elbow back toward their throat with every ounce of leverage my father had taught me to use against boardroom bullies and dockside thugs alike.
My elbow caught hard, corded muscle.
"Blythe! Stop—it's me."
The voice was ragged, harsh, and right against my ear.
The hand slid from my mouth to my shoulder, spinning me around in the darkness.
Lucian.
He wasn't wearing his tuxedo jacket anymore. His white dress shirt was torn down the left shoulder, smeared with black hydraulic grease and what looked sickeningly like a spray of fresh blood across his collar. His dark hair was soaked through with sea spray, plastered against his forehead, and his eyes—usually so cold, so terrifyingly controlled—were burning with a frantic, lethal fury.
"Lucian," I gasped, my hands flying to the lapels of his shirt, grabbing the shredded linen just to ground myself against the lurching deck. "The launch—the tender fell into the screw. Kostas—"
"Kostas wasn't on it," Lucian rasped, his chest heaving against mine, his grip on my waist so tight it bruised through the wet lace of my gown. "The Greek called my satellite handset ninety seconds before the drop. He said the bay moorings were being overridden from the bridge terminal. He jumped into the water before the winch failed. If he's alive, he's in a survival suit floating five miles back."
"The breaker," I said, my teeth chattering as the freezing wind whipped over the rail. "You said Thorne was going to blow a galley circuit. Lucian, the primary turbine seized. It didn't just shut down—it ripped the shaft apart."
"It wasn't Thorne," Lucian said, his voice dropping into a harsh, deadly register that cut through the howling wind.
He pulled me against the shelter of the steel bulkhead, shielding my body from the spray with his own broad frame. I could feel the erratic, thunderous beating of his heart against my ribs.
"Thorne never made it to the breaker panel," Lucian said, his jaw locked tight. "I found his body in the service corridor outside the engine bay. His neck was broken."
The Atlantic air seemed to turn to liquid nitrogen in my lungs. "Thorne is... dead?"
"They’re sweeping the decks, Blythe."
"Who? Who is sweeping the decks?"
"Not ship’s crew," Lucian said, his dark eyes scanning the shadow-drenched gangway above us. "Private contractors. The men Tate brought aboard in Norfolk. They aren't running damage control. They're carrying suppressed submachine guns and locking down every secondary exit. They just sealed the grand salon from the outside."
*The guests.*
My mind flashed to Beatrice Pendelton clutching her pearls, Julian Thorne's trembling hands, Lady Eleanor whispering her rosary against my skirt.
"They're locking them in?" I whispered. "Why would they lock the salon? The ship is listing! If the bilge takes on water—"
"They aren't trying to save the ship," Lucian said grimly. "This isn't an engine failure. It’s an execution."
Another shudder groaned through the hull, deeper this time, vibrating through the steel plates with a low, hydraulic groan that felt like bone scraping bone.
*Clank-shhh.*
At the end of the starboard walkway, twenty yards from where we stood, the emergency exterior storm shutters began to lower. Heavy, armored aluminum louvers crawled down from the overhang, sealing off the open promenade deck section by section.
Tate’s security team wasn't just containing the fire. They were turning *The Aethelgard* into an airtight vault.
"We have to move," Lucian said, grabbing my hand, his fingers intertwining with mine in an iron grip that left no room for argument. "If those shutters seal the central catwalk, we’re trapped on the open deck when the storm hits."
"Where?" I demanded, hiking the heavy, waterlogged train of my wedding dress over my arm. The wet lace felt like fifty pounds of dead weight dragging against my thighs. "The tender is gone! The satellite array is dark! Where are we going?"
"The bridge," Lucian said.
"The bridge is where the contractors are!"
"The primary bridge is on Deck Five," he said, pulling me toward a narrow, nondescript access hatch marked *CREW ONLY // VENTILATION SHAFT 3*. "Tate’s men will have the main helm secured. But *The Aethelgard* was built on the hull of an ice-class research frigate before Greystone bought it. There’s an auxiliary damage-control bridge behind the chart room on the upper tier. It runs on an independent, hardwired optical network. If we can reach the secondary terminal, I can override the bulkhead seals, open the salon doors, and deploy the life rafts from the roof."
He looked down at me in the gloom, his face inches from mine, his eyes fierce and unblinking.
"Can you climb in that dress?"
I looked down at the four-hundred-thousand-dollar custom Chantilly lace gown that Tate had bought to mark his conquest. The ivory silk was torn, soaked in salt water, and smeared with grease.
I reached down, caught the heavy silk skirt by the side seam, and pulled with everything I had.
The expensive lace ripped with a violent, satisfying *shriek*.
I tore away three yards of trailing hem and silk underlayers, ripping the skirt clean to my knees, freeing my boots from the sodden fabric.
I looked back up at Lucian, cold water dripping from my eyelashes, my chin lifted. "Lead the way."
A dark, savage flicker of pride crossed his features—the same look he had given me across the trading desk in London when I outbid his consortium on the Mediterranean contracts.
"That's my girl," he murmured, his hand tightening around mine before he pulled open the heavy steel access hatch.
***
The ventilation and maintenance conduit was a vertical tomb of darkness and deafening noise.
The emergency exhaust fans were spinning down, emitting a low, mournful whistle that sounded like wind through a hollow bone. Every surface was coated in condensation and oil.
We climbed the narrow iron rungs in near-total blackness, our boots slipping on the slick metal rungs. Lucian stayed directly below me, his free hand constantly hovering near my waist, ready to catch my weight if my grip failed on the rusted iron.
*Climb. Pull. Step.*
My lungs burned with the toxic reek of overheated turbine insulation. Every time the yacht dropped into the trough of an Atlantic swell, the maintenance tube groaned, the metal walls bending inward under the titanic hydraulic pressure of the surrounding sea.
"Two more flights," Lucian called up through the dark, his voice strained. "The secondary terminal is right through the Deck Four avionics bay."
We reached a narrow maintenance catwalk. Lucian shoved his shoulder against the exit panel, easing it open just an inch.
He froze.
Through the crack, I saw the pale, amber flicker of emergency battery strobes illuminating the main passenger corridor of Deck Four.
A woman was sobbing.
It was Beatrice Pendelton.
She was kneeling on the carpet outside the private executive staterooms, her diamond bracelets clattering against the wall as she beat her fists against a four-inch solid steel fire door.
