Chapter 9
"Arthur!" she shrieked, her voice hoarse, ragged with terror. "Arthur, please! Answer me! The door won't open! Arthur!"
Beyond the reinforced glass inspection port of the fire door, the face of Arthur Pendelton appeared.
The old shipping titan was pale as chalk, his tuxedo shirt soaked in sweat. His hands were pressed flat against the glass from the inside, his lips moving frantically, but the watertight seal was so absolute that not a single syllable passed through.
He was trapped inside the lower salon sector along with fifty other guests.
Through the thick glass behind him, I could see the chaos in the room: men in bespoke tuxedos throwing antique mahogany chairs against the armored viewport, women in evening gowns screaming as black, oily water began to pool around their ankles from the climate-control floor ducts.
The bilge pumps had been reversed.
Water wasn't being pumped out of *The Aethelgard*.
It was being pumped *in*.
"Oh God," I choked out, my fingers digging into Lucian’s forearm through the torn linen of his sleeve. "They're scuttling the ship. Tate isn't just killing me. He’s drowning everyone."
Before Lucian could answer, the sharp, rhythmic *clack-clack-clack* of combat boots echoed from the cross-corridor.
Miller appeared.
The head of security was no longer wearing his discreet, tailored suit jacket. He wore a black tactical vest over a dark combat shirt, a suppressed tactical carbine slung across his chest, and an encrypted comms headset clamped over his scarred brow. Two other private contractors followed in tight formation, their weapons raised, scanning the shadows with weapon-mounted infrared flashlights.
Miller didn't even look at Beatrice Pendelton.
He walked up to the sealed fire door, glanced through the glass port at Arthur Pendelton pounding desperately on the other side, and calmly reached down to his belt.
He pulled a master bypass keycard, swiped it through the wall console, and entered a six-digit code.
The electronic console didn't unlock the door.
A loud, mechanical *CHUNK* echoed through the corridor as an auxiliary deadbolt dropped into place, permanently welding the hydraulic locking pins into the deck frame.
The console screen turned from flashing amber to solid, unyielding red: **SECTOR 4 ISOLATED // DEPRESSURIZATION LOCK ACTIVE**.
"Arthur!" Beatrice shrieked, lunging forward to grab Miller’s tactical vest. "You monster! Open the door! My husband is in there! The water is coming up! Open the—"
Miller didn't draw his weapon. He simply brought his forearm across, striking Beatrice across the cheek with the back of his tactical glove.
The impact dropped the sixty-year-old woman to the floor like a sack of stones.
She lay there, whimpering, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth onto the cream-colored carpet.
Miller tapped his headset. "Sector Four locked down. Bilge manifolds three and four open to sea. Compartment will reach ceiling capacity in twelve minutes."
A pause as he listened to the voice in his ear.
"Understood, sir," Miller replied, his voice chillingly devoid of emotion. "Sweeping Deck Five now. We haven't located the wife or Vance yet. The aft cameras were blinded during the surge, but their tender was shredded in the starboard wash. They have nowhere to go."
Miller signaled to the two contractors with a flick of his fingers. "Search the upper library annex. If you find them, double-tap. No questions. The boss wants the hull clear before the Coast Guard distress beacon triggers."
The three men moved off down the hallway, their boots silent against the carpet, disappearing toward the grand staircase.
Beside me in the maintenance shaft, Lucian’s breathing had turned shallow, lethal.
His hand was clamped around the steel frame of the maintenance door, his knuckles white, the muscles in his jaw ticking with a violent, repressed fury. I had seen Lucian Vance destroy rival conglomerates, ruin hedge funds, and bankrupt shipping dynasties without blinking an eye—but I had never seen him look at a human being with the pure, unadulterated desire to tear their throat out with his bare hands.
"Eight minutes," Lucian whispered, his voice trembling with an icy rage that vibrated through my bones. "We have eight minutes before the lower deck fills."
"The secondary bridge," I said, my voice steady, though my heart felt like it was hammering its way through my ribs. "Can you override those deadbolts from the terminal?"
Lucian met my eyes in the dark.
"The secondary terminal controls the primary fire-suppression bus," he said, each word clipped, precise. "If I can get into the master engineering directory, I can cut the power to the solenoid pins. The doors will pop on counterweights."
"And if you can't?"
"Then I blow the emergency ballast tanks manually and beach this four-hundred-foot coffin on the nearest sandbar," he said.
He reached out, his hand sliding behind my neck, pulling my face toward his.
His forehead pressed against mine, hot and feverish in the freezing air of the conduit.
"Stay behind me, Blythe," he murmured, his breath brushing my lips, intense and possessive. "No matter what happens on that bridge. If they drop me, you take the override key and you don't look back. You get on that terminal and you run."
"Nobody is dropping you, Lucian," I said, my fingers finding the collar of his shirt, gripping him with an unyielding force that matched his own. "You promised me Rotterdam. I'm holding you to the contract."
A razor-thin, dangerous smile cut across his lips.
"Deal."
He shoved the maintenance hatch fully open and stepped out into the corridor.
***
We moved like ghosts through the darkened luxury of Deck Five.
The ship was groaning constantly now—a deep, metallic protest that rattled the crystal wall sconces and sent fine cracks spreading across the decorative mirrors in the hallway. The smell of seawater was rising, cold and briny, leaking through the air conditioning ducts from the flooded levels below.
We avoided the central atrium where Miller’s sweep team was clearing the library.
Instead, we used the narrow, paneled service corridors designed for stateroom attendants. Every few yards, Lucian paused, his senses hyper-tuned to the dark, listening for the telltale click of a rifle safety or the heavy scuff of combat rubber.
At the forward bulkhead of Deck Five, behind a decorative panel of smoked glass and mahogany, sat the entrance to the auxiliary bridge annex.
The door was unmarked, requiring a physical four-digit code and a captain’s key.
"Here," Lucian whispered, stepping up to the keypad.
He didn't have the code. Instead, he pulled a compact, carbon-steel multi-tool from his pocket, flipped open a flat pry blade, and wedged it beneath the bezel of the digital keypad.
With a sharp, violent twist of his wrist, the casing popped off, spilling a nest of colorful ribbon cables into the dim light of his phone screen.
"Blue and yellow," I whispered, stepping beside him, peering over his shoulder.
He glanced at me, surprised.
"My father built the container vessels for the Antwerp run," I said, my pulse racing. "Sterling Marine used the same German maritime security systems. The secondary bridge bypass is on a fail-closed relay. If you cross the red with the ground, it trips the internal lock."
"Blue to yellow," Lucian corrected softly, his fingers working with surgical precision despite the violent lurch of the deck. "You always were better at corporate architecture than physical sabotage, Blythe."
