She glances down at her hands in her lap.
“Maybe someone pushed you a little too far, and now you’ve crossed a line for them and don’t know how to get back—is this how it is, Roshaan?”
She closes her eyes, trying to make it all go away.
“Look at me.”
She doesn’t.
“I said look at me!” He grabs a fistful of her hair, jerks her head up. She gasps as pain sears across her scalp. Her eyes water. Her whole body trembles. Snot dribbles from her nose. She forces her gaze to meet his.
“This goes one of two ways. One—you cooperate. You tell me everything. You give me exactly what I want. You do everything I say. And I let you go. Two—you lie to protect someone. Then I hurt you. I hurt everyone close to you. And I’ll turn you in. There will be police waiting for you at our next port of call. There will be news stories around the world aboutBlack Orchidstaff spying on clients. There will be lawsuits. And let me tell you something else, Roshaan, the victims—these guests you are spying on—they’re connected. They own media empires and control politicians. They have the resources to crush you completely, and if you still try to escape, I will hound you for the rest of your miserable life. I will follow you to your death and into the afterlife. Do you understand me, Roshaan DaSousa?”
In her mind she sees Furies—wild with snake hair and bleeding eyes and torches coming after her. The irony of all the mythology is not lost on her—she’s now between Scylla and Charybdis. A rock and a hard place.
Suddenly her own resentment, her own fury, is intense. For Theo.Hedid this. She hates him. Shehasto hate him. If she can’t cling torage, he’ll win again. His power over her—while so subtle, so seductive at first—is immense. She never really accepted it until now. And now it’s too late.
Is this her tipping point? Is this where she goes down with her own con man?
“Is this where I call security, Roshaan?”
She can’t think. She can’t make a decision.
“What’ll it be? Option one? Or two?”
It’s Criminal:
The Mystery of theBlack Orchid
A Trinity Scott & Gio Rossi True Crime Production
EXT. Underwater Santorini Caldera—September 2025
The divers swim lower, lights tunneling into an eerie underworld gloom. They glide toward theBlack Orchid’s stern, which hangs over the dark void of nothingness.
INT. Research Vessel On Surface
Members of theTritoncrew and the Harrington Foundation gather around a monitor. They watch a live feed from the dive team below. They are tense, excited, nervous that theBlack Orchidcould dislodge and go over the cliff with divers inside.
VO—Trinity Scott
“In late 2018—just over a year before theBlack Orchidset sail on her fateful voyage—an unusually intense swarm of earthquakes started around Santorini, spreading undersea to the nearby islands, including Amorgos, Anafi, and Ios.
“Tens of thousands of these small quakes were recorded, some occurring just a few kilometers below the seafloor, others far deeper. Some were larger than a five in magnitude. They were triggered by magma rising from a reservoir beneath Kolumbo, a submarine volcano near Santorini. As the magma moved, stress is transferred to nearby faults, ultimately suggesting that Santorini and the Kolumbo are more deeply coupled than previously understood.
“While no catastrophic damage or major casualties were recorded during that period, public anxiety was sky high. Schools on Santorini were closed and a state of emergency declared. The fear was of a ‘big one’ still to come. Or worse, another cataclysmic volcanic eruption like the event that occurred around 1600 BCE and devastated the nearby Aegean islands at the height of Minoan civilization. Ash, pumice, toxic gases blanketed parts of Crete and caused tsunamis up to fifteen meters high that wrecked coastal Minoan settlements and harbors, disrupted agriculture and trade, and devastated the Minoan economy.
“This eruption and ensuing Minoan collapse—historians and volcanologists believe—is the most plausible real-world inspiration for the ancient tales of the lost city of Atlantis.
“The caldera remains under close watch, but so far is showing no further signs of uplift, imminent collapse, or eruption, but back in 2018 those swarms did push up an undersea reef near the tiny volcanic island of Scylla, which forms part of the caldera ring. TheBlack Orchidcaptain, Sophia Bellini, and her crew were unaware of this yet uncharted danger lurking below the surface.
“The fear now aboard theTritonas their dive detectives go deeper and deeper into the bowels of the ship is that another tremor—even a tiny one—could instantly dislodge the precariously balanced wreck and topple theOrchidinto the seemingly fathomless void of the caldera. To be swallowed by a metaphorical Charybdis, or sucked down to the vanished city of Atlantis.”
Roshaan
“One,” whispers Roshaan.
“One what?” Avi Galev’s voice is rough and hard.
