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“Stay here, Henry.”
Henry remained at the bar, arms crossed, but his eyes followed us all the way out of the room and I had to avoid the instinct to look back several times.
We took a very narrow spiral staircase farther into the hull. As we descended, I imagined the water crushing the ship from all sides, and me, willingly entering its depths.
Ten feet below water level, we stopped. My shoes made no sound on the carpeted hallway. While also narrow—and with a lot more ivory and mahogany than upstairs—it still exuded first class, but with no windows. That could be a good thing, considering if I were to look out, the only thing I’d see would be my underwater grave.
We circled the staircase until we were near the bow of the boat, and Neri stopped at a door that was carved in a way that made me think it was the master quarters.
I didn’t want those quarters. I didn’t want to see a bed.
“This is where I leave you,” Neri said.
Against my better judgment, my brows furrowed.
“Enter at your own risk, my dear.” Neri stepped away, the carpet absorbing the sounds of his footsteps as he departed.
I stared after him.
If this night could get any weirder … to think, a few hours ago I’d had visions of my life being perilously close to the end. Instead, I was helicoptered in to some gun tycoon’s luxury cruise ship without any explanation as to why I was standing by myself in the galley.
My next move was obvious: turn the knob. I’d come this far and there was no swimming away from it.
Silently, I did. There was no break in carpet from the hallway to the room, so my footfalls remained undetectable as I moved forward.
The lights were off, and I didn’t dare grope for a switch. It would lead to seconds of distraction that I couldn’t afford. I waited for my vision to adjust and remained very still, waiting for whoever might be in here to make the first move.
I wasn’t disappointed.
“Does this help?”
The voice was a whisper, a growl, a deep, resonant sound in the midst of silence. And I knew, before hearing theflickof the lighter and seeing the flame of the candle grow and flicker beside him, that my heart was about to plummet.
Theo.
