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I exchanged a look with Elijah—a silent conversation about whether I still wanted to hide away in an alpha’s cabin now that he knew my heat was coming on. The only thing keepingme from reassessing my earlier decision not to fling myself overboard and try to swim for it was the fact that Gabriel seemed to be finding this latest round of revelations an irritation rather than an opportunity.

“Fine,” I said. I grabbed Elijah’s hand and let him pull me up with him, surprised to find that I wasn’t feeling as shaky as before. The idea that it might be thanks to Gabriel’s alpha pheromones pumping reassurance through my omega nervous system made me simultaneously feel angry, and like I wanted to crawl into a hole and hide forever.

Neither Elijah nor I had unpacked completely, so it took less than thirty minutes to jam everything back in our luggage and pile it up by the door.

“Take what you need for tonight,” Gabriel said, picking up two of the larger suitcases. “I’ll have a steward bring the rest.”

Elijah and I each grabbed our carry-on bags—packed, by long habit, with anything we didn’t dare risk to the possibility of lost luggage. I tried to ignore the knowing looks we got from the other passengers we passed on the way back to Gabriel’s cabin, with its jade accents and lingering scents of rich moss and petrichor.

“Make yourselves at home,” he said, closing the door behind us. “I hope you two won’t mind sharing the bed.” He set down the luggage he’d been carrying and disappeared into the side nook designed as office space. His voice carried out to us, already sounding distracted. “I probably won’t sleep tonight; there’s a fair amount of logistics involved in getting us off of this yacht in the next few days.”

Wait. What?

I dropped my overnight bag next to the bed and followed him into the office nook. “Hold on. What do you mean, getting us off the yacht?”

I became aware of Elijah hovering behind my shoulder, but my focus stayed on our unlikely would-be savior. He looked up from the laptop he was powering on, raising an eyebrow at me.

“The thing about money,” he said, with a thin smile that didn’t reach his eyes, “is that it creates almost as many problems as it solves.” A slight pause. “Almost. But every now and again, it does allow one to organize things that wouldn’t otherwise be possible. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to make a private call. I’ll let you know what the plan looks like in the morning.”

THIRTEEN

Gabriel

CURRAN HAD BEEN the one to insist on nightly check-ins via email. Probably, this was because he’d grown up in the nastier parts of the London gutter, and he believed there was a statistically meaningful chance that Tommy Huntwell would decide to kneecap me and have me thrown into the Mediterranean at some point during the voyage.

While that eventuality wasn’t high on my list of concerns, there was value in having a written record of everything I’d learned, especially one that someone else could access if need be. Not that I’d learned very much of use.

I opened my VPN client and routed the laptop’s internet traffic through a server in Amsterdam. Internet coverage at sea was tricky. Not that the cost was prohibitive if you were rich enough; it was just the issue of sneaking satellite hardware into a position with a clear line of sight to the sky without someone in the crew noticing it.

Better to use the mega-yacht’s existing satellite infrastructure and worry about encryption at the data transmission level. Anyone trying to spy on me would find my emails and video calls disappearing into a black box in the Netherlands, giving them no useful information.

Next, I ran a check for key loggers or other spyware that might have been installed by someone on the crew with access to this cabin. When everything came up clean, I pulled up my email and typed out a quick message.

Need to speak with you about an urgent matter only peripherally related to the syndicate. Will call you in ten. I have guests in my cabin who don’t need to know any details of my purpose here, so mind how you go.

I hit send and waited impatiently for ten minutes to pass, listening to the low murmur of voices coming from elsewhere in the cabin. Already, the rich scent of omega pheromones was beginning to permeate the small suite of rooms. I couldn’t afford to become distracted, but I still missed the clock ticking over, scrambling to open the video calling software nearly a minute late.

Biting back a curse, I watched the red phone icon ring once before immediately turning green. A moment later, Curran Hayes’ weathered face appeared on the screen, scowling at me.

“What the hell, Blondie?” he greeted.