Chapter 4 - Midnight on the Black Ocean
At 11:30 PM, the storm reached its howling peak. The wind shrieked like a banshee through the yacht’s rigging, and torrents of freezing tropical rain battered the sliding glass doors of the aft deck.
I had slipped back into the master bedroom, lying in the exact position Flynn had left me, wearing my white silk robe and barefoot, shivering from the damp ocean draft.
The lock clicked. Flynn entered.
He didn't speak. He walked over to the bed, reached down, and shook my shoulder roughly. “Elena? Sweetheart, wake up. The storm is getting worse. You need to come outside for some fresh air, honey. You’re hyperventilating.”
I let out a weak, convincing whimper, fluttering my eyelids open as if struggling through heavy mud. “Flynn? What... what’s happening? Where are we?”
“You’re sick, baby,” he whispered, his face inches from mine, his eyes wild with an adrenaline rush he could barely conceal. “Come on. Just lean on me. Take a breath of the salt air. It’ll clear your lungs.”
He hauled me upright. My legs buckled under me intentionally, forcing him to take my full weight over his shoulder. He dragged me through the salon.
Aidan and Fiona were nowhere to be seen. Half an hour earlier, the tranquilizer in the scotch had hit them like a freight train; both were currently collapsed on the lower lounge floor, violently ill and paralyzed from muscle relaxants, incapable of moving their limbs. Flynn hadn't noticed; he was too fixated on his midnight deadline.
He shoved the heavy pneumatic exterior door open. The gale-force wind hit us like a physical wall, drenching us instantly in cold, stinging saltwater spray.
The aft deck was pitch black, illuminated only by the faint red glow of the running lights. The ocean behind the swim platform was a churning vortex of black foam, rolling forty feet deep. A single fall into that boiling darkness meant being sucked straight into the dual propellers or swept miles out to sea within seconds.
Flynn dragged me to the polished teak safety railing.
“It’s so loud,” I cried, feigning terror and clutching his sodden shirt collar. “Flynn, please, take me back inside! I can’t stand!”
Flynn stopped. He let go of my waist.
The loving husband’s mask completely vanished. In the red storm light, his face contorted into a cold, contemptuous sneer.
“You know, Elena,” he shouted over the howling roar of the wind, “you were actually a very sweet girl. A little naive, definitely boring, but sweet. It’s a shame your daddy’s money had to belong to you instead of someone who knows how to spend it.”
“Flynn?” I stammered, backing toward the railing. “What are you saying?”
May you like
“I’m saying goodbye, wife,” he said coldly. “Don’t worry about your parents. I’ll make sure they join you in the family crypt by next Sunday.”
He stepped forward, raised both hands, and shoved my chest with all his strength.
