Chapter 5 - THE STORM AFTER MIDNIGHT
Everything happened at once.
Aidan raised his weapon.
Daniel moved.
Flynn grabbed my arm.
Fiona screamed.
Thunder cracked overhead.
The yacht lurched violently.
I lost my footing.
Flynn caught me.
For one strange second, his arms were around me exactly as they had been during our wedding photographs.
Then he tried to push me toward the railing.
I fought.
“Let go!”
“You should have stayed asleep!”
His fingers tightened around my wrist.
I kicked backward.
He stumbled.
The yacht tilted sharply.
Aidan grabbed a railing.
Daniel tackled him.
The weapon skidded across the deck.
Fiona ran.
Not away from us.
Toward the weapon.
I stared.
She picked it up.
Then pointed it at Flynn.
Everyone froze.
“Mom?” Flynn whispered.
Fiona was crying.
“I never wanted this.”
Aidan shouted:
“Fiona!”
She turned toward him.
“You said nobody would get hurt.”
Aidan laughed bitterly.
“You knew exactly what this was.”
Fiona's hand trembled.
“I thought it was only money.”
Aidan stepped toward her.
“You think there is a difference?”
He lunged.
A shot exploded.
Fiona screamed.
The weapon fell.
Daniel kicked it away.
Flynn stared at his mother.
“You betrayed me?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
Then she looked at me.
“I was trying to stop him.”
I didn't believe her.
Not yet.
But something about her expression was different.
There was genuine fear.
“Where are my parents?” I demanded.
Aidan smiled.
“Already handled.”
My blood froze.
“What does that mean?”
Flynn looked at him.
“Dad.”
Aidan's expression hardened.
“They're alive.”
I almost collapsed.
“What?”
“Your parents are alive,” he said. “For now.”
Flynn stared at him.
“You said—”
“I changed the plan.”
“Why?”
“Because your father moved the assets.”
Aidan looked at me.
“Your father transferred control of the trust before the wedding.”
My mind raced.
“Where?”
“Somewhere you don't know.”
“So you needed me alive.”
“Exactly.”
I suddenly understood.
They didn't need my death.
They needed my cooperation.
The drugs were meant to make me weak.
The power of attorney was meant to make me legally vulnerable.
The yacht was meant to isolate me.
And my parents were leverage.
Flynn stepped toward me.
“Give us access.”
“No.”
“Olivia.”
“No.”
His face twisted.
“You don't understand.”
“I understand perfectly.”
I looked at him.
“You married me for my money.”
He said nothing.
“You lied to me.”
Nothing.
“You planned to kill me.”
His silence answered.
I took one step backward.
“And now you're asking me to save you?”
He laughed bitterly.
“You think this ends with us going to prison?”
Aidan suddenly smiled.
“No.”
He looked toward the horizon.
“Because by morning, none of this will matter.”
A siren sounded.
Far away.
Then another.
Daniel looked at me.
“Coast guard.”
My heart jumped.
“How?”
Lena appeared behind the cabin door.
She was holding the communication device.
“I got through.”
Aidan's face changed.
He grabbed Fiona.
Flynn ran toward the stairs.
Daniel chased him.
I followed.
The yacht tilted again.
Flynn disappeared into the lower corridor.
I stopped.
Then remembered something.
The power-of-attorney document.
I still had it.
But there was something else.
The original contract had been stored in my father's safe.
I remembered the combination.
A birthday.
My mother's.
I rushed toward the office.
Inside, the safe was hidden behind a painting.
I opened it.
There were documents.
Photographs.
A small black drive.
And a handwritten letter.
My father's handwriting.
Olivia,
If you're reading this, something has gone terribly wrong.
My hands shook.
I continued.
I did not give the yacht to you. I placed it in your name under a protected trust. The transfer to Sterling Maritime Holdings was unauthorized.
I stared.
The next line made my heart stop.
I believe someone inside our family is working with the people who destroyed my first company.
First company?
I read on.
Years ago, I made a mistake. I trusted a man named Victor Hale. He wanted control of the company. I refused. His son disappeared soon afterward.
My heart raced.
Victor Hale.
A name I had never heard.
Then the final sentence.
Flynn is not the mastermind.
I stopped breathing.
Another line.
He is only the heir to a much older debt.
Footsteps sounded behind me.
I turned.
Fiona stood in the doorway.
Her face was wet with tears.
“Your father was right.”
I stared.
“What?”
She closed the door.
“Flynn doesn't know the whole truth.”
“What truth?”
She looked at the letter.
Then at me.
“Your father ruined my family twenty years ago.”
My heart sank.
“What?”
“Not intentionally.”
She stepped closer.
“But he made a decision that destroyed us.”
“Who is Victor Hale?”
Her face went pale.
“My first husband.”
Silence.
“What?”
Fiona swallowed.
“Before Aidan, before Flynn…”
She looked at me.
“I was married to Victor Hale.”
I stared at her.
“And Victor Hale had a son.”
She nodded.
“Flynn.”
The room seemed to spin.
My husband wasn't an accident.
He hadn't simply fallen in love with me.
May you like
His family had known exactly who I was.
And apparently, our entire marriage had been built on a revenge plan that began before I was born.
