Chapter 1 1

The water coming out of the chrome faucet was freezing.

It hit Isela Church's hands with enough pressure to numb her fingertips, but she didn't pull back. She scrubbed. She took the stiff bristles of the surgical brush and dragged them across her knuckles. The friction burned, a necessary penance, but just as the bristles threatened to break the skin, her hands froze. No. She couldn't damage them. Her hands were her livelihood, the only instruments that separated the surgeon from the butcher. Even here, in this hell, she was a professional.

She forced herself to drop the brush, staring at her pink, irritated knuckles in the mirror. The face staring back felt like a stranger's. Isela Church. That was the name on her ID badge. But deep in the recesses of her mind, buried under layers of survival instinct and fear, was another name. Ye Jiuting. She hadn't spoken those syllables in years. To speak them was to invite a past she had run halfway across the world to escape. Ye Jiuting was a ghost; Isela Church was the one who had to survive the night.

The digital clock on the wall blinked. 02:15 AM.

Through the ventilation shaft above, the faint, thumping bass of jazz music drifted down from the upper decks. Up there, in the world of champagne and diamonds, the night was just beginning. Down here, in the bowels of the ship where the crew and the secrets were kept, the silence was heavy enough to crush a person.

The door to her office burst open.

It wasn't a knock. It was a collision.

Nurse Miller stood in the doorway, her chest heaving, her face the color of the bedsheets.

"Doctor Church. It's the VIP suite. Room 404."

Isela didn't ask questions. Her body moved before her brain processed the room number. Room 404. Agent Best. The man who had been admitted for mild arrhythmia just yesterday.

"Status?" Isela demanded, grabbing her stethoscope from the desk.

"Cardiac arrest. No pulse. I called the code."

Isela ran.

Her heels struck the linoleum floor, a sharp, frantic staccato that echoed down the empty corridor. The air in the hallway smelled of antiseptic and ozone, but as they neared the VIP wing, the scent changed. It became sweeter. Heavier.

The smell of expensive lilies and decay.

She burst into Room 404.

The monitor was screaming. A flat, high-pitched tone that signaled the end of everything.

Agent Best lay on the bed, his mouth open in a silent gasp, his skin already turning a mottled shade of violet.

"Get the crash cart!" Isela shouted.

She didn't wait. She vaulted onto the bed, straddling the man's heavy torso. She interlocked her fingers, placed the heel of her hand on his sternum, and pushed.

One. Two. Three. Four.

"Come on," she gritted out, her hair falling from its bun to curtain her face. "Don't you do this on my watch."

She felt a rib crack under her force. She didn't stop. You don't stop for bones. You stop for a pulse.

"Charged!" Nurse Miller yelled, holding the paddles.

"Clear!"

Isela threw her hands up. The body jerked violently as the electricity coursed through it.

She looked at the monitor.

Flatline.

"Again. Charge to three hundred."

"Doctor, he's been down for ten minutes before we found him," Miller whispered, her voice trembling.

"Charge it!"

They went three rounds. Three rounds of lightning trying to jumpstart a heart that had turned to stone. Sweat dripped from Isela's chin, landing on the patient's unmoving chest. Her arms burned. Her lungs felt like they were filled with broken glass.

Finally, she stopped.

The room fell silent, save for the drone of the machine. Isela looked at the clock.

"Time of death, 02:28 AM."

She climbed off the bed, her legs shaking. She reached for the sheet to pull it over Agent Best's face, a final act of professional mercy.

"You killed him."

The voice came from the corner of the room. It was soft, devoid of the hysteria one would expect from a grieving widow.

Isela turned.

Mrs. Best stood in the shadows near the window. She was wearing a silk dressing gown, clutching a string of pearls so tightly her knuckles were white. But her eyes were dry. They were cold, hard chips of flint.

"Mrs. Best, I did everything I could," Isela said, trying to keep her voice steady. "His heart condition was severe-"

"No." Mrs. Best stepped forward. She pointed a manicured finger at the metal tray next to the bed. "You injected him. I saw you. Just before he seized."

Isela followed the finger. Lying on the tray was an empty syringe.

"That was standard prophylactic antibiotic," Isela said. "Cefazolin. He was due for his dose."

The door to the room slammed open again.

This time, it wasn't a nurse.

Huston Lyons filled the doorway. The foreman of the Bilge, the man who ran the lower decks like a personal fiefdom. He was flanked by three security guards who looked more like mercenaries than ship staff.

Huston didn't look at the dead body. He looked at Isela. His gaze crawled over her, slimy and possessive.

"We got a distress call from the lady," Huston said, his voice a gravelly rumble. He stepped into the room, sucking the oxygen out of it.

"She murdered my husband," Mrs. Best shrieked. The sudden volume made Isela flinch. "She gave him something. He started choking immediately."

Huston moved fast for a big man. He crossed the room and grabbed Isela by the shoulder. His fingers dug into her trapezius muscle, pinching a nerve that sent a bolt of pain down her arm.

"Let go of me," Isela hissed. "I need to secure the medical records."

"You aren't securing anything, sweetheart," Huston sneered. He pushed her back against the wall. The impact knocked the wind out of her.

Mrs. Best reached into her clutch bag. She pulled out a folded piece of paper and threw it at Isela. The sharp corner of the heavy cardstock caught Isela on the cheekbone, stinging like a papercut.

"Read it," Mrs. Best commanded.

Isela caught the paper as it fluttered down. She unfolded it. It was a medical history form from a private clinic in Zurich.

Patient: Arthur Best. Allergies: Cephalosporins (Anaphylactic).

Isela's blood ran cold.

"This is impossible," Isela said, her voice shaking with suppressed rage. "I checked his digital file three times before the shift. The system flagged 'No Known Allergies'. And the syringe..." She looked at Miller, who was cowering by the cart. "Nurse Miller handed me the verified dose. We followed protocol. If this paper is real, then someone scrubbed the mainframe."

"You didn't check," Mrs. Best lied. "You were negligent. Or maybe... maybe someone paid you to make sure he didn't talk."

Isela looked up. She saw the look passing between Mrs. Best and Huston. A subtle nod. A tightening of the jaw.

It was a setup.

Agent Best hadn't died of an allergy. The reaction was too fast, too total. And Huston arriving within seconds?

"You switched the files," Isela said, her voice rising. "You set this up."

"Careful, Doctor," Huston murmured, leaning in close. His breath smelled of stale tobacco and mints. "That sounds like a conspiracy theory. And on this ship, crazy people tend to disappear overboard."

He squeezed her shoulder harder. Isela saw the lust in his eyes. It wasn't just about framing her. It was about breaking her. If she was a murderer, she had no rights. She belonged to the brig. She belonged to him.

Panic, primal and sharp, clawed at her throat.

She shoved Huston. It was a pathetic attempt, but it caught him off guard. She lunged for the medical cart.

"Grab her!" Huston barked.

The security guards surged forward. They kicked the cart over.

Glass shattered. Vials of adrenaline, saline, and morphine exploded on the floor. The liquid pooled, mixing with the shards.

But Isela's hand closed around the one thing that hadn't fallen.

The syringe. The one she had used.

There was a tiny amount of liquid left in the hub of the needle. Maybe 0.5 ml.

She backed into the corner, near the window. The ocean outside was a black void.

"Put it down," Huston said, pulling a stun baton from his belt. The tip crackled with blue electricity. "Don't make this messy, Isela. We can work something out. You come with me quietly, maybe I forget to file the report with the mainland authorities right away."

The implication was clear. Become his toy, or go to prison for life.

Isela looked at Mrs. Best, who was now feigning a faint on the sofa. She looked at Huston, who was unbuttoning his holster.

She looked at the needle in her hand.

If it was just an antibiotic, it was harmless. If she injected it, and nothing happened, it proved the allergy report was a fake, or that the cause of death was something else entirely. It proved the drug in the syringe wasn't poison.

It was the only evidence left. The only way to prove she hadn't loaded it with cyanide or potassium chloride.

"You say I poisoned him?" Isela's voice trembled, but her hand was steady. She raised the needle.

Huston lunged. He wasn't looking to arrest her; he was looking to crush her. His heavy hand closed over hers, squeezing the syringe. "Drop it, you crazy bitch!" he growled.

Isela struggled, her grip slipping on the plastic barrel as sweat made her palms slick. "It proves... the file was faked!"

"Nobody cares!" Huston sneered. He twisted her wrist with brutal force. In the violent torsion of muscle and bone, the needle slipped. Isela gasped as the sharp tip drove deep into the soft flesh of her forearm. The plunger depressed against Huston's thumb as they grappled, sending the remaining fluid shooting into her vein.