Chapter 1 - THE PUSH
The first thing I felt was my father’s hands.
Not protective. Not desperate.
Deliberate.
We were on the upper deck of his luxury yacht in the middle of an Atlantic storm, rain lashing sideways, the teak deck slick beneath my heels, the wind so violent it made breathing feel like swallowing knives. My champagne dress was plastered to my skin, my hair whipped across my face, and the sea below looked like a black mouth opening and closing beneath us.
Malcolm Whitmore gripped both my shoulders and shoved me so hard my back struck the railing.
For one shattered second, I thought he was steadying me.
Then he pushed again.
“If you’re gone,” he shouted over the storm, his face twisted into something I had never seen before, “it becomes ours!”
Behind him, my mother stood beneath the deck lights in a pale wrap and evening jewels, frozen and dry-eyed.
“Dad—”
That was all I got out before I went over.
The ocean hit like concrete.
Cold tore the breath from my chest. Salt filled my mouth and nose. I went under hard, dress tangling around my legs, and when I surfaced choking, the yacht already seemed impossibly high above me.
I saw the metal swim ladder hanging low off the stern.
I kicked toward it and caught one rung with both hands.
“Dad! Help me!”
I looked up.
Malcolm stood over me, rain running off his white shirt. He stared down as if I were something unpleasant washed onto the deck.
Then, without a flicker of hesitation, he retracted the ladder.
My fingers slipped.
I screamed.
The yacht engines surged.
May you like
Celeste—my mother—never moved.
I was left alone in the black Atlantic while my parents’ lights faded into rain.
