"Sera." She cuts me off, irritation flaring. "If I'm going to be trapped on a boat with you for two weeks, you're going to use my actual name."
"Sera." I test the weight of it. Two syllables that feel more dangerous than they should. "The less you know about my history, the better."
"For who? You or me?"
"Both."
She makes a sound that's not quite a laugh. "That's not how I operate. I'm a conservator. My entire job is asking questions, examining details, understanding what's underneath the surface. You're not going to give me the silent treatment for two weeks and expect me to just... what? Sit quietly and wait for someone to come kill me?"
"The goal is to make sure no one comes to kill you."
"And if they do?"
I glance over at her. Those green eyes are fixed on me with an intensity that makes something in my chest tighten.
"Then they'll learn why your father called me instead of one of his own people."
The words land between us. She holds my gaze for three heartbeats before turning back to the window.
We drive the rest of the way to Tidehaven in silence, but it's a different kind of silence now. Measured. Charged.
Captain Sunday was right about the unfamiliar boat. It's still anchored past the lighthouse as we pull into the marina parking lot, visible as a dark shape against the afternoon glare off the water.
Sera follows my gaze. "Problem?"
"Maybe." I pocket my keys and come around to open her door before she can argue about it. "Stay close. Don't talk to anyone until we're on the water."
She unfolds from the truck, grabbing her bags despite the look I give her. "I'm not helpless."
"Never said you were." I take one of the bags anyway, shouldering it before she can protest. "But right now, you're my responsibility. And I don't lose things I'm responsible for."
Her lips press together. Full lips, I notice. The kind that would soften when she's not furious at the world.
Which is probably never.
"Let's go," she says, and strides toward the dock without waiting for direction.
I fall into step beside her, scanning the marina, the parking lot, the faces of fishermen and tourists and locals going about their afternoon. Nothing sets off alarms. Nothing feels wrong.
But the marker's been called. The debt's come due.
And the woman walking beside me with fire in her eyes and her father's enemies at her back just became the most complicated thing in my carefully simple life.
Two weeks.
God help us both.
2
SERA
The dock planks creak beneath my boots as I follow Ford Callahan toward a boat I'm apparently going to call home for the next two weeks. Like cargo. Like a painting being shipped to storage until the market improves.
My father has always been good at making decisions about my life without consulting me. This is just the latest in a long line stretching back to boarding school at twelve, summers in Europe with relatives I barely knew, a trust fund I refuse to touch because touching it would mean accepting what paid for it.
But this. Sending me away with a stranger who owes him a favor. Treating me like an asset to be protected rather than a person with her own mind and her own plans or a job waiting for her back in Boston where a sixteenth-century altarpiece needs her attention.
The fury burns cold in my chest.
