Ford stops at a slip near the end of the dock. The boat waiting there is larger than I expected, white hull weathered but well-maintained, the name SECOND WATCH painted in faded blue letters across the stern.
"Home sweet home." He steps aboard with the easy balance of a man who's spent more years on water than land. "Watch your step."
I ignore the hand he offers and board myself. The deck shifts beneath my feet, and I adjust my stance without thinking. I grew up around boats. Not the working kind like this one, but the obscenely expensive kind my father's associates used for meetings they didn't want recorded. I know how to keep my balance.
Ford notices. His gray eyes track my movement with an assessment that's entirely professional and somehow still makes my skin prickle.
"You've been on the water before."
"My father's business involves a lot of marine transport." I set my bags down on a bench seat near the stern. "I learned to swim before I could walk."
"Good. One less thing to worry about."
He moves toward the cabin with my other bag still over his shoulder, and I take the opportunity to catalog what I'm dealing with.
Ford Callahan is not what I expected.
When my father told me I was being sent to a man who owed him a debt, I pictured someone harder. Colder. The kind of man my father usually keeps on retainer. Instead, I got six feet three inches of sun-weathered muscle and steady competence wrapped in a flannel shirt that's seen better days.
His hands are rough when they moved over the truck's steering wheel. Calloused in patterns I don't recognize but assume come from years of handling lines and tackle and whatever else a charter captain handles. His beard needs trimming, his hair needs cutting. Nothing about him saysorganized crime except the way he scanned the marina like a man who's been in firefights and expects to be in more.
He carries my bag like it weighs nothing.
"Cabin's below." He gestures toward a hatch. "One bedroom, one head, galley kitchen. You take the bed. I'll sleep up here."
"Where up here?"
"I've got a setup." He doesn't elaborate. "Let me show you the layout before we cast off."
I follow him down narrow stairs into a space smaller than my bathroom in Boston but surprisingly clean. A bed built into the bow, sheets that smell like they've actually been washed recently. A tiny bathroom he called a head. A galley kitchen with a two-burner stove and a refrigerator that hums louder than it should.
Ford sets my bag on the bed.
"Fridge is stocked. Nothing fancy but it'll keep us fed. Water tank's full, but showers are short. Three minutes max."
"Three minutes."
"You'll learn to be efficient." He straightens, and in the cramped cabin space, he seems even larger. The ceiling forces him to duck slightly, his shoulders taking up half the available width. "We'll run dark most nights. No navigation lights, no electronics that could be tracked. During the day, I'll find us somewhere to anchor that gives us visibility and exit options."
"You're enjoying this."
His eyebrows lift. "Excuse me?"
"The tactical briefing. The operational language." I cross my arms over my chest. "You've been waiting for someone to call in this marker so you could feel useful again."
His expression changes for a beat. There and gone so fast I almost miss it, but I've spent my career learning to read what lies beneath surfaces.
"Ms. Mancini?—"
"Sera."
"Sera." He says my name like it costs him something. "I've spent four years building a life that doesn't involve any of this. Charter fishing. Sunrise coffee. Quiet nights watching the marsh. Your father's call this morning was the first time in over a decade that anyone's reminded me I was once capable of violence, and I didn't appreciate the reminder."
The honesty catches me off guard.
"Then why answer the phone?"
"Because debts don't go away just because you ignore them." He moves past me toward the stairs, and I catch his scent as he goes. Salt and engine oil and something underneath that's purely male. "Get settled. We cast off in twenty minutes."
