He disappears above deck, leaving me alone in the cramped cabin with two bags of hastily packed clothes and the growing suspicion that nothing about the next two weeks is going to be simple.
The engine growlsto life as Ford navigates us out of the marina. I stay below for the first few minutes, organizing my belongings into the narrow storage spaces available. My laptop goes under the mattress along with the portable hard drive containing three years of conservation research. My toiletries barely fit in the tiny medicine cabinet above the sink.
I packed for function, not style. Cotton underwear. Practical bras. Three pairs of jeans, five shirts, one sweater for cool nights. The only indulgence I allowed myself was my grandmother'sring on its chain around my neck. The gold warm against my skin.
When I can't justify hiding any longer, I climb back to the deck.
Tidehaven shrinks behind us, its colorful waterfront and lighthouse pier becoming miniatures as Ford steers us toward open water. The afternoon sun catches the marsh grass, turning everything golden and green. Beautiful, I admit reluctantly. Not the stark Massachusetts coastline I'm used to, but beautiful in its own liquid, shifting way.
Ford stands at the helm, hands steady on the wheel. He's put on sunglasses, dark lenses that make his expression impossible to read.
I settle onto the bench seat I claimed earlier and watch him work.
His movements are economical. No wasted motion as he adjusts course, checks instruments, scans the horizon. The boat responds to his touch like a living thing, and I realize with growing irritation that competence has always been attractive to me. Even when it comes wrapped in a package I didn't ask for and don't want.
"The unfamiliar boat," I say eventually. "At the lighthouse. You were concerned about it."
"Still am." He doesn't look at me. "Could be nothing. Could be tourists who don't know how to handle a vessel that size. Could be something else."
"My father's people?"
"Your father wouldn't be that obvious. If Enzo Mancini sent a boat to watch us, we wouldn't see it." A pause. "Which means if it's related to you, it's the other side."
"The Veronis."
Now he does look at me, sunglasses tilting in my direction. "You know the name."
"I know a lot of names." I pull my knees up, wrapping my arms around them. "I grew up in that world, even if I was never part of it. I know Marco Veroni tried to broker a merger with my father seven years ago. I know when it fell through, Veroni blamed my father for destroying his political connections in Rhode Island. I know his son Giovanni has been making moves for the past eighteen months, testing boundaries, seeing where the lines are drawn."
Ford is quiet for a long moment.
"Your father said you were clean. That he kept you out of the business."
"He did." I watch a pelican skim the water's surface, scooping up something silver and wriggling. "But clean doesn't mean ignorant. I have eyes. I have ears. And I've spent my entire life being the one person at family dinners who doesn't actually belong to the family business."
"That must have been isolating."
The observation surprises me. Not because it's wrong, but because no one outside my own head has ever articulated it quite that way.
"It was educational." I keep my voice neutral. "I learned to read rooms. To notice who had power and who was pretending. To understand the difference between what people say and what they mean."
"Useful skills."
"For a conservator? Absolutely. Half my job is figuring out what's real and what's been forged to look real." I meet his hidden gaze. "I'm very good at spotting fakes."
Something that might be amusement tugs at the corner of his mouth. "Is that a warning?"
"Take it however you want."
He turns back to the water, adjusting course toward what looks like a cluster of small islands in the distance. Marsh grass and twisted trees rising out of the shallows like a flooded forest.
"We'll anchor in there for tonight," he says. "Good sight lines. Multiple exits through the channels. Nobody sneaks up on us without me knowing."
"And tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow we reassess. See if the unfamiliar boat is still around. Make a plan based on what we know." His jaw tightens beneath his beard. "Two weeks is a long time. Lot can change."
"Or a lot can stay exactly the same." I let my legs drop back to the deck. "My father's problems don't resolve in two weeks. They resolve when someone loses. When someone dies. When enough blood has been spilled that the survivors can agree to terms."
