He'd find Emma. Make sure she understood the security lockdown. Keep it professional, cold, distant. Show her exactly what Nick said he'd been for years—isolated, emotionless, a weapon instead of a man.
If it hurt, that was the cost he had to pay.
Chapter 32
Weather Alert
Emma savedthe final spreadsheet and closed her laptop with a soft click that echoed in the empty conference room, her mind still flooded with staffing data.
Through the windows, the sky hung purple gray over the water, dark clouds massing on the horizon like an invading army. The air had a charged, electric quality, making her skin prickle with awareness.
The last of the non-essential staff left the island last night, leaving only the Storm Team behind. The resort felt hollow, stripped of the usual hum of voices and movement. Even the ocean sounded different—louder, more insistent, as if the waves were throwing themselves against the shore with increasing urgency.
Her phone buzzed on the polished wood table, the vibration loud in the silence.
Emma picked it up, expecting another weather alert.
Zach
Need to show you something. Solombra cliffs. Urgent. Don’t bring Nick.
Her breath caught as she stared at the message, her thumb hovering over the screen. Zach rarely texted. He preferred face-to-face conversations or brief phone calls—communication that couldn’t be misinterpreted. The fact he messaged at all meant something.
‘Don’t bring Nick.’
That made her chest tighten. He said it was urgent. Personal? Or something about the threat level keeping everyone on edge since the assassin's attack?
Emma stood and slung her bag over her shoulder. The wooden floor creaked under her feet—a sound she’d never noticed before, but was now amplified in the emptiness. She moved through the lobby, her sneakers silent on the tile, and pushed through the doors into the rising wind.
The temperature had dropped almost twenty degrees since midday. Palm fronds rattled overhead, and the first scattered drops of rain hit her face as she headed toward the coastal path. The scent of ozone mixed with salt air, sharp and clean, cutting through the usual tropical sweetness of hibiscus and plumeria.
Emma pulled her hair back into a quick ponytail as she walked, her athletic stride eating up the distance. She’d run this route dozens of times in the mornings and knew every root and rock. But in the gathering gloom, with the wind picking up and the vegetation thrashing around her, everything looked different. Unfamiliar. The shadows stretched, reaching across the path like grasping fingers.
She checked her phone again. No follow-up message. No clarification.
A whisper of wrongness brushed against her awareness.
Why didn’t Zach text more? Not details, but something. Context. He was deliberate in everything he did, in every word he chose. This message was… odd.
Her sneakers crunched on gravel as the path narrowed, climbing toward the cliffs. The wind was stronger here, less filtered by trees, carrying the taste of rain and something else—that metallic tang that always preceded a major storm. Her pulse kicked up, not from exertion but from the growing unease coiling in her stomach.
The resort disappeared behind a curve in the path. She was alone now, with nothing but the angry sky and churning ocean far below. The waves crashed against the rocks with a percussion that vibrated through the soles of her feet.
Emma’s pace slowed. Her observant nature—the same skill that made her good at reading people during interviews, at spotting the small details that reveal character—was now cataloging inconsistencies.
He would never ask her to walk alone when there was a threat, no matter how minor.
He normally called instead of texting; his voice told her more than his words ever do, giving her a measure of his mood, his level of concern.
He wouldn’t send her into something blind.
He would never block Nick.
And the storm was about to arrive in full force.
Emma rounded another bend and stopped. The path ahead was empty. No Zach. No movement except the violent dance of wind-whipped vegetation. The cliff edge dropped away to her right, a sheer fall to rocks and surf. To her left, the jungle pressed close, dark and impenetrable.
She pulled out her phone, fingers clumsy. No new messages. She tried calling Zach.
