He said nothing—just took them and left.
A terrible feeling blooms in her gut. Her mind circles back to their last exchange.
“What will you do to him?”
“Think of him as Schrödinger’s magician, Roshaan. Better that box not be opened. Because you won’t like either alternative. You two picked the wrong marks to extort, my girl.”
She knows Theo’s gambling addiction—it won’t stop here. He’ll keep returning to her guests, demanding more money for keeping their secrets. He will hound them for years—keep extorting them. Hecan’tstop. It’s a sickness that breeds perpetual debt.
Avi’s orders echo in her mind.
I want them all. Phone. Laptop, tablet, smartwatch, thumb drive—whatever he could have used to save footage or to access the cloud. Anything he might have used to send footage. I want to know every contact he’s made in order to fully neutralize any threat to my employer.
She fears whatneutralizemeans—for Theo, and for herself. What Theo saw on those cameras is still in his head. At this very moment, he’s onstage, hinting to guests what he knows.
What will Avi do to him?
What’ll he do to her? Will he really let her walk?
And the Moldovans? They were promised the surveillance footage. Even if Avi allows Theo to walk away, the Moldovans could still come after him. After her.
You’re a dead girl walking ...
She will always be a walking dead girl.
She’ll never work in the cruise industry again.
These guests you are spying on—they’re connected. They own media empires and control politicians. They have the resources to crush you completely, and if you still try to escape, I will hound you for the rest of your miserable life. I will follow you to your death and into the afterlife. Do you understand me, Roshaan DaSousa?
Furies of guilt swarm through her brain with their tattered crow-raven wings, witches’ hair, sharp teeth, and bleeding eyes. They circle and shriek, faster, louder, like the wind outside, groaning like the yawingOrchid.
Roshaan covers her ears, trying to silence them.
Shaytan has come for her.
She was such a good girl, our Roshaan.
She needs air. She’s overheating, feverish.
She hurries up the stairs to Deck 14 and pushes through the doors into a blast of wind flecked with salt spray. Water sloshing from the pool and hot tubs covers the deck. Lanterns sway wildly in the gusts—a few stands have broken free. A deck chair has toppled over. She sees no one. All around her, the black, moonlit sea heaves and churns, a devil wind twisting across it.
Above her the sky is full with stars, and lights flicker on the cliffs across the water.
She heads toward a bench. The ship sways and she stumbles, then slips onto the deck, scraping her knee.
Roshaan clambers onto all fours, then pushes upright. Unsteady, she zigzags across the rolling deck and drops heavily onto the bench. It’s soaked. Salt spray lashes her face. She tilts it up to the sky. The pooland hot tubs slosh and overflow. Every so often a wave splashes over the side of a tub, and water streams across the deck.
Roshaan realizes with vague surprise she’s still clutching her mask.
She glances down at it.
The face glows in the silvery moonlight. Haunting. She notices how the moonlight catches her large fake emerald, and she’s reminded of all Theo’s false promises. He aimed them all at the places she was weak, and needy. Simply to get her to do his work.
She can see it all so plainly now. The line. Where she crossed it. She can’t go back now.
She has to go down with him.
Roshaan puts on her mask. She chose the face of a Fury.
