Chapter 1 - THE LOCKED DOOR
The first night of my honeymoon, my husband locked the cabin door behind him and picked up a baseball bat.
Then he smiled.
Not the warm smile he had worn twelve hours earlier when he slipped a diamond ring onto my finger.
This smile was different.
Cold.
Satisfied.
Like a hunter finally closing the cage.
Outside our balcony window, Miami had vanished behind us.
Only black ocean remained.
Daniel Mercer tapped the aluminum bat against his palm.
Once.
Twice.
“This marriage has rules, Claire.”
I stared at him.
The white wedding dress I had worn that afternoon was hanging beside the closet.
My champagne sat untouched on the table.
“What kind of rules require a baseball bat?”
His smile widened.
“The kind you should’ve learned before saying yes.”
I slowly removed my wedding ring.
Daniel frowned.
I placed it beside the champagne.
Then I rolled my shoulders and cracked my knuckles.
His confidence flickered.
“What are you doing?”
“Giving you one chance.”
“To do what?”
“Put the bat down.”
He laughed.
That was Daniel’s last comfortable moment.
He swung.
Hard.
Fast enough to break bone if it connected.
I stepped forward instead of backward.
My left forearm redirected the bat.
My right hand caught his wrist.
I twisted.
Daniel screamed.
The bat hit the carpet.
Three seconds later, his face was pressed against the floor and my knee was between his shoulder blades.
“What the hell?” he gasped.
Daniel knew my résumé said administrative consultant.
He didn’t know about the eight years before that.
He didn’t know about Kandahar.
He didn’t know about classified deployments.
And he definitely didn’t know that I had once trained people twice his size to disarm attackers in confined spaces.
I leaned closer.
“You picked the wrong wife.”
Then the cabin door opened.
Three security officers rushed inside.
The captain came behind them.
Daniel immediately pointed at me.
“She attacked me!”
Nobody moved toward me.
Instead, a man in a navy suit stepped through the doorway.
He showed a federal badge.
“Claire Morgan?”
“Yes.”
“Federal Agent Marcus Hale.”
Daniel went pale.
Hale placed four photographs on the bed.
Daniel buying the bat.
Daniel meeting an insurance broker.
Daniel transferring money into a private account two days before our wedding.
Then Hale placed down the fourth photograph.
It showed Daniel on another cruise three years earlier.
Beside a smiling brunette.
Hale looked at him.
“Her name was Rebecca Lane.”
Daniel said nothing.
“She disappeared on the fourth night of that cruise.”
My stomach tightened.
Hale slowly turned over another photograph.
Rebecca was wearing a wedding ring.
Daniel’s wedding ring.
I looked at my husband.
“You were married to her?”
Daniel finally smiled again.
Only this time, there was something desperate in it.
May you like
“You really have no idea what you married into, do you?”
Before I could answer, every light in the cabin went out.
