The moment our honeymoon cruise set sail from Florida, my husband locked the cabin door, cornered me with an aluminum baseball bat. "This is how my dad kept my mom in line," he grinned. I didn't scream. I just cracked my knuckles. He forgot to read the part of my resume where I served as a Marine Corps hand-to-hand combat instructor. In one fluid motion, the bat was mine, and his face was...

"Detonation in three minutes," the cold, mechanical voice echoed relentlessly over the wailing klaxons.

I scrambled to my feet, ignoring the sharp shards of glass violently embedding themselves into my palms.

Gregory and Chloe had already disappeared through the heavy emergency exit, leaving me in the ruined bridge.

I raced to the main engineering console, frantically cutting the bindings off the terrified ship's captain.

"Can you stop the scuttling sequence from here?" I yelled over the deafening roar of the ocean wind.

The captain typed furiously on his ruined keyboard, his face instantly turning a pale, sickly shade of white.

"He completely destroyed the manual override," the captain stammered, pointing at a smashed control panel.

"The primary explosive is physically wired to the main hull structural support on the lowest cargo deck!"

I didn't waste another second listening to explanations, instantly sprinting out the door in pursuit of the traitors.

I flew down the emergency stairwells, leaping over entire flights of stairs in a desperate race against the clock.

The luxury cruise ship was already tilting dangerously to the port side, groaning under immense structural stress.

Panicked passengers screamed and shoved past me, fighting blindly for space on the deploying lifeboats.

I pushed against the chaotic tide of humanity, descending deeper into the dark, mechanical bowels of the vessel.

"Two minutes to detonation," the calm computerized voice announced, sounding surreal amidst the absolute terror.

I finally reached the massive, cavernous cargo hold, the air thick with the smell of heavy diesel fuel.

Gregory was standing near a massive block of C4 explosives strapped tightly to the ship's main steel bulkhead.

He was holding a complex digital detonator switch, laughing manically as he prepared to doom thousands of people.

Chloe stood slightly behind him, holding her weapon nervously, finally realizing the horrifying reality of her choices.

"She promised we would escape first!" Chloe screamed at Gregory, panic finally breaking through her cold facade.

"There was never an escape plan for you, stupid girl," Gregory sneered, turning his gun casually toward my sister.

Before he could pull the trigger, I fired a warning shot directly into the steel floor right beside his expensive shoes.

"Step away from the bomb, Gregory," I commanded, keeping my weapon leveled steadily at his chest.

He smiled, raising his thumb slowly over the glowing red button of the detonator switch.

"You can't shoot me without triggering the dead-man's switch, Ashlynn," he mocked, highly confident in his twisted victory.

I holstered my weapon deliberately, raising my empty hands as I walked slowly toward the explosive.

He laughed at my apparent surrender, entirely unaware of the hidden combat knife I had slipped from my boot.

With a sudden, explosive burst of speed, I closed the distance between us in a fraction of a second.

My blade flashed violently in the dim light, cleanly severing the thick bundle of wires connecting the detonator to the explosives.

“Which daughter is yours?” should have been a harmless question

The first wineglass shattered at 8:07 p.m

The moment the mafia boss’s wife called me “an illiterate servant,”

Gregory gasped in absolute shock, but before I could strike him, a searing, blinding pain erupted in my lower back.

I collapsed to my knees, coughing up blood as I realized Chloe had just plunged a jagged piece of scrap metal deep into my spine.

Chapter 9 - The Sinking Ship