ELENI
With a burst of adrenaline, she leapt to her feet and ran away from him, out of the sky lounge, across the deck towards the control room, hoping to take refuge with the captain – but before she could reach the bridge, he was behind her, his feet almost scraping the back of her ankles.
‘If you keep this quiet,’ he said, ‘I’ll put as many new acquisitions your way as I can – I’ll share all my contacts with you, and when I hear about new land coming up, I’ll tell you first – on the down-low. Come on – I know you’re ambitious too. This can work out for both of us.’
Enraged, she rolled her eyes and stormed past him down the stairs to the salon and then towards the steps leading below deck.
‘Fuck you, Sam. You’re pathetic.’ The cheek of him.
She didn’t need him to bring her contacts; she’d earned her place on this trip through her own hard work – she hadn’t needed to blackmail anyone, unlike Sam.
She was a genuine top performer – all her success was rightfully hers. Fair and square.
What a waste of precious time. This had been a pointless distraction – she had more important things to deal with.
Eleni started down the stairs towards the cabins.
With no overhead lights, she had to rely on the emergency panels at the edge of each step.
She clung to the railings and moved carefully.
It was so dark, and so creepy, with these low-level lights.
She lifted her phone and used its torch to guide her as she moved.
It felt all wrong, this gloom. And it was so bloody quiet.
She took a deep breath – she had to get herself together before she went to find Rory.
A thud sounded from one of the cabins when she was halfway down the stairs; she wasn’t sure which room it had come from.
Perhaps it was Mark and Lucy – they were back in their cabin now; they probably just dropped something.
She exhaled slowly to try to calm herself.
Reaching the bottom of the stairs, she took a few steps along the passageway, but stopped abruptly at a more alarming sound – a moan or a cry, coming from somewhere close by.
She lifted her torch, swung it down to the furthest edges of the corridor.
There was no one else in the passageway.
Stop freaking out, Eleni. Mark and Lucy are probably just having an early evening shag.
She took another deep breath. She was almost at her door now, was about to reach out with her key card, when she heard the sound again.
But it wasn’t coming from Mark and Lucy’s cabin.
It was coming from the one opposite: the master stateroom. Eleni stared at the door for a second.
Something’s not right. She padded across the corridor, pressed her ear to the door and listened more closely. What’s happening in there? This was the sound of someone crying; a set of horrible, choking sobs.
She rapped gently on the door, her legs unsteady beneath her.
‘He – hello?’ she stuttered. ‘Talia? Is everything okay in there?’
A beat of silence, and then another awful choking sound.
Eleni tried the door handle without thinking, and to her surprise, it opened.
Of course – with the power out, the locks aren’t working.
She held her phone out in front of her and followed the torch beam into the enormous, luxurious cabin.
She couldn’t see Talia – she couldn’t see anyone, just the king-sized bed and a desk and a sofa, a suitcase neatly packed on a luggage rack in the corner furthest from her.
‘Hello – Talia? Are you okay? Where are you?’
The muffled choke reached her ears again from somewhere towards the back of the room – she walked towards it, and realized the sound was coming from the en-suite bathroom.
Eleni took a deep breath and, hands trembling, swung the door wide open.
At first, looking straight ahead, she saw nothing.
And then the beam of her torch landed in the corner of the bathroom, where her husband was standing, looming above Talia, his shape casting a warped, giant shadow on the wall, his hands wrapped around Talia’s neck.
Eleni stood frozen for a beat, mute and trembling.
And in that instant, she pieced it all together, as a montage of memories and images flashed lightning-fast in front of her eyes.
It was the story of her marriage, the story of the past decade of her life, whizzing through her brain in a split second: Nick, the handsome, sensitive police-officer-in-training making things exclusive with Eleni after only two dates.
The long, wakeful nights he bared his soul to her, describing his harrowing upbringing with a violent, alcoholic father.
The relentless calls to her at work when he couldn’t get hold of her; the constant texts on her nights out with the girls that eventually made her give up her friendships altogether.
The first time he’d slapped her was the night of their wedding, when he said she’d embarrassed him by not laughing at the right places in his speech.
Then the intermittent violence, woven between months – years, sometimes – of peace, and Eleni’s desperate, futile hope that his remorse and his promises of it never, ever happening again would prove true.
And then the evening only last year, when he’d grabbed her by the neck, shoved her against the wall and, for the first time in her life, Eleni retaliated – and spent a night in police custody as a result.
It was the same thing, playing out again now, in real time, on this superyacht. Only this time, his violence was turned in someone else’s direction.
I have to help her – now.
Eleni swiftly moved her phone behind her back before the glare of its beam alerted Nick that someone else was in the bathroom.
She waited a second for her eyes to adjust to the dim light, then edged backwards and out of the bathroom as quietly as she could.
On instinct, she lifted her phone again and used the torch to scan the master stateroom for something – anything – that she could use to protect Talia, to stop her husband.
The wide bedside lamp, the miniature tree in its porcelain pot, the gold yacht-shaped ornament with its sharp pointed tip …
Its sharp pointed tip.
Without thinking, allowing the rushing blood pumping through her veins to propel her, she ran towards the desk next to the window, dropped her phone to the ground and picked up the sculpture with her free hand.
It was heavier than it looked, but she could still lift it easily; she rushed back into the bathroom, and ran towards Nick.
The en-suite was gloomy, but Eleni’s adrenaline seemed to have sharpened her senses and she could see – at least, well enough for what she needed to do.
Talia was making awful choking, gasping sounds now, and with Nick’s back to Eleni and his intent focus on what he was doing, he didn’t realize she was behind him – he didn’t hear her creep swiftly across the floor.
Don’t let him see me, don’t let him see me …
She walked softly closer, filling her lungs and holding in the air for fear he might hear her breathing. She’d stayed so quiet, she’d been imperceptible – but then, just as she was right behind him, the held breath in her throat caught with a soft wheeze.
Nick’s shoulders froze. Oh God, he’s heard me – he knows I’m here.
In the fraction of a second suspended in time as he began to swivel to face her, she saw it all: the woman she was before she met her husband, proud and bubbly and sparkling; then the small, scared life she’d had to carve out, existing every day in fear for herself and her children.
The impossible, awful strength it had taken her to do that was the same strength that came rushing back to her now.
Eleni lifted the sculpture upwards and plunged the sharp tip of the yacht’s sail into the side of Nick’s neck with all her strength.
It pierced his body near his spine, with a sickening wet sound; Eleni yanked the ornament back again and watched as her husband’s hands dropped abruptly from Talia’s throat, allowing the other woman to draw in ragged, gasping breaths.
Nick stumbled around to face her, dazed and stupefied, his hands clutching at his neck, blood dripping and coating his arms like thick crimson sleeves.
When he saw who’d attacked him, he made a sound that was almost animal – and suddenly he was reaching towards her, flailing, grabbing for the sculpture.
He grasped at Eleni’s hands, tried to wrestle it from them – but Eleni held onto her weapon with every ounce of strength she had.
Nick’s eyes began to roll back in his head; he was losing more blood, it was still streaming down the side of his neck, covering his shoulders and chest. He was losing strength too: Eleni could see him fading in front of her eyes.
Then he slithered noiselessly to the marble floor of the bathroom and fell still.