4. Delaney
DELANEY
I step out of the cab and pull my coat tighter around me. The sky hangs low and gray and the air smells faintly of salt and damp rope.
I stand there longer than I should, taking it in. It’s just a marina. A place like this shouldn’t hold the kind of story I’ve been chasing.
A few narrow docks stretch into dark water. The tide laps softly against the posts. A gull cries somewhere overhead.
I tuck my hands into my pockets and walk.
The boards under my boots are worn smooth in places. I move carefully, not because I’m afraid of slipping, but because I’m looking at the height of the railing. The width between posts. How easily someone could be pushed.
Or pulled back.
I stop near the end of the dock.
The water here is deep and opaque. I look down at it for a moment too long. Then I straighten.
It was an accident. That’s the official statement. A confrontation that escalated. A man who lost his footing. File closed.
Except nothing about it ever felt right to me.
Too many small inconsistencies. Too many missing pieces. The kind of gaps people are happy to overlook because they’re overworked and they need to move onto the next thing.
I turn away from the water and head back.
A bar sits just off the docks. It’s a dive, the kind of place that survives on regulars and habit more than anything else. I pull the door open and step inside.
I inhale the hoppy scent of stale beer. Daylight filters in through the front windows. A couple of men sit at the far end of the bar, talking. The television above them plays some kind of sports game.
Behind the counter, an older man wipes down a glass. He looks up when I walk in. “Afternoon.”
“Hi.” I take a seat a few stools down from the others.
“What can I get you?”
“Whiskey,” I say. Not that I normally drink at this hour, but I have to order something.
He pours it without comment and slides the glass toward me.
I listen to the low murmur at the other end of the bar.
“Do you get a lot of traffic out here this time of year?” I ask the barkeep.
He huffs, something close to a laugh. “Not much. Summer’s better. Boats, tourists. Now it’s mostly the same faces.”
I nod and take a small sip of the whiskey. It burns my throat—a far cry from the smooth amber liquid I sipped at the club last night.
“I’m working on a piece,” I say. “Some corporate stuff. Old disputes that didn’t get much attention at the time.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I shrug. “A lot of it is buried in paperwork. But sometimes the details are somewhere else.”
He sets a glass down and picks up another.
“Something happened years ago,” I continue. “About fifteen years, to be exact. At the marina.”
The men at the far end of the bar continue their conversation.
The bartender doesn’t respond to me. I don’t push.
“A lot of things happen out here,” he finally says.
“I’m sure.” I tilt my head. “This one was bigger. Business-related, from what I can tell.”
His mouth tightens. Just a fraction, but I notice. A good investigative journalist learns to notice everything.
“Is that so?”
“Yeah.” I keep my tone easy and take another sip. “All my sources say it was an accident. I’m trying to understand the context.”
He exhales slowly through his nose. “It was a rainy night.”
I don’t move.
“It came down hard for a while. Slicked everything up. People get careless in weather like that.”
I let him talk.
“A couple of guys were out on the dock. Arguing.” He gestures vaguely toward the door. “I couldn’t hear everything from inside, but it wasn’t friendly.”
“How many?” I ask.
He shrugs. “More than two.”
Nothing new.
“One of ’em went too close to the edge,” he continues. “His footing wasn’t great. Water was high.”
“Did he fall?” I ask.
He hesitates. “Not exactly.”
I keep my expression neutral. “What do you mean?”
“Looked like—” He stops, shakes his head once. “It looked like someone grabbed him. Pulled him back.”
I tighten my fingers around the whiskey glass.
Pulled back.
Not pushed.
“Before he went over?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He nods slowly. “Yeah. Like they were trying to keep him from going in.”
The room feels smaller. “That doesn’t sound like an accident,” I say.
He snorts. “It didn’t sound like much of anything from where I was standing. Just shouting. Movement. Then—” He flicks his hand. “It was over.”
I furrow my brow. “Over how?”
“One second they’re all there, and next thing…”
“What?” I press.
“It happened fast,” he repeats. “Like it was already going to happen.”
I don’t react right away.
I let his words sit for a moment.
Already going to happen.
What does that mean? Sounds like it wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t a mistake.
My pulse spikes. “That’s an interesting way to put it.”
He shrugs for the umpteenth time. “Just how it felt.”
“Did you recognize anyone?”
He looks away, goes back to wiping a glass. “People with money don’t come down here for the atmosphere,” he says. “That’s all I’ll say. You can figure the rest.”
The Vexleys.
He doesn’t say it, but he doesn’t have to.
I nod and finish the whiskey. It burns a trail down my throat. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”
He nods with a grunt, already heading down the bar to the others.
I leave cash under my empty glass, stand, and leave the bar.
The air outside feels colder than before.
I walk back toward the dock without thinking, drawn by something I can’t quite name. The boards creak under my boots again, the water below as dark as it was when I first arrived.
Already going to happen.
I look out over the edge.
If someone was pulled back…
Then whatever came next didn’t start there.
It started before.
Somewhere earlier. Somewhere no one bothered to look.
My mind races as I fit the pieces together. Multiple men. Raised voices. Restraint, not immediate violence.
This wasn’t a moment that spiraled.
This was something that reached its conclusion.
A result.
A chilly breeze hits the back of my neck.
For a second, another image slips in.
Samson Vexley standing in the middle of that club, still and watchful. The way he stepped closer without wasting an inch of space. The way he made the back of my neck tingle, not unlike the chilly breeze now. But not like it either.
The way his amber eyes met mine. The way heat rolled through me as I looked into them.
The thought threads itself too easily into the one I’m holding.
I exhale sharply and step back from the edge.
No.
I’m not doing that.
This is a case. A pattern. A set of facts that don’t align the way they should. That’s it. I’m already too involved because of someone. I don’t need more of that.
I turn and walk off the dock, forcing my mind back into something useful. Timeline. Sequence. Who was present. Why someone would be dragged back instead of—
Instead of what?
If they didn’t intend for him to go over in that moment, then when?
And how?
I push the question aside. I can’t answer it yet.
But I will. I’ll find the information.
I take the subway back. The car rocks beneath me, and my mind keeps slipping.
Not to the marina.
To him.
The low scrape of his voice through the jazz music. The way his eyes tracked everything…including me.
I stare at my reflection in the window across from me and frown. That’s not helpful.
I know better than to be attracted to a Vexley.
Yet the memory of sitting in front of him, of not leaning back when he closed the distance, settles low in my body.
I look away from my reflection.
Focus, Del.
The bartender’s words loop again.
Already going to happen.
By the time I reach my apartment, the sun has begun to set. I unlock the door, step inside, drop my purse on the small table by the door, and stand there for a second, listening to the silence.
Then I move toward my desk.
The corkboard waits where I left it. Articles. Timelines. Photographs. The Vexley name threaded through all of it.
I fire up my laptop and hover my fingers over the keys.
If that night wasn’t spontaneous, then someone knew where it would end.
I look again at the pinned photos.
Arthur. Controlled and composed.
Nathaniel. Polished and precise.
Samson.
I stare at his image a second longer than I mean to.
Even in a still photograph, I see something coiled inside him. It’s not obvious. In fact, if you don’t know it’s there, I doubt you’d see it at all.
But it’s there.
Something inside him.
Something almost beastlike. Something I should fear. Instead, all I can think of is what his hands might feel like on my body, his lips on mine.
Samson Vexley might have been standing on that dock.
My stomach tightens.
If he was there…
Then he knows what really happened. The thought should sharpen my focus.
Instead, something else moves under it.
Heat. Desire. Lust.
Fuck. Maybe it’s just been too long since I’ve had a good lay.
I look away abruptly and step back from the board.
Attraction to Samson Vexley is exactly the kind of complication I don’t need.
He’s a lead. That’s all.
A door.
One I intend to open.
He’s relevant because of who he is. Because of what he might know. Because he stands closer to the center of this than anyone I’ve managed to get near.
That’s it.
Not because of the way he looked at me.
Not because I didn’t walk away.
I close my eyes a moment, try to steady my breathing.
When I open them, my phone lights up on the desk. I reach for it. A text from an unknown number. I tap the screen to open the message.
I shouldn’t have walked away from you.
My pulse jumps, hard enough that I feel it in my throat.
He found me.
Samson Vexley.
Already I know this message is from him.
He noticed me. Did he feel something too?
I should delete it. Block the number. Put distance between myself and whatever this is before it turns into something harder to manage.
Instead, I stand and stare at the screen.
I shouldn’t have walked away from you.
I swallow.
What if he hadn’t walked away?
Already I know the answer. We would have ended up in bed.
And I’d be in more of a fucking mess than I already am.