Roshaan
“One what?” Avi Galev’s voice is rough and hard.
“Option one. I choose option one.”
His mouth curls in a mirthless smile. “Good girl, good choice. Cooperation is usually the best. Begin with who ordered the surveillance. A single person? Or several?”
“J-just the one.”
“Who?”
Her throat closes. She struggles to breathe.
“Roshaan, I don’t have time to waste. Which means you don’t, either. You have exactly ten minutes to give me everything I want.” He checks the time on his watch. “Go.”
“Theo Pappas,” she whispers, barely audibly.
“Louder, please.”
“Theo Pappas. He’s an entertainer on the ship. The mesmerist / magician / mind reader.”
His features, his eyes, show no reaction.
“It’s Theo watching everything in the rooms?”
She nods. A tear slides down her cheek. She swipes it away.
“Are the surveillance cams connected with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth?”
“Wi-Fi.”
“The footage being saved? To a device? The cloud? Where’s it going?”
“Both. I—I think. Definitely to the cloud. With an option to download or save footage to a device. His—his laptop.”
“Why’s he doing this?”
“For his act.”
“Elaborate, Roshaan. The more you tell me up front, the more clear you are, the less I have to press, the easier I will go on you.”
She sucks in a shaky breath. “He reads minds, and body language. That’s the premise of his show.
He purports to see inside people, to see things and thoughts they’re hiding.
He does this in his performances in the context of stripping off masks we all wear, our personas.
He uses actual masks for the act—all the attendees get to pick one to wear to the event.
He—he’s going to use what he saw on the cams—personal things—and weave it into his show.
As though he can see hidden things in the guests. ”
He studies her.
“There’s one born each minute, isn’t there?” he says.
Heat swims into her cheeks. Her skin prickles as shame and humiliation rise in her chest.
“So what’s he really going to do with the footage?”
Theo’s words from their Crete date loop through her brain.
I can’t even begin to tell you what else I’ve seen on those cams. I witnessed something early this morning in Avi Galev’s suite that is fucking insane—mind-blowing.
“I—I only found out today he’s going to sell it.
For extortion. I would never have helped him if I’d known.
I promise. I believed him that it was all just for his show.
I . . .” Roshaan’s words die on her lips.
She feels so bloody stupid. And she’s not a dumb person.
She’s always thought of herself as intelligent.
Sharp. She did incredibly well at school.
She’s logical. She’s practical—except when it comes to Theo Pappas and his smoldering charm.
His path crossed hers right after she’d come out of a messy relationship.
Her biological clock was ticking off the charts, and she desperately needed affirmation, love, someone to care.
He aimed for all the gaps in her soul. He gave her exactly what she needed. He seduced her with his charm.
“Has he sold it already?”
“I don’t know. I think he’s promised it. They offered him a big sum. As a way to settle gambling debts, in part.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
They torture. Rape. They kill.
Her face goes hotter, and fear rises in her chest and sinks a hatchet into her heart.
“Who!” he barks. She jumps.
“A Moldovan gang. Loan sharks.”
She blinks at him. She thought Avi would erupt in anger, but he doesn’t react at all. Not a flinch, or flicker—no glimmer of any emotion at all. As though he’s trained his whole life for this sort of thing.
. . . hired-killer-type shit. He carries a garrote in his pocket. And some kind of injection pens. God knows what’s in them.
“How long have these devices been surveilling the rooms?”
She clams up. Terrified. Thinking of Theo and his sister and mother having fingers lopped off. The Moldovans coming after her, and her own family.
He lurches to his feet. Before she can blink, his fingers clamp around her neck. She can’t breathe. Panic kicks. Her eyes water. He tightens his grip, his fingers digging into her flesh. Her vision narrows, blackens. Pinpricks of light dance around her vision.
He releases her just as abruptly.
She gasps, chokes, sucks air, coughs, gasps again. Tears stream down her face. Her nose runs. She’s shaking hard, and she’s wet her underwear.
He waits.
She glances hopelessly at the door.
Allah, please, please help me put this right . . .
“How long?”
“Since—since we sailed from Piraeus.”
He nods slowly. “So everything from day one has been recorded—every little thing, every conversation that occurred in each one of these six rooms?”
She nods.
“And Theo will use some of this information in his show? As well as sell it?”
“I—I guess. I—I imagine so. For his second show of the trip. Tomorrow night. The Moonlight & Mentalism Soiree. It’s exclusive for the elite guests. He—he wants this show for the elites to be something spectacular. He’s counting on gratuities.”
“Double dipper.”
She says nothing.
“So how does it work—this mentalism soiree? In detail, please.”
She clears her throat, tries to speak clearly.
“Early in the evening, after we cast off from Kusadasi, I go to each of my elite rooms with trays of silver, gold, and bronze masks. The masks depict personas inspired by Greek mythology. They’ve been crafted to look like actual beaten metal but are very light.
Each guest who’ll be attending the show selects one mask from my trays.
They must wear the mask at the show. Theo will then target certain guests, and verbally unmask them—stripping the personas they have chosen to wear in public, and he’ll disclose their dark secrets.
He—he’s very good. He doesn’t even need to spy.
” Tears begin to well again. “He can read body language. He can tell a lot just from which mask each guest selects, and then how they respond and interact with him during the show.” Roshaan swipes moisture from her face.
“What’s in it for you?”
“Nothing. I swear.”
“So why did you do this for him? Hide these bugs?”
A noise begins in her brain, buzzing, louder and louder as she’s forced to face it, to articulate it. Out loud.
“He . . . gave me a ring.”
Avi’s gaze drops to her fake emerald. Shame swallows her completely.
“Engagement? He promised to marry you? Is that what you needed from him?”
Tears slide down her face and plop onto her hands in her lap. She nods. Her voice comes out small, almost inaudible. “I-it was a mistake.”
He nods slowly.
“Talk to me about the structure of the event—the choreography. Tables? Chairs? Seating arrangements? Timing?”
“It’s like a lounge setup. Intimate. Low lighting.
Little tables in clusters with candles in jars for atmosphere.
A small stage up front with thick velvet curtains on either side, and props.
That’s where Theo starts his performance—he appears from a trapdoor in a puff of silver smoke.
There’s a bar on one side of the room. Servers move through the tables.
Food and specialty cocktails can be ordered. ” Emotion grows thick in her throat.
“Go on.”
She inhales shakily. “His act is in two parts. He targets his big fish first.”
“Big fish?”
“The ones where he thinks he can deliver most impact, reveal bigger, more shocking secrets. He preselects them, does research on them before they even board the ship. Primarily online. Just for background and context—it enables a really powerful performance in the moment, along with all his smoke and mirrors and stage trickery. I . . . I just wish he’d stuck to the real act.
I’m so sorry.” She drops her face into her hands and begins to sob.
Avi waits. When she eases, he says, “Go on.”
Roshaan sniffs, wipes her nose with the base of her thumb.
“There’s an intermission between the two acts.
During the first act, his goal is to wind people up—primarily his ‘big fish’—make them really nervous, or fill them with anticipation—even dread—by starting his reveals, but implying there’s lots, lots more to come.
He delivers his big coups de grace in the second act. ”
“What does Theo do during intermission?”
“He always goes outside to vape, and to mull over what transpired in the first half of his show, and to figure out how to capitalize on it, or leverage it for maximum impact in act two.”
“Vaping is severely restricted on the Orchid, and only permitted at certain hours in small, designated areas on Deck 4 and 9. So where does he go?”
“The lounge theater is on Deck 12. Near the stern. There’s a door onto the deck, and there’s a blind spot on the ship CCTV—just behind one of the lifeboat stations.
It’s partially roped off. The lifeboat and davits create a kind of alcove, and it’s darkly shadowed at night.
He vapes there, where he can’t be seen. In quiet. ”
“How long is he there?”
“I don’t know—maybe fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“You figure he’ll do this tomorrow night?”
She looks down at her hands, her fake ring, draws in a shaky breath, and nods. “He always vapes at intermission.”
“And after?”
“Goes back into makeup. For a refresh. And a drink—something stiff, usually, to ease flow. Then he comes back onstage for his coups de grace.”
“And you attend the show?”
“Usually. Part of it, at least. Several crew members do. We dress up and also wear masks. It helps put the guests in the mood. And he—Theo is always entertaining.” The tears start again.
“Okay,” he says finally. “Right now you’re a dead girl walking, Roshaan. I mean that. If you want to keep walking, this is how it’s going to go.”