Chapter 1
Point Loma, San Diego
Zachary Reed hated civilian dive clubs. Too much small talk. Too many rules. Too many hobbyists who thought a GoPro and a certification card made them Cousteau reincarnate.
He stepped onto the dock, the wood groaning under his boots, and slung his dive bag onto the deck of The Orca Blue—forty feet of diesel-fumed stubbornness, bobbing in the early morning gloom like it had something to prove.
The Pacific stretched out before him, silver and sullen under the marine layer. Gulls screeched. Someone spilled coffee on the gunwale. The usual pre-dive chaos.
And then, like clockwork—
“Try not to break any rules this time, Chief.”
Zach turned, already rolling his eyes.
Veronique Dupont. Dive instructor. Marine biologist. Pain in his ass. She stood at the far end of the deck, cinching down her weight belt with militant precision, her wetsuit hugging every inch of her smug academic righteousness.
God help him, she looked good doing it.
Her eyes—cold blue, almost silver in the gray light—cut through him with surgical disdain.
He smirked. “I don’t break rules. I just test them for structural weaknesses.”
She snorted, already turning away. “Alright, everyone, listen up!”
Zach leaned against the railing as the other divers gathered. The kelp forest briefing was standard—sixty feet depth, decent visibility, stay close to your buddy, don’t tear through the kelp like a wrecking ball.
That last part was aimed at him.
“Sweetheart,” he drawled, “you say that like it’s not half the fun.”
“Try neutral buoyancy sometime. You might live longer.”
The group chuckled. Zach winked at her, but her attention had already shifted.
As the divers prepped, Zach ran a hand over his gear: custom black BC, nitrox tanks, dive knife strapped to his thigh. He felt the water calling. Cool. Quiet. Uncomplicated.
Unlike his current buddy situation.
Normally, he dove with Jesse—easygoing, unflappable, preferred hand signals over sarcasm. But Jesse was out with the flu, which meant Zach was stuck with her.
Vero Dupont: expert in cephalopods, authority on passive-aggressive sighs, and—apparently—the only other diver left without a partner.
She caught him looking. “Don’t do anything reckless,” she said flatly.
“That’s literally my brand.”
She said something in French. Probably a threat. Probably well-deserved.
Ray, the dive master, gave the signal. Divers began to splash overboard.
Zach fitted his regulator, gave Vero a lazy salute, and rolled backward into the deep.
Silence swallowed him.
The water wrapped around his body in a cool, crushing embrace. Sunlight filtered through the kelp canopy above, breaking into fractured beams that danced across the seabed. He exhaled, slow and controlled, bubbles hissing past his ears.
Sixty feet down, the Point Loma Kelp Forest stretched like a submerged cathedral—swaying golden-green fronds, darting fish, shadows deeper than they had any right to be.
Zach leveled out, checking his buoyancy. Behind him, Vero glided into view—sleek, effortless, infuriatingly graceful.
She moved like she belonged down here.
He kicked forward, keeping the pace quick and clean. No sightseeing. No detours. Just finish the loop, log the dive, and get back to dry land before she started naming fish again.
But she didn’t follow.
She stopped.
Hovering above a rock outcrop, adjusting the tiny camera on her wrist, focused on something. She gestured toward him.
Hold. Look.
Zach squinted. A red octopus, nestled tight in the coral, its skin flickering like a broken mood ring. Neat. Weird. Not worth stopping for.
He shook his head.
Keep moving.
She glared.
Look.
He exhaled. Nope.
Go.
She gave him the underwater equivalent of a middle finger.
And then she kicked away. No warning. No signal. Just vanished into the kelp.
Zach’s jaw clenched behind the regulator. What the hell was that?
Leaving your buddy mid-dive was beyond reckless—it was dangerous. Stupid.
Unforgivable.
He swore silently and powered after her, slicing through the forest with long, controlled kicks. The light dimmed. The water thickened.
Then he saw her.
Stopped near a cluster of rocks, headlamp flickering.
Staring at something half-buried in the reef.
He drew closer, and his gut twisted.
Not a fish. Not coral.
A black duffel bag.
Too large. Too still. Too out of place.
She had found something.
Something that shouldn’t be here.
The second Zach spotted the duffel, every alarm bell in his skull went nuclear.
Not just driftwood. Not gear. Not "fun underwater surprise."
It was black, bloated, jammed between the rocks like someone wanted it hidden but still easy to retrieve.
Fuck.
He kicked closer, just in time to watch Vero unzip the thing like she was cracking open a mystery box at a dive expo.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
Silt clouded around her, blooming like smoke. She hovered there like a goddamn tourist with a camera, completely unaware that her curiosity was two seconds from getting them both buried.
And then she saw what was inside.
Her whole body went rigid.
She turned toward him—but too late.
Zach had already seen it.
Plastic-wrapped bricks. Neatly packed.
It wasn’t beach trash.
It wasn’t forgotten cargo.
It was product.
Cartel-grade, "we’ll-kill-you-for-looking-at-it" product.
His jaw clenched behind the regulator. His pulse kicked up into combat rhythm.
Vero looked at him with big panicked eyes like she was surprised. Like she hadn’t just cracked open a Pandora’s duffel in the middle of cartel waters.
And then—
A low hum vibrated through the water.
Zach froze.
Engine.
Close.
His eyes snapped up, scanning the dappled surface through the kelp canopy. A shadow moved across the light—a boat. Fast. Circling.
Fucking hell.
Vero turned and hit him with the diver signal:
Stop. Boat.
Oh, now she wants to use proper dive comms?
Zach answered with the most obvious response:
Stay low.
Not exactly rocket science, but apparently she needed reminding not to make herself bait.
She sank down, her back pressed against the reef, trying to disappear. Bubbles slipped from her regulator in jittery bursts. She was scared. Good. Maybe she’d finally stop poking shit that didn’t belong to her.
He reached for her arm, steady and fast.
Follow me. Now.
She hesitated—of course she did, because apparently hesitation is her love language—but then nodded.
Zach pushed forward, cutting through the kelp like a knife, dragging her behind him. They weren’t just hiding—they were vanishing. No trail. No silhouette. No noise.
Every inch of his training was screaming.
That boat up top? They weren’t out for a Sunday cruise. They were looking for a lost package. And two idiot divers poking around the reef? That made them loose ends.
Zach spotted the overhang and veered toward it.
A narrow cave.
Tight. Cold. Risky.
But safe.
Sort of.
Vero tugged his arm:
No. Bad idea.
He spun on her. His glare could've melted her fins off.
No choice. Hide.
For one blessed second, she shut the hell up and followed.
They slipped into the cave.
The light disappeared like someone cut the line on the sun. The temperature dropped. Every sound became louder, closer, claustrophobic.
Zach floated in place, back to the rock, torch angled low. The cave walls were tight enough to make movement a calculated risk. If either of them panicked, they were getting stuck. But he couldn’t worry about that now.
His fingers brushed Vero’s wrist:
Stay still.
Above them, the boat’s engine shifted—slower now. Closer.
Zach didn’t breathe.
He counted the seconds, tracked the sound.
The boat circled. Once. Twice.
Then silence.
Gone.
He waited. Just in case. Because patience kept you alive.
After two more long, breathless minutes, he turned toward her.
We surface. Slowly.
She nodded.
No argument this time.
They eased out of the cave like ghosts, leaving nothing behind but their own panic hanging in the dark.
Zach’s blood was still roaring as they ascended, controlled and silent. But his brain was already ahead of him.
They’d found something they weren’t supposed to.
Someone had seen them.
And now?
They were fucked.
And he was going to kill that little wetsuit-wrapped menace as soon as they were topside.
* * * * *
The Orca Blue rocked beneath her feet as Vero hauled herself up the dive ladder, Zach’s presence looming behind her like a heat signature she couldn’t shake. She moved on autopilot—fins off, vest unbuckled, gear down—while her brain tried to play dead.
Around them, the dive club buzzed with post-dive chatter. Laughter. Casual gear talk. Someone was offering granola bars like they hadn’t just come seconds from being collateral damage in a cartel logistics chain.
She hated that no one knew.
She hated that Zach fit back in like nothing had happened.
He moved through the deck with that irritating, easy confidence—talking to Ray, helping some rookie with their weight belt, cracking a joke with the deckhand. On the surface, it looked like small talk.
But she was watching closely now.
Zach’s eyes were sharp, constantly scanning—faces, body language, equipment. He was checking for inconsistencies. Gathering data. Working the room like a man trained to extract intel while tying his damn bootlaces.
The realization made her stomach twist.
He wasn’t just cocky. He was skilled.
A predator playing dumb.
And she hated that it made her feel... not safe, exactly, but less doomed.
She clenched her jaw. Maybe he wasn’t the reckless idiot she’d pegged him for.
Maybe he was something a lot more dangerous.
And that? That annoyed the absolute shit out of her.
The sun had dipped low, casting the marina in amber haze by the time the last divers packed up and left. Vero stood next to her old Jeep, keys clenched in her fist, tension coiled tight in her shoulders.
She and Zach were the only ones left.
Of course they were.
He leaned against his black truck like he was modeling for a recruitment ad. Arms crossed. That unreadable SEAL expression on his face.
Not watching her, exactly.
Watching everything.
She turned toward him, dry. “You don’t have to babysit me.”
Zach pushed off the truck, sauntering closer. “Not babysitting. Just making sure you don’t get jumped by guys with boats and bad intentions.”
She rolled her eyes. “Right. Because cartel hitmen are really into stakeouts in dive club parking lots.”
He didn’t laugh.
That was... unsettling.
She glanced at him again, half-expecting a smug comeback, but he wasn’t posturing. He wasn’t smirking.
He was watching. Quiet. Still. Anchored.
And for the first time, she saw it.
Zach wasn’t just some arrogant SEAL with too many knives and not enough boundaries.
He was a protector.
Not in the macho, action-figure way. Not even to prove a point.
He just did it.
Because it was who he was.
And that scared her more than the drugs, more than the boat, more than the fact that someone out there might already be trying to match her face to a bag of cartel product.
Because if Zach was real... she might actually have to trust him.
She turned sharply, wrenching the Jeep’s door open. “I don’t need a bodyguard, Reed.”
But of course he had to ruin it.
“Could’ve fooled me,” he said, voice just light enough to be dangerous. “You were clinging to me pretty tight in that cave.”
Her spine went straight. “Excuse me?”
He grinned. God, that grin. It was made for getting punched.
“Don’t worry. Happens all the time. Life-threatening situations make women a little clingy. I’m used to it.”
Her grip on the door handle tightened like she could rip it off and beat him with it.
“You are such an unbelievable asshole.”
He stepped back, hands up in mock surrender, smug and infuriating and somehow still managing to look protective even while being unbearable.
“Drive safe, sweetheart.”
She didn’t answer. Just flipped him off, slammed the door, and tore out of the lot like she was burning rubber over his face.
Because for one horrifying second—just one—
She had almost liked him.
Almost.