Coordinates of the Lie
Leo Lubavitch

© Leo Lubavitch, 2026

ISBN 978-5-0069-4578-4

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

Chapter 1. The Gilded Cage

The conditioned air in the boardroom on the eightieth floor of the Kronos Group tower was so sterile it felt dead. Beyond the panoramic glazing, the metropolis lay spread out like a construction set scattered across a rug. From this bird’s-eye view, people were invisible, their fates insignificant.

Lara sat at the head of the ebony table. Her spine was pulled taut as a bowstring, her face betraying nothing but polite professional interest. Her hair was styled to perfection, not a strand out of place; her Armani suit fit like a second skin. She was the standard, the icon, the deity of this technocratic pantheon.

«Optimizing human resources will allow us to cut costs by fifteen percent in the first quarter,» the CFO droned monotonously, flipping through holographic slides.

Lara gave a barely perceptible nod. Twelve people sat around the table. The twelve apostles of profit. They weren’t just discussing numbers right now. They were carving up the carcass of a beast they hadn’t even killed yet.

«What’s the status on Project Steppe?» Her voice rang out evenly, slicing through the silence.

Mike took the floor – her deputy. And the man who, just a month ago, had been warming her bed. He leaned back in his chair with an air of lazy arrogance, toying with a gold pen.

«We’re all set, Lara. The geologists confirmed the rare-earth metal deposits. It’s a jackpot. The only problem is the Altyn-Emel National Park in Kazakhstan. It’s a protected zone – unique singing dunes, some sort of rare fauna.»

«And how do we solve this ’problem’?» Lara asked, feeling a knot of cold dread forming in her stomach.

«The lobbyists are already on it,» Mike smiled, a look that resembled the bared teeth of a well-fed shark. «We’ll prove the environmental impact is minimal. And then… who’s going to count lizards when we’re talking about billions? We’ll just level the landscape, gut the earth, and pave over the whole thing with concrete.»

Mike caught her eye and winked. Smug. Conspiratorial. As if inviting her to be an accomplice in the rape of the natural world.

In that moment, something clicked in Lara’s mind. Loudly, like a gunshot. The voices around her – the figures, the percentages, the plans for destruction – suddenly merged into a piercing white noise. The blood drained from her face. She lowered her gaze and saw her reflection in the black polish of the table.

A stranger looked back at her. A woman with the eyes of a dead fish. This wasn’t Lara. It was a shell, a hollow doll that had wasted ten years of life raising this monster – the Kronos Group. Nausea rose in her throat, bitter and viscous.

«Your grandfather was a romantic, Lara,» came the raspy voice of the board’s oldest member, jarring her from her trance. «But romance doesn’t pay dividends. We’ll commence construction shortly. The bulldozers are already at the park’s border.»

Lara inhaled slowly. The air smelled of ozone and expensive leather, yet all she could smell was rot.

«I need five minutes,» she said, standing up. «Carry on without me.»

«Everything okay?» Mike raised an eyebrow.

«Perfect,» she tossed over her shoulder without turning.

She didn’t head for the ladies’ room. Her heels rang sharply down the hallway leading to the east wing. To the place where time had stopped.

The office of the company’s founder – her grandfather – had been preserved like a museum. Only a handful of people had access, and only via biometrics. Lara pressed her palm to the scanner. A bar of green light swept across her skin, the lock clicked, and the heavy oak door swung inward.

She stepped inside and immediately closed the door behind her. The smell here was different. Old paper, tobacco, and, somehow, the sea. The scent of adventure she had traded for EBITDA charts.

Lara didn’t waste time on sentimentality. She walked to the bookcase crammed with volumes on archaeology and history. Her fingers unerringly found the spine she needed. The safe was hidden behind a false panel.

The digital display demanded a code. Lara entered the numbers quickly, without thinking. 12051991. Her date of birth. Her grandfather had trusted only her.

The mechanism turned. Inside, bundles of bonds and stock certificates glimmered dully – worth a fortune. Lara didn’t spare them a glance. She reached her hand deeper in, feeling for a ridge at the bottom of the safe. A click. The false bottom lifted.

There it was. A battered leather journal, bound with twine. Officially, it had been «lost» during her grandfather’s last expedition in 1995. The one he came back from a completely different man.

With trembling fingers, Lara untied the twine. The pages were yellowed, filled with a sweeping hand. She opened it at the bookmark – a worn airline ticket.

A map. A hand-drawn sketch of a region. And coordinates.

Across the map, in red ink, in her grandfather’s handwriting, was scrawled: «Never develop. Too dangerous. Hide from the board. This is not metals. This is a story that could destroy the world if it falls into Kronos’s hands.»

Lara’s heart was pounding somewhere up in her throat. She pressed the journal to her chest. The rough leather scraped her silk blouse, and that tactile jolt felt more real than the entire glass skyscraper around her. She slipped the journal under her blazer, holding it to her heart like a shield.

«I won’t let them destroy this, Grandpa,» she whispered into the empty office. «I won’t become one of them.»

The private elevator carried her down, swallowing floors as it went. From the eightieth to sublevel three – the parking garage. She had less than two minutes.

Lara pulled out her smartphone – the latest flagship model her company had released just a week ago. The perfect tracking device people willingly carried in their pockets.

Her fingers flew across the screen.

Bank app. Offshore account in the Caymans. Voice-key access only.

«Transfer all personal funds. Confirmed,» Lara said, her voice steady.

Transaction complete.

Now Kronos security would have no leverage over her. But that wasn’t enough. They’d trace her location in seconds.

The elevator doors opened onto the half-lit underground parking lot. Lara stepped into the lobby, pulling a sharp hairpin from her updo as she walked. Freed from its strict constraints, her hair tumbled over her shoulders in a dark wave.

She pried open the SIM card slot. The tiny plastic rectangle fell into her palm. Lara drove the tip of the pin hard into the chip. It cracked with a faint crunch. The pin slipped, stabbing into the pad of her thumb.

A bright red bead of blood welled up. Vivid, alive. The pain brought her fully back to herself. Blood was the only real thing left in this place.

Lara walked over to a concrete trash can by a support column. The two-thousand-dollar smartphone clattered into the bin, hitting the metal bottom. Her smartwatch followed.

She slid into her sports roadster waiting in the shadows. The engine roared to life, echoing off the concrete walls.

Only one thought pulsed in her mind, sharp and clear as a beacon:

«If I don’t disappear now, I’ll be trapped here forever. I’ll become one of them. A dead doll in an expensive suit.»

Lara slammed her foot down on the gas. The barrier lifted, releasing her from the glass prison into the real world – dangerous, and alive.

Out on the city’s edge, the rain was meaner than downtown. Here, at the old private airfield, the air smelled of wet concrete, cheap aviation fuel, and hopelessness. Lara left the car by the chain-link fence. Kronos would locate the roadster within an hour, but by then her trail needed to be cold.

Her private jet waited in another terminal, gleaming white and ready to take off at the first call. Stepping on board would be the same as snapping the cuffs on herself. She headed the other way, toward the rusted hangars where small cargo planes and «gray» charters were based.

The wind whipped the edges of her blazer and slapped wet strands of hair into her face. She walked fast, stepping over oil slicks in her Italian heels, which looked as out of place here as a diamond in the mud.

By one of the hangars, an old twin-engine freighter was warming up its engines. A man in a worn leather jacket was smoking nearby, shielding the tip of his cigarette with his palm. Weather-beaten face, eyes sharp and heavy.

Lara came right up to him.

«Where you headed?»

The pilot exhaled a slow stream of smoke, giving her a once-over from head to toe.

«Hanoi, with a refuel in Dushanbe. Why, ma’am? You’re lost. VIP lounge is about three miles north.»

«I need a seat. Now.»

The man let out a rough laugh and flicked his cigarette to the ground.

«This isn’t a cab and it’s not a tour bus. We’re hauling drilling equipment. No seats. No insurance. And no desire to babysit a princess in a three-thousand-dollar suit.»

Lara didn’t blink. She slipped the watch off her wrist. Patek Philippe Nautilus, platinum, diamonds. Worth about as much as a small house in the suburbs. She held it out to him. The metal caught a dull glint from the lone floodlight.

«That’ll cover the fuel. And your silence. No flight records with my name on them. I’m just cargo.»

The smirk faded from his face. He took the watch, weighed it in his palm, appraised the movement like a pro. Greed and caution wrestled in his eyes for all of three seconds. Greed won.

«Get in,» he grunted, nodding at the open ramp. «If you freeze or go deaf, that’s on you. Wheels up in five.»

The cargo hold was dim and cold. Lara found a relatively clean spot on a wooden crate marked «Fragile.» She drew her knees up to her chest, trying to hold on to what warmth she could.

The engines roared, and the plane shuddered like it had a fever. The takeoff was rough, heavy-handed. This wasn’t the silky ascent of a business jet where you hardly feel the moment you leave the ground. Here, gravity slammed her into the hard bulkhead, a reminder that flying is nothing but a fight against nature.

When the landing gear thudded up into the bays, Lara finally exhaled. She pulled her grandfather’s journal out from under her blazer. In the dim glow of the emergency light, the pages looked almost orange. She flipped through the entries, and suddenly a black-and-white photograph slipped from the middle of the block.

Lara caught it midair. Judging by the clothes, the picture had been taken in the early nineties. Three people stood against the backdrop of a desert dig site. Her grandfather – still sturdy, a mischievous squint in his eyes. Her father – very young, smiling that open, easy smile she had almost forgotten.

And the third.

A tall man, his face circled thickly in red marker. The ink had soaked into the paper like blood.

Lara turned the photo over. On the back, in her grandfather’s shaky hand, it read:

«Trust no one who wears this mark. They’re watching. They’re always close.»

Beside the note was a rough sketch of a symbol: an eye inside a triangle, but the pupil of the eye was slashed through with a lightning bolt. A strange, ominous sign she had never seen before. Or had she? A vague deja vu jabbed at her mind.

She leaned her forehead against the cold window. Below, the megacity sprawled – a giant glowing web, its highways pulsing like veins. The city she controlled was shrinking into a toy circuitry diagram.

«I got out,» Lara whispered, watching the lights of Kronos Group vanish into the clouds. «You won’t be able to reach me.»

She believed that. She was smarter than they were. She had calculated every move.

There was only one thing she didn’t know.

On the ring finger of her right hand, an elegant sapphire ring gleamed – a gift from the head of security on the company’s tenth anniversary. «A modest souvenir for our queen,» he’d said.

Deep in the setting, beneath the gemstone, a tiny tracker the size of a grain of rice had awakened. It had been triggered by the pressure drop at takeoff. A second later, cutting through the interference of the cargo hold, the signal pinged the Kronos server.

On the massive monitor in the very room she’d left an hour earlier, a red dot lit up.

The web had not released its prey. The hunt had only just begun.

Chapter 2. Island of Oblivion

Forty-eight hours.

That’s exactly how long it had been since Lara stepped into the void, leaving behind her empire, her identity, her life. Now she was at the edge of the world – a tiny island in the Palau archipelago, where time moved like thick, sticky syrup instead of a fast, digital stream.

The heat here felt physical. It pressed against her temples, glued the cheap cotton sheet to her skin, and turned the air into hot soup. The stilted bungalow had no AC, just a ceiling fan lazily grinding through the humidity with a rhythmic, maddening squeak.

Lara lay on the bed, staring up at the bamboo ceiling. The ocean was roaring right under the floor. In travel brochures they called it «the soothing whisper of the waves.» To Lara, it was chaos. Unregulated, loud, meaningless noise. The ocean had no schedule, no mute button, no quarterly reports. It lived by its own rules, and that irritated her down to her molars.

She tried to focus on the paperback she’d grabbed from the airport book-swap shelf. A mystery novel. Boring. Predictable.

Her left hand twitched. Her gaze shot to her wrist.

Empty.

Where the titanium body of her smartwatch had sat for years, there was only a pale band of untanned skin. A phantom vibration flickered along her nerves. Her brain craved its fix of data: stock quotes, urgent emails from legal, meeting reminders, heart rate, step count.

Nothing. Silence. Digital withdrawal was worse than nicotine.

Lara flung the book onto the floor. She stood up with sharp, clipped movements, like she was in a crisis war room, not a beach shack.

Her grandfather’s journal. It burned her hands even through the cover. Leaving it in her suitcase was out of the question. Too obvious.

She pulled out the bottom drawer of the dresser and flipped it over. The roll of tape she’d bought at the local shop peeled off with a nasty tear. Lara taped the journal to the underside of the drawer’s bottom. Secure. If someone just rifled through her things, they wouldn’t find it.

But it wasn’t enough.

Paranoia, her new loyal companion, whispered in her ear: «They’re already here. They’re looking.»

Lara filled a glass with water to the brim and set it on the floor right up against the door, so that the slightest movement of the door would knock it over. Simple, old-school alarm system. The sound of shattering glass or splashing water would wake her faster than any ringtone.

Someone knocked.

Lara froze. Her muscles turned to stone. Her hand instinctively reached for the fruit knife lying on the table.

«Miss Eva?» The voice outside was soft, sing-song. «Room cleaning. Fresh towels.»

Lara stayed silent. Eva. That’s right. Her name was Eva now. The name of the first woman, the name of beginnings. But it fit her like someone else’s dress borrowed off someone else’s shoulders – awkward and false. She didn’t feel like an Eva. She was still Lara – the empress of the corporate world, just without weapons or a budget.

«Miss Eva? You there?»

Lara exhaled, letting go of the knife handle.

«Leave it by the door,» she called. Her voice came out hoarse. «I don’t need anything. Go away.»

Footsteps faded, slapping along the wooden walkway. Lara rested her forehead against the wall. Getting out of the office had been easy. Evicting the CEO from her own head was proving almost impossible.

By evening, hunger had grown stronger than fear. Her stomach cramped – she hadn’t eaten real food in two days, surviving on duty-free protein bars.

Lara got dressed. A simple sand-colored linen dress she’d bought at the local market for five dollars. No makeup. Her hair twisted into a messy bun. She looked into the cloudy mirror. She could pass for any tired tourist, worn out from a long flight.

But the moment she straightened up, the illusion shattered. Her posture. That damned steel rod inside, forged by years of meetings and public appearances. She didn’t know how to slouch. She didn’t know how to walk loose and easy. Even in cheap linen she looked like she was about to fire half the island.

Lara stepped out into the thick tropical night.

The Rusty Anchor bar sat at the far end of the beach strip. It wasn’t one of those glossy traps for rich tourists with thirty-dollar cocktails. It was a hole. Ship-plank walls, fishing net drooping from the ceiling, the smell of fried fish, cheap beer, and old tobacco.

Exactly what she needed. No one here was looking for the CEO of a tech giant.

Lara went inside. Loud music – a mashup of reggae and early-200s pop – slammed into her ears. The place was crowded: tanned divers, loud expats, local fishermen.

She didn’t go up to the bar. Too exposed. Too vulnerable.

The eyes that were used to scanning charts and reports were now scanning the room for threats.

One entrance. Windows without bars. Emergency exit – through the kitchen.

Subjects:

Group on the left – drunk Aussies. Safe.

Couple in the corner – lovers. Safe.

Solo guy at the bar…

Lara’s gaze lingered. Straight back, clothes too clean for this place. No, he turned his head – just an ordinary face, bored expression. False alarm.

She slipped into the darkest corner of the room and sat with her back to the wall. It was the only spot that let her control the entrance and keep the whole bar in sight. The instincts of hunted prey were working flawlessly.

A waitress approached with a notepad.

«What can I get you, hon? We’ve got great tuna tonight.»

«Water,» Lara said crisply. «Sealed bottle. Factory cap. Bring it closed, I’ll open it myself.»

The waitress blinked, surprised, but nodded.

«And the tuna. Grilled, no sauce. And the check right away.»

Lara didn’t even look at her.

The bar reeked of smoke and the sweetish stench of tropical rot, cut with cheap perfume. Perfect camouflage. She leaned back in the wooden chair, never losing her grip on the room. In the eyes that used to track seven-figure profits, there was now only the cold glint of a cornered predator.

«Here’s your water,» the waitress said, setting the bottle down hard enough to almost crack the glass. «On vacation? You look like you’re running from someone.»

Lara lifted her gaze. The waitress – a stocky local woman with kind eyes – was looking at her without a hint of gloating. Just plain curiosity.

«Yeah,» Lara whispered, snapping the plastic seal. «Vacation. From the whole world.»

The Rusty Anchor was exactly the kind of place the Lara from her old life would’ve ordered bulldozed for violating every health code in existence. It smelled of burnt oil, cheap tobacco, and sour beer. The ceiling fan lazily pushed the heavy tropical air around without making it any cooler.

Lara sat in the shadows, and even though she’d traded her Armani suit for plain linen, it hadn’t made her any less visible. Her posture gave her away. Her gaze, trained to skim reports and fire people, sliced through the room. She was a diamond dropped into a pile of smashed beer-bottle glass.

The danger didn’t come from Kronos Group security, the ones she was afraid of. The threat wore an expensive watch and smelled of the very world she was running from.

The group of men at the next table was laughing too loud. Polo shirts with designer logos gaping at the neck, faces shiny from heat and booze. «Corporate offsite,» Lara thought with disgust. «Middle managers who feel like kings of the universe as soon as they land in a third-world country.»

One of them, a heavy-set man with a flushed face and hair plastered down with sweat, broke away from the pack. He swayed, struggling to keep his balance, and headed straight for her. His eyes held that same clammy arrogance that always made Lara sick to her stomach during board meetings.

He slumped into the plastic chair opposite her without asking.

«Hey, gorgeous, why all alone?» His speech was slightly slurred, but a greasy smile played on his lips. «You look way too expensive for a dump like this. Lose your five-star hotel?»

Lara didn’t even blink. She slowly raised her gaze from her glass of water.

«I’m not looking for company. And you’d better get back to your friends while you can still walk straight.»

The man chuckled as if she’d just told a hilarious joke.

«Oh, feisty! I like that. Don’t be a bitch, let’s have a drink. It’s on me. They probably don’t have Veuve Clicquot here, but I can order us something a little more fun.»

He reached across the table and covered her hand with his damp palm.

«Come on, babe. Don’t play hard to get.»

A cold coil tightened inside Lara. Years of Krav Maga training, taken just to blow off steam, suddenly felt more relevant than ever. She knew exactly what to do. Grab the thumb, a sharp twist outward, palm strike to the nose. Three seconds, and he’d be on the floor, choking on his own blood.

Her muscles tensed. She had already started the motion, ready to snap his finger…

But the strike wasn’t necessary.

The air around their table shifted. It felt suddenly crowded. Someone had approached from behind, but so silently that Lara only noticed him when a shadow fell across the table.

She looked up and saw him for the first time.

He was the exact opposite of the office drone currently gripping her wrist. Tall, sinewy, and tanned so dark it was as if his skin had soaked up the sun of every ocean in the world. He wore only faded board shorts hanging low on his hips and a simple white tank top. Barefoot, his feet were broad and steady, accustomed to hot sand and ship decks.

On his right shoulder, snaking out from under the tank top, was an intricate Polynesian tribal design – black lines, sharp as shark teeth.

He looked like a typical beach bum, a surfer living from wave to wave. But Lara, used to sizing people up in a split second, saw something else.

He stood completely relaxed, but within that ease lurked the readiness of a cobra about to strike. His eyes – unnaturally light against his dark face – betrayed nothing. No anger, no irritation. Just the icy calm of a predator who knows his prey isn’t going anywhere.

The stranger didn’t raise his voice. He simply placed a heavy hand on the drunken manager’s shoulder. It looked light, almost friendly. But Lara saw his knuckles turn white as he squeezed, digging his fingers into the man’s trapezius muscle.

«Buddy,» the guy’s voice was soft, quiet, almost affectionate. Like the low rumble of surf before a storm. «You’re in my seat.»

The tourist jerked, trying to shrug off the hand, but the grip was like iron. He whipped around, ready to protest, but the words died in his throat the moment he met the «surfer’s» gaze.

«And you’re breathing my air,» the guy continued in that same silky tone, leaning in close to the man’s ear. «Too loud, and too often. Fix it. Now.»

There was so much latent, concentrated threat in his voice that the alcohol fog in the tourist’s brain cleared instantly. He paled, his eyes darting around nervously. He snatched his hand back from Lara’s wrist as if he’d been burned.

«I… I was just trying to be friendly,» he stammered, standing up and clumsily banging his chair into the next table. «No problem, man. We’re good.»

«Sure we are,» the guy smiled, but the smile never reached his eyes. «As long as you keep walking in the other direction.»

Backing away, the tourist hurried over to his group, frantically explaining something to his friends. Within a minute, they had settled their tab and cleared out of the bar.

The guy watched them go, then turned back to Lara. The predator’s mask vanished, replaced by lazy curiosity. He sank into the empty chair, rested one ankle on his knee, and looked at her as if he could see right through her.

«Don’t mention it,» he said, nodding to the bartender for a beer. «Although, judging by the way your forearm tensed up, you were about to break his finger. I just saved his insurance company the paperwork.»

Lara rubbed her wrist, feeling the adrenaline slowly recede, only to be replaced by a new sensation – wariness. This guy was more dangerous than a dozen drunk tourists put together.

«I didn’t ask for help,» she replied coldly.

«I noticed,» the guy chuckled. «But breaking tourists’ bones in this bar is bad luck. Ruins the karma and the taste of the cocktails. I’m Alex, by the way.»

Their eyes locked. And Lara realized: her disguise, her cover story, her «ordinariness» – it all crumbled to dust before this barefoot man with the eyes of a killer and the smile of a slacker.

The air between them grew heavy, charged with static like the atmosphere before a storm on the open sea. Lara felt her self-control – her primary armor – beginning to crack under the stranger’s mocking yet terrifyingly perceptive gaze. Alex wasn’t looking at her like a woman on the run; he was looking at her like a fascinating puzzle he couldn’t wait to solve.

She shot to her feet, nearly knocking over the rickety bamboo chair. Her survival instinct, which had slumbered through board meetings, was now wide awake in this godforsaken bar on the edge of the jungle, screaming at the top of its lungs: Run.

Lara shoved her hand into her pocket, her fingers brushing against cash. Without looking, she tossed a bill onto the sticky tabletop. It was a hundred dollars – a fortune in a dive like this, where beer cost pennies. Another mistake. The rich girl trying to play invisible, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs made of gold.

Alex slowly shifted his gaze from the bill to her face. The corner of his mouth quirked up.

«Generous,» he drawled, making no move to stand. «Is that for the beer, or compensation for having to endure my company?»

«Keep the change,» Lara snapped.

She leaned in, invading his personal space to give her words weight, but immediately regretted it. He smelled of sea salt, cheap tobacco, and danger. The scent hit her, triggering an unbidden rush of dizziness.

«Stay away from me,» she said quietly, her voice laced with icy steel. «I’m not looking for friends. And I’m definitely not looking for trouble with some beach bum.»

«Funny,» he replied, his voice dropping an octave, becoming low and velvety. «I thought you were looking for exactly the kind of person who could help you vanish.»

Lara’s heart skipped a beat. And not from the fear of being exposed. It was chemistry – raw and completely inappropriate. His gaze slid down her neck, lingering on the hollow of her throat where her pulse hammered. She felt the look physically, as if he’d brushed a hot palm against her skin.

She spun on her heels, which snagged slightly on the rough floorboards, and stormed toward the exit, shoving past sweaty tourists. Her back burned. She knew he was watching. She could feel his gaze tracing her spine.

The stifling night heat hit her the moment she stepped over the threshold. Cicadas were screaming like mad, drowning out the sound of the surf. Lara picked up her pace, breaking into a near-run as she tried to dissolve into the darkness of the narrow streets. She needed to wash away this sticky fear – and this strange, unsettling desire.

Inside the Rusty Anchor, the music kept pounding, oblivious to the fact that it was down one patron.

Alex stayed put at his table. The «beach bum» slouch vanished the second the rickety door slammed shut behind Lara. He squared his shoulders. His eyes, warm and mocking just a moment ago, turned cold and calculating – like the crosshairs of a sniper scope.

He ignored the rest of his beer. Instead, he reached into the pocket of his frayed shorts and pulled out not a smartphone, but an old, reliable flip phone with an encrypted line. No GPS. No digital footprint.

The snap of the phone opening sounded like a hammer being cocked. He hit a single speed-dial button.

«Contact made,» Alex said, staring at the empty chair she’d occupied just moments before. «Target is in sight.»

Silence on the line, followed by a brief question from his handler.

Alex smirked, recalling the fire in her eyes and the slight tremor in her hand as she tossed the cash.

«She’s here. Nervous. Making mistakes. Way too conspicuous… but beautiful. Damn beautiful, even when she’s trying to be a bitch.»

He paused, drumming his fingers on the table next to the hundred-dollar bill she’d left behind.

«Initiating the approach phase tomorrow. She’ll take the bait. She doesn’t have a choice.»

Alex slowly stubbed out his cigarette on the tabletop, grinding the butt into the wood with methodical cruelty. A thin wisp of smoke drifted up to the ceiling and dissolved. The meeting hadn’t been a coincidence. The trap had snapped shut before the prey had even entered the woods.

Chapter 3. The Art of Chance

The tropical heat on this island wasn’t just a weather phenomenon. It was a living entity – sticky, heavy, and intrusive. It seeped through the thin linen of her shirt, muddled her thoughts, and turned Lara’s normally flawless logic into thick, slow-moving syrup.

She was driving a rented Jeep Wrangler – a rusted bucket of bolts that looked like it remembered the Vietnam War. Air conditioning was a luxury that hadn’t made the cut on this model. Lara white-knuckled the steering wheel, checking the map on the passenger seat. The GPS on her phone had died half an hour ago, leaving her one-on-one with the jungle.

Ahead, a curve appeared, shaped like a coiled snake – the exact spot marked with an X on her map. Lara floored the gas, hoping to skip over a rough patch, but the Jeep suddenly sputtered, convulsed in agony, and died.

«No, no, not now!» Lara slammed her palm against the steering wheel.

She turned the key. Silence. Only the drone of cicadas, which sounded suspiciously like mocking laughter.

Lara got out and yanked the hood open. A wave of heat and the smell of burning rubber hit her face. She stared at the tangled mess of tubes and wires with the same expression an uncontacted tribesman might have upon seeing a steam engine for the first time. In her world, problems were solved by a call to tech support or by firing the person responsible. Here, the only person to fire was herself.

Sweat trickled down her spine. Her «Zen,» which she had been so painstakingly trying to find since her escape, evaporated in a heartbeat.

In the distance, a low rumble began to build. A minute later, a motorcyclist shot around the bend. The bike was a perfect match for the island – a custom Scrambler, covered in scratches and dust. The rider, wearing a faded tank top and a helmet, sped past, engulfing Lara in a cloud of red dust.

«Great,» she hissed, coughing. «Just perfect.»

But the engine note changed. The biker throttled down, arced back around, and slowly idled up to her stalled Jeep. He killed the engine, pulled off his helmet, and shook his head. Hair, bleached by the sun to the color of straw, fell across his forehead.

It was Alex. The same guy she’d met at the bar. He looked like the classic slacker: deep tan, three-day stubble, and that irritating ease of a man who has never known a deadline in his life.

«Looks like your carriage turned into a pumpkin a little before midnight,» he said, swinging a leg off the bike. His voice was husky and calm.

«Battery’s dead,» Lara tossed out, trying to sound confident even though she didn’t have a clue what was wrong. «Or maybe the spark plugs.»

Alex walked up to the open hood, moving with the lazy grace of a predator. Lara had no idea that this «random» passerby had spent three minutes with this Jeep last night while she slept. One deft turn of a wrench, and the battery terminal had been loosened just enough for the vibration of the rough roads to break the connection completely. The art of the accident.

«Doubt it’s the plugs,» Alex said, sticking his head under the hood. «Let me take a look.»

Lara took a step back, crossing her arms over her chest. She hated depending on anyone. Especially a guy who looked like his biggest problem in life was deciding which wave to surf.

Alex plunged his hand into the tangle of wires. He knew exactly where to reach.

«You got a coin?» he asked without turning around.

«What?»

«A coin. Any spare change.»

Lara dug around in the pocket of her shorts and held out a local peso. Alex took it. Their fingers brushed for a split second. His skin was rough, hot, and greasy.

He used the coin as a makeshift screwdriver, tightening the terminal he’d loosened himself. A spark jumped, and like magic, the Jeep’s engine roared to life, settling into a steady purr.

«Voila,» Alex straightened up, wiping his hands on a rag he pulled from the back pocket of his jeans. «Loose connection. Happens on these roads. The shaking is enough to rattle the fillings out of your teeth.»

Lara stared at the running engine, feeling a mix of relief and wounded pride. He’d fixed it in two minutes. A problem that had felt like a catastrophe to her.

Out of habit, she reached for her purse on the seat. Old reflexes die hard. In Lara’s world, time was money, and help was a service to be paid for so you didn’t owe anyone a thing.

She pulled out a hundred-dollar bill – enough for a local family to live on for a month.

«Thanks,» she said dryly, holding out the cash. «Take it. For your trouble.»

Alex froze. He looked at the crisp green bill, then shifted his gaze to Lara’s face. Something hard flashed in his eyes, something that didn’t belong to a carefree surfer, but it was instantly replaced by a mocking glint.

«Put that away.» He didn’t even raise his hand.

«It’s a hundred dollars. That’s more than enough for two minutes of work,» Lara frowned. She wasn’t used to having her money ignored.

Alex chuckled and took a step closer, invading her personal space. He smelled of the ocean, gasoline, and a kind of danger Lara couldn’t quite identify yet.

«That piece of paper is useless out here, Princess. There are no currency exchanges in the jungle, and the monkeys don’t take tips.»

«I’m not a princess. I just want to pay you for your help. I don’t like owing favors.»

«Then we have a problem,» he said, sliding on his helmet and hiding the mocking glint in his eyes behind the dark visor. «Because I’m not taking your money. But you can buy me a beer. Tonight. The Rusty Anchor, down by the coast. That is, if you can find the way and your Jeep doesn’t decide to take another nap.»

«I don’t go to bars with strangers,» Lara snapped.

«And I don’t fix cars for strangers who throw money around, but I guess today’s a day for exceptions,» Alex’s voice came out muffled from inside the helmet. «See you tonight, Lara.»

He kicked the starter. The bike roared to life, kicking up a cloud of dust, and Alex sped off, leaving her standing in the middle of the road with a useless hundred-dollar bill in her hand.

Lara coughed, waving her hand in front of her face.

«How does he know my name?» she whispered into the empty air as the dust settled. «I never told him.»

A chill ran down her spine, despite the sweltering heat. She slowly tucked the bill back into her pocket. The instincts that had saved her in the boardroom were screaming danger. But her curiosity was screaming even louder.

He’d refused the money. He’d broken the script. And he knew her name.

Lara got into the car and shifted decisively into gear. The Rusty Anchor. Well, it looked like she had plans for the evening after all.

Twilight draped over the island like a thick, humid blanket. The Rusty Anchor looked like a pile of shipwreck debris that had washed ashore and been haphazardly nailed together. It smelled of cheap tobacco, over-fried fish, salt, and freedom – the kind that catches in your throat. Strings of colored lights, half of them burnt out since last season, swayed in the wind, casting jagged shadows across the sand.

Lara stepped inside, feeling like a foreign object. Her pantsuit, though rumpled, still screamed money, power, and air-conditioned offices. She hadn’t come here for the booze. The silence in her rented bungalow rang in her ears louder than sirens, and the loneliness had turned out to be far more terrifying than any board of directors.

In the center of the room, around a rough-hewn oak table, chaos and laughter ruled. Alex sat surrounded by local fishermen, holding court like the king of the drifters. Sun-bleached hair, a broad smile, an unbuttoned linen shirt. He was telling a story, gesturing wildly, and the fishermen exploded with laughter, clapping him on the back. He was one of them. As organic to this place as the sand, as the ocean itself.

Lara froze by the bar. She suddenly felt an unbearable urge to be part of that simple, understandable world.

Alex clocked her in his peripheral vision. A professional habit – tracking every new object in the perimeter. But he didn’t turn around. He didn’t rush over. He let her study him, let her make the first move. It was classic recruitment tactics: let the target feel like they’re in the driver’s seat.

Lara ordered two beers. The cold glass sweated in her palm. She walked over to the table.

«I owe you a drink,» she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

Alex turned his head slowly. His eyes, the color of a stormy sea, slid over her with lazy interest. He excused himself to the fishermen, grabbed his own bottle, and nodded toward an empty table in the corner, away from the noise.

They sat down. A palm tree’s shadow and an awkward silence fell between them.

«They don’t serve craft beer here,» Alex broke the silence, taking a swig straight from the bottle. «Just local swill that leaves your head heavier than an anchor in the morning. But you don’t care right now, do you?»

Lara tensed, then forced her shoulders to relax.

«What makes you say that?»

«You have the look of someone who just jumped off a speeding train,» he smirked, but there was no mockery in it, only understanding. «You’re looking at the ocean, but you don’t see it. You’re still back wherever you ran from.»

He spoke softly, his words wrapping around her. He mirrored her posture – leaning forward slightly, arms crossed on the table. Creating an illusion of intimacy.

«I’m just tired,» Lara replied evasively.

«Tiredness is cured by sleep,» he countered. «What you have is only cured by a change of identity. You know, I’ve seen plenty like you. They come here, buy flowery shirts, drink rum, and try to forget their mortgages and divorces. But running from yourself is the most expensive sport there is. You pay with your soul, and all you get in return is winded.»

The phrase knocked the wind out of Lara. Precise, brutal, right to the heart. She drew in a sharp breath. How could this beach bum read her so well in two minutes?

«Are you a philosopher, Alex?» she asked, trying to regain control of the conversation.

«I’m an observer, Lara. Just an observer.»

Her name sounded casual. Easy. As if they’d known each other forever.

Lara froze. Her fingers gripping the bottle turned white. A knot of ice tightened in her stomach. She hadn’t told him her real name. To the pilot, she was «cargo»; to the bungalow receptionist, she was «Eva.»

He knows. He’s no surfer. He is someone else entirely.

Alex felt the shift instantly. The air between them crackled with electricity. Her pupils dilated, and the muscles in her neck pulled tight.

Too soon, he thought. I pushed too hard, too soon.

«How do you know my name?» Her voice dropped to a whisper, but there was steel in it. Her hand slipped unnoticed from the table toward her purse and the pepper spray inside – her only weapon.

Alex didn’t flinch. Slowly, careful not to spook her, he reached into the pocket of his shorts.

«Easy, easy,» he said, his tone soothing. «No need to get paranoid. I’m not the kind of guy you think I am.»

«How. Do. You. Know. My. Name?» she enunciated, biting off each word.

Instead of answering, Alex pulled out his smartphone. The screen flared to life in the dim bar, casting a glow on his face and highlighting that sugary, disarming smile. He turned the phone toward her.

A news aggregator was open on the screen. A massive headline screamed in bold type:

«DISAPPEARANCE OF THE CENTURY: KRONOS GROUP CEO LARA WEISS MISSING. COMPANY SHARES PLUMMET 15%.»

Below it was her photo. Official, glossy, staring out at the world like a predator. The polar opposite of the frightened woman currently sitting across from him at the Rusty Anchor.

«You’re a star, sweetheart,» Alex stated mockingly, putting the phone away. «Your face is on every screen from Tokyo to New York right now. Hard to stay incognito when you’re worth a hundred billion dollars.»

Lara exhaled, feeling the adrenaline slowly recede, replaced by shame and a fresh wave of fear. He wasn’t a spy, or corporate security. She was just a fugitive who’d been spotted by some random surfer with an internet connection.

«So now you know what I’m worth,» she gave a bitter laugh. «Planning to sell the tip to the paparazzi?»

Alex leaned back in his chair, and for a split second, the amusement left his eyes. A flash of cold calculation – the mark of an ex-operative – flickered there, though Lara mistook it for a trick of the light.

«Not yet,» he replied. «I haven’t finished my beer.»

The evening breeze carried the scent of jasmine and rotting seaweed – sweet and nauseating all at once, just like a lie. They sat at the rickety bamboo table in the bar at the edge of the beach. Above them, a single lightbulb swung in the wind, casting long, dancing shadows.

Lara took a sip, wincing at the harsh fumes. The cheap local rum burned her throat like liquid sandpaper, though the ice did a little to dull the edge. Still, it was a lifesaver compared to where they’d started. The beer she’d bought earlier had been warm and sour, tasting more like water that had been sitting in rusty pipes. When Alex saw her face turn green and suggested switching to the hard stuff, she didn’t argue. The rum was disgusting, but at least it was honest about its brutality.

The alcohol seared her throat, but it helped blunt the ringing anxiety that had dogged her since her escape. She looked at Alex. Salt-matted hair, sun-bleached t-shirt, the relaxed posture of a man with eternity ahead of him. He seemed the complete opposite of the shark tank she had broken out of. It was disarming.

«You’re still scanning the perimeter,» Alex noted, spinning a coin through his fingers. «Relax. No one finds you here unless you want to be found.»

«Habit,» Lara replied dryly, adjusting the cuff of her blouse, which now felt like ridiculous armor. «In my business, if you relax, you die.»

«And in mine, it’s how you survive. The ocean doesn’t like tension. It breaks people who fight it.»

The conversation flowed lazily, like molasses. They talked about the climate, the quirks of the local food. Lara felt her shoulders finally drop. The mask of the «Iron Lady» cracked. She wanted to believe that this guy was just a random traveler, a surfer chasing the perfect wave, and not another threat.

Suddenly, Alex stopped spinning the coin. He slapped his hand over it, and the sharp crack of metal against wood rang out unnaturally loud. He leaned in. The playful glint in his eyes vanished, replaced by something dark, deep – almost obsessive.

«You know, I lied to you, Lara. I’m not here for the surf.»

Lara tensed, instinctively pulling back.

«What are you talking about?»

«I’m looking for answers. Stories buried beneath the sand and the tourist brochures.»

Alex lowered his voice. He no longer sounded like a beach bum, but like a man who had brushed up against a dangerous secret.

«The local elders whisper the name Banyu-Lama,» he continued, looking her dead in the eye. «But on the rotting maps of the Spanish conquistadors, it’s marked as something else. The City of Whispering Winds.»

Lara felt the fine hairs on her arms stand up. The name struck a strange, painful chord deep inside her.

«A nice fairy tale for the tourists,» she tried to scoff, but her voice wavered.

«It’s not a fairy tale,» Alex cut in. «Legend says that deep in the jungle, where compasses go haywire, there’s a hidden temple. And inside it is a mechanism. Not made of gold or stone, but of something that defies analysis. They say it can shift the winds… or time itself. The conquistadors believed that whoever set it in motion could rewrite history. Bring back lost ships. Or fix the mistakes of the past.»

Lara went rigid. Her fingers gripped the condensation-slicked glass so hard her knuckles turned white as marble. The blood drained from her face.

The world around her – the roar of the surf, the music from the speakers, the drone of cicadas – vanished.

A flash of memory.

She was back in her grandfather’s study. The smell of old leather and dust. Trembling hands turning the yellowed pages of a diary.

She saw that specific paragraph. The ink was faded in places, but the pen strokes were furious, almost tearing through the paper.

«Whispering Winds is not a metaphor, Lara. It is a warning. If you ever hear that name – run. They are looking for the key to controlling chaos. It is not a myth. It is the end of everything.»

Lara blinked, snapping back to reality. Alex was watching her closely, like a predator waiting for its prey to make a misstep. He had seen her reaction. He knew she’d taken the bait.

«Do you believe the past can be fixed, Lara?» he asked quietly.

«I believe the past always exacts a price,» she whispered, her grip on her glass white-knuckled as she looked Alex dead in the eye. «Sometimes, the price is life itself.»

He looked like a walking illustration of the perfect vacation fling: sun-bleached hair, a blinding smile, and a tank top that revealed more than it concealed of his bronze, sculpted torso. His slight stubble only accented the intoxicating aura of raw masculinity radiating from him – enough to make a girl dizzy. But his eyes… They lacked the vacant, glazed look typical of the local beach bums. They were scanning her like thermal imaging.

«Do you actually know where to look?» Lara asked, forcing her voice to remain steady and businesslike. It felt like a boardroom meeting, only the stakes were now higher than money.

Alex lazily twirled a lighter between his fingers, leaning back in his wicker chair.

«Let’s just say I’ve got a boat held together by a wing, a prayer, and a whole lot of epoxy. I’ve got a map I won in a poker game against a one-eyed smuggler. And I’ve got a few hunches.»

He paused, gauging her reaction. Lara remained silent, waiting for him to go on.

«But I don’t have a partner,» he continued, leaning forward slightly. «Someone who knows how to read ancient dialects, not just gawk at the symbols like a confused tourist. I need a translator to turn a dead language into coordinates.»

«And you decided I fit the bill?» Lara smirked, though her stomach tightened. She was too used to men seeing her as either a wallet or a pretty trophy.

«I saw your book on the beach today,» Alex nodded at the canvas bag lying at her feet. «Etymology of Austroasiatic Languages. Serious reading for a girl on vacation. Most ladies here only care about what’s in a Mai Tai and their tan lines. I don’t give a damn about your long legs, Princess. I need your brain. Intelligence is scarcer than fresh water around here.»

Lara felt a flush rise to her cheeks. Not from embarrassment – from satisfaction. He bought it. He saw her as a smart, rich tourist running from boredom. And he had just offered her exactly what she needed: transportation and an alibi.

She took a sip of the burning rum, making her decision. In her world, emotions were a weakness, and people were resources. This surfer would be her guide. Her tool.

«Show me your boat,» she said firmly, looking him straight in the eye. «Tomorrow. At dawn. And if it actually floats, we’ll discuss terms.»

«It’s a deal,» Alex toasted her with his glass. «Just don’t wear heels. The ocean doesn’t forgive pretension.»

«I’m a fast learner,» she shot back, rising from the table.

Lara vanished into the thick tropical night, feeling a strange lightness. For the first time in years, she was stepping into the unknown not on a schedule, but on impulse. The thrill of the coming game went to her head faster than the alcohol. She was playing her hand. She was in control.

Or so she thought.

The moment her silhouette vanished around the bend of the palm-lined path, the easygoing smile slid from Alex’s face like makeup being wiped away. His features sharpened, his gaze turning cold and calculating. From the pocket of his shorts, he pulled an old-school button phone – a burner undetectable by modern scanners.

His thumbs flew over the keypad without looking, moving with the muscle memory of a pro.

«Contact established. The fish took the bait. She’s smarter than the file says, but overconfident. Prep the gear and the satellite link.»

He hit «Send» and popped the battery out of the phone.

Alex stared into the darkness where the woman had just disappeared, leaving behind a scent of expensive perfume and fear. He felt an unpleasant twinge in his chest that felt dangerously like guilt. That wasn’t part of the briefing. She was too… alive. Too real for the role his handlers had scripted for her.

«Sorry, Lara,» he whispered, looking at the empty chair across from him. «Nothing personal. Strictly business.»

He downed the rest of his rum, but the taste was suddenly unbearably bitter.

Chapter 4. The Eye of the Storm

The sky over the bay looked like a fresh bruise – purplish-blue, with yellow veins of sickly light breaking through the heavy clouds. The air was so thick and humid you wanted to push it aside with your hands like water. It was a lull – deceptive, stifling, pressing against the temples. Nature was holding its breath before the strike.

The old wooden pier creaked as if complaining of arthritis. The wind was picking up, ripping foam from the wave tops and tossing salty spray onto the rotten deck planks. Boats tied to the pilings jostled restlessly, bumping sides and making dull, anxious sounds.

Lara walked along the pier, pulling the light windbreaker she’d bought at the airport gift shop tighter around herself. Her perfect world of skyscrapers and air conditioning had been left behind in another life. Here, it smelled of iodine, fuel oil, and rotten fish. She hadn’t slept at all. Her grandfather’s diary, hidden in her inside pocket, felt like a red-hot coal burning through the fabric.

She saw it at the end of the pier. A two-masted schooner with peeling paint on the hull. The inscription was barely readable: The Wanderer. This wasn’t the sleek toy she was used to drinking champagne on with business partners. It was a converted fishing vessel – rough, wide, with a low center of gravity.

Lara stopped, squinting. Her gaze, honed by years of running a multi-billion dollar corporation, instantly scanned the asset. Steel hull, rusty in places, but the welds looked intact. Rigging not new, but well-maintained. No gloss, just pure function. An illiquid asset with high survivability potential.

On the deck, with his back to her, stood a man. Alex.

He was shirtless. His bronze skin glistened with sweat and engine oil. He was working the mainmast winch, pulling a cable with an effort that made the muscles ripple across his back. Broad shoulders, narrow waist, a scar on his left shoulder blade.

Lara caught herself lingering on him longer than a business appraisal required. Something hot and inappropriate stirred low in her stomach.

Focus, she mentally scolded herself, feeling heat rise to her cheeks. He’s just a hired hand. A tool. A resource to be leased.

Alex straightened up, as if feeling her gaze on his back. He turned slowly. In his eyes, there was none of that light, playful glint she had seen when they met at the bar yesterday. Now he looked hard, focused. Just as dark and dangerous as the sky above them.

He wiped his grease-stained hands on a rag and hopped down onto the pier, blocking her path.

«Get off the pier, Princess.»

His voice was low, cutting through the rising howl of the wind.

«I want to see the boat,» Lara said, raising her voice to keep it from trembling.

Alex smirked, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. He nodded toward the horizon, where a black wall of clouds was already devouring the ocean.

«Have you seen the forecast? Typhoon Cobra is inbound. In two hours, this place is going to be hell on earth. Go back to your hotel, order a margarita, and ride it out. Bar cocktails are safer than the open sea.»

«I don’t have time for cocktails.» She took a step forward, closing the distance. The wind whipped her hair across her face, and she brushed it away impatiently. «Are you sure this tub is seaworthy?»

Alex sized her up. He didn’t just see a beautiful woman in distress. He saw a mark. His job was to get her on that boat, but he had to make her think it was her idea. He was hustling a corporate shark.

«My ’tub’?» he repeated mockingly, leaning a hand against a wooden pylon so Lara was trapped between him and the water. «She’s been through worse. She’ll hold together. You, on the other hand… I doubt it.»

Lara tilted her chin up. The ruthless CEO who crushed competitors with a single phone call was waking up inside her.

Above the island, the sky swelled like a purple bruise, then suddenly burst. The tropical downpour came down in a solid sheet, instantly slamming the dust and the stench of rotting fish into the pier planks.

«Get under cover, move!» Alex yelled over the roar of the rain.

They ducked under the canvas tarp at the stern of his old boat. It smelled of diesel fumes and wet rope. The space was tiny, forcing an unwanted intimacy. Lara wrung the water from her hair; her silk blouse clung to her body, but she didn’t even shiver. She looked at Alex as if he were a rounding error in a quarterly report.

Alex wiped the rain from his face and suddenly dropped the act. The beach bum smirk vanished. A cold glint entered his eyes – the kind you see in men who are betting it all. He reached into a waterproof tube and unrolled a map onto a crate.

Lara glanced down. The map looked old, but she knew better: it was a forgery. Or, at the very least, only half the truth.

«Listen,» Alex’s voice dropped, becoming more intimate. «I’m not looking for gold, Princess. You can steal gold, earn it, win it at cards. I’m looking for something money can’t buy. The glory of being the first man to set foot on cursed soil.»

He jabbed a finger at a blurred spot amidst the islands.

«I’ve got a boat. I’ve got rough coordinates and a map I bought off a dying smuggler. But I don’t have a dime for fuel or provisions. And I need a partner. The locals are superstitious; they wouldn’t sail out there for a million bucks. They say spirits live there.»

«And me?» Lara crossed her arms over her chest, creating a barrier. «Do I look like a Ghostbuster?»

«You look like someone who has nothing to lose but time,» Alex looked her straight in the eye, his gaze unsettlingly perceptive. «You’re running from something, Lara. I can see it. Out at sea, we’ll depend on each other. No police, no lawyers. Just you, me, and the horizon. So – no secrets.»

He smiled, openly and disarmingly. The world’s best liar preaching about honesty.

«I’m offering a deal. You finance the expedition. We split the glory. I pilot the boat, and you… you just hold on and try not to fall overboard.»

Lara remained silent, analyzing the situation with the speed of a supercomputer. Standing before her was a typical adventurer. Handsome, arrogant, poor. The perfect tool.

I have the real route in Grandfather’s diary. He has the boat and the skills. He thinks he’s using me as a wallet. Let him think that. He’ll be my hands, my muscle. And I’ll be the brains. When we find the city, I’ll pay him off and he’ll disappear. He’s too simple to be dangerous.

A barely perceptible smile touched her lips – the smile of a predator spotting a trap but confident she could snatch the bait and escape.

«Fine,» she said firmly, her voice cutting through the sound of the rain. «I can finance the expedition. Fully. Fuel, food, gear.»

Alex’s eyes lit up with triumph, but she immediately raised a palm to stop him.

«But there’s a condition. Once we hit open water, we follow my route. I have my own sources, and they’re more accurate than your scribbles. I’m the captain of this deal. You’re just the hired help.»

Alex froze for a second. The muscles in his face tensed, but he immediately relaxed, as if accepting the rules of the game.

«Whatever you say, boss. Your money, your rules. But if we drown because of your sources, I’ll have the last laugh.»

The storm around them was gathering strength. Thunder cracked the sky right above the mast, drowning out his last words.

«Deal?» Alex extended his hand.

Lara didn’t hesitate to place her hand in his. The guy’s palm was hot, rough with calluses and leathery skin. Her hand was cold and hard as marble.

The moment they shook hands, a blinding flash of lightning split the sky. For a split second, the shadows cast Alex’s face into a predatory mask. His cheekbones sharpened; his eyes vanished into hollows of deep darkness. It wasn’t the face of a surfer. It was the face of a killer.

Lara blinked, and the illusion vanished. Standing before her once again was just a charming guy in a soaked T-shirt.

«Deal,» she replied.

«Welcome aboard The Drifter,» Alex said, gesturing for her to follow him deeper into the cabin to wait out the worst of the storm and draw up a shopping list.

Lara stepped from the dock onto the slick deck. Just then, the ocean sighed, heaving the boat up on a high swell. The deck pitched beneath her feet. Lara lost her balance, her heels skidding across the wet fiberglass.

She would have gone down if not for Alex’s reflexes. He caught her instantly – not like a normal person, but like a trained operator: zero wasted motion, locking her body in a firm grip.

Her back slammed against his chest. His arm, strong as a steel cable, clamped around her waist, pulling her close. The proximity was sudden and alarmingly intimate. Through the wet fabric, she could feel his body heat and the beat of his heart – steady and calm, despite the storm.

Sorry, Lara, the thought flashed through Alex’s mind as he inhaled the scent of her hair – a complex blend of irises and authority, mixed with the ozone of the storm. Nothing personal. Just business. You’re just a target. A beautiful, smart, dangerous target.

He held her a second longer than propriety allowed.

«Careful,» he whispered in her ear. «The sea doesn’t forgive mistakes.»

Alex released her and headed for the hatch. Lara, catching her breath and straightening her windbreaker, stared at his back. Her gaze drifted past him and snagged on something sitting near the gunwale.

A wooden crate, loosely covered by a tarp. The wind lifted the edge of the fabric for a heartbeat.

Stenciled in black paint on the side of the crate was a logo: a stylized hourglass with a snake biting its own tail inside it.

Lara’s heart skipped a beat. It was the logo for Omega Logistics – the shell company her father had used fifteen years ago to launder money for black-budget projects. A firm that officially didn’t exist.

She blinked, shaking raindrops from her lashes. The tarp fell back into place, concealing the mark.

«You coming?» Alex called up from the hatch. «Or do you want to get soaked to the bone?»

Lara shook her head.

«Coming.»

My eyes are playing tricks on me, she decided. It’s just nerves. I’m seeing ghosts of the past where there are none.

She descended below deck, unaware that she had just voluntarily stepped into a cage with a beast. They took out notebooks and began making a list: canned goods, water, flares… Everything necessary for a one-way trip.

Chapter 5. The Point of No Return

The morning after the storm was crisp and clear, like freshly washed glass. The air smelled of iodine, rotting kelp, and diesel – scents that would usually make Lara wrinkle her nose, but today, they smelled like freedom.

The dock creaked beneath her feet. The Wanderer bobbed on the swells, bumping lazily against its fenders. From the outside, the yacht looked dismal: the paint on the hull was peeling like skin after a bad sunburn, and the canvas sail covers looked faded by time. It was the perfect camouflage for someone who didn’t want to attract the attention of the Coast Guard or prying eyes.

But Lara, accustomed to evaluating machinery rather than packaging, noticed something else. The winches glistened with fresh grease. The rigging was taut, without a single inch of slack. This tub was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

She stood at the bow, struggling to untie the mooring line. The rough hemp bit into palms unaccustomed to manual labor. Her fingers slipped. Panic began to rise inside her – not because of the knot, but because of what it symbolized. Casting off meant severing her last connection to the world where she held a name, status, and power.

Suddenly, a hand covered hers. It was warm, calloused, and steady.

Lara started and looked up. Alex was standing right next to her. His sun-bleached hair was tousled by the wind, and there was a mischievous glint dancing in his eyes. He didn’t look like a savior. He looked more like a surfer living one day to the next.

«Let me,» he said, his voice quiet but cutting easily through the sound of the surf. «This knot is like a woman’s nature – it requires patience, not force.»

With one deft movement, he loosened the loop. The rope splashed into the water, coiling like a snake as it sank. Lara felt the ground drop out from under her, even though they hadn’t even cast off yet.

«Thank you,» she breathed, not pulling her hand away.

Alex didn’t pull back. For a second, electricity hung between them – the kind no instrument could measure. He wasn’t looking at her like a client who’d paid a fortune for an escape; he was looking at her like a woman standing on the edge of a precipice.

«The ocean doesn’t forgive mistakes, Lara,» he said, his gaze turning serious, almost hard. «But it’s excellent at keeping secrets. Are you ready to leave your past on the shore?»

Lara looked back at the receding pier. Back there, on the island, lay the shards of her life. Here, there was only the horizon and this strange man she knew absolutely nothing about.

«I’m ready,» she said firmly.

Alex nodded, and the corners of his mouth twitched in a smile.

«Then welcome aboard The Wanderer. Cast off.»

The diesel engine gave a low, throaty growl – powerful, and nothing like what she expected from an old tub. Alex took the helm, confident as he guided the yacht out of the lagoon. Lara left him on deck, feeling the need to hide away and catch her breath.

She went down to the main cabin. It smelled of varnish and old wood. The space was tight but surprisingly ergonomic. Lara began putting away the supplies she’d hastily bought at the port store: canned goods, water, dry grains. The mechanical actions were soothing.

The yacht lurched as it hit the first open-ocean swell. Lara lost her balance and slammed her shoulder against the bulkhead near the chart table.

A sharp, dry click echoed through the cabin.

A decorative wooden panel, which she had mistaken for part of the wall paneling, slid aside. Lara froze. The jar of instant coffee slipped from her hands, but she didn’t even notice.

Behind the panel, there was no dust or old maps. Sitting in the recess, instruments glowed with a cold, blue light.

Lara knew what she was looking at. She was the CEO of a tech empire; she signed contracts supplying equipment like this to government agencies.

This wasn’t just a depth sounder. It was a military-grade satellite scrambler, capable of encrypting a signal so thoroughly that no intelligence agency on earth could intercept it. Next to it, a tactical plotter screen glowed, mapping the seabed with inch-level precision. This «toy» was worth ten times the yacht itself.

The cold, analytical part of Lara’s brain kicked in. A «carefree surfer» couldn’t afford this. The picture didn’t fit. The puzzle was a fake.

«Lara? Everything okay?» Alex’s voice drifted down from the companionway.

She spun around. He was coming down the steps, a water bottle in hand. His posture was relaxed, but his eyes… his eyes were scanning the room.

Lara didn’t close the panel. She pointed a finger at the shimmering screen.

«You can’t afford fresh paint for the hull, but you have a next-gen military encryptor?» Her voice rang with steel. «Who are you, Alex?»

For a second, silence hung in the cabin, broken only by the sound of waves slapping against the hull. Lara looked him straight in the eye, searching for the slightest movement that would betray a lie. Quickened breathing? Shifting gaze? A nervous tic?

Nothing.

Alex didn’t even blink. His pulse remained steady – a professional conditioning Lara couldn’t possibly know about. He took a slow sip of water, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and laughed. Lightly, carelessly.

«Oh, that…» He waved a hand as if talking about an old toaster. «My pride and my curse.»

«I’m waiting for an explanation.» Lara crossed her arms over her chest.

«Manila, three years ago,» Alex said, leaning against the doorframe, blocking the exit. «I was playing poker with a Chinese guy. He was wasted, absolutely certain he had a royal flush. He threw that thing in the pot. Said it was some kind of super-sonar for tracking tuna schools.»

He stepped closer and unceremoniously slammed the panel shut, hiding the blue glow.

«I won. But honestly, I don’t even know how to tune it properly. I mostly use it as a coffee warmer when the seas get rough. It puts off great heat.»

The lie was brazen. Absurd. «Tracking tuna» using a military cryptographer? Yet Alex smiled so openly, with such disarming simplicity, that all of Lara’s defenses began to burst at the seams.

She wanted to believe him. She needed to believe him. Out here, in the middle of the ocean, he was the only person standing between her and a golden prison. Or death.

«You’re a terrible gambler if you think I bought that,» she said quietly, but the tension in her shoulders released.

«I’m an excellent captain,» Alex parried, winking again. «And that’s exactly who you need right now. Let’s go topside, Lara. The sunset promises to be bloody today; you can’t miss it.»

He turned away, exposing his undefended back to her. The ultimate sign of trust. Or a shrewd calculation.

Lara stared at the closed panel for another second. Her intuition was screaming, wailing like a siren, warning her of danger. But she forced that voice into silence.

«I’m coming,» she said, and stepped after him, finally crossing the point of no return.

The sun was drowning in the ocean, painting the water the color of molten copper. For three hundred and sixty degrees, there was nothing but horizon, water, and sky. The yacht seemed like a tiny splinter in this infinity, and for the first time in a long while, Lara didn’t feel trapped.

The thick aroma of grilled fish unceremoniously invaded her space, pushing out the memory of the usual scents of sterile air-conditioning and the lingering trail of elite perfume. Alex was working his magic at a small grill on the stern. He moved deftly, economically, as if every motion had been honed by years of practice, not idle surfing.

«Dinner is served, madame.» He placed a simple tin plate before her. The piece of tuna, seared with lemon and herbs, looked rustic, but appetizing.

Lara carefully flaked off a piece with her fork. The taste was stunning. No molecular foams, no complex plating. Just fish, fire, and salt.

«This is… incredible,» she admitted, taking a sip of cheap wine from an enamel mug. «My chef in New York would kill himself out of envy.»

Alex laughed, sitting down cross-legged on the deck opposite her. The sunset was reflected in his eyes.

«The secret is hunger and a lack of choice, Lara. Here, in the ocean, things are more honest. It’s eat or be eaten.»

Lara froze with the mug at her lips. The words struck home, and for that very reason, they stung.

«Let’s play a game,» she suggested, surprising herself. The wine, or perhaps the sea air, had loosened her tongue. «One question, one honest answer. No corporate bullshit. No masks.»

Alex narrowed his eyes, sizing her up. A flash of something hard passed through his gaze, but it vanished instantly behind the smile of a carefree drifter.

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