The silk is the first thing that betrays the truth. It is too cool, too expensive, sliding against skin that should be slick with salt and stinging with the memory of the Atlantic. Daphne’s eyes snap open to a ceiling of vaulted ivory and a chandelier that drips like frozen rain. This is not the sea floor.
She rolls out of the massive bed, her limbs moving with a fluid grace that feels borrowed, and stumbles toward the vanity mirror. The woman staring back is not Daphne Castellanos. It is a face carved from poise and malice, with high cheekbones and eyes the color of winter wheat. It is Yolanda Marchenko. The name tastes like poison in her mind, a jagged reminder of the woman who watched her sink beneath the waves.
In the bedside drawer, a heavy silver lighter sits atop a stack of embossed stationery, its metal surface cold against her trembling palm. She is inside the monster. Every breath she takes is a theft, a miracle of survival that feels like a trap. The silence of the villa is broken by a rhythmic, metallic click from the far side of the suite.
The heavy brass handle rotates fully, and the bedroom door swings inward.
