Chapter 2 - The Livestream Backfire
The door to the grand companionway clicked shut behind me, sealing out the damp sea breeze and the mounting pandemonium on the upper deck. But sound travels on water, and teak is an acoustic conductor; I could hear Julian Thorne’s frantic shouting echoing against the superstructure above.
"Turn that damn phone off, Cassandra! Turn it off right now!"
"Julian, don't yell at me! My screen is frozen! The app crashed—there are six hundred thousand people in the room!"
"I don't give a damn about your followers! Do you have any idea what you just did? Do you have any concept of what the Vance family can do to Thorne Logistics before the markets open in London tomorrow?"
I didn't stop to listen further. Adrien followed two paces behind me, his hands clasped behind his back, his heavy naval boots silent on the plush wool carpet of the private corridor.
"Mademoiselle," Adrien murmured. "I have already dispatched two officers to secure the gangway. No one will leave the upper deck until your privacy is entirely guaranteed."
"Thank you, Adrien," I replied, my voice steady despite the adrenaline humming through my veins. "Has my father arrived in Monaco yet?"
"The chairman’s jet touched down at Nice Côte d'Azur forty minutes ago. His motorcade is currently passing through Eze. He expects to board by midnight." Adrien paused, his gaze dropping to the floor. "He will see the footage, Mademoiselle. It has already been clipped and mirrored on three major platforms. It is trending globally under three separate hashtags."
I stopped at the entrance of the master stateroom. "Let it trend."
"Mademoiselle?"
"Cassandra Vale spent five years building an audience out of cruelty, vanity, and borrowed luxury," I said, looking down at the ruined silk of my gown, where the champagne had dried into a sticky, sour ring around the collar. "She wanted the world to watch me be humiliated. It would be a pity to deprive her audience of the ending."
I opened the heavy mahogany door to the owner’s suite. The room was massive, spanning the full thirty-meter beam of the *Étoile*. It smelled of cedar, old leather, and sea salt—the scents of my childhood. On the low table of smoked glass lay a fresh tablet, already blinking with urgent notifications, and a garment bag bearing the discreet crest of the Vance Maritime Syndicate.
Behind me, Adrien remained at attention in the doorway. "Shall I have the harbor police board, Mademoiselle? The assault was broadcast in real-time. Under Monegasque law, intentionally damaging clothing and physical assault on a private vessel carries—"
"Not yet," I interrupted. "If we have the police drag her off now, she will play the victim. She will cry about authoritarian billionaires silencing an independent creator. Julian’s PR team will spin it as an overreaction by an untouchable dynasty against a young woman who made a simple mistake."
I turned around, meeting Adrien’s eyes. "Where is Lucian?"
A shadow seemed to pass over the threshold. From the private office adjacent to the stateroom, a tall, lean man in a charcoal suit stepped into the light.
Lucian Drake was thirty, with sharp, predatory cheekbones, dark eyes that missed nothing, and the quiet, lethal economy of movement that came from five years in naval intelligence before my father hired him as the director of Vance Global Security.
"I’m right here, Elena," Lucian said. His tie was loosened slightly, his sleeves rolled up to the mid-forearm, revealing the faint edge of a compass tattoo on his inner wrist. He was holding a high-end encrypted tablet. "And I’ve already audited both of them."
"Tell me," I said, sitting on the edge of the leather chaise.
Lucian stepped closer, handing me the screen. "Cassandra Vale doesn’t have the money to replace that dress, let alone settle a maritime tort. Her company, Vale Media LLC, is three months behind on its office lease in Milan. Her entire lifestyle is financed through trade-exchanges, unsecured micro-loans, and Julian Thorne’s offshore accounts."
"And Julian?"
Lucian’s lips curved into a thin, merciless smile. "Julian is even more fragile. Thorne Logistics isn't an empire; it's a house of cards. His father died fourteen months ago, leaving thirty million euros in unhedged fuel-derivative debts. Julian took out a high-interest bridge loan from a private equity firm in Geneva to maintain appearances. He leased this yacht tonight to convince thirty private investors that his company was thriving, hoping to close a fifty-million-euro funding round before Monday."
I scrolled through the financial ledgers Lucian had pulled within eight minutes of the incident. It was all there: the unpaid fuel bills, the forged shipping manifests, the frantic emails between Julian and his accountants.
"He was using my father's ship," I murmured, "to swindle fifty million euros out of French and Monegasque investors."
"Precisely," Lucian said. "And the woman who just poured cheap champagne over your head was his centerpiece. She was supposed to present the grand vision of the new Thorne lifestyle to his investors' wives."
The sudden sound of banging on the outer corridor doors broke our focus.
Adrien touched his earpiece, listened for three seconds, and looked at me. "Mademoiselle. Mr. Thorne is demanding an audience. He is refusing to allow his guests to board the tender until he speaks with you directly. He claims he has legal standing under the charter agreement."
I looked down at the tablet, then at Lucian, whose dark eyes were alight with cold anticipation.
"Adrien," I said calmly. "Bring Mr. Thorne down. Just him. Leave Miss Vale on the deck with her camera. Let her watch the tender engines start."
"And the dress, Elena?" Lucian asked quietly, his eyes lingering on the torn fabric at my hip.
May you like
"Unpack the garment bag my father sent," I said, rising to my feet. "It’s time Julian Thorne learned the difference between borrowing power and holding it."
***
