Chapter 6 - THE WOMAN IN THE TORN DRESS
By midnight, the video had spread across social media.
Millions of people had watched clips of Cassandra pouring champagne over me.
The moment she ripped my dress had been replayed thousands of times.
Then came the captain's arrival.
His apology.
The revelation that I owned the yacht.
People called it instant karma.
Some laughed.
Some celebrated.
Others wanted to know why I hadn't defended myself sooner.
But I wasn't interested in becoming a viral symbol of wealthy revenge.
I wanted my father's archive back.
And I wanted to understand why Julian had risked everything to steal it.
Adrien brought me a replacement dress from the yacht's guest wardrobe.
Dark blue.
Simple.
Elegant.
I changed in my cabin.
Then looked at myself in the mirror.
For a moment, I saw the seventeen-year-old girl who used to accompany her father on business trips.
He had taught me to read contracts.
To ask questions.
To notice when someone answered a different question from the one I'd asked.
And to remember that money could reveal character as easily as it could conceal it.
I touched the small silver star pendant around my neck.
My father had given it to me on my twenty-first birthday.
"For finding your way home," he'd said.
I closed my eyes.
"Dad," I whispered, "what did you discover?"
When I returned to the salon, harbor police officers were speaking with Adrien.
Julian was nowhere to be seen.
Neither was Cassandra.
My stomach tightened.
"Where are they?"
Adrien looked grim.
"Julian left the yacht using a tender before officers arrived."
I stared.
"How?"
"He claimed a medical emergency."
"And Cassandra?"
"Still aboard. She's with her attorney."
I looked toward the harbor.
Julian had escaped the immediate questioning.
But he had made one mistake.
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He'd stolen a device from a safe aboard a vessel filled with cameras.
And the archive he wanted wasn't the only copy of my father's evidence.
