He spoke. The words were raspy but distinct, barely audible above the crackling flames and the distant shouts.
"Tell her... the deal's off."
I lunged forward, arm outstretched, but it was too late. He toppled backward into the inferno that had once been the yacht's stern. The flames surged hungrily, swallowing him in a violent flash of heat and light.
I recoiled from the sudden intensity, shielding my face with my arm. My skin prickled, and my nostrils filled with scorching air.
I staggered back, attempting to process what had happened. What had he meant? Who was "her"? What deal?
The questions whirled through my mind. I had no context or reference point for the final words.
Tell her the deal's off.
The phrase embedded itself in my memory. I repeated it silently as if the mere act of remembering might somehow reveal its significance.
The man was gone. I knew without checking that there would be no rescue or recovery. Whatever secrets he'd carried vanished with him.
I stood at the edge of the dock, knife still clutched in my hand, with blood trickling down my arm. Behind me, the fallen guard lay motionless. Before me, fire consumed evidence and assassins alike.
I'd come to Tahiti to escape my life. Following pure instinct, I'd stumbled directly into someone else's nightmare.
The moment shattered with the sound of secondary explosions—fuel tanks igniting in sequence as the fire reached them. The concussive force pushed me back a step. Fragments of fiberglass and metal sprayed across the water's surface.
I turned, suddenly aware of the crowd that had gathered behind me. Dozens of faces—resort staff, tourists, and locals—stared in horror.
They had phones. So many of them were raised with cameras recording and documenting every second. Every angle. Every decision.
I glanced down. The knife was still in my hand. It was the assailant's weapon, now stained with my blood where it had sliced my forearm.
I must have looked like something feral—wounded, armed, and standing over a fallen body with an inferno raging behind me.
Someone shoved through the crowd. It was a man in a white resort polo, his face contorted with anger and fear.
He shouted at the top of his lungs. "You killed him! You pushed him in! I saw it!"
A murmur rippled through the onlookers. More phones recorded the scene.
One woman in her mid-thirties lowered hers slowly. Her brows furrowed as she looked from the knife in my hand to the motionless guard and then back to me.
"Is he okay?" she asked quietly, almost to herself.
My voice sounded weak, even to my own ears. "He fell. He slipped and fell."
A burst of rapid French erupted from somewhere in the crowd, too quick for my limited grasp of the language. I caught a few words,meurtreandun Américain:murder and an American.
Beside the speaker, a teenage boy whispered to his father, "But he tried to save him, didn't he?" His voice barely rose above the crackle of flame.
A memory surfaced from tactical response training. The instructor's voice was clear in my head:In a crisis, the first story that takes hold becomes the truth, regardless of facts. Control the narrative, or it will control you.
I froze in place, knife in hand, bleeding and disoriented. With each passing second, I was losing control of whatever narrative was forming around me.
A woman pushed forward. She was resort security, judging by her uniform. Her hand moved to the radio at her belt, watching me with a wary expression.
She spoke careful English with a French accent. "Sir, please put down the weapon."
My fingers uncurled reluctantly, letting it clatter to the dock.
I gestured toward the fallen guard. "He needs medical attention, and there could be others on the yacht."
