The security woman nodded, but her attention remained divided between me and the chaos surrounding us. She spoke into her radio—something about police and medical response.
Sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder. Camera shutters clicked in rapid succession. Someone was crying, and the guard at my feet hadn't moved.
All I could think about were those final words:Tell her the deal's off.
I was no longer just Michael McCabe, a SWAT officer on a reluctant vacation. I was about to become something else entirely.
I stood amid the aftermath, adrenaline draining from my system like sand sifting through my fingers. The knife lay at my feet. My arm throbbed where the blade had caught me, but the pain was still distant, cordoned off in a corner of my brain.
I hadn't meant for this to happen—none of it.
In Seattle, there would have been protocols. I'd have a team at my back. Bodycams would document every second. I would have reports to file and supervisors to brief. It was a system designed to process trauma and violence.
Here, there was only me standing alone on foreign soil with a dead man's last words echoing in my head.
I watched as paramedics finally pushed through the crowd, rushing to the fallen guard. Their practiced movements created an island of purpose amid chaos. I envied their clarity.
A resort manager approached cautiously, asking me to come with him. He informed me the local police would want to speak with me. There would be questions. So many questions.
As I followed him away from the dock, I saw a familiar face in the crowd. Alex stood at the periphery, his expression unreadable behind his dark sunglasses. Our eyes met briefly. He didn't approach or call out.
At that moment, the weight of my decision descended on me. Or was it a decision? Running toward danger was a reflex, not a choice. Yet here I was, bearing the consequences all the same.
The violence didn't unnerve me. Violence and I were old friends. What unsettled me was the sense that I'd stumbled into something larger than a vacation gone wrong—some hidden current running beneath the surface of paradise.
As they guided me into an office to wait for the authorities, I touched the pocket where my father's firefighter badge usually rested. Empty. It must have fallen out during the struggle. The realization was like a punch to the gut.
The one piece of him I carried everywhere was gone, lost in the inferno.
I closed my eyes, seeing the masked man's fall again. I hadn't pushed him, but I didn't save him either.
I couldn't stop hearing those final words.Tell her the deal's off.I'd been a cop long enough to recognize a message meant to be delivered. A loose end being tied up even in death.
The faces of the crowd flashed through my mind. So many raised phones capturing the moment with accusations already forming. In their eyes, I wasn't a man trying to protect a fallen guard.
I was the villain in someone else's story.
Chapter six
Alex
Isatwithmybarefeet pressed against cold tile, feeling every groove and imperfection through skin still tender from running across splintered dock boards. The makeshift interview room—repurposed from some administrative office—hummed with aggressive air conditioning that raised goosebumps along my arms.
Two officials sat across from me. The woman, Officer Teuira, wrote in a notebook with meticulous care, her handwriting exceedingly precise. Her colleague, Inspector Hauata, observed me with the steady gaze of someone who'd seen too many tourists bring their problems to paradise.
Officer Teuira prompted me. "Please continue, Mr. Kessler, tell us what happened after the explosion."
I closed my eyes briefly, reconstructing the sequence. "Everyone was running away from the marina. Michael did the opposite."
"And Michael is..." Inspector Hauata already knew who he was. I'd mentioned him twice. It was a test.
"Michael McCabe. He's a police officer from Seattle. SWAT."
"And he told you this?"
"Yes. At breakfast."
Officer Teuira's pen paused. "So you knew him previously?"
