[Isabella's POV]
The Siren's Call was a ghost ship drifting on a sea of crushed sapphire.
I stood on the upper deck, dressed in a stunning, backless emerald gown that clung to my curves like a second skin. The Mediterranean sun was beginning to set, casting a brilliant, bloody hue across the horizon. The air was warm, smelling of salt and expensive champagne. The gentle rocking of the three-hundred-foot superyacht should have been soothing, a luxurious escape from the chaos of the world. I had spent millions outfitting this vessel to be an impenetrable floating palace. The hull was reinforced with ballistic steel, the glass was rated to stop armor-piercing rounds, and the lower decks housed a server farm that held the darkest secrets of the European elite. It was my sanctuary. My fortress. But tonight, it felt like a beautifully gilded cage. And I was the monster waiting inside it.
Instead, it felt like the calm before a catastrophic storm.
