Page 29 of All That Glitters in Pelican Point

“Denny’s got the decoys in place.” I ask.

“Yeah,” Cruz replies. “One’s tied to a marker buoy off Sand Key, the other’s drifting with the Gulf current east. If Remy’s watching, he’s chasing ghosts.”

It’s not just a tactic. It’s a message—clear and ominous. We’re not playing by his rules anymore. We’re rewriting the board, and somewhere out there, Remy is watching, recalculating, waiting to make his next move. The game has changed, and we’ve just made ourselves the biggest target on the board.

Cruz glances at me, jaw set, eyes darker than usual. Protective. Dangerous. “Once we’re down, no turning back. We’re alone out there.”

I meet his gaze and nod, the weight of it settling deep. “Exactly how I want it.”

The dive is deeper than we’ve ever gone—darker, too. The limestone shelf doesn’t just descend, it disappears beneath us, swallowed by a yawning chasm that feels less like an underwater trench and more like a secret kept by the earth itself. The tunnel yawns ahead like a throat mid-roar, and the moment we enter, everything else fades: sound, time, even light. The pressure wraps around us like a dare.

We’re on backup air tanks, triple-checked, double-sealed, and barely whispering as we move through the dark. Every flick of our fins disturbs centuries of undisturbed silt, little ghosts of history dancing upward in our wake. Cruz is ahead of me, steady, deliberate, the powerful glide of his body so fluid it makes the water feel like silk. His light cuts through the black, illuminating only what he wants me to see—rock, coral, relics of wreckage—and yeah, I’m still watching him more than I should.

Focus, Crystal. You’re not here for the view. Even if the view happens to be a broad-shouldered diver with precision and poise and a stupidly good jawline under that mask.

Then I see it. A seam in the stone, just where the tide curves, catching the faintest eddy of the current like it’s exhaling something ancient. My pulse spikes. I gesture to Cruz, and he glides closer, shining his light on the rock face. The carvings bloom into view—weathered but unmistakable. A sun, a fish, and the intertwined bands of two hands clasped together, etched with an eerie precision that sends a chill along my spine. The tide slips past us like it’s holding its breath. I reach out and touch the stone, and the moment my fingers graze the groove between the symbols, I feel it—an unnatural warmth in the chilled current, as if the stone remembers. Cruz shifts subtly, his body angled in that protective way he does when he senses something’s off. We both know this isn’t just an entrance. It’s a warning, dressed up as a welcome.

We press in, pushing through a narrow fissure that opens into a chamber. A cathedral of stone, untouched by time. And at its center, seated upright against the wall, is a skeleton draped in tattered fabric. A nobleman's remains. One hand still extended as if in offering. And on that skeletal finger? The Mar Azul ring.

It glows under the light, not garish but solemn. A piece of the past that survived everything. I move slowly, reverently. This isn’t a heist. It’s communion. I reach out, and with a whisper of sediment, the ring comes free.

That’s when I hear the sound no diver ever wants to hear underwater: a sharp clank. Then another. Then the silhouette of a fin slicing through the light—not a shark. A man.

Cruz turns, already moving to shield me, his muscles taut like a drawn bowstring, but we’re not alone. Remy and two divers hover in the tunnel entrance like shadows peeled from a nightmare, one gripping a spear gun aimed straight at us. Even through the distortion of their masks and the murky water, the message is unmistakable—a silent promise of violence. Remy’s eyes find mine, cold and electric, and the smirk barely contained behind his regulator sends a shiver slicing down my spine. We’re not just being followed anymore. We’ve been hunted.

Cruz pushes me behind him, his movements taut and deliberate as he draws his dive knife with a precision that could slice the water itself. The other diver stiffens, uncertainty flickering in the subtle tilt of his head. We’re in a silent standoff, breath and bubbles suspended in an invisible vise. Then, with the speed of a breaking wave, Cruz surges forward.

It’s viciously efficient—military instinct distilled into motion. One second he’s still; the next, he’s got the second guy’s regulator yanked out with a forceful twist, sending a stream of frantic bubbles into the water. The man flails, reaching for it, panicked and useless as the spear gun floats free, harmless now. Cruz doesn’t even hesitate—he kicks it toward the far wall with a flick of his fin. The message is clear: back off, or the next move won’t be merciful.

Remy signals a retreat, but it's not a surrender—it’s a vow. Rage simmers off him like heat from volcanic rock, his movements jerky and furious as he and the diver with him back away. He pauses just at the edge of the chamber’s shadow, his mask reflecting Cruz’s light in a flash of menace. Then, slowly and deliberately, he raises two fingers to his eyes, then points them at us. A silent promise. You're marked. You're watched. A beat later, he drags one finger across his throat in a gesture so filled with venom it curdles the surrounding water. And then, like smoke, he's gone.

* * *

Back on Serenity, I sit cross-legged in the open cabin, the salty breeze teasing the ends of my damp hair as the sun slips toward the horizon. The ring rests in my palm, heavier than it looks—not just in weight, but in presence. It's not just gold. It's centuries of grief and survival, diplomacy and betrayal, silent prayers and broken promises all condensed into a circle of metal and worn etchings. I can still feel the cold stone chamber on my skin, the bone-deep echo of what we just found.

Denny hovers nearby, silent for once, clutching the underwater footage drive like it’s a sacred artifact. Cruz sits across from me, bruised and scraped but impossibly steady, his gaze fixed on the ring like it might rewrite everything. I swallow and extend it toward him, my fingers trembling with the weight of it all.

"It was never about treasure," I whisper, voice raw and a little hoarse from adrenaline and saltwater.

He closes his hand slowly around it, callused fingers brushing mine. “No,” he murmurs. “It was about legacy.”

And in the growing twilight, as the hum of the boat merges with the lull of the sea, we both understand—this isn’t the end. The air feels different now, charged with something colder, sharper. Remy’s threat wasn’t idle. It hangs over us like the salt in the wind, subtle but inescapable, a tempest building into something greater just beyond the visible horizon. The game’s not over. Not even close. And somehow, I know the next move won’t just be about the ring—it’ll be about blood.

12

CRUZ

The sun crests over the Gulf like it knows the secrets we've just uncovered, throwing golden light across Serenity’s deck and turning salt spray into prisms. It should feel like the end of something. A finish line. Instead, it feels like the beginning of whatever the hell comes next. The deck smells like salt, teak, and victory—or maybe just relief. And for once, I’m not looking ahead with my usual dose of suspicion. Not with her beside me, not after what we just survived, and not with the weight of the past finally shrugged off our shoulders like a wet dive suit.

Crystal stands at the bow, hair whipped by the wind like a goddess of wrecked libraries and tidal chaos, fingers brushing the rail like she needs to anchor herself to something real before she floats away on pure adrenaline and stubborn will.

She’s got her journal pressed tight to her chest like it’s both a shield and a secret weapon, the pages stuffed with half-translated maps, ink-smudged annotations, and obscure references only she can decipher. She mutters something about colonial limestone trade patterns and uses words like "stratigraphy" like they’re flirtation.

It’s hot. Unreasonably, unfairly hot. And not just because she’s barefoot in my shirt again—my favorite old one, damn her—or because I’m mentally undressing her every five minutes with the single-minded intensity of a man who knows exactly what’s under there. It’s hot because she belongs here, on this boat, at this moment, with me. And I’m in so deep it’s almost funny.

"You keep staring at me like I'm going to disappear," she says, not turning around.

"Not staring," I lie. "Just memorizing."

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