Page 155 of Pack Frenzy
Cassian’s gaze tracks the mess of files across my screen. “What are we looking at?”
I pull up the cruise security feed, a low-res stretch of deck footage Eli managed to recover. “Eli found this in an old cloud backup.”
Cassian squints. “Blake?”
“And he’s with someone else.”
The clip runs—Blake at the railing, wind tossing his hair, a brunette standing near him. The image stutters. They move closer, talking—no, he’s talking and she’s backing up. Then static swallows them both.
Cassian frowns. “Who’s she?”
“Don’t know. Not on the crew list. Not on the passenger manifest either—from what I can tell.”
He shifts closer to the screen, eyes narrowing. “Could be a staffer off-duty. Or someone who didn’t want to be there officially.”
“Yeah. And whoever scrubbed the footage made sure no one could get a clear look at her face.”
Cassian’s hands flex against his thighs. “You think his dad covered it up?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Rewind it.”
I do. We watch the same few seconds again—the brunette, the railing, Blake’s arm lifting toward her shoulder. Her flinch. The frame cuts to static.
Cassian exhales slowly, jaw tight. “She’s scared.”
“Yeah.”
“She could’ve fought him there. Left the marks we saw.”
“Can’t tell—video skips right before she moves.” I show him what I’m talking about.
Cassian sits back, drags a hand down his face. “Could be nothing.”
“Or it could be everything.”
We don’t say the rest out loud.
If she tried to defend herself, then she might’ve paid for it.
Eli drifts in, scratching his jaw, wearing sweats and the same wrinkled Nexus tee he’s probably slept in for two days. “Why are you two sitting in the dark like serial killers?”
Cassian doesn’t look up. “Because we might be hunting one.”
Eli freezes mid-yawn. “Okay… creepy answer.” He steps closer, squinting at the screen. “That the cruise footage I pulled?”
“Yeah.” I tilt the laptop toward him. “Timestamp lines up with the night before the attack.”
He drops onto the arm of the couch, peering at the grainy video as it loops again. “Quality’s ass,” he mutters. “But yeah, that’s him. Who’s she?”
“That’s the problem,” Cassian says. “She’s not listed anywhere. We crossed-referenced the passenger list and crew, nada.”
Eli frowns, already reaching for the keyboard. “Not even on the backup rosters or customs logs?”
“Could she have used a fake name?” I ask.
“Maybe. And if Blake paid for a really good one. Every ID scanned before boarding gets timestamped and verified by the cruise line’s internal server. I pulled those too.” His fingers tap faster, the hacker side of him waking up. “If she was on that ship, she didn’t go through normal channels.”
