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PROLOGUE

Stephanie Martinelli was twenty-six years old when she died. It happened at night in a hotel room where she was alone at the time. Stephanie fell asleep and never woke up. The cause of death, according to the pathologist’s report, was sudden cardiac arrest.

It must be said that Stephanie was not planning to die, she had completely different plans. Just a few days earlier, she flew to the Dominican Republic for a vacation, heading to the resort town of Punta Cana. She was with a friend named Lizzie, who worked with her in a large financial company in Chicago. They looked forward to relaxing on the beach, having fun, and flirting with a few young, muscular guys.

Stephanie was generally a healthy woman with no apparent medical problems. Her lifestyle was balanced and reasonable, without any particular excesses or abuses. She mostly ate salads, did yoga, occasionally smoked a bit of weed to relax, and wasn’t particularly active in terms of sex—just now and then, mostly for stress relief and to feel wanted.

At the hotel, Stephanie did what people usually do on vacation. She spent her mornings on the beach, grabbing a lounger under an umbrella early in the day. She went on excursions offered by the hotel and spent her evenings in bars and clubs around the area. According to Lizzie, she even had a brief romance that ended as quickly as it began.

On her last night before she died, Stephanie was at a club with Lizzie and Lizzie’s new boyfriend. It wasn’t long before the two lovebirds decided a hotel room would be much more fun than staying at the club with Stephanie, so they left her there alone.

Lizzie got back to their room early the next morning. Tired and a little drunk, she went straight to bed. She slept until almost noon, only then discovering that Stephanie was dead.

This all happened the day before they were supposed to fly home. The local pathologist ruled that Stephanie died of natural causes, which seemed like a reasonable explanation. Based on that, the police decided there was no need to open an investigation. Her body was sent back to Chicago.

Her parents requested a second autopsy, but that one also didn’t reveal anything suspicious. A slight pulmonary edema and a small amount of toxins were found in her body, but the levels weren’t high enough to suggest poisoning as the cause of death. They might have been contributing factors, but not the direct cause.

Traces of toxins in Stephanie’s system were easy to explain. She probably had low-quality alcohol or some recreational drugs, which aren’t exactly legal but are pretty common in places like that. After all, she was on vacation in a resort town where that stuff is everywhere, and the whole vibe kind of pushes you to experiment.

The heat and humidity may have played a part as well. For someone from a colder climate, adjusting to those conditions can be tough. It puts extra stress on the heart, and not everyone’s body can handle it, especially when they push their limits with additional activities.

Considering all of this, Stephanie’s death seemed quite natural, though still deeply tragic.

*** The cause of death seemed perfectly clear, so what doubts could there be? Stephanie’s parents, however, saw things differently. They still had questions about several oddities surrounding their daughter’s death. Until they got answers, they weren’t ready to accept the official explanation.

The first worrying detail was Stephanie’s missing phone. Police didn’t find it during their inspection of the hotel room, yet Lizzie insisted Stephanie had it with her when last seen at the club.

Of course, there could be a simple explanation. Perhaps Stephanie’s phone was stolen at the club. She might have lost it on the way home, given her less-than-sober state. Or maybe, during the chaos around her death, someone from the hotel staff quietly pocketed it. After all, it was a valuable item. Calling the number didn’t help. No one answered, the number was out of service, and it was impossible to track the phone’s location. This made sense if the phone ended up in the wrong hands.

But here’s where it got really strange. Just a couple of weeks after Stephanie’s death, all of her social media accounts disappeared. It looked as if someone had deleted them from her phone on her behalf.

There was another thing that kept bothering her parents. In the first days of her vacation, Stephanie found an old coin on the beach. She posted a photo of the find on her social media, writing something like, I’m a treasure hunter now, look what I dug up.

But after her death, the coin was missing too. It disappeared along with the phone. Of course, there could be a simple explanation for this as well, but the story with the coin seemed suspicious to Stephanie’s parents.

And then something else disturbing happened while Stephanie’s body was in the morgue in Punta Cana. Around that time, a hurricane swept across the island, knocking out power along the entire coast for a couple of days. The backup system, powered by solar panels and an energy storage unit, also failed for unknown reasons. With no refrigeration and the body left in the heat, decomposition began to set in, making the pathologists’ job much more difficult.

*** All these strange things, woven together, gave Stephanie’s parents no peace. And they had one more reason to suspect that their daughter’s death was not just a tragic accident.

Stephanie’s father, Julian Martinelli, owned a construction company. He inherited it from his father, who had moved to Chicago as a young man from the small town of Lanciano in Abruzzo, Italy. The company wasn’t exactly large, but it was quite capable of handling big projects.

It’s no secret that the construction business often involves shady dealings. The type and level of this may vary, but it’s generally assumed to be there. So it’s no surprise that the industry holds a strong appeal for organized crime.

Several months before Stephanie’s death, Julian Martinelli had a conflict with some people who wanted him to walk away from a very profitable project. With no peaceful way to resolve the matter, he faced the prospect of significant financial losses if he backed down. What made the situation even more complicated was that everyone told him to stay away from those mobs.

It’s not like Julian Martinelli didn’t have connections in the right circles. Of course, he did. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to run his business. But everyone has their limits, and in the end, he was on his own.

After Stephanie’s death, someone subtly reminded Julian that he still had a daughter and a son, and that it would be a shame if something happened to them too. He understood perfectly well that this threat didn’t necessarily mean those people were behind Stephanie’s death. It was most likely just psychological pressure. Still, he couldn’t completely rule out the possibility that the mafia had something to do with it.

On top of everything else, the Martinelli family was having trouble with their insurance company, which was delaying payments on their daughter’s policy. Even worse, the company was considering not paying at all.

When Stephanie was fourteen, a doctor excused her from gym class because of a detected heart murmur. Even though no murmur was found in her heart since then, the insurance company seized on that detail. They claimed this "critical" information was left out when the policy was set up and accused Stephanie of misleading them.

*** To handle the situation, Stephanie’s parents decided to hire the law firm Richter, Bond & Pollack, who called them to offer their help. Their services included, among other things, a deeper investigation into the circumstances of their daughter’s death.

But there was one thing the Martinelli family didn’t know. The investigation would actually be carried out by a low-profile company called Andromeda Consulting Inc, based in a quiet suburb of Toronto, Canada.

Naturally, if Stephanie’s parents knew this, they would raise questions. For example, why was a small company from another country chosen? And what did it have to do with everything going on?

There might be even more questions if they knew that Richter, Bond & Pollack never planned to take the case. They did so only after being strongly urged and advised to bring in a small company from Toronto to help with the investigation. And this suggestion was made in a way that left no room to say no.

But Stephanie’s parents knew nothing about this. So they didn’t ask any unnecessary questions. They just waited for the results of the investigation.

CHAPTER 1

The plane jolted, lifting me out of a deep sleep and leaving the nightmares behind in another world. I tried to hold on to the fragments of that strange, twisted reality, but the dream was already slipping away, thinning out, vanishing like smoke in the wind. All that remained was a vague sense of unease… and the quiet relief that none of it had been real.

I get nightmares a lot. Actually, they’re pretty much the only kind of dreams I have. I guess that makes sense. A messy past and a murky future aren't exactly a blooming meadow full of sweet aromas where you run around carefree, chasing butterflies. My world feels more like a stray cat’s life, creeping carefully through ruins, peeking around corners, and bolting when the coast looks clear. So yeah, no surprise my dreams tend to be on the tense and twitchy side.

Today, as I wandered through far-off, otherworldly places, I found myself walking along an empty lakeshore, strewn with massive granite boulders piled up here and there. It looked as if someone casually scattered them around while passing through. The shore itself was all granite too, its pale maroon ridges jutting into the lake and vanishing into the deep, dark water. I was in a rush, needing to reach somewhere before nightfall.

Then it started to rain. Big drops fell onto the boulders, and they began to darken and crack, like breaking-open shells. Layered chunks were falling off, hitting the granite shore, and crumbling into tiny fragments. From inside the boulders, like they were eggs, strange creatures started crawling out. They looked like a mix between hyenas and birds. Their bodies were covered in deep blue lichen, with small, flapping wings on their sides that looked more like seaweed than feathers.

As soon as they emerged from their granite shells, they came straight at me, as if I were the prey they were hunting. I knew they meant to do harm, and I absolutely couldn’t let them catch me. In a panic, I grabbed nearby stones to fight them off, but these stones crumbled in my hands. From these broken pieces, revolting little creatures crawled out. They looked like pill bugs or centipedes, the same deep blue color. That made me even more desperate and terrified.

I never found out how it ended. The plane shook again, and I finally woke up. Naturally, I regretted it immediately. From the jolt, everything inside me went cold, as if all my organs had been given away to those in need, leaving only the ringing emptiness of a morgue behind.

There’s this breed of goats that faint when they get scared. They’re literally called fainting goats. Something is really messed up in their genes. It causes their muscles to tense sharply when they are frightened, and they collapse to the ground in any unclear situation. Well, I’m basically from that breed of goats.

Whenever I’m trapped in a situation I can’t control, my body just shuts down. I fall asleep almost instantly. Especially on planes. It’s the only defense mechanism that works, considering how much I hate flying. But now I’m awake. And until we land, I’ll have to sit with my panic and pretend I’m fine.

I glanced at Anna. She was still typing away on her laptop, focused and calm, not paying the slightest attention to the plane’s jerky movements. I envied her composure.

Although who knows what’s really going on in her head? Maybe she is also freaked out when the plane drops into an air pocket or starts shaking. She just doesn’t show it. I guess the same with everyone else on this flight.

The truth is, I have no idea what any of them are thinking or feeling. I don’t know their stories, the pain they carry, the losses they’ve endured, the fears that keep them up at night. We rarely understand much about other people unless we make the effort to step into their world. And even then, it all depends on whether they are willing to let us in.

But when you think about it, no one else really knows anything about me either. They see me from the outside, and to them, I’m just a well-off guy in his forties, traveling with a young, attractive woman. And I look pretty calm and confident too, no matter what is going on inside me.

That’s because a surface-level glance never shows you what’s actually going on. Never. And if someone is doing a good job hiding it, good luck figuring them out. You would have to dig pretty deep, and even then, who knows if you would find anything.

Take me, for example. And I'm not just talking about how I sit there looking all calm and zen, while everything inside me is a total mess. I mean, look at my whole situation.

I live under someone else’s name in a foreign country, carefully hiding my past from everyone. My real story was erased, replaced by the life of the guy whose identity I took. Only a handful of people actually know the truth. Anna is one of them.

There’s not much point in giving my current name since it doesn’t really feel like mine. Sure, I’m used to it and respond to it, but I haven’t exactly made peace with it. So, if you really want to call me something, call me Dan. I like that name better.

And just so we're clear, I’m not some villain plotting in the shadows or hiding behind a fake identity on some dark mission. My story is something else entirely. It’s about survival, about the impossible choices you have to make just to keep going.

*** I never really believed in fate, but sometimes I can’t help thinking it might be real. At the very least, I can’t explain my life any other way.

My childhood was nothing special. I grew up during a time when a once-mighty country was falling apart, and I lived through the chaos that followed. Still, if you think about it, my life wasn’t all that different from how most people around the world lived.

The real turning point came in university, though I didn’t realize it at the time. It’s often like that—we don’t immediately understand the significance of certain events, or the impact of the people who come into our lives and quietly change our future. That’s exactly what happened to me.

The university I attended was one of the toughest to get into. The entry standards were really high, and studying there wasn't easy either. I managed to keep up, but some others... not so much. There was this guy in our group, let’s call him Michael, who was struggling a bit. At first, he stuck close to me just to boost his grades. But then, like it often happens, we slowly became good friends. Eventually, we were pretty much inseparable. We went hiking, climbed mountains, learned how to sail, and even tried scuba diving together.

Michael’s dad was a big deal in the military, something to do with intelligence. I never really got into the details since my interests were totally different. But over time, my friendship with Michael pulled me into a world I didn’t even know existed.

After graduation, Michael suggested I join him at a low-key company that dealt with cybersecurity. Data protection, stopping network hacks, gathering and analyzing information. Basically, everything we had learned at university. Good salary, great perks, solid future prospects. I said yes.

But as it turned out, the company was actually a subsidiary of a private military firm. And that firm was closely tied to the department Michael’s dad headed. I didn’t find that out right away. And when I did, it became clear there was no way out. It was one of those situations where it costs a penny to get in, but a fortune to get out.

What did we do? Pretty much what these kinds of groups do everywhere. We protected sensitive information for some people and stole it from others. Databases, emails, internal reports — all that stuff was at our fingertips. The world turned out to be like a delicate web, and with just one click, you could rip it anywhere you wanted.

To call things what they were, we were part of an information war, making pretty decent money off it. Trading secrets is a very profitable business. I can’t say I enjoyed being part of it, but orders weren’t up for discussion. That’s something I learned fast.

Over time, our assignments started to change. More and more, we were being pulled into fieldwork, handling straight-up military operations. Mostly in the Middle East and Africa. I mean, we were part of a private military company, after all, and the higher-ups were calling the shots. It started to get to me, but I didn’t have much of a choice. I knew too much to be let go just like that.

Then things took a bad turn. Without being told the whole story, we were given a job to hack into the database of an unremarkable little bank. But once we cracked it, we uncovered shady dealings involving top officials from the Ministry of Defense. We’re talking billions funneled into offshore accounts through murky schemes. We saw something we were never meant to see. And from that moment on, the walls that had once seemed unbreakable began to crumble.

First, our boss just vanished. He went on vacation by the sea and ended up drowning. Word was, he went for a swim drunk, totally underestimated the waves, and got pulled under. That was the first big red flag.

Right after that, the investigations kicked off, and the higher-ups started getting hit with criminal charges. Michael and I got lucky. His dad stepped in and sent us straight to a war zone, far out of reach from all the drama. Not long after, Michael managed to slip away to some country in Asia, and that was the last time anyone heard from him.

Almost immediately after that, I got the news that our team had been sent on a field mission to Syria, where they were all killed under strange circumstances. Supposedly, it was a mix-up, friendly fire. That kind of thing happens in war, they said. A rocket strike took them out.

That pretty much left me as the only one still alive who had seen that nasty bit of info about the corruption in the Ministry of Defense. Well, there was still Michael, but he had been hidden away somewhere far and secure. I’m pretty sure the higher-ups made some kind of deal to keep him untouchable. I didn’t have that kind of protection. It was only a matter of time before they came for me.

But life unfolds in ways we don't expect.

I remember how our transport plane struggled to lift off, the roar of its engines as it finally pulled away from the ground. I remember the sensation of gaining altitude just before the missile hit us. The explosion. And the way the plane started to fall.

I got lucky. The missile hit the tail, and I was sitting near the cockpit. Lucky that the plane had only climbed about three hundred yards, no higher. Lucky that it had picked up just enough speed to glide, and that the pilots reacted quickly. Lucky that, as we came down, we didn’t smash into the concrete runway like a falling brick, but instead slid through soft black soil, soaked from a week of rain.

I woke up in a hospital. Under a different name. Michael’s father had taken care of everything. To the world, the real me was gone, lost in a plane crash. Officially missing. Effectively dead. That was my only way out. It let me slip through the trap and vanish into another life in a foreign country, under a new identity. Of course, no one handed me a free pass to ride off into the sunset. Everything comes at a price. Still, whatever the cost, my current life is a world away from what it used to be.

But here's the thing. You can take on a new name, move somewhere far away, start fresh... but the past doesn't just vanish. You can't trade it in. It stays with you. Always.

*** I used to think about that day pretty often. Not so much anymore. But my dreams are a different story. Everything that happened back then, all the fear and anxiety, still shows up in my nightmares as if they own the place, like it's their home and they just live there.

I try to push it out of my mind, just as I do with a lot of other things in my life. But it doesn't always work. This memory barges in like an old, tipsy friend with a bottle in his hand. Nobody expected him, but he’s convinced he doesn’t need an invite. And once he’s here, good luck getting him to leave. He digs in his heels and always finds some excuse to stick around just a little longer.

When I think about what happened, my thoughts start spinning in loops, like ants stuck in the infamous death spiral. Actually, what happens with ants is a fascinating phenomenon. Sometimes, out of nowhere, a few of them start running in circles for no apparent reason. Little by little, others get drawn in the madness, and before you know it, you’ve got a whole ant rave happening. It ends with all of them collapsing from exhaustion and, well, dying. My brain does something pretty similar. Except instead of ants, it’s my thoughts endlessly running in circles.

Why did this happen to me? Why that plane? Why didn’t I die, only end up with a few bruises? Why did it happen so conveniently, right when I needed it? Was it fate, or just a random coincidence? What does this mean for the rest of my life?

I’m pretty sure I’ll never get answers to these questions. So, I came up with a simple explanation for myself, something I call the Law of Large Numbers. If there’s a chance an event could happen, eventually it will. And the higher the probability, the more often it’ll occur. The only question is when, and with whom.

That’s the main idea behind the Law of Large Numbers. If something is bound to happen, you can’t avoid it. Sooner or later it will happen, and it will land on someone, most likely a completely random person who then has to deal with it. Why that person? No reason at all. It just happened to be him. Bad luck. Or, you can say, he ran out of luck this time. He had dodged the bullet all the times before, but not this one. That’s just how it works.

When war is raging, the Law of Large Numbers shows no mercy. Planes take off and land, and some get shot at. The chance that one will be brought down is anything but zero. And someone will be unlucky enough to find themselves on that plane at that exact moment. It just so happened that it was my turn that time.

Anyway, that’s just the explanation I came up with for myself, something to keep me from wrestling with those questions over and over again. What really happened, I have no idea. And no one does. Honestly, when it comes down to it, we know very little about anything.

*** Over the intercom, the crew announced we were beginning our descent and would be landing soon in Punta Cana. Around us, people stirred and began to chatter. Anna closed her laptop, slipped it into her bag, and turned to stare out the window. I leaned slightly, peeking over her shoulder. The plane tilted as we lined up for landing. Below us, neat little squares of palm groves and sugarcane fields stretched out. The sea glittered in the sun, and endless white beaches ran along the coast.

Two weeks. That’s how much time we have to look into Stephanie’s death, take care of a few other things, and get to know this island. Two weeks.

Well then, paradise, here we come.

CHAPTER 2

As we walked out of the airport, we spotted a short, stocky guy in the crowd holding a piece of paper with Mia Sol printed on it. That was the sign that he was waiting for us. Without saying a word, he led us to the parking lot, pointed at a plain gray Ford Bronco, handed over the keys, and left just as silently.

I peeked inside the car. Our suitcases, mine and Anna’s, had arrived a couple of days earlier and were neatly packed in the trunk, along with a case of bottled water. I slid into the driver’s seat, typed the hotel address into the GPS, and started the drive through Punta Cana toward Bávaro. Same hotel where Stephanie had died three months earlier.

The world of the Dominican Republic was dazzlingly bright. Even with sunglasses on, it felt like I was staring into a flashlight. The sun was already roasting my left arm and the side of my face through the car window, and the only thing saving us from the heat was the air conditioner blasting at full force.

It was a world I knew nothing about, waiting to be discovered. I had to learn the roads, figure out how people behaved here. Start making connections. Get a sense of what was okay and what was better to stay away from.

Without really digging into how the locals live, getting by would be tough. Every team needs that one person who stays on high alert, the one scowling in the background like an overprotective mom, scanning every corner for threats no one else sees. Someone who spots the mess before the rest of the crew steps right into it. In our case, that someone is me. Others may drift through life like it’s a lazy river, barely noticing the chaos around them. But I don’t have that luxury. Like it or not, I am the one who keeps us out of trouble.

Besides, with the delicate nature of our mission, we had no room for missteps. First, we needed to get the lay of the land, throw up a bit of smoke and mirrors, and only then start paddling around. Even then, it had to be all slow moves. Eyes wide. Ears open. No sudden splashes.

We were almost at the hotel. Time to decide whether to actually go there or not. I should mention, we also had access to a villa up in the mountains, and the idea of heading there was pretty tempting. The clients it was rented for weren’t arriving for a few more days, so we could stay there if we wanted. The villa was spacious, comfortable, came with a pool, and offered complete privacy. As you can see, heading to the mountains sounded way better than settling for a standard hotel room.

Just in case, I shot Anna a quick glance that said, You sure about this? She returned it with the unwavering expression of a brick wall. That was the end of our silent discussion. As planned, we were heading straight to the hotel. After all, it was the ground zero for our entire operation. Wasting time was definitely not in the cards. Our schedule was packed pretty tight, tighter than a clown car at a circus convention.

Of course, if our sole mission were to investigate Stephanie Martinelli’s death, there would be no reason to hurry. Her lifeless body was found three months ago, and an extra day or two wouldn’t change much. But Stephanie wasn’t the only reason we were here. There were other, more urgent matters waiting on the island. Things that were critical to the people who sent us here.

Just so you know, Anna and I aren’t exactly free to do whatever we want. We’re not serfs, sure, but it’s not far off. We get our orders, salute, and follow through. Skipping out just because we don’t like a task? Not really an option. Why it works that way is a whole other story. But that’s just how things run in our world.

Our assignments come from higher-ups at the consulting agency Andromeda Consulting Inc. It’s the same company from a Toronto suburb that was hired by the Chicago law firm Richter, Bond & Pollak, to investigate Stephanie’s case.

Technically, Anna and I work for Andromeda. I mean, they’re not our employers in the traditional sense, but close enough. They also take their orders from people higher up the chain, the ones with more power and more resources. How does that whole setup work? I honestly don’t know, and don’t really care.

My job is just to do what I’m told. That’s the role Anna and I play. We’re like stokers in the belly of an ocean liner. We keep the engines running, shoveling coal into the fire, so the ship can sail to some far-off place only the captain knows about. So no, we don’t question assignments. We simply get them done.

This time, we were tasked with looking into the details of Stephanie’s death, along with a few other assignments added on. In fact, those extra tasks were the real reason we came to the island. If it weren’t for them, I probably never would have heard of Stephanie Martinelli, let alone gotten involved in what happened to her. But here we are, in the Dominican Republic, on our way to the hotel, diving straight into work.

*** Before we got to the hotel, I pulled into a small plaza and parked near a grocery store. It felt like the right time to start getting a feel for the place, to check out the local scene. We went inside and casually browsed the shelves. Grabbed a couple of beers, and Anna picked up a few bags of chips and a bunch of bananas.

At the checkout, Anna struck up a conversation with the cashier. She asked how safe the taxis were, what the nightlife was like, and what the chances were of someone like her ending up in an unpleasant situation after a night of clubbing. Not in the “Maybe this is my chance for a wild adventure with sex and everything?” kind of way, but more like, “How do I party without waking up in a ditch or on a boat I don’t remember boarding?”

I waited outside so I wouldn't get in the way. Right next to the store was a lounge bar. Out front, a bunch of young, solid-looking guys on motorcycles were hanging around, killing time, occasionally throwing sharp glances at people walking by.

“Local taxi drivers,” I figured. There’s this thing in the Dominican Republic — cheap rides for folks who can’t afford the usual fare. You hop on the back of a guy’s motorcycle, wrap your arms tight around his muscular body like you’re in some low-budget romance flick, and he takes you wherever you need to go. It’s inexpensive, and you don’t have to worry about traffic jams. Sometimes, there aren't even real roads, more like dirt paths or whatever is there. But as long as you can squeeze through, it’s all good.

Basically, it’s how locals get around. You kind of feel like a kamikaze co-pilot, scanning the horizon for an aircraft carrier to crash into. But it’s cheap and gets the job done. And if you don’t think too hard about what could go wrong on a wild ride like that, it’s all hunky-dory. Oh, and those bikes? Definitely not Harleys or Ducatis. More like beat-up mopeds. But they run, and that’s what counts.

I also figured these guys were obviously dealing. Drugs, or whatever other late-night fun, were definitely on the menu. Classic taxi driver side hustle. Always has been, everywhere. Like, if you need booze in the middle of the night, just go straight to the cabbies. They'll hook you up. Doesn’t matter what city in the world you’re in.

And these guys definitely looked the part. They were the kind who, if you asked nicely, could pull a rabbit out of a hat or a shiny coin from behind your ear. Local magicians.

After catching a few sizing-me-up looks in my direction, I figured it was time. I walked over slowly. They all went quiet at once and stared at me, waiting to see what I was about.

First off, I gave them a bit of the old sweet talk. You know, the whole “I’m new here and you guys clearly know how everything works around the block” angle. Of course, telling them that nobody else within ten miles could possibly help me better, boosted their ego. Catching on to that, I asked about how to get around, how to deal with the cops if things got dicey, how much to slip them to make a problem disappear, that sort of thing. I didn’t really need this information, obviously, but it was a good way to strike up a conversation with these guys.

While I was digging for local wisdom, Anna walked up, and just like that, the whole vibe flipped. With me, the guys had this patronizing tone, like “Alright, fine, we’ll explain it to you, poor clueless soul.” But the second Anna joined the conversation, it was full peacock mode. Straightened backs, casually cool attitudes, that whole “We’re pretty important, but also totally chill about it” energy. Tail feathers on full display. Classic guy behavior when an attractive woman shows up, even if they know they don’t have a shot. And Anna? Oh, she knows exactly how to play that game.

By the time we wrapped up the chat, we already knew where to find tours to places tourists aren’t supposed to know about, where to score cheap phones, which shops were actually worth visiting, and which bars to avoid, unless you enjoy making bad decisions. Basically, whatever we might need, all we had to do was ask them. And the way they offered their help, you'd think the entire city ran through them.

Once we said our goodbyes and got back in the car, Anna gave me an approving nod. "You did good," she said. "Now they’ll go blab to all their buddies. By the end of the day, everyone around here will know what we’re up to."

I nodded. That was exactly the plan. That little heart-to-heart with the locals? Part of the cover. And honestly, we pulled it off pretty well.

*** Let’s say nobody around here needs to know the real reason we came to the island. For that, we should give them a simple explanation, an innocent story that won’t invite unnecessary questions. That’s exactly what we need to sort out first.

There’s a tale about a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I think it might actually be a Bible story, but let’s call it a fable for now. Once, there was a clever wolf who lived in the forest. One day, he realized that chasing rabbits through the woods wasn’t the best way to hunt. Way too much effort for too little reward. But snatching sheep from the nearby flock? Yeah, you can call it fine dining with half the work. So he decided to sneak in by pretending to be one of them.

The wolf put on a sheep’s skin, tried to bleat as best he could, wagged his tail, and acted like a cute, harmless little sheep. And believe it or not, the plan worked. The sheep bought it. They started hanging out with him, dreaming of an exciting future together, and who knows what other nonsense was bouncing around in their woolly heads. Everything was going great for the wolf... until the shepherd showed up. He saw right through the act, gave the wolf a proper beating, and chased him into the boonies.

Naturally, the story has a rock-solid moral. Be careful and don’t just trust pretty words or charming looks because sneaky bad intentions are probably hiding behind them. It’s obviously great for kids. But for adults? Not so much. If someone skipped that basic life lesson while sprinting from childhood to whatever comes next, a wise fable won't fix them. They probably won’t even realise that the sheep in the story are supposed to be people.

At the same time, you could look at the fable from a different angle. Maybe it isn't meant for the sheep at all. Maybe it's a guide for wolves.

So, what’s the real lesson from this story? First off, sheep, in general, are pretty dumb and oblivious. The shepherd spotted the wolf right away, but the sheep just fluttered their eyes and snuggled up like he was one of their own. Fooling them was easy. Sure, it’s technically poaching, but if you’re starving, does that really matter?

The second lesson? Disguising yourself and hiding your motives is often the easiest way to get what you want. If the wolf had shown up as himself and announced that he was there for lunch, it would have been a different story. But he was much smarter than that. He played the role. When he had to bleat, he bleated, even if it was a struggle. When he had to chew grass, he chewed, even though he wasn’t a vegetarian by any stretch.

But if the wolf was so clever, why did he get caught? Because he was poorly prepared. His act worked on the sheep, but the shepherd saw through it instantly. Something was off. The wolf bleated in the wrong tone, grazed without appetite, and moved with a gait that didn't match the others. In the end, the improvisation failed.

The takeaway? The wolf needed more practice to fully get into the role of the sheep. Or he needed a smarter plan altogether. Something easier. More believable. Like pretending to be something closer to what he actually was. A sheepdog, for example. The closer your act is to who you really are, the more convincing it becomes.

It’s not exactly The Art of War by Sun Tzu, but there’s real wisdom in that fable, if you know where to look.

Take Stephanie’s death, for instance. No one here is going to let us dig into that case. The locals run everything on the island. The moment they even suspect that a couple of outsiders are snooping around like amateur detectives, they’ll pull us aside for a "friendly chat" and kick us off without a second thought.

The truth is, we didn’t really know what we were dealing with. Stephanie’s death, while it looked pretty ordinary at first glance, came with a handful of strange little details that didn’t quite add up. Just enough to make you wonder if it really was an accident. And when the coin she found came up — the one that disappeared right after she died — well, at that point, anything felt possible.

Who might we run into during the investigation? Pretty much anyone. All we knew was that whoever was behind this, we definitely didn’t want to cross path with them.

So if we were going to dig into the local dirt, we had to do it quietly, on tiptoe and in a whisper. That’s exactly what cover stories are for. The math is simple: noise always draws attention, no way around it. But if that noise has nothing to do with you, no one cares. The key is making sure nobody sees you as a threat. That’s the whole point of a good cover story: to convince people you are harmless.

In the wolf’s case, his cover story was all about blending in. He dressed the part, bleated convincingly, and even munched on grass as if it was a delicacy. And the sheep welcomed him without question.

People aren't much different. They're lazy, mostly. Not too curious. As long as you give them a decent explanation, they’re happy and quickly lose interest.

That’s what a good cover story really is: a simple, believable reason for who you are and what you’re doing. Something that doesn’t raise questions. Anna and I had just such a story.

Well, technically, it was Anna’s story. She has been using it for almost ten years. I only became part of it recently, after I started working with her. They fit me into it seamlessly, and it has never once let us down. Every part of that story is carefully crafted and closely tied to the truth. Because, no matter how you slice it, the best lie is the one that sticks as close to the truth as possible. Less risk of slipping up. Less chance of getting caught.

Anna always presents herself as a specialist in crisis management and reputation repair. Technically, that's true. She runs a small marketing agency called Anna Morel Media Inc.

On paper, I work there as a digital technology specialist. In plain terms, I handle the filming and turn the raw footage into polished content for clients.

That's essentially our cover story. Two failed talents who never quite grew out of their youthful ambitions, still holding on to the dream of creating something meaningful one day. The kind of people who slap flashy titles on their business cards to feel important. But in reality, it’s a small-time operation: shooting commercials, writing flattering articles for niche websites. In that story, I run around with cameras, lights, and microphones, while Anna plays the diva journalist.

Basically, just two harmless misfits caught up in total nonsense. The kind of people nobody notices, even if they wander into places they probably shouldn’t be. And that’s the whole point: to seem completely non-threatening. Maybe even a little ridiculous.

Another key part of a good cover story is that it has to be verifiable. Anna’s story holds up because it has been carefully crafted since her childhood. There’s plenty of information about her online, but nothing compromising.

Photos from her student years. Vacation snapshots with her mother. Parties with friends. She graduates from university and starts working as a journalist for a well-known magazine. Articles published under her name. Then she studies law and works at a law firm. Pictures with one boyfriend, then another. Trips with girlfriends. Eventually, she starts her own business. A portfolio of advertising campaigns she has worked on.

In the end, it's the story of a talented girl who decided she could do better on her own than working for a boss. Or maybe it's the story of a talented girl who overestimated her abilities, missed her chance, and by thirty-four was left with unclear and mostly bleak prospects. But that depends on how you look at it.

Either way, Anna’s cover story is solid. Clear, believable, and easy to check. Mine, on the other hand, isn't so great. In fact, you could say, it's not great at all. But I’m second in command, so no one really questions me. Besides, I know my way around all the gear. Anyone can see that. So it counts for something.

And just for the record, we do real work. We shoot actual content. The footage goes to the guys working for Anna, and they do their magic, turning it into a pretty decent product that clients actually pay for. So if anyone ever decides to look into Anna’s company to see what it really is, we don’t have to worry. To anyone checking, it’ll look like a not-so-profitable, but totally legit business. Up and running. Bringing in money.

As part of the story, we flew to the Dominican Republic to film an ad promoting island vacations. The client was a local tourism association, eager to patch up the island’s reputation. And just to be clear, we didn’t land that job ourselves. Our employers arranged it for us.

*** Although the Dominican Republic is popular with tourists, you can’t exactly call it completely safe. The main reason, of course, is poverty. Despite steady economic growth, a lot of people are still just scraping by. And that kind of environment tends to go hand in hand with crime.

The pirate past of Tortuga hasn’t been forgotten either. The locals can be a little rough, not exactly sticklers for rules. On top of that, some pretty serious players have turned the island into a hub for moving cocaine from South America to the rest of the world. And then there’s the usual mix of shady business no one really wants to talk about. So yeah, crime fits right in here.

The Dominican Republic often shows up on travel advisories, usually with the same warning: stay alert and keep your guard up. That said, it’s not like trouble is waiting around every corner. It exists, sure, but not everywhere. In most tourist-heavy areas, things are generally under control, and the authorities do keep a watchful eye.

Still, tourists do die here. Not frequently. But it happens.

There’s a clear explanation for it. People come here with all sorts of health issues, and suddenly find themselves in a hot, humid climate, with unlimited alcohol, tropical illnesses, and added physical stress. Let’s just say it’s not the best mix for a weak body. That’s exactly how they explained Stephanie’s death.

Murders, robberies, and rapes involving tourists do happen. But honestly, in many cases, those tragedies could have been avoided. If a place feels unsafe, it probably is. So why go there and test your luck? Just a reminder: there’s no such thing as being too careful. Still, some travelers forget that and act recklessly.

Then there is food poisoning, which is another problem in the Dominican Republic. Sometimes people even die from it, right in their hotel rooms. Usually, it’s just a few miserable days of vomiting and diarrhea, but occasionally the body gives out, and that’s the end of it. The point is, even in a tropical paradise, it pays to stay cautious and not put just anything into your mouth.

But that’s more like the usual background noise. What's more interesting is that every now and then, the island sees a sudden spike in tourist deaths. A statistical anomaly. Naturally, the authorities try to sweep it under the rug. But that doesn't always work.

That’s when the internet starts buzzing with drama. Angry waves rolling through the info ocean, voices squawking like proud albatrosses: “They’re poisoning tourists with fake booze!” or “Every plate of food is crawling with disease!” And just like that, tourism tanks. The island panics, desperate to clean up its image and get the vacationers flowing back in.

It was during one of those mini-apocalypses that Anna landed a pretty solid gig: shooting vacation promo videos and promoting them on social media. That’s how we ended up on the island, two restless souls with big plans, ready to explore every corner and showcase everything that made this place shine.

That was our clean, simple explanation for being there. And the best part? Every word of it was totally true.

But the thing about a cover story is, it only works if people actually hear it. So our first priority was making sure the people around us knew it, bought it, and didn’t ask too many questions. The goal was to blend in, stay off the radar, and get on with our work. That’s the whole point of the cover. And that's why we were heading to the hotel, not the villa.

*** For everyone, Anna and I were here to shoot promo content. Behind that cover, we would quietly investigate Stephanie’s death, find out what was really going on, and why people were dying. Especially, why some of them were dropping dead with no obvious cause.

But there was more to it than just that. Could we pull off the rest while hiding behind the promo shoot story? Probably not. The moment we started asking the worrisome questions or poking around where we shouldn’t, people might start getting suspicious. Then we would have to tell the sharper ones the truth. That we were looking into a girl's death. We would fall back on our second story: the investigation.

And it wouldn’t have been a failure for us. That story was also just a cover. Our main goal wasn’t really Stefanie or the inquiry. Our real task was something else entirely. I’d call it a mission that needed one solid cover stacked on top of another.

Of course, we would follow through on everything we said, because a cover only works if you live it. We would shoot the promo, and we would look into Stephanie’s case. But here’s the thing. If we did our job well, we’d get a pat on the back. If not, no one would be too hard on us. Like I said, our real mission was something completely different. And that’s the one we absolutely could not fail.

We finally arrived. I parked right in front of the hotel, and we hauled our suitcases to the reception desk. The place looked pretty nice. A large, well-kept property with its own beach, a few three-story buildings, a couple of pools, and plenty of shady palm trees. This was going to be our home for the next few days. Honestly, not a bad setup at all.

CHAPTER 3

It took us about fifteen minutes to get settled and unpack our suitcases. The room felt spacious and airy. Not exactly a ballroom, but there was plenty of space to move around without bumping into the bed or tripping over your luggage.

After a quick rinse in the shower, I flopped onto the bed without even bothering to pull back the covers. I wasn’t planning to sleep; I just needed to stretch out and give my back a break. My old injuries had been acting up more often lately, and it was starting to worry me.

When you’re young, hardly anyone worries about their health. You just assume it will always be there. Instead, you’re tempted to test yourself, to see how tough you are and how far you can push your limits. It’s all part of being young and dumb, driven by curiosity and ignorance. I was no exception.

Eventually, we get a bit wiser and more careful. But by then, it’s usually too late. Your health starts to slip, and your body already acts like a drunken clown fumbling his props and trying to hold up his falling pants. You end up cursing your younger self for all the stupid shit you did, but it changes nothing. What’s done is done. I was pretty much there already. Not quite all the way, but close enough. And I wasn’t thrilled about it.

Someone knocked on the door. Two short, two long. It was Anna.

“Open!” I shouted, still sprawled out on the bed.

Anna walked in and looked around the room. Then she came over and lay down next to me.

“My room’s better,” she said. “Looks nicer overall. So, we’ll meet at my place.”

If she says we’re meeting at her place, then that’s how it’s gonna be. She’s the one calling the shots. I’m just the backup dancer in this cabaret, the guy who brings coffee to the primas and carries their luggage on trips. At least that’s how I feel about my situation, even though no one actually treats me that way, especially Anna.

What I’m trying to say is that her place in the pecking order is definitely above mine. I only joined recently, basically like a stray they decided to keep, while she’s been one of them practically since birth. So yeah, the odds in this game aren’t exactly in my favor.

How did I end up in all this? The answer is simple: beggars can’t be choosers. When you’re in survival mode and ready to take the first opportunity that comes your way, you’re happy with any outcome.

When things went south for me, I pretty much had to die just to stay alive. And I did. At least on paper. They listed me as missing in action. Next thing I knew, I woke up in a hospital under someone else’s name. From there, they smuggled me quietly into a neighboring neutral country through back roads and ditches, then sent me to Canada under a new identity.

Once there, I was handed off to an organization that officially doesn’t even exist. But these guys had serious resources and solid connections, including ties to certain people in military intelligence agencies across different countries. From what I can tell, Michaels’s father was somehow connected to this group, maybe even part of it. But that’s just my guess. No one ever told me the whole story.

Anyway, this hidden deep-in-the-shadows organization somehow decided to take me under its wing. I still have no idea how Michaels’s dad and his friends convinced them or what they promised about me. What I do know for certain is that it’s basically impossible to get into this organization from the outside. Almost everyone here seems to be related or connected since childhood. In a way, I’m kind of an anomaly.

That’s how I became Anna’s assistant. She kind of does her own thing but still takes orders from above. As for the organization itself, I barely know anything, just bits and pieces Anna drip-feeds me and scraps from our bosses at Andromeda, since I have to talk to them fairly often.

The rules here aren’t very strict. If anything, it’s the opposite. But the core principles are a different story. They are a lot like the yakuza code. I guess that’s just how groups like this operate everywhere. For them, it’s the only way to stay afloat.

So spilling secrets, refusing to do your part, or stepping back when the group’s survival is at stake is a really bad idea. I got the impression that if you screw up like that, you might just vanish, and no one would ever hear from you again. Maybe it’s not that dramatic in real life, but I’m not planning to find out the hard way.

Besides, I’m fine with how things are for now. The only thought that nags me sometimes is whether they would actually let me go if I decided to walk away. But that’s a problem for another time. I’m not there yet. For now, I just do what I’m good at and try to be useful. I also try to stay on good terms with Anna, which, honestly, is the easy part. She’s awesome.

*** After lying there for a bit, Anna got up and gave me a little nod. It was basically her way of saying, Alright, break’s over, let’s do something productive. I got up too, grabbed everything I needed for the shoot, tossed it in a bag, and stepped out of the cool room straight into a wall of tropical heat.

The sun blazed like a crazy spotlight. A few scattered clouds near the horizon offered little relief, and the only thing saving us from melting was a light breeze drifting in from the ocean.

We walked around just to get a feel for the place and make sure people noticed and remembered us. We had to start selling our cover story. So first, we headed to the main building, where the front desk was tucked into a breezy, open-air lobby. Right there was also the entrance to the main restaurant, where people gathered for breakfast and whatever else.

Up on the second floor, there was a bar with a gorgeous black grand piano in the lounge area. Sitting at the keys was a slender woman in a red dress with white polka dots, playing Liszt with real soul.

I was taking photos nonstop. Being a photographer is actually a great cover. You’re constantly in everyone’s line of sight, but people don’t really pay much attention to you. At first, sure, they notice you, but then you just fade into the background. It’s like being a janitor: always around, always seen, but ask anyone later, and they'll barely remember you.

Anna was a whole different story. People always remember her, so everything kind of revolved around that. Every now and then, she'd strike a super relaxed pose, like she was in the middle of a magazine shoot. Then she'd start talking, casually switching between English and French, going on about how amazing everything was around here.

The whole thing felt totally natural. With her background in journalism and being on camera, she made it look easy. And yeah, she was one of those striking young women with enough charm to probably make a statue feel something. Honestly, even if she started talking complete nonsense, the promo video would still work. Most people simply watch those things without really paying attention anyway. But Anna wasn’t just a pretty face who could talk fancy. She was sharp, and most of the time, she got straight to the point.

We strolled through the hotel grounds at an easy pace, stopping here and there, and eventually found ourselves down by the beach. Along the way, we quickly learned the lay of the land. We scoped out the pools and bars and discovered the hidden corners with extra restaurants. We figured out who was heading to these spots and from which buildings. We even found out who was running the tours and what kinds of entertainment they were offering.

Sure, we did our homework before the trip, checking maps and reading reviews. But seeing it all in person made a real difference. It’s a universal rule: until you’ve been there yourself, touched everything with your own hands, seen it with your own eyes, smelled it, and tasted it, all your abstract knowledge doesn't count for much. Once we walked through the grounds, nice and slow, to get a real feel for the place, it all started to click.

We knew that the night she died, Stephanie came back from the club around 2 a.m. But we had no clue what she did after that. Maybe, instead of going straight to her room, she decided to dive into another bar on the hotel grounds and picked up something nasty that finished her off. Or maybe she went down to the beach, and someone there robbed her, taking her phone and the coin while she was drunk. We needed to check all these possibilities. But, based on what we saw, none of them seemed very likely.

We did a few loops around the building she was staying in. Walked the same paths she would have taken. Checked out a bar nearby and found out it closed before she came back to the hotel. Somewhere in there, Anna started flirting with the bartender, all playful eyes and flirty smiles. He played right along, saying that walking on the beach at night was totally safe. There’s security around, and a girl like her has nothing to worry about. No one would dare mess with someone that pretty, especially if she had a guy like him by her side.

When we stepped out of the bar, Anna looked around and said, all business, “Let’s go look for treasure hunters.”

Even though it was getting closer to evening, the beach was still pretty crowded. Some people were strolling around like Anna and me, some were still sunbathing on loungers, and others sat with drinks at the tables set up along the hotel grounds. A large group of windsurfers was catching the wind in their billowing sails, taking turns gliding across the choppy ocean on their boards.

The wind was picking up steadily. It messed up our hair and carried salty spray from the wave crests rolling in, one after another, from the endless expanse of ocean. The waves stirred up sandy muck from the bottom and crashed onto the shore with heavy, loud sighs, trying to reach as far as they could. The wind and salty spray kept misting my glasses, forcing me to wipe them every minute. Probably it was better to take them off, but the sun still shone too brightly. It glared down with the relentless intensity of a crazy person, stubbornly ignoring the clouds piling up on the horizon.

I noticed a couple of older folks in wetsuits, wearing headphones, and holding metal detectors. They were wading ankle-deep in the water, getting splashed by the waves, using long-handled scoops to dig up sand and bring it up to their detectors.

It was pretty clear they were serious about it. All their gear looked top-notch and must have cost them a small fortune. But that’s how it goes with any hobby. As soon as you start getting into something properly, aiming for that pro-level vibe, your wallet starts bleeding cash. There’s always room to improve, and it’s hard to stop when that itch to get better keeps eating at you.

The whole time, Anna was grumbling about everything: the stupid salty wind that turned her hair into a bird’s nest impossible to wash, the sticky humidity that had her sweating like a pig in a slaughterhouse, and the sand in her shoes that was now eating her feet like tiny, sadistic termites. In other words, the world had officially betrayed her, and she needed to do something about it. That was just Anna. If things didn’t go her way, she would tear the universe apart.

I walked in silence, mostly tuning out her muttering, which was getting drowned out anyway by the sound of the waves and the wind. Taking photos was pointless, the lens would get covered in salty mist within seconds, so I packed the camera away. I just wandered along, looking around and breathing in the sea air.

Two boys with a German shepherd passed us. I felt sorry for the dog. Definitely not the best climate for her. She belonged somewhere with snow, where you could see your breath in the frosty morning air. That kind of place. Not here, under the stifling dome of the hot tropics, by this warm, restless, salty ocean. If anything, I love dogs. Way more than people. Holy creatures. Loyal and kind, unlike people.

*** Finally, Anna quieted down. We had reached the spot we were heading to. Now we just had to find the people we were looking for.

There was a row of wooden shacks along the beach, painted in bright cheerful colors. Locals ran small businesses there, mostly catering to vacationers. You could rent gear, book tours, or get help with planning anything from a beachside barbecue to a cheesy but romantic surprise proposal. Basically, if you were looking for a little fun, this was the spot. Just behind those shacks was another row of cabins, built a bit sturdier, with small shops selling all kinds of random stuff tourists might want, or think they do.

Right in the middle of this hotspot of raw capitalism, flavored with local charm, we searched for one particular crew. We were hoping to find the guys who took tourists out to remote beaches and islands to hunt for treasure, outfitting them with metal detectors and other gear.

From what we knew, Stephanie had been with them on the trip when she found that old coin. So we wanted to hear their side of the story of what happened that day. It also seemed like a good idea to learn more about who these guys were, what they did when they weren't guiding tourists, what they knew about the coin, and whether they had anything to do with it going missing.

The coin wasn't something we stumbled across by accident. Figuring out how it was found and what happened to it afterward was one of the main reasons we were on the island in the first place. It was a photo of the coin that first caught the attention of the people investigating Stephanie’s death. And that’s what ultimately sent us to the Dominican Republic.

Stephanie herself didn’t really matter to these people. What they were after was the coin. More specifically, the story behind it and who might be involved. The investigation into her death and the promo shoot were just a cover. It was all meant to keep people from interfering while we dug into the coin’s origins and to hide the real reason for our interest in it.

With all that in mind, talking to the guys from the crew was going to be tricky, like riding a bike on ice while holding a cup of hot coffee. We needed to squeeze as much information out of them as possible without giving the slightest reason to suspect we were interested in the coin.

Conversations like that always start with a bit of a dance. If you jump right in and start asking direct questions, people shut down fast. And once they’ve clammed up, good luck getting them to talk again. It doesn’t matter what you do, threaten them or promise them the world. So take it slow. Start with something casual, maybe crack a joke, and build trust. Only then can you slip in the real questions quietly, like a thief in the night. Patience, charm, and a touch of small talk. That’s the secret formula.

*** We spotted those guys pretty quickly. They were the only ones around with that kind of setup. They offered metal detectors and scuba gear, which was an obvious sign they were serious about treasure hunting. Not just poking around in the sand, but diving into the deep, where old treasures from the Spanish colonies still lie patiently on the seabed with their dull, tempting gleam, waiting to be discovered.

How was their business operating? Pretty smoothly, at least in my head.

First, you round up a bunch of vacationers who pay you to take them on an adventure. Then you bring them out to a deserted beach, hand them metal detectors, and let them comb through the sand while you hang back and watch. Afterward, you see what everyone found. If someone stumbles on something interesting, you make note of that spot. Using current charts, you figure out where it might have drifted from and where the wrecked galleon leaking all this old treasure could be. Then you grab your diving gear, put a regulator in your mouth, and start combing the ocean floor.

Honestly, it all sounded pretty neat. I’m not saying that’s exactly how the guys run things, but that’s how I pictured it. And I liked the idea.

We ended up hanging out at their shack for quite a while. These kinds of conversations can’t be rushed. Anna openly flirted with the guys, spinning some story about filming a commercial and dropping hints that maybe we could shoot one for them too. I played the part of the slightly clueless dude, completely fascinated by all their treasure-hunting stories and willing to listen forever. The guys loved the attention and didn’t hold back. By the end of the chat, we pretty much knew who they were, what they did, and what made them tick.

Everything was going well, and at some point, I was even tempted to start asking the questions that actually interested us. But I held back. It’s always better to take it slow with this kind of thing. Besides, we still needed to check out the spot where the coin was found without setting off any alarms. The best way to do that was to join one of their regular group tours.

Luckily, they had room for us the next morning. The group was heading to a quiet beach, where we could either use metal detectors or paddle along the shore on boards. Apparently, they rented those too. We paid for our spots, got a receipt, and headed back to the hotel.

As we walked, I felt like things were starting to come together. We did the shoot, made ourselves noticed, and left an impression. We connected with the guys who were there when the coin was found. And it looked like we might even be able to pull them into another part of our plan, which would make everything a whole lot easier.

Anna was quiet too, lost in her own thoughts. When we got back to the hotel, she finally said, “You know, I’m kinda hungry. Let’s swing by the restaurant.”

I nodded, and we made our way to the main building. We were both wiped out, and all I wanted was to faceplant into bed and rest. Getting some food, though, wasn’t a bad idea. I also caught myself thinking that from now on, we wouldn’t see any peaceful days for a while.

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