Page 13 of Black Reign

Maybe I'll go alone.

Probably smarter.

Then again, smart has become remarkably boring lately.

My watch vibrates.

Not Blackwell Secure.

NULL.

I stare at it for half a second before opening the channel.

One message waits.

VESPER: Miss me?

A slow grin pulls at my mouth.

There she is.

I type back.

GHOST: I was enjoying the silence.

Her reply appears before I can take another drink.

VESPER: Liar.

We flirt in our own self made encrypted room for a while. She’s real but safe. Maybe a ghost of a romance is better than none at all.

Travers is double-fisting German beer off the stern of a rented yacht like he has personally declared war on his liver.

This is not how the evening began.

Vale had a plan. Vale always has a plan, usually one involving enough money to make ordinary logistical problems irrelevant.

According to him, taking Haverhill anywhere in the States for a bachelor weekend was impossible. Kane can't walk through an airport anymore without somebody filming him. Add Leo, Drew, Tristan, Jalen, and several recognizable professional athletes to the mix, and we'd have hashtags before appetizers.

So Vale solved the problem in the most Vale way possible.

He moved the bachelor party to Europe.

More specifically, the southern coast of France, where billionaires are common enough to be boring, private marinas ask fewer questions, and famous men occasionally get to eat dinner without somebody pretending not to photograph them from behind a breadbasket.

Fewer hashtags.

Less paparazzi.

Better Scotch.

I approved.

The boat is technically rented but calling it a rental is like calling Versailles a starter home.

One hundred fifty plus feet of polished teak and white leather, four sleeping cabins nobody intends to use, a galley larger than most Manhattan apartments, and enough horsepower beneath the deck to outrun several questionable decisions.

Which is fortunate.