Page 11 of Viking Vengeance Cruise

I’m starting to think I’m cursed. No, scratch that. I’m definitely cursed. At this point, the curse and I have matching bathrobes. Hers says Job Security. Mine says I Should Have Stayed in Bed, and frankly, both of them are getting a lot of wear.

“Ladies,” Wes begins with a frown. “I’m going to need everyone to return to your cabins.” His voice stays firm without turning harsh, a neat trick considering he’s addressing fifty women who just watched their book club founder get flattened by a frozen Viking. “Security will take your statements in the morning.”

Not a single soul leaves. If anything, they scoot closer. You could announce free facials in the spa right now and lose maybe three of them. Maybe.

Instead, the whispering starts, soft at first, then building into a wave of speculation and shock that crashes through the room. Some women clutch their friends. Others stare at Astrid’s body with everything from horror to what I’m ninety percent sure is morbid fascination. I’d say the split is about sixty-forty, and not in horror’s favor.

Because we live in the age of zero shame and unlimited data plans, out come the phones.

Oh my word, the phones.

At least six women have their devices angled at the crime scene, hunting for the perfect shot of the dearly departed. One of them is squatting for a better angle. In heels. On marble. If she goes down, we’ll have two bodies, a lawsuit, and a very confusing insurance claim. In a corporate office somewhere, an adjuster’s ears are already burning.

“Please put your phones away!” Wes’ voice cuts through the room and leaves marks. “Now.”

A few phones disappear into designer handbags. Most don’t. You can lead a book club to decorum, but you can’t make it delete.

I can’t even work up a good gasp. I’ve watched this exact scene play out more times than I care to count. There’s always someone who wants to document the tragedy. Always someone convinced their followers deserve a front-row seat to a homicide. If I’ve learned anything living on this ship, it’s that death brings out the philosopher in some people and the posthumous paparazzi in the rest.

The paparazzi are winning tonight. It’s not even close.

Ransom is still kneeling beside Astrid, all business as he motions to his team in their silent shorthand, the one they’ve honed over years of wrangling trouble at sea. “Help me move this over.”

Four officers converge on the melting ice Viking. They grip it carefully, though it’s slippery and heavy and already losing definition as it slides from menacing warrior to abstract art, and they haul it away from Astrid’s body with a collective grunt that puts frozen Vikings somewhere in the weight class of small cars. Water pools across the marble floor, mixing with spilled champagne and that glowing blue cocktail I’m now betting was laced with something far more lethal than vodka.

Astrid lies on her back, eyes open, staring up at the ceiling and seeing exactly none of it. Her silver braid crown sits askew. Her burgundy velvet is soaked through. And there’s a massive indentation across her shawl where six feet of frozen Norse mythology made impact.

It’s sad. It’s tragic. It’s also depressingly on-brand for my life.

Ransom checks her pulse again even though we all know she’s gone. You can tell by the way she’s not breathing, and also by the way she was pinned under a few hundred pounds of frostbitten Viking. But protocol is protocol, and Ransom follows it the way Nettie follows the dessert cart. Faithfully. Devoutly. With his whole heart.

He shakes his head, this time at Wes.

And there it is, the official word, delivered without a single word.

The security team fans out, trying to push the crowd back from the body. It’s herding cats. Wealthy, traumatized, slightly drunk cats who’ve never once been told no and aren’t about to break tradition for a little thing like murder.

“Ladies, please step back,” one officer says, his voice strained to the point of snapping. I’d wager he’s mentally updating his résumé as we speak. Skills: crowd control, light trauma, saying ma’am through gritted teeth.

“I need to get a photo for my sister!” a woman in pink velvet protests, shoving her phone forward. “Karen is going to be so jealous I was here when this happened!”

“Ma’am, this is a crime scene⁠—”

“She loves true crime! This is basically Christmas for her!”

I close my eyes. We’ve officially sailed off the edge of the map, straight into the part where the old charts warn about monsters. The monsters, it turns out, have data plans and a sister named Karen.

Another woman pushes forward, phone held high the way you’d hold a lighter at a concert. “Is she really dead? Can someone confirm for my Instagram story?”

I’d tell her the confirmation is lying on the floor, but I don’t think she’d hear me over the sound of her own follower count.

Ransom finds me across the chaos, and his face says he hates everything about this situation.

Honestly? Same.

Nothing says soulmates quite like locking eyes over a homicide. Forget candlelit dinners. We bond over bodies. I’d embroider it on a pillow if I thought the gift shop would let me.

Wes tries again, his patience fraying at the edges. “Everyone needs to clear the room, please. This is not optional.”