Page 41 of Viking Vengeance Cruise

“And?” I fold my arms, ignoring my machine entirely now. The animated Vikings on my screen have noticed.

Three little pixelated raiders stand frozen mid-pillage, axes drooping, glaring at me for cutting off their token supply. Wooden coins, the breakfast of Viking champions. Modern-day plundering, one quarter-sized ration at a time, and I’ve just imposed a famine.

The boisterous music shifts to something with more drums, and a cheer erupts from the roulette wheel. Marina’s laugh cuts through the noise. She’s moved to that table now, standing beside a woman in purple velvet who just won something. The warm lighting turns Marina’s crimson hair to burnished copper and makes her green dress shimmer. She is, hands down, the most gorgeous woman on this ship. Drop-dead gorgeous, in fact. And the question currently ruining my evening is whether the emphasis belongs on the drop-dead part. Who knows what we don’t know.

Ransom exhales slowly, setting each word down carefully, the way you’d handle a live grenade. “Her previous employer confirmed she worked there. Hospitality management in Minneapolis. She worked events for a chain of luxury hotels. Five years. Strong performance reviews.”

“She’s a saint,” Wes says flatly, feeding a token into his machine without looking at it. “I don’t know what you think you’re going to find.”

“That sounds reassuring,” I say to Ransom, though I can already tell from his tone there’s a “but” coming. With Ransom, there’s always a “but” coming. The man could deliver a birthday toast and have half the guests lawyering up before the cake gets cut. The other half would confess to things they didn’t do.

“It would be,” Ransom replies, “except she told us she left to ‘relocate for better opportunities.’”

“And where is the crime?” Wes asks quietly, his jaw tight.

Nettie’s voice carries over from the slots. “Come to mama! Show me those Viking hot cross buns! I’ve got the butter, and I am not afraid to use it!” There’s a brief pause. “BETRAYAL! This machine is a liar and a cheat! I want it tried for piracy!”

Bess checks her watch. “You’ve been playing for three minutes.”

“Three minutes of lies!”

“The Vikings would be so proud.”

Nettie responds by baying at the moon, undeterred by the fact that we’re indoors, it’s a casino, and the moon declined the invitation. Somewhere in Scandinavia, actual wolves are sitting up and taking notice. A cocktail waitress sails past our row without flinching. Someone has briefed the staff. Possibly with diagrams.

“The HR file lists her contract as terminated,” Ransom continues, tuning out the chaos around us the way only a man married to me can.

“Terminated how?” I press, my slot machine dinging for attention because I’ve won something small. I ignore it. Riches can wait. Gossip cannot. My pixelated Vikings are now beside themselves. There’s a payout sitting right there, woman. In their day, people got pillaged for less.

“No misconduct listed. No explanation either. Just terminated.” Ransom feeds another token into his machine and pulls the lever. Nine tokens rattle into his tray. He doesn’t blink. The man can’t stop winning. “It’s not a crime,” he continues. “It’s just incomplete.”

Wes makes a low growling sound, and for a second he sounds exactly like Magnus Darkwater, which is both funny and concerning. “People get let go. It happens. Budgets change. Management shifts.”

He’s campaigning for her innocence harder than a man running for mayor of a town with one voter. And I’d bet my token pouch the platform he’s really pushing includes a certain private stateroom with a captain’s view. Vote Crawford. His door is always open. Especially to redheads.

“Agreed,” Ransom says evenly as his machine spits out another small win he treats as background noise. “But usually there’s a reason on file. Restructuring. Performance issues. Budget cuts. Marina’s file has none of that.”

Across the casino, Elodie has fully abandoned any pretense of gambling and is now deep in conversation with two different Viking-costumed staff members, flirting with both of them at once. It’s impressive, honestly. She’s got one laughing while the other fetches her a drink, and she’s doing that thing where she touches one man’s arm while maintaining eye contact with the other. Vikings spent three centuries raiding the known world, and not one of them hauled off half of what Elodie will collect by midnight. And her plunder delivers itself. With cocktails. The horned helmets should be taking classes from her, not the other way around.

Nettie spots Elodie’s technique and immediately pivots. “I’m learning so much tonight.”

“Please don’t,” Bess says.

“Too late. I’m taking notes.”

“On what, cocktail napkins?”

“Bar napkins are how all great knowledge gets passed down.”

She’s not wrong.

I glance at Marina again. She’s moved away from the roulette table, making her way through the crowd with a tray of fresh Viking tokens to distribute. Someone bumps into her and she sidesteps gracefully, never losing her balance, always keeping her eyes on the room.

“What else?” I ask Ransom. His expression says there’s more. Marriage has taught me many things, and chief among them is this—when Ransom uses the word routine, nothing that follows will be.

The slot machine beside me erupts in a cascade of clanging bells and flashing lights. An elderly woman in a velvet cape shrieks with joy as tokens pour into her tray. “VALHALLA ACCEPTS ME!” she announces to everyone within earshot. “And tell Odin I’m single! The eye patch doesn’t bother me one bit!”

Odin, the Norse god of wisdom, war, poetry, magic, and apparently showing up at every Renaissance fair and casino within driving distance. Or in our case, boating. Considering what happened to the last woman who made a big announcement at a Viking party, I’d keep my voice down if I were her. But that’s just me.