Page 58 of Oliver

I grabbed my laptop, heart pounding, and opened a draft I hadn’t looked at in months: my first memoir outline. At the time, it had been a therapy exercise—scribbling down chaptersin secret about my life as a swimmer, what it cost me, how I rose through it. The ghosts I faced.

Now I knew what came next.

41

The Day I Was Supposed to Disappear

Isat down and started writing—really writing. Raw. Honest. Names blacked out for now. But not forever.

My phone buzzed again.

Beatrice.

“You okay?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “But I’m doing something about it.”

“You gonna burn the world down?”

“Only if I have to.”

There was a beat of silence.

Then she said, “You know you’re not alone, right?”

I smiled. “I’ve got a husband who would flatten cities for me, a six-year-old who thinks I can outswim a shark, and a best friend who shows up with chocolate and tasers. I’m good.”

I hung up and emailed myself the draft.

Then I opened a new message to an investigative journalist I trusted. Just a name. No file. No details.

Yet.

But soon.

Because if Vale’s backup plan was to scare me into silence?

He miscalculated.

I’m not a swimmer anymore.

I’m the storm.

42

Emery

Two Days Later

Iheard the crunch of tires on gravel before I saw him.

I dropped the pen I’d been using to scribble story notes on a napkin and ran barefoot to the front porch. The sun was just beginning to dip, casting golden light over the vineyard rows, and there he was—getting out of the SUV, dust on his boots, jaw set, and eyes locked onme.

“Oliver,” I breathed.

He didn’t speak. Just crossed the yard in five long strides and pulled me into his arms, holding me like it had been years instead of days.

“I missed you,” I whispered into his shoulder, heart thudding.

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