The Prank That Stole My Last Breath

The coast guards moved swiftly, two fully armed officers boarding the yacht in no time.

Seeing how grim their expressions were, James tamped down his usual arrogant demeanor and frowned slightly.

"Officers, is there a problem? We're from Payton Corporation."

The officer in charge let out a snort before pulling out something from the waterproof bag on his back.

It was a pink swim fin, the edges sliced to shreds from sharp rocks. A few tattered strips of flesh, waterlogged and bleached by the seawater, still clung to it.

The instant James saw the swim fin, his pupils blew wide open.

I recognized it as well, as it was the only gift James had given me last year on my birthday.

At the time, he had said, "Nat, I hope that you'll always be as free as a mermaid."

The officer spoke up, his voice sounding particularly serious as the storm raged around them.

"Does this belong to someone on your boat? We were patrolling the deep-diving zone earlier when we received an alert about abnormal vital signs, and we found this."

It seemed as though something had lodged itself in James' throat. He opened his mouth, but no words left his lips.

Of course, he recognized the swim fin as the present he had given me.

At last, fear crawled its way across his face.

However, before he could say anything, Marissa suddenly rushed forward and screamed, "That's not ours!"

Pointing at the swim fin, she added with absolute certainty, "That must be a piece of trash someone threw into the ocean! Officers, you must be mistaken!"

The officers pinned her with a stern gaze.

"Miss, there's blood on this, which means that something must have happened to this person underwater. Is there anyone missing from this boat?"

Marissa whipped her head around to shoot James a pointed look, her eyes clearly telling him to play along.

"No, we're not missing anyone! Everyone is accounted for, even my sister, Natalie. We had an argument with her earlier, so she's hiding away in one of the cabins, stewing in her anger."

She then ran over to tug on Jackson.

"Jackson, you saw us arguing earlier, didn't you? She's in her cabin, right?"

Jackson hesitated briefly. He was relatively well-known in the diving industry, so if someone had died while on his watch, his career was over.

After weighing his options, he gritted his teeth and nodded.

"That's right. Ms. Natalie has a bit of a temper, and after getting into an argument earlier about something that happened on the dive, she returned to her cabin to rest."

As James listened to them lie, that sliver of fear in his eyes actually slowly vanished.

He thought, "They're right. Natalie has to be in her cabin. How could she possibly be dead? She's the heiress of the Payton family, and with how afraid she is of pain, there's no way she would allow herself to suffer like that, right?"

Aloud, he said, "Officers, this is all a misunderstanding. Natalie must have deliberately tossed that into the ocean. She's always loved playing such extreme pranks. I apologize on her behalf for causing you so much trouble."

A sense of calm had returned to his voice, but there was also a hint of anger in it.

Nonetheless, the officers weren't too convinced.

"Since she's on the boat, could you have Ms. Natalie come out and meet with us? We need to ensure her safety."

Hearing that, James scoffed. "She's throwing a temper tantrum right now and refuses to see anyone. Come with me. I'll take you to her cabin. She's hiding inside and stubbornly remaining silent, but let's see if she'll still have the nerve to keep it up in the face of the police."

With that, he strode quickly toward the lower deck, everyone else following behind him, including me.

He dug out the spare key, stabbed it into the keyhole, and yanked the door open with some force.

"Natalie Payton, get the hell out here!"

His furious bellow seemed to echo in the rain.

However, the cabin was empty, with the only movement coming from the faint swaying of the curtains from the wind.

In that instant, the sneer on James' lips froze before slipping from his face.