Derek strutted onto the gleaming 95-foot yacht like he owned it, tossing jabs at me with every step — “Hope you didn’t blow your Social Security on this, Harold.” He had no idea the marble deck beneath his loafers was his, a surprise gift I’d spent months arranging. And he definitely didn’t know how one arrogant comment that weekend would cost him everything.
The marina woke like a photograph warming into motion—gulls stitching the sky, ropes creaking against polished cleats, water lifting and setting its own steady pulse against the hulls. Harold Bennett stood on the dock in a navy windbreaker that had known better decades, one hand on the rail of a 95-foot yacht that gleamed as … Read more
