Chapter 1 The Bride on the Yacht

# Chapter 1: The Bride on the Yacht

I've always believed that memories define us. The sum of our experiences, the collection of moments that shape who we are. But what happens when those memories are torn away? Who are you when your past becomes a stranger?

Five years ago, I ceased to exist. At least, the woman I was did.

My name is Isla MacAllister, badge number 7149, Edinburgh Police Department. Former undercover specialist, current patrol officer. That's what my file says. The rest is a gaping wound where my memories should be.

The doctors call it retrograde amnesia caused by traumatic brain injury. I call it living with a ghost—the shadow of a woman who wore my face but whose life I cannot recall.

"Officer MacAllister, you're out of jurisdiction." Sergeant Wallace's voice crackled through my radio, disapproval evident even through the static.

"Just following a lead, sir," I replied, my eyes fixed on the sleek yacht moored at the private dock. The Valkyrie. An ostentatious name for an ostentatious vessel.

My investigation into the new designer drug flooding Edinburgh's streets had led me here, to this luxury marina outside Glasgow. The intel suggested the distribution was happening through high-end parties on private vessels—places where the wealthy and corrupt believed themselves untouchable.

I should have called for backup. Should have waited. But patience had never been my virtue—at least not since my "rebirth," as my therapist calls it.

The night air carried the scent of salt and expensive cologne as I slipped past the security checkpoint, flashing my badge at a guard too drunk to notice I had no business being there. Music thumped from the main deck, where beautiful people in beautiful clothes pretended their lives had meaning.

I wasn't interested in them. My informant had whispered about a private cabin at the stern—the heart of the operation where the real business happened.

My service weapon felt reassuring against my hip, but it was the second gun, tucked into my ankle holster, that my fingers itched for. I couldn't explain why I carried it—a sleek, custom Beretta with an inscription I traced each night before sleep: "To My Valkyrie." A coincidence that made my skin crawl as I boarded the yacht bearing the same name.

The corridor leading to the stern cabin was deserted. I placed my hand on the door handle, took a breath, and pushed it open.

The cabin was empty of people, but what covered the walls made my blood freeze. Photos. Hundreds of them. All of me.

Me walking down the street. Me buying coffee. Me at the shooting range. Me sleeping through a window.

Years of surveillance. Different hairstyles, different seasons. My life—the parts I couldn't remember—documented by an obsessive hand.

In the center of the room, a glass case housed what appeared to be a wedding dress, the white fabric stained with rust-colored patches. Blood.

My hands trembled as I approached it, some primal part of me recognizing what my conscious mind could not.

"Breaking and entering is still a crime, even for the police."

The voice came from behind me—low, cultured, with the faintest trace of an accent I couldn't place. I spun around, hand instinctively reaching for my weapon.

He stood in the doorway, blocking my exit. Tall, broad-shouldered, with features that seemed carved from stone—high cheekbones, strong jaw darkened with stubble, and eyes so intensely blue they seemed to glow in the dim light.

"Cain Lockhart," he introduced himself with a slight incline of his head. "This is my private cabin you've invaded, Officer."

He knew I was police. Despite my plainclothes, he knew.

"Care to explain these?" I gestured to the walls, fighting to keep my voice steady.

He stepped further into the room, closing the door behind him with a soft click that sounded like a death sentence.

"You don't remember me." It wasn't a question.

"Should I?" I kept my stance wide, ready.

His laugh was bitter, empty. "Five years, and this is what I get. The great Isla MacAllister, reduced to a common beat cop, sneaking around boats like a rookie."

He moved closer, and I noticed the scar that ran along his throat—a jagged line that disappeared beneath his expensive collar.

"Stay back," I warned.

"Or what? You'll arrest me? On what charges? Having photos of my wife?"

Wife. The word hit me like a physical blow.

"You're lying."

"Am I?" He reached into his jacket—I drew my gun in one fluid motion, aiming at his chest—but he merely produced a folded document, tossing it onto the table between us. A marriage certificate. My name beside his.

"This proves nothing," I said, though my mouth had gone dry. "Documents can be forged."

He moved with unexpected speed, closing the distance between us. Before I could react, his fingers were gripping my chin, forcing my gaze to meet his.

"Is this the best Scotland Yard can do?" he hissed, his breath warm against my face. "Send an amnesiac whore as bait? Did they tell you what happened the last time you came for me?"

Something inside me snapped—a primal, instinctive response. My body moved before my mind could process it. I grabbed his wrist, twisted, and used his own momentum to throw him over my shoulder.

His body crashed into the glass cabinet housing the wedding dress, shattering it in an explosion of glass and splintered wood. A shard caught his throat, opening a thin line of red that mirrored his existing scar.

He didn't cry out. Instead, he laughed—a chilling sound as blood trickled down his neck.

"There she is," he whispered, eyes gleaming with something like triumph. "My Valkyrie."

I kept my gun trained on him, even as my mind raced. The wedding dress. The photos. The gun with the inscription.

"Who are you to me?" I demanded.

He sat up among the ruins of the cabinet, glass crunching beneath him. The white dress was now draped across his lap, the bloodstains seeming to grow darker against the fabric.

"I'm the man you married," he said simply. "I'm the man you died for. And I'm the man who's spent five years trying to bring you back from the dead."

"I didn't die."

"Didn't you?" He tilted his head, studying me with unnerving intensity. "The Isla I knew would never have hesitated to put a bullet between my eyes by now."

My finger twitched on the trigger. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't."

"Because deep down, beneath all that fog they've filled your head with, you know me." He pressed a hand to his bleeding neck, then held up his bloodied fingers. "This isn't the first time you've made me bleed, wife."

A flash—quick as lightning—burst behind my eyes. This man, younger, smiling, reaching for me. Blood on my hands. A gunshot. Pain. Water.

I staggered, my gun wavering.

"What did you do to me?" I whispered.

"I didn't take your memories, Isla." He stood slowly, the ruined wedding dress sliding to the floor. "But I can help you find them—if you're brave enough to face what you've forgotten."

The yacht suddenly rocked violently, and shouts erupted from the deck above. Raid sirens wailed in the distance.

"Your colleagues have arrived," Cain remarked calmly, straightening his jacket. "Right on schedule."

"This was a setup?" I tightened my grip on the gun.

"Consider it a reunion." He reached slowly into his pocket and withdrew a small, velvet box. "When you're ready for the truth, come find me. You still remember how."

He placed the box on the table and walked past me toward a hidden door at the back of the cabin.

"You're under arrest," I said weakly, knowing even as I spoke that I wouldn't stop him.

He paused at the threshold, looking back at me with an expression that might have been tenderness on anyone else.

"Five years, Isla. Five years I've waited for you to come back to me. What's a few more days?"

Then he was gone, leaving me alone with a wall of my own face staring back at me and a blood-soaked wedding dress at my feet. I holstered my weapon with shaking hands and picked up the velvet box, opening it slowly.

Inside was not a ring, as I'd expected, but a single key attached to a lighthouse keychain. Something about it sent a jolt of recognition through me—a memory trying to surface, then sinking back into the abyss.

Heavy footsteps approached the cabin door. My backup, finally arriving.

I snapped the box closed and slipped it into my pocket just as the door burst open, officers flooding in with weapons drawn.

"Officer MacAllister! Are you alright?" Detective Murray surveyed the destroyed room, eyes widening at the photos covering the walls.

"I'm fine," I lied, my mind still reeling from Cain's words. My husband? My enemy? Both?

"Jesus, Isla," Murray whispered, staring at the blood-stained wedding dress. "What the hell happened here?"

I looked around at the shrine built to a woman who no longer existed—a woman who might have been me.

"I don't know," I answered honestly. "But I'm going to find out."