Someone had survived. Someone who wasn’t meant to be there, who had hidden in the shadows of that rusting hull until fate left him stranded. Callen’s secret wasn’t Elias’s to tell, and revealing it now would only bring the man more trouble than he deserved.
Back in his cottage, the storm still rattling faintly at the windows, Elias dried his clothes by the fire. His eyes wandered to the rope coiled in the corner, the same rope that had carried him aboard the freighter. It looked harmless now, yet it had tied him to something bigger than himself. He leaned back, staring into the flames.