The Night the Ocean Took Her
Four years ago, the bridge was dressed in light.
Streetlamps lined the long curve of concrete like a crown of gold, reflecting softly against the dark water below. The night air was cool, salt-heavy, and alive with anticipation.
Camalina sat in the backseat, her fingers twisting nervously in her lap.
"Stop fidgeting," her mother laughed gently, glancing at her through the rearview mirror. "You'll wrinkle the dress before we even arrive."
Camalina smiled despite herself. The fabric shimmered faintly—custom-made, delicate, ceremonial.
Tonight was supposed to change everything. Tonight, she would be crowned. Not just a title, but a promise. A future.
Her father's voice was calm as always, steady hands on the wheel. "She's allowed to be nervous," he said. "Big nights deserve it."
Camalina leaned back, watching the lights slide past the window like falling stars. For once, she allowed herself to believe this was real.
That happiness could last.
She didn't hear the truck at first.
The sound came suddenly—a deep, metallic roar slicing through the night.
Headlights exploded in her peripheral vision, blinding and wrong.
"—What—" her father began.
Impact came like the world breaking in half.
Metal screamed.
The car jolted violently as something massive slammed into them from the side. Glass shattered, spraying like knives.
Camalina's body was thrown sideways, her head snapping back as pain burst white behind her eyes.
"Camalina!" her mother screamed.
The car spun.
The bridge vanished. The sky flipped. The world turned upside down.
Before Camalina could scream, heat swallowed the air.
Fire.
It crawled fast—too fast—licking through the engine, bursting beneath the hood. Smoke flooded the car, thick and choking, burning her lungs with every breath.
"Get out!" her father shouted, voice raw with terror. "Now!"
Camalina fumbled for her seatbelt. Her fingers shook. The clasp was jammed.
The fire grew louder.
Her mother's door wouldn't open.
"Daddy—!" Camalina cried.
Another crash.
The truck hit them again—deliberate this time.
The force shoved the burning car backward, tires screeching uselessly against the bridge.
Camalina's stomach dropped as the edge came too fast, too sudden.
She saw it then.
The men in the truck.
Faces blank. Cold. Watching.
The car tipped.
Weightlessness.
Then the ocean rushed up to meet them.
The impact was brutal.
Water exploded through broken windows, slamming into her chest, ripping the breath from her lungs.
Fire hissed and died in a violent scream as the car sank, dragged down by its own burning weight.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Camalina screamed—but the ocean stole the sound.
Her dress tangled around her legs, heavy, dragging her down. Smoke turned to water. Heat turned to freezing cold.
Her chest burned as she fought the seatbelt, fingers numb, mind fracturing.
Not like this.
Please—not like this.
She kicked. Pulled. Scratched.
The pressure crushed in around her. Her vision blurred.
Shapes faded. Her parents' faces disappeared into the dark.
And then—
Nothing.
Miles away, Llewellyn Azazel stood in his penthouse office, staring at the city like it had personally betrayed him.
Glass walls rose around him—cold, flawless, untouchable.
The lights below pulsed and glittered, ignorant of the life that had just been ripped apart beneath them. He had built this view to remind himself of control.
Tonight, it mocked him.
His phone rang once.
He answered immediately.
"Yes."
No greeting. No warmth. He didn't need it.
Silence stretched on the other end—too long. The kind of silence that carried weight, that prepared a man for damage.
Then—
"Sir… there's been an incident."
Something inside his chest dropped. Not pain. Not fear.
Cold.
"Continue."
The voice responding was one he trusted. A man trained not to panic, not to falter. Even so, it was tight. Controlled. Afraid.
"Camalina Alex and her parents were traveling across the Eastern Bridge. A truck struck their vehicle."
Llewellyn didn't move. His reflection in the glass remained perfectly still, like a statue carved from ice.
"The car caught fire," the man continued. "Initial impact flipped the vehicle. They were unable to exit."
His fingers tightened around the phone—slowly, deliberately—until the casing creaked under the pressure.
"They were pushed," the man added.
"Deliberately. The truck accelerated and forced their car over the bridge."
The city lights blurred, bleeding into streaks of gold and white.
"The vehicle fell into the ocean. Witnesses confirm it sank."
A beat.
Llewellyn's breath slowed. Measured. Too calm.
"Bodies?" he asked.
The pause that followed was not long.
But it was enough.
"No survivors have been recovered."
The word no hit him like a blade.
The phone slipped from his hand and struck the marble floor, the sound sharp and final.
Once.
Twice.
Llewellyn stared at the space in front of him, eyes darkening—not with tears, but with something far more dangerous.
"No."
The word tore from him this time.
He stepped forward and drove his fist into the glass wall.
The impact thundered through the penthouse. The glass spiderwebbed instantly, cracks racing outward like lightning trapped in ice.
Blood bloomed across his knuckles, bright and unforgiving.
"No," he repeated, voice low, shaking with fury and regret.
If he had gone himself.
If he hadn't let work, meetings, empire-building steal the hours.
If he had trusted his instincts instead of his men.
He had known.
He had known she was being watched. Followed. Hunted. He had felt the shift weeks ago—the wrong kind of attention circling her like wolves.
He had increased security, ordered shadows in every corner, told himself it was enough.
It wasn't.
"She doesn't die like that," he said, pressing his bleeding hand against the fractured glass.
His reflection stared back at him—eyes hollow, jaw clenched so tightly it trembled. "Not her."
Silence answered him.
The men on the other end of the call didn't speak. They didn't need to. They could hear it—the storm gathering behind his calm.
Llewellyn straightened slowly.
The pain in his hand registered distantly. Irrelevant.
"Find the truck," he said, his voice dangerously even. "Find the men who drove it. Find who ordered it."
He turned away from the glass, shadows swallowing half his face.
"And then," he continued, "find everyone who breathed near that bridge tonight."
"Yes, sir."
The call ended.
Llewellyn stood alone in the aftermath.
He didn't scream.
He didn't destroy the room.
He didn't allow grief a sound.
Because grief would make it real.
And Llewellyn Azazel did not accept realities he could still burn down.
Outside, the ocean moved endlessly beneath the bridge—dark, vast, secretive.
Somewhere in its depths, the world believed Camalina Alex was dead.
But Llewellyn didn't.
Not for a single, dangerous second.
And anyone who made him doubt it would soon learn what regret truly meant.