The Last Touch

The compass was a lie.

I knew it the moment I stepped off the panga onto the sand of Isla Perdida. The needle spun in a lazy circle, indifferent to north, south, or the promise of gold it was supposed to lead me to. I shoved it into my pocket and looked up.

The jungle ate the sky.

Vines thick as my thighs hung from trees that stretched into a green canopy so dense the sun only reached the ground in scattered, golden coins. The air smelled like wet earth, rot, and something sweet I couldn't name. My boots sank into mud that sucked at every step. Mosquitoes found the back of my neck within seconds.

I slapped one and felt the smear of blood, mine, against my palm.

Somewhere in this hellhole was a Spanish galleon that went down in 1623. Somewhere was the dowry of a viceroy's daughter. Somewhere was enough gold to buy my mother a new liver and my sister a life that didn't involve working double shifts at a diner in El Paso.

I just had to find it before the monsoon season drowned the island. And before the other treasure hunter who landed on this beach beat me to it.

His boat was still tied to a mangrove root, a sleek RIB that probably cost more than my truck. The name on the transom read *Cazador*. Hunter. Fitting.

I'd seen his file. Lucas Vega. Former Marine, former salvage operator, former everything that sounded like trouble. His reputation was the kind that made people lower their voices. He'd found the wreck of the *Santa Catalina* off Honduras. He'd recovered a sunken Mayan canoe in Belize. He was the best in the business.

He was also the man who'd outbid me on the map that led here.

I'd gotten a copy. A bad one. A photocopy of a photocopy, the ink bleeding at the edges, the coordinates smudged into guesswork. But it was all I had. All I could afford.

So here I was. Broke, exhausted, and following a compass that didn't work onto an island that wanted to eat me.

The trail started where the beach ended, a narrow cut through the brush that looked more like an animal path than anything human. I pushed through, using my machete to hack at the thicker branches. Sweat ran down my spine, soaking the collar of my shirt. The humidity was a physical weight, pressing down on my lungs.

Thirty minutes in, I found his camp.

It was a clearing near a stream, neat and efficient. A tent, a camp stove, a crate of supplies. A satellite phone charging from a solar panel. A pair of boots set out to dry.

And him.

He was shirtless, crouched by the water, washing something off his hands. The muscles in his back moved under skin the color of old leather, scarred and sun-burnished. His hair was dark, cropped short, and when he turned at the sound of my approach, his eyes were the color of a storm at sea.

Gray. Flat. Unforgiving.

He didn't stand. He just looked at me, his hands dripping water into the stream.

"You're the woman from the auction."

Not a question.

"Guilty." I kept my voice light. "I'm Elena."

"I know who you are."

He said it like it was a diagnosis. Like I was a disease he'd been warned about.

I smiled anyway. "Then you know I'm the one who's going to find the galleon before you."

He stood. He was taller than I'd expected. Broader. The scars on his chest were pale lines against the dark skin, some neat, some jagged. A knife wound, maybe. A bullet graze. A life lived hard and fast.

He dried his hands on his pants and walked toward me. Stopped three feet away. His presence was a wall, solid and unyielding.

"You're on my claim."

"I'm on an island." I tilted my head. "Public land. International waters. You don't own it."

"The map says otherwise."

"The map says a lot of things." I pulled the crumpled photocopy from my pocket, held it up. "Mine says the wreck is two miles inland. Yours probably says the same. Which means we both know the treasure isn't on the coast."

He didn't look at the paper. His eyes stayed on mine. "You want to work together."

"I want to not get shot." I folded the map, tucked it away. "I've heard stories about you, Vega. How you don't like competition. How things happen to people who get in your way."

"Things happen to people who don't know what they're doing." His voice was flat, neutral. "You're an archaeologist. A historian. You've never led a salvage operation in your life."

"I've led two."

"Small ones. Inland. Lakes and rivers." He stepped closer. I could smell him now. Salt, sweat, the metallic tang of gun oil. "You've never worked a deep-water wreck. You've never dealt with currents, decompression sickness, or the kind of pressure that kills you before you even hit the bottom."

"I can learn."

"This isn't a classroom." His jaw tightened. "You get hurt out here, I'm the one who has to carry your body back. I'm the one who has to explain to the authorities why a civilian died on a site I was working."

"Then don't let me die." I smiled again. Brighter this time. "See? Simple."

He stared at me. The silence stretched long enough that the birds started singing again, the jungle deciding we weren't a threat.

"You're insane."

"Optimistic."

"Same thing."

He turned and walked back to his camp. I followed, because I wasn't going to let him dismiss me that easily. He crouched by the crate, pulled out a waterproof case, and opened it. Inside was a satellite image, annotated with red marks and GPS coordinates. His map. The real one.

He didn't try to hide it. He knew I was looking.

"The galleon went down in a storm," he said, not looking at me. "The survivors said it sank near a cliff shaped like a skull. That's the only landmark. No one's found it in four hundred years."

"Until you got the coordinates."

"Until I got the coordinates." He closed the case. "But coordinates are only part of it. The island's been shifting for centuries. Erosion, earthquakes, the monsoon. The wreck could be buried. It could be under a hundred feet of mud. It could be gone."

"It's not gone."

He looked up at me. His eyes were unreadable.

"How do you know?"

"Because I need it to be there." I said it simply, without drama. "My mother's dying. My sister's drowning. That gold is the only thing that can save them."

He didn't flinch. Didn't soften. But something shifted in his expression. A crack, thin as a hairline fracture, in the armor.

"We all have reasons," he said. "Doesn't mean you get what you want."

"I know." I sat down on a fallen log, ignoring the mud that soaked through my pants. "But I'm not leaving. So you can either work with me, or you can waste time trying to shake me. Your choice."

He studied me for a long moment. The jungle hummed around us, indifferent to the standoff.

Then he said, "First rule. You do what I say. No arguments, no heroics. If I tell you to run, you run. If I tell you to stay, you stay."

"Fine."

"Second rule. You don't touch anything without my permission. Not a coin, not a bone, not a piece of pottery. You're here to observe and assist. Nothing else."

"I can live with that."

"Third rule." He stood, walked toward me. Stopped so close I could see the flecks of gold in his gray eyes. "You don't lie to me. Not about the map, not about your experience, not about what you're willing to do to find that treasure. If I find out you've been hiding something, I will leave you here. I will take the boat. And I will let the jungle have you."

The threat hung in the air between us. Real. Heavy.

I held his gaze.

"I'm not hiding anything."

He didn't blink.

"Then we have a deal."

He extended his hand. I took it. His palm was rough, calloused, warm. The grip was firm, professional. Nothing more.

But when I pulled my hand back, my fingers were tingling.

I told myself it was the humidity.