Chapter 1: A Bad Day to Wake Up

Tera woke to the blank ceiling of the bedroom, a thin cotton sheet twisted around her knees like wet rope.

Her skin was slick with night sweat, her temples pulsing in a dry, three-stroke ache—partly the cheap cava from the night before, she thought, partly the heat already gathering in the corners of the room.

It was the same shore as always. Not the pale, blinding powder of Formentera Beaches, and certainly not the cold grey shingle of the northern coast she had left behind. Just an endless shelf of ash-colored sand under a sky with no distinct sun.

In the dream, she was moving a few inches above the ground, locked in place, trying to force a sound through her throat while an invisible pressure bore down against her sternum. No air. No momentum. Just the sensation of being held in suspension by a force that had no hands.
In the dream, the suffocation was absolute—a weightless paralysis where air simply refused to enter her lungs. Waking offered no real release, only a physical trade: the ghostly vacuum of the ash shore replaced by the heavy, humid compression of the island heat pressing down on her collarbones like a hot, damp wool blanket. One smothered the mind; the other slowly drowned the body.

She swung her legs over the side of the low mattress. The floor tiles were cool against the arches of her feet, but the air was thick, carrying the cloying, inescapable stench of stale sunscreen and dried sea salt—the unmistakable scent of her own chronic exhaustion, baked into her pores after three months of survival on the strip during the rush summer season on Ibiza.

Underneath it lingered the faint, metallic exhaust of the wall-mounted air conditioner rattling uselessly on its bracket.
Noon pickup. She checked the cracked display of her phone on the nightstand: ten forty-two.

A boat day. The worst kind.

In a club like Pacha or Hï, the darkness was generous. You could slip between the VIP tables, let the bass swallow small talk, and disappear into the smoke near the bar the second a conversation soured. On an open yacht, there was nowhere to hide. You were pinned under eighty feet of open Mediterranean sun with a pack of bored men who had paid thousands of euros each for the illusion of youth, company, and boundless luck.

The bedroom door clicked open, swinging wide until the brass handle tapped the plaster wall.

“You’re not even vertical,” Jessy said, leaning against the doorframe.

Jessy was already in full gear. She possessed the terrifying ability to look completely awake in the morning after only a few hours of sleep, smelling sharply of dry shampoo, mango moisturizer, and espresso. She wore a silver metallic tank top cut dangerously low and a matching micro-skirt that caught the morning glare from the balcony like a mirror. In both hands, she held up hangers draped in sheer synthetic fabrics.

“Look at these,” Jessy insisted, stepping into the room and tossing the hangers onto the mattress. “The courier brought the PR box from Madrid an hour ago. Do I go with the transparent linen with the cutout back, or the chain-link halter?”

Tera pulled a flat pillow over her face. “I don’t have eyes yet, Jess.”

“You have barely an hour before the muscle-head in the scary black van starts laying on the horn downstairs,” Jessy said, completely undeterred.

She sat on the edge of the mattress, adjusting the strap of her top. “Marco texted three times before nine. It’s a three-deck charter out of the marina. Swiss private equity, media moguls, and some German athlete everyone is treating like royalty. Real money. If you sit on the back stairs looking sullen like last Thursday, Marco is deducting an attitude fee from our payout.”

“On a boat, they think they rented the sea,” Tera muttered into the foam of the pillow. “And everyone on it.”

“Of course they think that,” Jessy replied, checking her lip liner in the small handheld compact she pulled from her waistband.

“That’s why they rent boats. Now get up, wash your face, put on your shimmer and let’s get the day over with.”

Tera pushed the pillow aside, squinting against the harsh daylight slicing through the blinds.

She padded barefoot down the short hallway to the narrow kitchen.

The apartment was small—two bedrooms, a shared balcony with a rusted drying rack, and a galley kitchen that barely fit two people—situated four blocks back from the main strip in Playa d’en Bossa.

From the wall hook, she took down the small brass cezve. She spooned two dark, fine-ground heaps of coffee into the cold tap water and set it over the smallest gas ring.

It was a habit she hadn’t managed to shake. Every Saturday morning of her childhood, the silent house on the Baltic coast had smelled of dark roasted grounds slowly rising in brass. Her father never spoke before his first cup, and she had learned early that keeping quiet in the kitchen was the only way to keep the peace.

She watched the dark foam swell toward the copper rim, pulling the pot off the flame the exact second before it broke.

Carrying the small ceramic cup into the bathroom, she clicked on the vanity light.
The mirror showed what three months of island nights did to a twenty-three-year-old face: sharp cheekbones, slightly hollow temples, and pale violet crescents beneath her eyes. But surrounding it all was the hair. Thick, shoulder-length, and falling in stubborn, restless waves of deep aquamarine.

She picked up the ceramic flat iron, clamped it over a front lock, and pulled downward. The moment the heat released, the curl snapped right back into its natural, unruly wave, completely defying the iron.
She sighed, setting the tool down on the porcelain basin. Some things didn’t change.

She reached for the glass pot of cosmetic azure dust on the shelf. Dipping two fingertips into the blue glitter, she swept it along the high edge of her cheekbones, blending it down toward her temples. To the agency, to Marco, and to the tourists on the yachts, a dusting of fine shimmer along her temples did its job, turning vivid blue hair into an intentional, expensive party look. It made her “exotic” instead of strange.

She pulled on the semi-sheer white linen tunic over her aquamarine bikini and fastened the thin straps of her flat tan leather sandals. The agency had an unspoken rule: never wear heels on a boat, and never, under any circumstances, stand taller than a wealthy client who had paid five grand to feel like a titan.

From the glass vanity shelf, she reached for a heavy, crystal-crested flacon of Amouage’s Lineage—her single non-negotiable obsession on the island, an expensive Arabic perfume she had bought off an eccentric collector in the old town with her first season’s tips. She pressed the atomizer, letting a cool, sacred mist of salty sea mineral, crisp ginger, and desert frankincense settle over the hollow of her collarbones. She pocketed a small tin of mint mouth spray for the hours of useless, exhausting small talk ahead, took one last breath of still air, and clicked off the vanity light.

Down in the street, a double horn blast cut through the morning traffic.

“Tera! Car’s down!” Jessy shouted from the hallway, grabbing her woven beach tote.

“Coming.”

They descended the dark, tiled stairwell of the apartment complex and pushed through the heavy glass street door into the wall of midday heat.

At the curb, a matte-black Mercedes van was idling, its dark tinted windows reflecting the sun-bleached facades across the street. The driver leaned across to slide the heavy side door open.

The interior was ice-cold, smelling of artificial vanilla, leather upholstery, and lemon wet wipes. Sweating bottles of chilled mineral water were wedged into the cup holders between the seats.

Two other two girls were already seated in the captain’s chairs in the back row. One was a striking Middle Eastern woman with long dark blond curls and intense green eyes; the other was a tanned Latina with an immaculate black bob and an expensive cutout one-piece beneath her cover-up. Neither looked up from their screens when the door slid shut.

Tera knew the split. These two were on the agency’s exclusive roster—booked for private cabin requests and high-roller tables, where discretion tripled the day rate and the services extended far beyond the official menu.

Jessy and Tera were the daytime showcase: there to bring glamour to the deck, keep the energy high, laugh at the right moments, and give the charter its effortless, sun-drenched prestige.

The van accelerated smoothly into the traffic heading north toward the marina. Through the tinted glass, the ancient sandstone fortress of Dalt Vila rose against the white-blue sky, its battlements baking in the glare.

Jessy finally settled into her seat, turned slightly toward the row behind her, and offered a smooth, practiced look. “Bonjour. How was Lío last night?”

Amira, the Middle Eastern girl called out, her voice a low, smoky purr that cut through the hum of the air conditioner. She finally flipped her phone face-down onto her bare thigh, exhaling a low, dry laugh. “Same as usual. Rivers of Dom Pérignon, and poor performers risking their lives balancing on the edge of possible while nobody at the front tables even bothered looking up from their plates.”

“Total waste of talent,” the Latina girl, Sofia, muttered, adjusting her oversized sunglasses with one manicured finger.

“Our sweet Swiss twins didn’t care at all. They spent half the evening stuffing hundred-euro tips down the waitresses’ tops and singing soccer songs. Then they dragged everyone to a villa after-party in Cap Martinet and just kept drinking. Marco said they haven’t slept a minute. They’re already completely wrecked.” 

Amira added, checking her beautifully manicured fingers. “Worse than wrecked. They brought their own DJ. Some kid from Zurich who thinks he plays deep house because his father bought him a pioneer controller. It’s going to be a long day.”

Jessy leaned forward, her eyes lighting up with the prospect of information. “Did Marco say who the primary client is?”

“The guys from yesterday booked Amira and me directly,” Sofia said coolly, looking out the tinted window as the palms blurred past. “They seem to have closed a big deal or something and chartered the boat to celebrate with a few partners and an obligatory celeb buddy who wanted his own daytime crowd. Not sure who that is, but they mentioned a goalkeeper a few times.”

Jessy’s eyes went wide. She elbowed Tera with a predatory grin. “Shut up. The goalkeeper everyone’s been gossiping about? For real?”

“Could be,” Amira said, a cynical little smirk touching her lips. “Fresh off that messy divorce. The twins told Marco to round up as many girls as would fit on the sunbeds, but Marco wouldn’t shut up about strict privacy rules before we left. Tape on camera lenses, no live stories, no tagging. If a single photo of their athlete buddy with a drink or a random girl hits the German tabloids this weekend, his management is going to sue everyone on that deck into the ground.”

Amira’s green eyes shifted, landing squarely on Tera. She looked at the wild, aquamarine waves spilling over Tera’s linen collar, then down at her flat leather sandals.A sharp smirk touched Amira’s lips.

“Marco will definitely put you on the upper deck to service the jacuzzi spot. With that hair, at least you’ll match the water.

“Tera met her gaze in the rearview mirror, keeping her face flat. “He hasn’t told me yet.”

“He will,” Sofia chimed in, not unkindly, but with the cold detachment of someone who knew the agency’s mathematics.

“You have the look guys like that go for. Wild. Unpredictable. They get bored of the standard catalog blondes by July. Just make sure you know what you’re doing, bluey. Men like that are used to getting whatever they want, and they don’t care what arrangements are made on paper.”

“I don’t care about what they want,” Tera said quietly. “I just want the money for being there, not more.”

Amira let out a dry, short laugh that sounded like a cough. “None of us care about the men, honey. We care about Tuesday’s rent. But you still have to play the game. If they like you, you’re the main attraction—vintage champagne, serious tips, private invites. If they don’t, you’re just fifty kilos of expensive decorative wallpaper roasting in the forty-degree sun for eight hours. And trust me, once that anchor drops, Marco isn’t going to step in and protect your comfort over a VIP client. Being invisible is a lot more exhausting.”

The van slowed down, the tires hissing as the driver braked for the roundabout near the Ibiza grand hotel. The scent of artificial vanilla from the dashboard vent seemed to thicken in the silence that followed.

Jessy was already adjusting her lip liner in her compact, her mind clearly spinning with the information Amira had dropped.

“What about his friends? The entourage?”

“Childhood buddies from Munich, from what I heard,” Sofia muttered, her thumb already back to scrolling through her feed. “The worst kind. They aren’t rich or famous, but they act like they own his credit card. You know the type—they’ll probably order five magnums just to spray them over the deck for a ten-second video and chase anything female that moves. Just stay out of the “splash” zone, Jess. Silk doesn’t wash out.” Tera didn’t like the way she said splash.

Sofia’s warning settled into the refrigerated air of the cabin. Keep it quiet. Smile through the clumsy reaches. Stay out of the narrow companionways below deck. To the clients, this was an untouchable playground where money bought total immunity. To Jess and Tera, it was just another high-wire shift of survival and avoiding the temper tantrums of wealthy men—knowing that once the yacht cleared the harbor, there wouldn’t be a single person on board who would take a hostess’s side over a VIP guest.

The van turned sharply to the right, leaving the shadow of the old town walls behind as the wide, sun-drenched coastal highway opened up ahead.

Tera leaned her head back against the cool headrest, watching the dust-covered palms flick past in the glass. Her ribs felt tight, the faint phantom rhythm of the morning dream still humming somewhere deep behind her ears.

Twenty minutes to the dock. Twenty minutes before she had to smile and pretend the sea was just another swimming pool.

….