RPV2 Tower

MARISSE

The gala continued to shimmer around him, a brilliant tapestry of wealth, ego, and engineered elegance. Marisse Rickarte stood at its center like a marble statue. Unshaken, unflinching, untouchable. No one could guess that just beneath his tailored exterior, the foundations of his world were cracking.

Rose. Dead.

The knowledge pounded against his skull like a distant drumbeat. But he didn’t flinch. He didn’t run. Instead, he leaned into what had always protected him: control. Ruthless, exacting control.

He moved through the remainder of the celebration with chilling precision. Shaking hands, nodding politely, even mustering a dry smile for the cameras. To the room, he was still the titan of industry, the architect of RPV’s rise, the man who never lost composure.

And then---

“Marisse,” a voice said behind him, drawing his attention.

It was Colmenares, one of his appointed biographers. Nervous, as always, but efficient. “The memoir manuscript is nearly done,” he said. “I’ve returned your journals to the penthouse. They’re stacked on your desk, just as you asked months ago.”

Marisse’s eyes narrowed. A spark ignited somewhere deep in the storm.

The journal.

Of course.

He kept one during his time with Rose, during those seven luminous, impossible days. There had to be something in those pages that could guide him. A detail. A moment. A warning.

Without a word, Marisse excused himself and slipped away from the gala, ascending the private elevator to the penthouse atop RPV2 Tower. The city unfolded beneath him in cold light, and still—he didn’t drink the champagne he held.

He entered the penthouse, the glass still in his hand.

Then Andrew’s words returned to him. She died. The storm that prevented them from finding her.

Rose. Gone.

The glass slipped from his grip.

It hit the marble floor with a piercing crash, scattering shards across the room like a violent punctuation to his grief. He stood still, breathing hard, watching the golden liquid bleed across the white stone.

He clenched his jaw. No tears. Not now.

Without another word, Marisse crossed to his study, opened the tall glass doors, and found them---his journals. Bound in leather, yellowing slightly at the edges. One was thinner than the rest. The one from the voyage on The Maverick’s Rose.

He flipped through it, page after page of scrawled handwriting and fading ink. There she was in every line---Rose, in laughter and silence, in secrets exchanged beneath moonlight, in the tremble of a hand held too long.

Every detail, every conversation.

Memories sharpened into maps.

He had four hours before midnight.

He read obsessively, annotating with old business habits. Tagging dates, noting key turning points, places where he might intervene. He moved like a man preparing for war, strategy layered over emotion, each breath more driven than the last.

By 11:30 p.m., everything was ready.

On the glass coffee table lay the camera at the ready.

Marisse sat motionless on the couch, staring at it. Finally, he called out. "Jax..."

“It’s not going to bite,” said Jax who suddenly appeared lounging in the armchair, one boot propped on the edge of the coffee table.

Marisse didn’t laugh. His jaw was tight, eyes unreadable. 

“It’s just---” he exhaled. “I thought I’d forgotten that day. That I'd forgotten her. But I haven’t. Not really. Not her.”

“You could choose not to go,” Jax said, though his tone was neutral. “Let things remain as they were.”

“No,” Marisse whispered, almost to himself. “I have to know why she died. All these years, I thought I was protecting her by not dragging her along with all that I had to go through to get to where I am."

"I'll never forgive myself if me leaving her that night was the reason she died."

"Do not burden yourself with guilt." Jax made him pause. "Rather, use it to save her,"

By the time Marisse faced Jax again, he was set on what he should do. "I will save Rose."

He stood and retrieved a black journal from the pile on the table.

“Memory is a funny thing,” he muttered. “I don't trust mine.”

He began to read his journal entry for the first day of the cruise. The day he was about to revisit:

May 19, 2012 — Day One

Entry: "The Lost Heiress"

The day began like any other; endless polishing, rig checks, routine deck prep. The passengers boarded around 6:30 a.m., and by 8:00, the breakfast service was in full swing. I was on rotation near the portside sun deck when I found her.

She looked... lost. Alone in her own world. A girl in a sundress standing barefoot on teak, staring into the horizon like it owed her something. I asked if she needed help, she didn’t even hear me at first.

She’s Rose Villamor. The Villamor. Shipping heiress, the boss’s only daughter. She smiled a tiny smile, a little embarrassed. She had wandered off, trying to escape the morning guests and their well-trained small talk.

Captain spotted me walking her back. Later, I was told I’d be acting as her point man for the duration of the trip. Escort duties. Keep her company. Keep her out of trouble.

They called it a “security protocol.” I think the old man just wanted a pair of eyes on her. Fine by me.

The penthouse was dark but for the lights of the city below. 

Marisse then took the camera in his hand. It felt heavier now not like a device, but like fate itself.

He no longer wondered if he would go back.

The only question was how to change everything.

He prepared to take the first picture with steady hands, the tick of the grandfather clock growing louder with each passing second.

He raised the camera.

Framed the photo from memory. Her standing at the ship’s rail, hair caught in the wind, sunlight gilding her cheek.

Click.

The flash exploded.

The picture ejected with a soft whir as the light around him began to warp and bend, space collapsing into itself like a breath held too long.

Then…

Darkness.

And the scent of salt and sunlight.

Marisse was no longer in the tower.

He was back to where the camera was supposed to bring him .

Day One.

The first of seven.

And somewhere ahead of him… Rose.

*******

May 19, 2012

Onboard the MV Maverick's Rose on the first day of its' Seven Day Anniversary Cruise

Marisse Rickarte opened his eyes to a pale, cloud-streaked sky.

The salt-slick wind of the open sea filled his lungs, sharp and alive. Somewhere in the distance, the low mechanical hum of cruise ship hydraulics pulsed beneath the sound of gulls. He blinked. The teak beneath him was golden with sun. The deck. The sun deck.

Marisse blinked. He was suddenly barefoot in rubber deck shoes, khaki shorts, and a white polo with the Villamor Shipping insignia. Younger. Stronger. His knees didn’t ache. The air felt lighter in his lungs.

The past.

He turned to the rail and saw it. The expanse of sea, the white curve of the Villamor ship cutting across the Mindoro Strait. Somewhere between outreach mission and PR stunt, the vessel floated as a half-charity, half-photo op for the Villamor Foundation.

For a moment, he felt like he'd fallen into a dream. Oor a memory. Until he caught sight of his reflection in the tinted glass of a lifeboat enclosure.

And recoiled.

Thick, black-rimmed glasses. Braces glinting faintly under his parted lips. A scatter of teenage acne on his jaw. The uniform crisp white with navy trim, standard-issue for low-ranking deckhands on the Maverick’s Rose. He reached up instinctively to adjust his glasses and felt a tight dread claw up from his chest.

“No way,” he muttered.

But he knew. His heart knew. His bones knew.

The Polaroid worked.

He was here. Not just on the ship. Not just in time.

He was twenty again.

The years he had earned. The empire he built, the ruthlessness he perfected, the woman he lost were suddenly weightless. Irrelevant. He was once again the awkward, ambitious nobody who had scrubbed decks and recited business books like scripture beneath the stars.

A voice buzzed faintly in his ears. A voice from memory. “Entry: The Lost Heiress.”

The journal. That first day.

A flicker of panic crossed his mind: Am I too early? Too late? But no, he felt it. A gravitational pull, like a tide inside his skin. He was exactly where the memory said he would be.

And then, he saw her.

Barefoot. Sundress fluttering just below the knee. Standing by the railing, just past the teak lounge chairs and potted palms. Her gaze fixed far out toward the horizon like it was whispering secrets only she could hear. Her hair whipped back in the breeze, catching glints of gold in the sunlight. Her posture said she belonged to the sea more than she ever did to the people behind her.

Rose.

His throat tightened. It was her. God, it was really her. He hadn’t seen that look on her face in years. Open, unguarded, that soft veil of melancholy only visible before she learned to weaponize her smile.

He stepped forward, boots too loud on the wood, and cleared his throat. “Miss? Do you… need any help?”

She didn’t hear him at first. Just like the journal said.

Then she turned.

Their eyes met and Marisse felt the sting of gravity realign. A moment so familiar it rewrote itself in his marrow. She blinked, startled, then softened as recognition---or maybe curiosity---dawned on her face.

“I’m not lost,” she said, her voice soft, lilting. “I just didn’t want to be found for a while.”

He opened his mouth searching for something witty, charming, capable. Nothing came. Only this dry little croak: “You’re not supposed to be out here without a staff escort.”

“I am with staff.” She smiled, small and slightly smug, as her gaze flicked to his nameplate. “Rickarte. That you?”

He nodded, flushed. The braces felt heavier suddenly. “Deckhand Marisse Rickarte. At your service.”

She chuckled. “That sounds vaguely medieval.”

“I’m told I’m very traditional,” he said, hoping the joke would land.

It did. She tilted her head, studying him in that strange, probing way she had even then. Like she was cataloguing not your appearance, but your essence. “Well, Deckhand Rickarte,” she said, taking a step toward him, “I promise not to jump overboard if you promise not to tattle on me.”

“I… I don’t tattle,” he stammered.

“Good. Then I like you already.”

There it was. That first spark. The unspoken rhythm. Instant. Organic. Like remembering a song they both knew from a dream. She walked beside him easily as he escorted her back toward the breakfast salon, her pace unhurried, her body language already open. Not flirtatious, exactly just undisguised.

She asked him about the deck. The knots on the rigging. The stories behind the ship’s name. He answered, careful not to sound overeager.

But beneath his even tone, Marisse was spiraling.

Why is she looking at me like that?

He wasn’t the man she would fall in love with, not yet. Not the tycoon with diamond-cuff ambition and power in his hands like currency. He was a boy in hand-me-down shoes and secondhand pride, wearing too much product in his hair and hiding his insecurity behind borrowed confidence.

Yet she looked at him like he was real. Like he mattered.

Marisse glanced at her again, heart pounding beneath his starched uniform. He remembered this feeling now. Not the exact dialogue, not the sun on his face, but the awe. The stunned disbelief that someone like her would even notice someone like him.

Only this time... it wasn’t disbelief.

It was shame.

Because he knew what he would do. What he had done. He would hold back. Choose ambition. Let her walk away.

But not this time.

Not again.

As they reached the salon doors, Rose paused and looked up at him, shielding her eyes from the sun. “Thanks, Marisse.”

He swallowed. “It’s what I’m here for.”

“No,” she said, her voice quieter now. “It’s more than that. You didn’t just find me. You saw me.”

And just like that, she was gone. Back into the crowd, leaving behind nothing but citrus-sweet perfume and a heartbeat in his chest he didn’t recognize.

Marisse stood there a moment longer, watching the space where she had been, hands clenched at his sides.

This was Day One, at only 11:00

He still has thirteen hours to get it right.

*******