Chapter 4 - The Man in the Burning Cabin
Six years earlier, Avery had been serving aboard a Navy rescue vessel during a joint Atlantic security exercise.
A private yacht issued a distress signal near a restricted shipping lane.
Its navigation system had failed.
Then the engine compartment exploded.
Avery’s unit reached the yacht as flames consumed the lower deck.
The passenger manifest listed wealthy diplomats traveling under false names.
No royal titles appeared.
Avery entered the smoke-filled cabin with two sailors behind her.
Inside, she found an older silver-haired man pinned beneath a fallen beam.
His security officer was unconscious.
Avery cut through the man’s harness and dragged him toward the exit.
A second explosion threw her against a metal frame.
The impact opened the crescent wound beneath her jaw.
The man tried to stop.
“You’re injured.”
“Keep moving.”
She shielded him as burning debris fell around them.
At the stern, Avery forced him into a rescue sling moments before the deck collapsed.
When he asked her name, radio interference swallowed her answer.
The rescue log identified her only by her operational call sign.
Harbor Seven.
The yacht’s passengers were removed before reporters arrived.
Avery later received a classified commendation but was ordered never to discuss the passengers.
She assumed the rescued man was a diplomat.
She never knew he was King Edmund of Norland.
King Edmund never knew Harbor Seven was a woman named Avery Bennett.
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Until he saw the scar beneath her jaw.
👉 Madison had learned the truth from a document hidden among their late mother’s belongings—and she had used it to build her way into a royal marriage.
