The deck is sloping now.

Hours ago you were in the First Class dining saloon—candlelight and crystal, Strauss playing in the corner, the new electric chandeliers glowing like stars made tame for wealthy men. You were laughing politely at a joke told by a banker from Philadelphia. Your husband had been discussing—calmly, easily—railway mergers and steel profits with a senator who wanted steel tariffs tightened so American mines could crush their competition. You’d touched your belly under the table and the senator’s wife had noticed. She’d whispered congratulations. You’d blushed prettily and your husband had kissed your knuckles and told the table you were four months along—due in July if God smiled on you.

Champagne. Pear sorbet. The string quartet.

It felt eternal.

Now your dress is soaked and salt stings your face and every step is a fight for balance.

You feel the slope in your stomach first—a sickening float, like the world is tilting under the boards. Like the ocean’s gravity is pulling you already, claiming its victims before they even touch the water. The cold has reached your bones, layered deeper than skin. It’s in your blood, your marrow.

And beneath that, deeper still, your child shifts—only four months inside you and already reacting to every spike of fear in your pulse.

Your husband squeezes your hand hard enough that it hurts. He doesn’t apologize. He just keeps you moving. “Stay with me,” he says. “Do not let go.”

His coat is soaked at the hem, heavy with freezing seawater. He looks nothing like the man who was laughing four hours ago at dinner. His hair is plastered to his forehead, his jaw clenched so tightly that the muscle jumps like a wire twitching.

The world is screaming. Officers shouting. A woman sobbing hysterically, begging a stranger to let her stay with her husband. A man laughing like he’s broken. Another man praying loudly in German. Crewmen trying to keep order. Lifeboats creaking as they swing.

But your husband forces a path.

His wealth helps—people let him pass, move aside, assume he belongs near the boats. He doesn’t exploit it, he just uses it like a tool, like a shield. Like he will rip heaven open if it means getting you and the child off alive.

At port side, with lifeboats swinging out over the black, he turns your shoulders and cups your face in both his hands. His eyes are glassy with frozen tears.

“You are my priority,” he says, voice cracking. “You and the child.”

You shake your head violently, the salt of tears freezing against the wind. “I’m not leaving you.”

He shuts his eyes once—hard—like it physically hurts him. “Yes. You are.”

He gets the attention of an officer. “My wife is with child. Four months.”

The officer’s gaze drops to your belly—even under the heavy coat, the gentle curve is evident. He nods sharply. “Madam, get in.”

Your husband lifts you by the waist. You struggle, clutching at his lapels, his coat, his tie, your voice breaking. “No—no!”

His voice is raw and desperate. “I will find another boat! Go.”

The world lurches again. Something in the ship screams—metal twisting, deep inside the hull like the sound of a leviathan breaking its bones.

Your grip breaks.

The officer and two other men haul you into the lifeboat. In a blink you’re in it—and it’s dropping away from the ship. You twist, knee on the wood bench, gripping the rope, leaning dangerously out into the night.

Your husband stands above you.

His eyes on you. The night painted into his pupils. Pride and terror braided into one expression.

The boat hits the surface, a slap of frigid water. You see his mouth move:

I love you.

And then it happens.

The ship jolts—some terrible shift—and your husband’s boots slide on the deck. For one heart-stopping instant he pinwheels his arms—then he disappears past the railing.

He falls.

Straight into the black.