Storms, sand, surf, and romance

Salem Crossing has had a major evolution since Nevada Noble arrived in town, but the biggest changes are yet to come. As Neve plans for her pending nuptials, threats multiply all around her.

Simmer Salem uncovers shocking secrets that might be the hottest gossip yet. A new man arrives in SX with a purpose that will rock the community to its core. The new mayor must navigate perils from enemies as well as from within. The closer Neve and her friends get to answers, the more danger builds like a tidal wave.

From new loves to simmering passions, love and adventure are in the air this Florida winter. After surviving storms, murders, betrayals, and shocking revelations, the biggest twist of all is about to wash up on the beaches of Salem Crossing.

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Release Date: November 9, 2026
Genre: Contemporary Romance

~ A Red Satin Romance ~

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Prologue
Mason Salem

Mason stood on the shores of the small island that had been both his paradise and his prison for more than a quarter of a century. When he first started his self-imposed exile on the isle, the only structures were a clinic for Dr. Iblīs, a nursery for the six test-tube babies when they arrived on the secluded atoll shortly after birth, and the little bungalow where he still resided. The Holiday children had lived in the nursery, which was remodeled and repurposed into a kind of dorm situation, until they were teens, when they moved abroad to learn about the world beyond this secluded retreat. Several years ago, he constructed the outbuilding that had become the prison with his own two hands.

Initially, they only held Sean Salem captive. Sean had identified Mason during the ordeal out at Hahkv Island, the place the locals now called Nightmare Island. Mason conspired with Neil Halloweather and Andre Mascolo to kidnap one member of each of the original families of SX and blackmail them for pieces of the treasure map to the Miccosukee tribe’s sunken gold and jewels. They faked Sean’s death. Andre and Neil chopped off Sean’s hand and pulled a few teeth, making sure the morbid evidence washed up on Salem Shores.

Ten years ago, Lula Zhang joined Sean Salem as a prisoner, although by then, Sean preferred isolation. He shunned contact with Lula. She never guessed the identity of her fellow captive, who kept to himself, out of sight. Mason had arranged Lula’s abduction after she learned the Dark Summer kidnappers had offered certain prominent folks around SX a choice between their children’s freedom and giving up their family’s section of the map that had been a secret for more than a century. Mason thought it a mercy that he held Lula prisoner these last ten years to keep the secret, rather than sending her to her grave with the information. Domino Salem stuck her nose in the island’s business a few months ago, and his sister’s snoopy brat learned too much. Mason had a cell ready for her beside Lula’s, but Damien Halloweather botched Domino’s abduction, and she ended up dead. Mason didn’t want anyone to die over this, but he was too close to let anything derail his plans from finally coming to fruition.

The place was currently bursting at the seams with prisoners. In the course of mere weeks, they had added Anna Álvarez, Juliet Zhang, Delilah Ryan, and Ariel Álvarez to the roster of captives. The hurricane functioned as the unexpected catalyst needed to accelerate their plans.

Anna Álvarez suffered from being at the wrong place at the wrong time. She had been at the docks during the hurricane, securing moorings and checking ships, when she spied Alistair Salem talking with Jasmine Gemini, the Holiday who was Juliet Zhang’s clone. They planned on introducing Juliet’s doppelgänger after the storm, but Anna could ruin their story. The Holidays kidnapped Anna. They’d also abducted the three Caesars to keep them out of the way for the Holidays’ takeover of Salem Crossing. Mason was prepared for more arrivals to the island prison as the full extent of the scheme unfolded.

His nephew, Alistair, had built up the opposite side of the isle as a resort. The construction served as a diversion to the master plan unfolding at Mason’s end of the atoll. The prison, clinic, and Mason’s bungalow all nestled back from the beach, hidden in thick foliage from anyone searching from out at sea. The cove was unreachable except for a brief window at high tide, and the overgrown terrain of the island made it inaccessible from the resort side of the small land mass.

When Tessa Salem began seeking ways to expand her empire beyond Salem Shores, she commissioned Alistair to explore options for developing the islands off SX into private vacation destinations. Mason immediately conscripted his nephew to join his expansive mission, a scheme that had been twenty-five years in the making. Otherwise, Tessa’s interest in developing the scattered islands off Salem Shore might inadvertently reveal Mason’s location and his secret captives. The resort on the other side of the island made the perfect distraction for anyone investigating the recent rash of Salem deaths. No one would think that a vacation destination could double as a secret, secluded lair holding missing SXers.

Mason stared across the sea toward the direction of Salem Crossing, too far to see over the horizon. He had not been home in a quarter of a century. How things had evolved. How the people he had known must have changed. He had sacrificed half his life in the pursuit of his dream. Soon, he would find the sunken treasure worth enough to take control of SX.

He refocused away from the direction of Salem Crossing and the past he had let slip through his fingers, concentrating instead on the approaching yacht. Mason had sent Alistair on a mission to ensure the next stage of their plan moved forward, guaranteeing Alistair would be absent for a while. His cohorts over the last twenty-five years had included Neil Halloweather and Andre Mascolo, both now dead; Dr. Nestor Iblīs; the six Holidays; and, more recently, his nephew. Alistair had lately drafted Neil’s offspring, Britney and Damien, to help enact the grand plan. Yet Mason’s original partner had remained anonymous all this time. Initially, when Mason Salem devised his plan to take over SX, only two people were privy to it.

For the first time in many years, he needed to meet his partner in person. The final stages of their scheme would soon unfold, and they had to work out the finer details of their takeover. Within weeks, Mason Salem would finally make his grand return to SX and take his rightful place as head of the family. The power in Salem Crossing would be his, and Tessa Salem’s long reign would be over.

The yacht docked, and he sauntered up the shore to meet the prestigious passenger. She had made the voyage out to this island more often in the early days of their operation, but she had stayed away the last few years as Mason conscripted new allies. She needed to keep her part in this a secret. Mason had once felt a certain excitement when she visited the island. Hadn’t there been a spark between them, once upon a time? Mason had let those interests fade long ago, and his diabolical partner redirected her attention to men still the age that Mason had been when they started.

Millie Zhang walked up the shore like a woman attending a business meeting in a high-rise office in Manhattan instead of a sandy shoreline on a tropical island. She looked powerful and sure as she strode across the silvery sands, her sunglasses shading her eyes and a wide-brimmed black hat adding a touch of smart sophistication. Her expression revealed absolutely nothing about the thoughts percolating behind her shades.

Mason offered her an elbow, and she hooked one slender arm through the crook. He ushered her inland toward his bungalow, a trio of assistants/bodyguards following in their wake through a bramble of thick vegetation. They had been partners for twenty-five years, but a Zhang would never trust a Salem without an armed escort.

“How is my mother?” asked Millie.

Mason knew she asked for the sake of propriety rather than genuine interest. If she actually cared about Lula Zhang’s condition, she would inquire more frequently than every few years. Perhaps she had her concubine spy on Lula for her and report back. Mason knew that Damien Halloweather was a lover in Millie’s rotating harem of young men.

“She’s as well as you would expect. She seems more alert since your daughter joined the group,” Mason said.

“I trust you’ve kept Juliet safe?”

Mason grumbled. Juliet Zhang was a pain in the ass. “She tried to escape more than once. She made it as far as Nightmare Island the last time.”

“I don’t like that you’ve made her a pawn in this,” Millie snapped.

Mason didn’t want to rehash old arguments yet again. “That’s why I didn’t tell you at first. Juliet decided her fate when she ran off with my niece. We need someone at City Hall to facilitate our plans. We tried it your way, but your sons are fuckups. We created Jasmine Gemini to take Juliet’s place in case of an emergency. Well, the time had come, Millie. Her clone fooled you for a few weeks, didn’t she? You didn’t have the first goddamn clue.”

“Dalton’s failures are as much your fault as anyone’s. The events of the Dark Summer traumatized him,” Millie sneered.

“I let you pick which son you wanted us to take.”

“Owen wouldn’t have survived one night.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be so long,” Mason muttered, his voice trailing off. They had believed the members of the other families would give up their secret sections of the treasure map to save their children after a night or two. Mason and Millie had not expected such resistance. Greed was more potent than love. “You needed to offer a sacrificial son so as not to draw suspicion to the Zhangs.”

Millie was still upset even after all these years. “It all ended before you took Bryce. The Grahams never suffered undue skepticism.”

“The Grahams aren’t the enemies of every other family in SX,” Mason said through gritted teeth.

Millie grinned, and he saw the ghost of the young woman who might have once been something more than a cohort.

“Are we nemeses, Mason?”

“We’re more like ‘the enemy of my enemy’ kind of thing. Tessa is the real villain.”

“She can really bring out the worst in people,” Millie agreed.

They reached his bungalow and entered the small hut. A wall in the main living room featured the parts of the map they’d collected thus far. They had always had the Salem piece (and not the fake piece he’d left in his sister’s office as a red herring. He knew that Naomi had discovered the counterfeit.) Millie supplied the Zhang piece.

They had procured only the Ryan section during the Dark Summer. Although Mason had directed the kidnapping of Rob Ryan to blackmail Rob’s father, David, it was Rob’s uncle, Jacob Ryan, who discovered the location of the map. When David asked his brothers if they knew about secret maps, Jacob found the old parchment among his grandfather’s belongings. Jacob sold it to Andre Mascolo rather than securing his nephew’s release. Juliet Salem found the abducted boys before any other family offered up their piece of the map. For years, they had been missing the Graham, Montgomery, and Álvarez sections.

Until now.

Millie had contacted Mason days ago. She had obtained another section of the map and demanded to deliver it herself. Mason waited until the pageantry of the New Year’s gala was over and the parade of Salems had come and gone before being able to ensure Millie Zhang could arrive unseen. He arranged for Alistair to be elsewhere and made sure Britney Iblīs remained otherwise occupied on the mainland. The prisoners were all locked in their cells, and Dr. Iblīs already knew about Millie, as did the Holidays.

Millie held up a rumpled, well-used piece of parchment.

“Damien succeeded?”

“If you saw him, you might not think so. There’s hardly enough of him left to salvage,” Millie said, wrinkling her nose.

“He survived. As did the map.”

Millie gloated with an arrogant air that used to turn Mason on, but now irritated the hell out of him. “Yes, we have the Graham section. He managed to wrangle it from that troublesome Álvarez girl.”

Mason took the piece of the map with the reverence of a parishioner receiving the holy sacrament. He carried it to the wall and held it up alongside the other sections. Millie would have her own copy. She’d already spoken of her own map wall in case Mason got any funny ideas of keeping it all to himself. They may have been partners in this for almost three decades, but neither ever trusted the other.

He pinned the Graham piece between the sections procured from Jacob Ryan and the Salem section of the map. The hand-drawn cartography replicated the coastline off Salem Shores, but there wasn’t an “X” that marked the spot of sunken treasure. Instead, each piece had parts of coordinates that would lead them to the place where the pirate ship sank a century and a half ago. The antique treasures aboard that vessel would amount to inestimable value today. Mason and Millie would use that money to rule SX until the end of time.

“Two pieces left. We’re so close,” Mason said, squinting at the map still missing a large swatch of surface.

Millie tilted her head and studied the void space. “Why do you think the Montgomery and Álvarez sections are larger than everyone else’s? We have filled four out of the six sections. That ought to be two-thirds of the puzzle. Instead, it appears that less than fifty percent is complete. The last two chunks will fill out more than one-half of the map.”

Mason had considered that already. They had had three sections for the last few years, and he noticed there was much more missing than merely half. A nagging worry made him wonder whether there might be more than six pieces. Who else would have a part of the map other than the original settlers of Salem Crossing?

The Miccosukee tribe was the enemy. No one would have given them a section. The Salems had bought out the Iblīses. That left no one else to claim this treasure.

“The Montgomerys probably bullied the others into getting a bigger section. Some things never change.”

Millie appeared unconvinced. “Did one of the families get more than one section? Maybe some of the founding families split, and folks went their separate ways. Maybe a second Graham or Ryan section?”

Mason scratched his head. After chasing his dream for so long, he didn’t want to consider the possibility that the goal had moved further away. The hurricane was the perfect storm that allowed them to proceed with their plan. The Holidays would ensure everything fell into place to take over SX. He had tasked the doppelgängers to find the last two pieces of the map. Things began to culminate at the precipice of finally coming together.

He had left his home at twenty-seven, run off to put his plans in motion. After the Caesars were born and Dr. Iblīs harvested their blood to begin gestating the test tube babies, Mason had to leave Salem Crossing and never return. He discovered after he left that his last time with his wife, Fiona, had resulted in her pregnancy. While he helped raise six lab-grown infants, he had never met his own daughter. That would be a hell of a story to headline Simmer Salem’s Scandal Sheet. Simmer’s own father would make the front page of her newsletter.

Mason turned away from the mishmash map, giving up on trying to figure it out. “We need the last pieces of the puzzle. We won’t know anything is missing until we secure the sections from the Álvarez and Montgomery sections. Has Leira reported any progress?”

“Jefferson Montgomery knows the location of the family heirloom. I tasked Leira with getting the team to retrieve the map by any means necessary,” said Millie.

“What about the Álvarez section?”

Millie shook her head. “We don’t know who has it. A million Álvarezes are running around Old Mat.”

“Damn it. We’re so close.”

Mason tightened his fists. He had been suffering a self-imposed banishment for half his life, pulling the strings in SX but never able to walk the city streets. His family believed he had disowned them decades ago, but he has remained close all these long years. His goal of wresting control of the city away from his imperious sister and her bootlicking ilk finally seemed within reach. He would free the citizens from their oppressive oligarchy and reign beside Millie Zhang in a new dawn over Salem Crossing, or, as Millie insisted in an official renaming after their hostile takeover, Zhalem Crossing. He wasn’t entirely pleased with the name change, but ZX had a nice ring to it.

Millie wandered around the living space in his bungalow, turning her nose up at his sparse décor. “There might be a clue in the Fallout Shelter. If my sons weren’t colossal losers and my daughter could’ve kept it in her pants when it came to your niece, I would have had access.”

“What if we task one of our newer associates with the mission. We have an asset that we couldn’t access before,” Mason suggested as Millie studied a lamp base made of a coconut shell that Leira had made him for his birthday many years ago.

Millie considered. “Britney Iblīs.”

“Formerly Britney Zhang. She knows how to get into the Fallout Shelter.”

“Can we trust her?”

Mason scoffed. “You don’t even trust me. Trust isn’t what this is about. It’s about whether or not I can get her to do what we want her to do.”

“Can you?” Millie asked.

Mason nodded confidently. “Alistair has her under control. She wants to be a Salem more than she wants to be either an Iblīs or a Zhang.”

“Task Britney with locating the Álvarez piece. I’ll make sure the rest of the Holidays procure the Montgomery section,” Millie stated.

Mason nodded. The plan was set. This was the zenith of decades’ worth of machinations. Like a game of chess played out over half a lifetime, the time had come to make his move. The pawns were in place, each lieutenant moving into position to strike. The hurricane had accelerated their timeline by months, and now victory floated within Mason’s grasp. His return to SX was finally imminent.

“So, tell me about Tessa. How spectacular is her spiral?” Mason asked, turning the convo from plotting to gossip.

Millie sprouted a rare smile, transforming her appearance, taking decades off her age. She looked like the woman who had begun this ambitious takeover of Salem Crossing with Mason all those many years ago. He listened as she maliciously described his sister’s downfall. He could see why this older woman so beguiled all those young men in her harem. She had the verve of an ingenue and the tenacity of a tigress.

She was the perfect predator to align with. Mason and Millie were about to have everything they had worked so long and hard for. Salem Crossing thought the hurricane had changed things? A true reformation was coming to SX, and Mother Nature didn’t hold a candle to the havoc Mason and Millie were about to wreak.

 

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