“You’re a monster. Hendrix won’t let you beat him. You want to know why? Because he is a good, strong man who fights for what he believes in.”

“Well, he doesn’t have very good taste then, does he?”

Ouch.

I shove at his chest so hard he has to take a step back.

“You know what? I hope he makes you pay.”

I turn and rush from the room, feeling my hands shaking with rage. Tears finally escape my eyes and tumble down my cheeks. I stumble four times before I reach the stairs to the deck. I rush up them, trembling so hard my teeth are rattling together. I get up on deck, and there’s a cool, crisp breeze flowing in. I drop to my knees on the floor, wrapping my arms around myself and gasping for air.

He’s a horrible, awful, rotten human being. I don’t know why I ever thought he was anything different.

I blink my tears back, trying to clear my vision. They burn their way out before drying on my cheeks. I glance quickly around the deck, making sure I’m not with company up here, but I see it’s quiet. The ship rocks from side to side. Usually this wouldn’t bother me but my stomach is coiling so tightly it suddenly makes me feel ill. I drop my eyes to the floor and realize I’m actually leaning against a box. It’s like a crate. I’m about to look away when I see that there are weapons in that crate. Quickly, without thinking, I lift the lid.

Guns. A shitload of them.

My heart pounds as I reach in and take a .22 out of the box with trembling hands. I run my thumb over the shiny, hard metal and swallow. I stare down at the rest of the guns—there are at least twenty. Someone left this here—this is an accident without a doubt. A man like Dimitri wouldn’t leave something like this out for someone like me to find. Someone made a mistake, a mistake that may just save my life.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?”

I hear Dimitri’s voice, and I stand quickly, spinning around with the gun raised. It’s not exactly what I planned on doing, but now that it’s in the air and his eyes are wide, I realize it may have just been the right choice. My hands tremble, not because I can’t shoot this gun, but because I know what I have to shoot at.

“You’re going to shoot me?” Dimitri says, his voice solid. “Why? Because you can’t handle the truth?”

“You,” I snarl, “are the one who can’t handle the truth.”

“Your truths mean nothing to me,” he barks.

“Because you know they’re right, perhaps?” I whisper.

“If you want to shoot me, Jessica, then shoot me—but before you do, know this: I am doing what I have to do to get my dignity back. It was stripped a long time ago. I don’t expect you to understand—how could you? You’ve never been the child nobody wants. You’ve never had to fight for your life. You’ve never lived through what I’ve lived through. I lived through it because of him. Your words will never change that, and in your mind, you know that.”

My hand is shaking now, and my lips are quivering.

“So if you’re going to shoot me then do it and hurry it up. I don’t have time to waste with pathetic little girls pretending they know how to shoot guns, who don’t have the slightest clue what it’s like to live in the hard world.”

I open my mouth and my words are flowing out before I get the chance to stop them. “I do know what it’s like to be the child nobody wants. I know because my parents died when I was just four years old. They left me alone and orphaned. I was shoved through the foster system until one day I was set with a permanent family. My foster father started raping me when I was twelve years old. I wasn’t even old enough for my first fucking period—which, by the way, is all I wanted you for. I have my period and I needed help.” I shake my head, stopping the tears, refusing to look at him. “By the time I was sixteen, I’d had enough. I hid a knife under my pillow. When he came in, and he was inside me, pounding my innocence out, I lifted my knife and I stabbed him so many times his face was unrecognizable. I killed him. I ran and somehow ended up on the wharf. Hendrix was there. He saved me from a life of jail and abuse. So, the man you know and the man I know are two very different people.”

He’s staring at me and, oh God, his expression.

I aim the gun and shoot it just close enough that it grazes past his head. He flinches, but his eyes don’t move from mine.

“And if I wanted to shoot you, Dimitri, I could. Easily. That’s what pathetic girls with no idea do when they’re stuck on a pirate ship because their life and freedom have been snatched from them.” I throw the gun on the floor and I turn, walking off. When I reach the door, I twist back and mutter, “Oh, and by the way, my birth name is Blair. Just Blair. It’s not overly beautiful or special but it’s the only thing left in my life that I can call mine.”

My entire body is numb.

So is my heart.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Jess

I hate crying, it makes me feel weak. I gave up any weakness I had in my life a long time ago. I don’t have time for weak, I only have time for here and now. I’m trying to remind myself that I am better than this, braver even. It’s not working. My hands are trembling, my lip is quivering, and I’ve got my period, which, mind you, is just putting icing on the cake.

I hear the door squeak open. I don’t look up.

Why bother?

I hear shuffling and I feel a presence in front of me. I slowly lift my tear-filled gaze and see Dimitri standing in front of me. He’s got a handful of . . . is that tampons? If I weren’t so broken, I’d probably laugh at the image of this big, beautiful man with a handful of pink floral tampons. He stretches his hand out, pushing them toward me. I reach up, my fingers still trembling. I take them from him, grateful.