I watched them carefully as I said, “If I don’t come with you, you’ll kill Camden McQueen. It’s not a hard choice to make.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Javier sneer, but none of the boys even blinked. They couldn’t have been much younger than me by a few years, but apparently they were already jaded and hardened to this life. Javier’s empire was a lot larger, and went a lot younger, than I had thought. It made me wonder what lives they must had led to get dragged into this kind of mess. Super yacht or not, I could only hope Javier paid them well.

“Then you’ve made your choice,” Javier said calmly, though I could see his temples going red. “So take my hand and come aboard.”

I ignored his hand and walked up the stairs to the deck.

The boat, as Javier soon explained, was a 187 ft, 550 tonne Royal Huisman Mega Ketch. Everything else went over my head as I got the grand tour. All I could gather was that it must have cost tens of millions of dollars, all filthy, bloody drug money. It had a flybridge in the middle of the boat, like a raised deck complete with outdoor dining, sofas and a damn barbeque. There was a private sitting area at the very back with a spiral staircase that led down to an office and Javier’s gigantic owner’s bedroom. There were three levels in total, with dining and living rooms, a theatre deck for movies, a copious amount of bedrooms and spacious bathrooms, and the rear of the boat even folded open with the hiss and whir of hydraulics to provide a sunbathing and diving platform. It was to be my prison for the next six days until we reached the city of Veracruz.

“What do you think?” Javier asked as my bags were placed in the room that was to be mine, conveniently right next door to his.

I looked him squarely in the eye. “I liked your other boat better.”

His lips twitched in amusement. “You always had simple tastes, Ellie. Except, perhaps, for me.”

He spun around and started to shut the door before he paused and said, “We set sail in an hour. You might want to get one last look at land. You won’t be seeing it for a while.”

The door closed with a sleek click, leaving me alone in my cabin. It was spacious enough but I could already feel the walls starting to come closer.

It turned out I missed the big farewell. After I’d unpacked a few items, I lay down on the bed to ponder my fate when exhaustion had taken over. The next thing I knew, I was very slowly rolling out of the bed and coming face to face with the upholstered cabin wall.

I sat up and blinked at the light that was streaming through what I thought was a shuttered window but was actually a well-disguised panel of lights meant to mimic daytime. I got up, finding my sea legs, and started fiddling with the lights, turning them from morning brightness to night. But they always sprung back, pre-programmed. The fact that Javier could even control the way his crew perceived the days was chilling.

I made my way out of the cabin and went down a narrow hallway lined with handrails. The boat was no longer heeling over, making walking seem painless. Aside from water making gentle sloshing sounds along the length of the boat, you couldn’t even tell you were on a ship. It was that big, like being on an airbus compared to a seaplane.

The hallway led me past three more cabin doors, all closed, before I came to a small set of stairs, flooded with natural light. The area I was in ended about mid-ship, which meant the crew’s quarters were at the front of the ship and had a separate entrance. I cautiously climbed the stairs until I recognized I was on the second deck, the main living area. The back was open, not fully enclosed, the sea breeze fluttering through. Past the elaborate dining table set-up, teak table and white high-backed chairs that could easily rival any house, I could see Raul and another man I hadn’t seen before sitting lazily on the couch, drinks in their hands, the wind ruffling their hair. They both looked at me sharply, unkindly, before turning back to each other, talking in Spanish. Behind them I could see the lower deck, all smooth wood, Javier’s private cockpit and the stern of the ship, the American flag waving in the breeze. The water here was green and a few islands dotted the horizon, slowly disappearing in our wake.

I went up another flight of stairs, holding onto the rail in case the boat decided to pitch and came up to the top deck, half covered like a pilothouse. Javier was there, sitting in a leather captain’s chair, hands on one of the two steering wheels, eyes focused ahead through the wide, tinted windshield. A large sail had billowed out from the mast, an immense noise that reminded me of happier times, but that didn’t make any sense to my brain, since the only time I’d ever been on a sailboat would have been with Javier.

“You’re up,” he said without turning to face me. His hair was waving slightly against the nape of his neck. I found it annoying how his longer hair still suited him. It shouldn’t have, it should have made him look more like a cheesy drug lord but instead it didn’t. My stomach twisted.

I turned my attention to the large cockpit, at the military-esque row of the glowing radar screens, GPS and weather charting systems at his fingertips, at the sofa and chairs in the open area behind me, another fantastic viewpoint. I took it all in yet it didn’t seem to stick. Nothing in this situation seemed to be real.

“I passed right out,” I said when I recovered my thoughts. “Did you drug me again?”

He let out a small laugh. “I promise I won’t drug you anymore.”

I didn’t find it particularly amusing but I was glad he at least promised it.

“Here, take a seat,” he said, gesturing to the co-pilot chair. “Can I get you a drink?”

I shook my head but sat down next to him. There was a pleasing amount of space between us and having another wheel at my fingertips was exciting in a novel way.

“What happens if I start steering?” I asked, closing my fingers around the suede covering.

“I’ll counter-steer,” he said. “And I will override you.”

I pressed my lips together and watched as the water flew past the boat, delicate white sea spray that matched the fluffy clouds. In the distance were ghostly shapes, oil rigs obscured by the haze.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been this far out before.”

“Soon it will be blue water,” he said, shaking the glass in his hand, the ice cubes rattling. Gin and tonic. “And then there will be no land in sight.” He finally turned to look at me. “Does that scare you?”

Actually, it did. And so did he.

Instead, I gave him a shrug and turned my attention back to the sea, to the dizzying heights of the mast. It was only then that I noticed a crow’s nest about halfway and one of the crew members up there.

“What’s he doing?” I asked. The young man looked like a black blob amongst the size of the mast.

“He’s being punished.”

I stared dumbly at Javier. “You’re kidding me? What for?”

He shook his glass and took a long sip before saying, “I didn’t like the way he was looking at you.”

I couldn’t believe my ears.

“Looking at … how was he looking at me?”

“You don’t want to know, angel.”

“Javier, you can’t punish the guy, he’s just a fucking kid!”

“He should know better. You’re the lady of the boat and you deserve respect.”

This was doing my head in.

“Respect? You wouldn’t know respect if it crawled up your ass and died. You’re blackmailing me, how is that for respect.”

“I have a special relationship with you,” he said softly, then looked back at the boy on the crow’s nest, eyes narrowing.

“You have nothing with me,” I said and got out of the chair. Javier reached over and grabbed me by the bicep and I was thankful for the layer of cardigan between our skin.

“I’m not hurting you,” he said but pulled me closer to him. His eyes burned into me, mine burning right back.

“And if I struggle?” I sniped, raising my arm, letting him know I was all for it. Anything to let me hold something above him.

“Then I’ll change my tactics,” he said, getting up and taking a step closer.

“You stay back,” I said, so glad that we were alone in the cockpit. I didn’t want anyone else to see how this was playing out, seeing me so damn weak.

“Or what?” he teased nastily. “You’ll hit me?”

I thought about it, I really did. It’s all I ever wanted since we left the dust of Palm Valley behind. But not like this. Not when he wanted it. Why did my ex-boyfriend have to be such a sick son of a bitch?

“I’m going to my room,” I said, jerking my arm away from him. His grip loosened and his hand slid down to my wrist where he held on. It felt electric in an extremely disturbing way.

“Dinner is going to be ready soon,” he said, voice lower, smoother, as if he was confiding in me. “One of the boys, Marc, is actually a very good cook.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Starving yourself isn’t proving a point, you know.”

I wasn’t starving myself, not really. I just knew he’d take pleasure in watching me eat, food that probably was absolutely delicious, and I didn’t want to give him anything. I was already doing enough for him, coming on this trip, committing to something I didn’t even want to think about.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I told him. Then I snatched my hand out of his grasp and walked off quickly down the stairs and down another, until I was back in the bowels of the ship. I went in my cabin door, locked it, and sat on the bed, my knees brought up to my chest. I had a whole evening to think, hoping the rock of the boat would jostle my brain into reacting.

I didn’t like the way things were going. Well, that was an understatement. For maybe the first time ever, I was in a bad situation and I didn’t have a plan to get out of it.

I pulled up the wide leg of my pants and gazed at the bright pink and red flowers that adorned the scars. The beauty of it was breathtaking, the way something so ugly had been transformed into something so lovely, all by Camden’s very skilled hands and his very skilled heart. A rush of emotions began to flood up from my chest, choking me. It felt like an unending flow, the budding blooms the source, and I let out a small sob that caught me by surprise. I hadn’t let myself think about Camden, to feel, and now it was catching up with me. He wasn’t here. He was somewhere else. And until he was placed in danger again, because of something I would or would not do, I had to get over him. He wasn’t here with me. He was with his ex-wife and his kid and knowing the good person that Camden was, the messed up and angry but undeniably good soul that he had, he would be with her. Maybe falling in love with her again, or maybe not, but he was with her and I was alone. I was here. And though I’d lived so much of my life on my own, being with Camden, no matter how brief, brought me something I never had. He made me feel safe, whether I was in arms or at his side or just in his presence. For the first time, I had a protector – and I never knew I needed one until then.

Now he was gone and I was on my own. I’d been alone long enough to know I wanted more, someone to believe in me, to love me, to have my back and serve as a shield at the front. It made me realize that I wasn’t invincible, immortal, and that I wasn’t always going to be able to make it on my own. Of course, now I had no choice. Camden was gone and though I’d been good about keeping him out of my head, ignoring the little welts on my heart, the pain – the strange emptiness – was surprising.