1 When my wife’s chartered fishing boat sank, it left us buried under a mountain of debt. I sold my ancestral home and spent my days and nights diving in the deep, dangerous waters. It took me five grueling years, but I finally paid it all off. As I walked into the seafood restaurant, the last of the money clutched in my hand, still smelling of the sea, I saw her. My wife. She was feeding sashimi to another man, her one true love. The restaurant owner was bowing at their side, obsequiously offering a dish of caviar. "Ms. Thorne," he stammered, "your husband just sold his last trawler to cover the final payment. About that money…" She wiped a smudge of oil from her lover's lips, a lazy smile on her face. "Take it, of course. The usual deal. Seventy-thirty split." She looked at the man beside her. "My darling wants a private island in the Maldives. This should be enough for a few blades of grass, don’t you think?" My phone buzzed. A news alert popped up on the screen. ‘Thorne Shipping becomes the nation’s largest maritime transport company as of 9:00 a.m. today.’ I tapped on the link. There, under the name of the chairwoman, Guinevere Thorne, was my wife's ID photo. The pouch of money slipped from my grasp, its sharp edge slicing a bloody line across my palm. Five years ago, Guinevere’s chartered boat sank, and we were left to pay for the damages. Three million dollars. I sold our family home and became a fisherman to make ends meet. I had just sold my last boat, the final remnant of my family’s legacy, to scrape together this last payment. And now I find out that Guinevere is the chairwoman of the largest shipping company in the country. Even the boat owner, my supposed creditor, was just one of her lackeys. He was now raising a glass to her. "Thank you, Ms. Thorne, for your guidance all these years. And for letting me earn a little extra on the side." He lowered his voice. "Once this is all over, I’ll find a way to run him off the island for good." Guinevere waved a dismissive hand. "A fool like him who only believes in the Sea Goddess? Just tell him she came to you in a dream. He’d probably kill himself if she asked. That’s how I got him to give up his kidney, pretending to be lost at sea." A chill shot through me, quickly replaced by a hot surge of rage. Six years ago, her ship was caught in a typhoon. Thirteen people died. She was the only one missing. I spent my life savings trying to get the maritime authorities to help, but no one would listen. In the end, I dragged my broken body to the temple of the Sea Goddess and prayed until my forehead was raw. "I beg you, great Goddess, I will give twenty years of my life for Guinevere’s safe return." On the third day of my vigil, the statue seemed to glow, and a voice echoed in my mind, telling me it would take one of my kidneys to save her. I didn't hesitate. That night, I was drugged. When I woke up, the pain from the fresh incision was agonizing. But the next day, Guinevere miraculously returned. I’ve been a vegetarian ever since, a token of my gratitude. And it was all a lie. A cruel scheme to treat her lover, Fabian. I was shaking with fury, the beautiful memories of seven years ago swirling in my head. She had been a tourist, lost on the island when we met. It was love at first sight. I was her guide for weeks. Her confession of love was as grand and dramatic as a summer storm. She never once told me who she really was. Fabian’s voice cut through my thoughts again. "How could a lowly fisherman like him ever be worthy of the great Ms. Thorne? If it weren’t for his family’s nautical charts, our Gwen would never have wasted her time on this pathetic wretch." "Exactly," Guinevere laughed. "And it cost me a life, too. That old hag wouldn’t budge, so I swapped her cancer medication with vitamin pills. She probably would have lasted a few more years otherwise." Their casual laughter pierced my eardrums, and a deathly cold spread through my body. When my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer, there was an imported miracle drug that could have saved her. It cost over a million a bottle. Someone had offered me a fortune for our ancestral nautical charts. I was tempted, but my mother threatened to kill herself if I sold them. 2 On the third day, she took the medicine I had bought by selling one of our boats, and she was gone. In the blur of the funeral, I never even noticed when the charts were stolen. I had blamed the black-market dealer who sold me the medicine. I had blamed my own bad luck. But I never once suspected that the person closest to me was the one who had destroyed my family. I wanted to rush in, to tear them apart with my bare hands. Fabian spotted me. "Gwen," he called out, "your husband is here with the money." Guinevere quickly tossed her designer jacket to the owner, revealing the coarse fisherman's clothes underneath, still bearing the patches I had sewn for her. She lowered her head, her voice a soft murmur. "Darling, you’re just in time. I was about to ask for an advance on my salary to buy you some supplements. You need to take care of yourself." For the first time, I realized how good a powerful CEO could be at playing poor. The owner tapped his ledger. "Your wife has been taking advances all year. She hasn't even settled the rental fees! She still owes me at least thirty-nine thousand!" I tossed the pouch of money onto the table. "The boat is paid for. The rest is not my problem." The owner clicked his tongue and flung a piece of cod at my face. "You think you can just walk away from your wife’s debts? If you can’t pay, you can roll around on the deck like a flounder. A thousand a roll." Guinevere put her arm around me. The light reflecting off the multi-million-dollar watch on her wrist was blinding. Five days ago, I’d thrown out my back unloading cargo at the docks. She, on the other hand, had been celebrating the gift of this very watch with a passionate night with Fabian. Her voice was a soft whisper. "I'm sorry. It's all my fault for being so useless and dragging you down. But a thousand dollars… it would take me days at sea to earn that." A bucket of ice water was dumped over my head. I was humiliated but powerless to resist. As I completed my third roll, Fabian, looking bored, tossed a coil of fishing wire in front of me. "Roll over this, and I'll give you two thousand." I couldn't take it anymore. I tried to stand, but Fabian kicked me back down, the heel of his leather shoe grinding into my fingers. "The fish are more obedient than you." The owner held me down as I was forced to roll back and forth over the sharp wire mesh. My body was a canvas of bleeding cuts. The taste of salt and blood filled my mouth. I limped back to our shabby hut. Everything of value was already sold. There was nothing left to hold on to. The wind began to howl, and the flimsy hut swayed precariously. My mother’s portrait fell from the wall, the shattered glass cutting my already mangled finger. To pay the debt, I had once snuck into a fish farm during a storm to collect the dead fish, and a wire fence had torn a chunk of flesh from that same finger. The wound had gotten infected, and I'd had to have the tip amputated. And at that very moment, Guinevere and Fabian were entwined on the most luxurious cruise ship, the price of a single night's ticket more than I could make in two years of back-breaking, twelve-hour days of hauling cargo. Even the protective amulet I had prayed for at the temple, the one I had given her for her safety, had been casually tossed to Fabian as a toy for his cat. "Who believes in that Sea Goddess nonsense these days?" Years of devotion, all for nothing. I didn't need them to drive me away. I was already leaving. As I finished packing, Guinevere sauntered in, a fresh love bite on her neck. She saw my luggage and her brow furrowed. A gust of wind tore through the hut, sending the thatched roof scattering like a broken kite. She wiped the grit from her face in disgust and placed a tube of cheap herbal ointment in my hand. "I saw you got hurt on the deck. I bought this for you." Tears blurred my vision. I slapped the tube from her hand. Normally, I would have chided her for wasting money. But I had seen the news. I knew she had booked out an entire hospital just because Fabian had caught a chill from the sea breeze. As she was gazing at the stars with him from the deck of their luxury yacht, did she ever spare a thought for me, sleepless in the pouring rain? 3 Last month, during typhoon season, while I was risking my life to repair the fish farm nets, she was using the salted cod I had prepared to pamper Fabian’s cat. I used to think Fabian was one of the boat owner's men, that Guinevere was powerless against his arrogance. Now I saw it was her indulgence that had fueled his cruelty all along. "Guinevere," I asked, my voice raw, "you were the only one who knew where my family's nautical charts were kept. Did you really not take them?" The sea wind stung my eyes. Her face contorted in a sudden rage. She grabbed a nearby oar and swung it at me. "What right do you have to suspect me?" I instinctively raised my arm to block the blow. A splinter from the oar pierced the old scar on my forearm, a memento from a time I had defended her from a group of thugs. Blood gushed from the wound. She panicked. "Are you crazy? Why would you block it with your hand—" Before she could finish, Fabian ran up, whining that he wanted to learn how to drive the trawler. I used work as an excuse to escape their nauseating flirtation. I worked until sunset. Then Fabian appeared at the port with a group of men. Crate after crate of seafood was dumped into the ocean, swallowed by the waves in an instant. "All losses today will be covered by Caden Thorne," he announced, his face a mask of malevolence. He ignored the desperate pleas of the other fishermen and proceeded to release a catch of rare, deep-sea oysters back into the water. Guinevere arrived and kicked me hard in the back of the knees, forcing me to the ground. "Apologize to Mr. Lowell right now! With all these losses, we’ll be ruined for years!" But I knew. The value of the entire ship’s cargo was less than what Guinevere spent on a single meal.
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