Ed shoved me inside and closed the door behind me.

The room was larger than anything I would have expected on a ship. A glass window front with a balcony beyond, a wide bed covered with burgundy satin on the right side, and a massive black leather sofa and other furniture to the left.

The sofa was dominated by Thierry. He sat there, legs crossed, one arm over the backrest, a glass with a brownish liquid in his hands. He got up when he saw us.

My attention was distracted by a painting behind him. It was narrow, but tall, extending all the way from the ceiling to the floor, showing a man in pirate's gear drawn in a classic, realistic style. He had Thierry's eyes. Eyes full of defiance looking straight at me.

"Nice, isn't it?" Thierry asked. "I commissioned it, paid the artist to do it... But, please sit." He indicated a chair facing the sofa and sat back himself.

I could confront him now, shout at him, and dig my nails into his eyes, turning blue into crimson. But that wouldn't be helpful, he was stronger than me. Gritting my teeth to wall up the anger broiling inside me, I sat down at the edge of the chair, conscious of how wet and rank I was.

His nod was slow and pensive. "Good." He took a sip, sat straight, and put his glass down. "Anne, I owe you an apology."

I raised my brows.

"Ed can be quite... brutish. And you kicking his... best parts didn't help." He grinned.

"And what did Theresa do to him? He treated both of us like shit."

"Ah... Theresa." He took a long breath and glanced out of the window. "Don't be deceived by her. She's always the innocent victim, bullied and harassed by her big brother... that's her act. She knows how to get what she wants, that woman. Everyone does her bidding... She even controlled my mother. And our father was just the same as she. The two of them got anything from anyone."

"Even if this were true, that's no reason to treat her like that." I bit my lips before they could say more.

He clenched a fist and studied it. "See? She's already caught you with her lies and her smiles, pulling you on her side. Just like my dad did... Weren't you on my side, first? And then she and he... they joined forces, as usual. They pulled you over, made you betray me. Made you a deserter."

He relaxed his hand and exhaled.

Had I betrayed the man?

My gaze moved from his slumped shoulders to the painting behind him. The pirate looked brave, a figure facing a world of enemies with a smirk that challenged them to do their worst—he was ready for whatever they threw at him.

Yet even if I were guilty of betrayal, I owed him no allegiance. I had never joined his team.

Thierry looked up, his gaze echoing the one of the pirate. "But let's not talk about this treacherous family of mine. Let's talk about you."

He emptied his glass, got up, and went to an open bar cabinet at the wall behind the sofa to pour himself some more. "Do you want a drink, too? Old Scotch." He didn't look back at me.

"No, thanks." For a moment, the normalcy of these words hung like a strange, exotic beast in the room.

He walked over to the window and looked outside. Tired of sitting still, I got up to have a closer look, too, arms crossed over my chest.

A door led to a balcony, with smooth walls on both sides and a banister facing the water. The sun was setting into the sea to the right of us, bleeding a fringe of amber along the horizon. Above the ship, the sky was indigo, almost turning black as it touched a range of mountains to the left, miles away. They glowed golden as the last fingers of sunshine caressed them.

"Breathtaking, isn't it?" He waved his glass at the seascape. "St. Georges Bay is one of the most beautiful places in this country."

"What are you going to do with us?"

He sighed, his eyes still on the water. "That's a good question." He put the glass down on a small table at the door leading to the balcony and turned to face me.

"Do you remember your visit to my office?" he asked. "The time when I asked you to let the matter rest? When I offered you a future beyond your wildest dreams?"

I nodded.

"You didn't follow my orders, did you?"

"Your father... he wanted to know more. He asked me for details." I wondered if I should add that Thomas Thorne was—had been—the CEO, after all, but I decided against it. I didn't expect Thierry would appreciate me rubbing this fact into his face.

He pressed his lips together. "My father... Yes, of course." His gaze turned to the window once more.

He took a long breath. "Anne, this is a mess, and I never wanted things to come to that." He paused. "Do you remember that dance we had, at TCorp party? What I said there about leadership?"

"Yes."

"Leadership, as I said, implies that others follow... Followership, I call it." He smiled. "Followership is an art, too. The skill to obey, to submit, to recognize who's above you." He turned toward me once more, grabbed one of my hands, his touch gentle yet firm, and pulled it outwards, away from my chest where I had held it. He put his other hand behind my back, in a dancer's pose.

The scent of peppermint entwined with whiskey engulfed me. His blue eyes held hints of amber and indigo from the sky outside. Eyes I could have drowned in—if it weren't for the darkness of the mind behind them.

Theresa was somewhere below us—misery in a rank, wet cell.

"In a dance like this one, followership is easy." He lifted my hand and pushed my back. Without wanting to, I made a turn about myself to face him once more. "In real life, though..." The smile on his face disappeared. "It's more complicated. There's more than one leader. And you... as a follower, have to choose. This is where loyalty comes in. And this is where you..." He placed a finger on the upper end of my breastbone. "... where you have failed..."

His eyes searched my face. "I thought you had it in you. You're a school dropout, you don't hold a degree, yet you're smart and ambitious. You're willing to make your way up, and to do what it takes to get there... whatever it is. That's what fascinated me about you. But I guess I was wrong."

His finger was still on my chest, a reminder of his power.

"When you're at the very bottom, the only way is up," I said, deciding to play along, to see where he was headed. "And that's where I wanted to go."

A smile tugged at the corners of his lips. "Good." He broke contact, walked over to a corner of the room, to an—incongruous—umbrella stand, and chose one of the objects it held. It was a walking stick. "You see..." He swung it through the air, and it made a humming sound. "You still can learn. Loyalty, I mean."

Leaving the cane on the sofa, he returned back to where I stood beside the window, coming to a stop one step away from me. He crossed his arms. "I could make you learn. The question, however, is... are you serious about this? Do you really want to learn what I have to teach?"

I eyed the black staff resting on the sofa.

The guy was sick. A pervert. And I was at his mercy.

What made things worse, he was cornered now, even though he didn't play the part. How could he proceed after what he had done to Theresa and to me? He could never let us go—would never let us go. And he knew that, too, he wasn't stupid.

But I didn't want to die here, and I wanted to save Theresa, too.

"And how..." I lowered my gaze. "How do I learn?" The words made me feel sick, sicker than any of the sea's motion could ever make me. It was not a nausea of the body—it was one of the mind.

"Don't worry about that," he said. "You can leave that part to me. I'll show you." He placed a finger under my chin and pushed upwards until I faced him, a gesture reminiscent of what Ed had done the night before, yet much more gentle. He moved his finger's tip across my cheek to my ear and through my hair. "I'll decide how you learn. All I need from you is your... commitment."

I nodded. "I know about commitment. To commit means to go through with something, all the way to the end." The words rang disturbingly true. I took a step towards the sofa.

A tug on a strand of my hair stopped me. "Where do you think you're going?"

I froze, maintaining the tension in my hair and the pain it caused me. "To commit myself, I need to find... resolve. I need to face... my fears, my demons. I have to take the first step myself."

"Hmm..." He let go of me. I slowly walked over to the sofa and picked up the cane. It was of dark, polished wood. Heavy, massive. I ran a finger along its smooth shaft.

"Pain," I said. "I know about it. It holds tremendous power."

I turned to face him. He still stood by the window, arms crossed now, a sickening smile on his face. I willed him to stay where he was.

"Pain." I made a step towards him. "It destroys and kills. But if it is yielded properly, it can shape and build. It can teach almost everything." I took another step, turning the cane in my hands, offering the handle to him. "But it needs a secure... competent hand."

He nodded. "Good. I always knew you had what it takes."