The afternoon charter is canceled due to rain, and for once, I don’t mind losing the money. It drizzles down on the deck, sending me below for the day. I spend a few hours cleaning the galley and cabins, and reorganizing the liquor cabinet that had pretty much been laid to waste the night before. I don’t mind that either. Jean and Kepler took off for Upper Bay for a few nights, and Dev took Matty in for an acupuncture session—which has really been helping Matty’s limp. So the boat’s quiet as I clean up.

Sebastian’s footsteps pound down the ladder just before he steps into the galley. I put away the last of the bottles and snap the door closed. He crosses to the refrigerator, pulls out a bag of spinach, and dumps half of it into a bowl. He opens a drawer and roots around in it, finally coming up with a fork.

We should probably take some time to organize the rest of the galley too.

I cross my arms over my chest and lean back against the cabinets, watching him. “Have you talked to Sloane?”

“Not yet.” He takes a bite of spinach and chomps it down.

“Maybe you should call her. Stop this brooding thing you’ve got going on.”

“It’s not just about the girl.” He finishes chewing and looks at me. “Being here. It’s hard.”

“I know it is,” I say. I’d thought about asking if he could take some dinner shifts with our father, but looking at him now, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Every part of him seems darker when he’s below deck. I don’t know how he would deal with seeing our father.

“And seriously, man,” he says. “I didn’t know that I’d want to go back. I thought I’d come out here and forget. But then…” He shrugs. “Keep thinking about her.”

“I get that.” Not being able to stop thinking about a woman? Yep, that’s pretty much been my life for the last few weeks. “My issue was never with you wanting to go after her, Sebastian. It had to do with the charters.”

“You sure?” He sets the bowl on the counter.

“Of course.” I unwind my arms and shove my hands into my pockets. “You keep eating all my spinach anyway.”

He laughs, pointing his fork at me. “I’m just hoping she’s willing to talk to me.” Then he pushes the bowl toward the center of the counter, like he’s lost his appetite even though he’s only taken a few bites. “I didn’t exactly leave on good terms.”

“Then start on good terms.”

“Well, aren’t you the romantic?”

I grin. “Maybe.”

I’m feeling much less romantic when I trudge up the steps to my father’s facility. Every dinner with him feels longer than the last. Like this weight that keeps getting heavier. Not sure how much longer I can carry it for.

I nod to Paul when he buzzes me through the door, forcing my legs to keep moving around the courtyard. Sometimes he’s sitting out there, but I don’t see him today. I turn down the next hallway, heading toward his door.

It’s closed today, which is rare. I push open the door. He’s speaking to someone, the TV droning in the background.

I crash to a stop. “Ella?”

She bolts upright, her eyes widening when she sees me.

I glance between her and my father. And back again.

“Why…” I shake my head, trying to pull it together.

“I-I’m sorry.” She reaches a hand out to me. “I came here to…”

This doesn’t make any sense. But I stop fighting for an answer because there’s one thing I’m very clear about.

“Ella, get away from him.” I stride across the room and take her hand. I pull her toward the door, and I know I’m dragging her, but I don’t care. She can’t be around this man. No fucking way.

“Dean.” She’s trying to pull away from me, but I’m being a dick who refuses to listen. She stumbles after me into the hallway, where I finally let her go and slam his door shut.

“What the hell are you doing?” Her eyes flash—I’ve never seen her angry before. And I get why she’s angry now with the way I forced her out of there, but I’m still not going to let this happen. If I have to throw her over my shoulder and drag her down the hall, I will. I don’t care what she thinks of me. I won’t let him hurt her.

“I don’t want you talking to him.” My confusion has slipped into anger, and I’m practically vibrating. “Did he lure you here somehow? What the fuck happened, Ella?”

Her mouth opens, but nothing comes out.

I resist the urge to pick her up and drag her away. All I really want is her out of this building. Right fucking now.

I take a deep breath and try to stop raking my hands through my hair. I need to be calm. Asking her to leave with me will probably have a better result than throwing her over my shoulder.

“You don’t know who that man is,” I say. My voice is a bit calmer, but it’s still edged. “What he’s capable of.”

She blinks at me, maybe understanding dawning. “What are you talking about?”

It’s little more than a whisper. And I can’t believe we’re going to have this conversation here. I never thought about where we would have it, but this isn’t the place. In a hallway. Outside his door where anyone can happen by.

“Tell me what’s going on, Dean.” She steps forward, her hand falling on my forearm. I flinch at the touch, but grab her hand when she starts to take it away, pressing it down against my arm.

Shit, how do I put this into words? I don’t want to have to talk about it. I just want her to intuitively know.

I clear my throat. “He was cruel.”

She swallows, and her eyes fill up with something. Not pity. Maybe fear?

Fuck, I hope it’s not fear of me.

“Physically cruel?” she asks softly. Her hand squeezes my forearm, and that’s the only thing that keeps me talking.

“Yes,” I choke out, not looking at her. I don’t want to see that fear. Or any fucking pity. “To both Sebastian and me.”

“Dean—”

I shake my head, studying the white wall. “There’s nothing you need to say. Just… now you know. I suppose that’s better.”

“Dean,” she starts again, that gentle squeeze on my arm. “I won’t make you talk about it. But just know that you can. Anytime and without needing a reason.”

I let myself look at her, and I’m surprised what’s there. Her jaw is set. No fear, just this kind of understanding.

And then I realize why that understanding is there. “I know your mother is in prison.”

Fuck, if it’s because Ella’s mother hurt her, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m already holding on to the edge of my calmness—that would probably send me right into the abyss.

She blinks, but the set in her jaw doesn’t change. “Yes, she is. And that’s why I’m here. There’s something I need to tell you too.”

“What?” I glance at the closed door. “I’m not putting all this together.”

She digs into her pocket and takes out her phone. Thirty seconds later, she presses it into my hand.

“Read,” she says.

It’s a newspaper article about Mira Jacobs. Her mother, I realize. I scan through it quickly, praying she wasn’t arrested for child abuse. When I discover she was arrested for kidnapping and attempted murder, I don’t know whether to be relieved or more worried. A short trial with one witness. There were arguments that the evidence wasn’t enough, but the jury ended up convicting her.

And I don’t understand why I’m reading this article. What Ella’s hoping to tell me.

I slow down and read it again, stepping away from her and pacing from one side of the hallway to the other. The realization comes in a flash.

“The cuts along his wrist. The scars he has. He was a victim.” I stop pacing and hand the phone back to her. “You both were victims.”

“No, Dean.” Her eyes fill with tears. “I could have helped him earlier, but…” Her lip trembles. “I was scared.”

Fuck, my heart buckles. Folding down into something small. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“For the same reason.” Her voice is so quiet I have to lean down to hear her. “I was scared.”

I gather her in my arms, pressing her against my chest. I’m a bottle of emotions all shaken together. So many different thoughts, but one thing is blindly clear. I would give anything to take her fear away. Anything to get the smile back on her face that she had the other night on the Heroine.

We sit on the damp grass outside my father’s facility, and Ella talks. Some of the things she tells me—about what her mother did—are so fucking raw and painful that it physically hurts me to hear them. But I listen to every damn word. She’s trusting me, and I can’t tell you how good that feels. But it’s layered in with so many other emotions.

When she finishes, we sit in a long silence where she’s tucked against my chest and both of us just breathe. Leaves flutter above us in the early evening breeze. It’s somehow both peaceful and disconcerting. Maybe because I’m not sure what to say to her.

Our lives have been entangled, and I didn’t even know it.

She sniffles against my chest. “I think we should stop seeing each other.”

“What?” I lean back so I can see her face, my throat closing. Her eyes are red and watery, but clear.

“Why?” It comes out more demanding than I intended. “If you’re not interested in me, that’s one thing. But all of this... It’s not a reason for us to stop seeing each other. It’s a reason for us to be together.”

“I…” She bites her lower lip. “I have these thoughts. About you. About…”

I tip up her chin, staring down into those dark eyes. “Thoughts about what?”

“About sexual things. About…”

“Tying me up?” I can’t help but smile a little.

She shivers, and I pull her closer, my smile fading.

“How did you know?” she whispers.

“You said it the other night.”

“I’m so sorry. I don’t mean to… think that.” She keeps shivering, harder, and I rub a hand up and down her back, trying to figure out what has her so twisted up.

Her mother used to tie men up to abuse them. And now Ella thinks that… Oh, fuck.

The realization hits me hard. She thinks she’s going to turn into her mother. I have to look away for a moment to pull myself back together.

“You’re not her.” I tug on Ella’s chin so she has to look at me. “Trust me. I know what cruelty looks like, and I’ve never seen a speck of that in you. And it’s perfectly fine to think about tying me up. I’d encourage it, actually.” I give her a teasing smile, but she doesn’t return it.

She shakes her head like she refuses to hear what I’m saying. “What we did the other night…”

“The blowjob?” I’m being blunt, but that’s exactly what we need to be. Ella’s obviously twisted up over sex—the only way through is to talk about it.

“Yes,” she says hesitantly. “I didn’t want to stop there.”

“Neither did I.”

She shakes her head like I’m not understanding. “No. I mean, I wanted to take more from you.”

“You didn’t take anything.” How do I make her see that? It’s like she’s looking through some kind of distorted lens right now. I fight for how to explain this to her. “I wanted to masturbate over you while you were sleeping.”

Yep, I just went there. That’s how desperately I want her to understand that her thoughts aren’t wrong.

Her mouth falls open a little when she looks up at me. “You what?”

“You were sleeping. Your breasts were smashed up against my side, and with every breath they pressed into me.” With the underlying seriousness of this conversation, you’d think that my body would be incapable of responding, but that’s not what’s happening. Just the thought of Ella there, curled next to me, and I’m already thickening against my zipper. I just find it so unfathomable that Ella would think she could do anything to change that desire.

“I got up to splash some water on my face,” I continue to her slightly shocked expression, “and I thought about rubbing one out.”

Her eyes widen. “Did you?”

“No.” For the same reasons that Ella’s hung up on, actually. I didn’t know if she’d want me to. Just like she’s not sure about me. “But I thought about it.”

“Would you?” She catches her bottom lip in her teeth, and my desire to kiss her is overwhelming.

“Hell, yes.” She has to know how deeply my desire for her goes. How all I want is to hear every fantasy she has and try them all with her. If she’ll let me. And that’s the strange thing about this conversation—it started with her breaking up with me. Was that all about sex? Or was there something else?

“Ella.” I lean close to her, my eyes on her. My fingers brush the soft edge of her chin. It’s now or never. I have this feeling like I either have to let my thoughts out or I have to watch her walk away from me. “I want you. All of you. I want you in my bed, and I want to hear every single fantasy you have.”

She stares up at me, not talking. Fuck, I wish I knew what was going on in her head.

“I don’t know.” Her lips part like she’s about to say something more, and then they press together in a decisive line. “It’s just that telling you everything about my mother—it brought it all back. The darkness and confusion. The things she made me do. I thought I was getting past them, but maybe they are just lingering there under the surface. So I don’t know where that leaves us.”

The disappointment hits me hard. It must register in my face because she shivers again and looks down.

“That’s okay too,” I say gruffly. It’s really not, but what else do I say? I’m not going to push myself onto her. But I don’t want to let her walk away either.

Being honest with her about my father, well, it felt like shit at first. But now, there’s no more secrets, and it feels peaceful. Even the anger I have toward him has dissipated.

Not entirely, of course. I’ll always hate him. But maybe I can finally get to some kind of place where it doesn’t have to keep tormenting me. I want that for her.

“I’m sorry—” she starts.

“Don’t be.” I drop my hand from her chin, and everything is confusing as fuck because she’s still in my arms, and she’s not moving away. So where does that leave us? Is it the tying-me-up issue? How do I get her past that?

She swallows, looking up at me. “I know you probably don’t want to talk about this right now, but there’s something else with your father.”

“Ella.” Her name is a warning.

“I won’t go back and talk to him again.” She lets out a breath. “But if I don’t talk to your father, then I need to talk to mine.” She looks up at me again, her eyes pleading. “There’s something I’m not seeing. A secret. Something that happened. Your father kept saying he deserved it. I want to know what he was talking about. I have to know.”

“He said that to me too.” My forehead wrinkles as I look at her. “Do you really want to dig it all up and live through it again?”

She reaches for my hand and pulls it up, setting it over her heart and holding her hand over mine. I was confused about where we stood before, but I’m completely lost now.

“I have to find out, Dean. But I want your help.”

I look into those wide, dark eyes. Regardless of whether she just broke up with me or not, that’s an easy decision.