But this is his last fight. It is known. I would not be given away. Ever. I would be his, and his alone, forever.

Cort van Breda is nice to look at. I’m not even gonna pretend he’s not. From a distance, though. I could look at him all day long if he wasn’t such a looming threat. But to be with him all the time? Forever? To be left alone with him and his violence? Not even under the protection of my father?

He could do anything he wanted with me.

He could sell me. Leave me somewhere. Beat me. Starve me. Tie me up and never come back. He could lend me out to his friends. And he seems very committed to those friends, so I imagine that’s a given.

No. The Sick Heart is a risk.

Going home with Cort van Breda would be orders of magnitude worse than staying here and being Pavo’s. If Pavo wins, my father would not stay here, but he would come often. He is obsessed with this ship. He might even want Bexxie to stay here too. I could beg for that. I could make it happen.

In my world, this scenario—being Pavo’s property, having his babies, living here on the ship with Bexxie nearby and only occasional visits from the men in control of me?

This is a fairy-tale ending as far as I’m concerned. Something right out of a fucking storybook.

Pavo must win.

Bexxie returns a little while later. Her face is flushed and her eyes are calm, like she just woke up from a long nap. “Look what I found.” She plops down onto the couch next to me and offers up the program in her hand. It’s for tonight’s fight.

There is a picture of Pavo and Cort on the front, both of them shirtless, both of them looking like monsters. Inside there’s a short welcome paragraph from Cort’s father, a small writeup about my father and… a full-page picture of me.

“You look so pretty in that pic, Anya. I love it.”

Looking at the dress I’m wearing, I recall posing for it now, but I didn’t know they would use it as promotional material. And it seems like too much. I’m not really the prize. The prize is the ship. I’m just a trinket that comes with it.

“They want you downstairs for wardrobe.” Bexxie leans into me. Her little hands grip my arm and she snuggles up against my breasts like I’m her mother. I lean my head on hers. “They’re not going to let me watch.” She pouts out these words. “Daddy says it’s too violent. And that’s stupid.” She sits up straight again. “Why did I come all this way if I can’t even watch?”

I’m glad she won’t be watching. She’s already seen way too much in her short nine years.

“You get to watch.”

Get to watch? Hah. That’s an understatement. I was already told I will be on the platform with them. I will be forced to watch. I will see every horrific thing the two fighters do to each other in perfect clarity. I will spend the entire time wondering which monster will take me home. Which one of the blood-covered animals in front of me will be my master?

Bexxie gets up and offers me her hand. “Come on. I’ll walk you down.”

I let her pull me up and then I let her keep hold of my hand as we exit the reception hall and head down the stairs. Several of my father’s guards fall in behind us. I can’t quite decide if they’re doing this for my protection, or to make sure I don’t run.

I would like to think of myself as a person who might run, but it’s a ludicrous idea. We’re in the middle of the ocean. Where would I go?

I roll my eyes internally. As if that was the reason. I have had hundreds of opportunities to run. Never happened.

I am not the kind of girl who runs.

Down on the main deck lots of people are milling about. It is massively wide. You could fit several houses side by side. But the front part of the ship is actually two long arms that extend outward like a forklift, if said forklift was a hundred and fifty meters wide. The topside is propped in the middle of the ship-sized forklift on massive robotic arms and ballasts.

I am not an oil rig expert, but our father is very excited at the prospect of winning a controlling interest in this ship, so he explained all this to Bexxie and me while we were traveling here.

The topside is a pre-fabricated oil rig minus the legs that anchor it to the ocean floor. Those have already been built and now this ship is carrying the working part—the power plant, the housing units, the office, the command center, the pumps or whatever they use to get the oil and gas up out of the ocean floor—so it can be placed on the legs.

Tags: J.A. Huss Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net