CHAPTER 2: The Man Who Owns The Pier

Odessa didn't look up.

The rain was soaking her black dress, the one Lena said looked better on her. Her savings were gone. Her bag was at the bottom of the sea. Petrus had told her to leave.

"Are you done letting them step on you?" the man repeated.

His voice was low, calm, but it cut through the sound of the storm. Odessa slowly looked up.

He was tall. Too tall. His black coat was not even wet, as if the rain avoided him. His face was sharp, handsome in a dangerous way. His eyes were a strange shade of blue-gray, like the sea before a storm. Odessa had seen him before. Every morning for the last three months, he would be at the end of the warehouse, drinking black coffee, watching the fish market. No one talked to him. The fishermen whispered his name: Lucian Dela Cruz.

The man who owned the entire port. The man who owned the ships Petrus worked for. The man every mother warned their daughters about. Possessive. Ruthless. Forbidden.

"Who... who are you?" Odessa's voice cracked.

Lucian crouched down so they were at eye level. He didn't touch her. He just looked at her, and for the first time that night, Odessa didn't feel cold.

"I've been watching you, Odessa," he said. "For three months. You think Petrus saved you? No. I did. I told Petrus to take you in that night five years ago. I found you on this same pier, half-drowned, with no memory."

Odessa's eyes widened. "What?"

"You don't remember, do you? You had the same scent even then. The scent of the sea. The other fishermen were afraid of you. They said you were a siren. A bad omen. Petrus was the only one brave enough to take you."

The rain was getting stronger. The waves were crashing violently against the wooden pier.

"Why are you telling me this now?" Odessa asked, wiping her tears.

"Because they took everything from you today. And you are still sitting here, crying. Is that the girl I saved?" Lucian stood up. "Petrus is a good man, but he is old and scared of the Valdez family. Marco and Lena will tell him more lies tomorrow. By next week, no market in this city will hire you."

Odessa knew he was right. Marco's family owned half the city.

"So what do you want me to do?" she asked, her voice full of anger now, not just sadness. "Beg you for a job?"

Lucian smiled for the first time. A small, dangerous smile.

"I want to make you an offer. A contract. Come work for me. Not at the fish market. At my company. I need someone who understands the sea. Someone who isn't afraid of it."

Odessa laughed, a bitter laugh. "Work for you? Everyone says you ruin people."

"I ruin people who betray me," Lucian said, his gaze dropping to her lips, then back to her eyes. "But I protect what's mine. And you, Odessa... you have been mine since the day I pulled you out of the water. You just didn't know it."

His words were possessive. Forbidden. It should have scared her. But it didn't.

"What is the contract?" Odessa asked.

"Three years. You disappear from this city. I will send you to Cebu, to my private port. You will learn business, you will learn ships, you will learn how to make men like Marco Valdez beg on their knees. In return, you will be under my protection. No one will ever touch you again. No one will ever call you a thief again."

Three years. Disappear.

It was exactly what she wanted. To disappear and make them regret it.

"And what do you get in return?" Odessa asked, smarter now.

Lucian stepped closer. He finally reached out and tucked a wet strand of hair behind her ear. His fingers were warm.

"I get you. All of you. For three years. You will live in my house. You will work for me. And you will not fall in love with anyone else."

"That's... that's crazy," Odessa whispered. Her heart was beating too fast.

"Is it? Or is that exactly what you need? A forbidden man to protect you from the world that hurt you?"

Odessa looked at the black sea. She thought of Petrus's disappointed face. Of Marco's laugh. Of Lena wearing her dress.

She thought of her envelope labeled "Future" sinking to the bottom.

She was done crying.

She stood up, soaked, shaking, but with fire in her eyes.

"I accept," she said. "But on one condition. After three years, I come back here. And I will make them regret losing me."

Lucian's smile widened. He took off his black coat and placed it over her shoulders. It smelled like expensive perfume and sea salt.

"Little storm," he whispered, "in three years, they won't just regret losing you. They will be too late to even ask for forgiveness."

He held out his hand. Odessa, the girl who smelled like the sea, took the hand of the man who owned the storm.

Behind them, the waves crashed, as if the sea itself was applauding.

For the first time that night, Odessa didn't feel like the girl who was left behind. She felt like the beginning of a revenge.