Sweet Seas

by Scarlett Finn

  They were too far away for Swain to pick out too many details, but he thought about what she’d said to him in the head during one of their arguments. She belonged to another man, and although he’d never expected to lay eyes on the bastard or to see them together, Swain guessed that he just had.

  Lucky fuck was standing there all cocky while his gorgeous wench launched herself on him and coiled herself around him to hold on so tight. She was still holding on even now and all Swain could do was watch.

  “Guess you missed your chance,” Jockey said, slapping his back. “We’ll go to The Port Hole tonight. You like it over there. Few burgers, few beers… We’ll get the bourbon, the good stuff, celebrate our good fortune.”

  Celebrate the job they hadn’t actually secured yet, that was what his first-mate was suggesting. But, the job wasn’t why Jockey was making the offer.

  Watching Sassi slither down the guy who kept an arm around her as he went to retrieve her backpack, Swain gave the stranger points for carrying the luggage while Sassi grabbed his hand and started to talk, her gestures were so animated Swain would guess she was going at a thousand miles an hour.

  His Sassi was his Sassi no more. His waif was no longer a stray, she’d found her home. It angered Swain to know he hadn’t been the man to give it to her.

  “But, Stuart,” Sassi said, striding up the dock, clinging to her brother’s hand with both of hers. “What are you doing here? How did you even know I’d be here? How did you—”

  “Karen told me,” he said. “I called the docks, they told me when you were due in. A boat, Sass? Seriously? You’ve been on a boat for a month? What the fuck do you know about boats?”

  More than she had when she started; more than she could ever have imagined. “Eros is a ship,” she said, “and I knew nothing about them when I boarded, but… I had a good crew.”

  Stuart had her backpack on one shoulder and he pulled his hand away from hers to put his arm around her again. “Did he pay you?”

  Stuart had no idea that he was insulting her former lover… former as of a few minutes ago. “He? The captain? Yes, he paid me.”

  “And how close are we?”

  “Close,” she said. “When did you get back? Where are you staying? Have you seen Dario?”

  “How close?”

  Sassi wasn’t surprised that Stuart had charmed his way through the dockside gate. Either he’d found someone to flirt with or he’d given some story about belonging to one of the ships. No doubt he had drinking buddies down there or maybe some of his former weed clients were around.

  They went through the gate and he led her to the street where Sassi was shocked to find Karen waiting for them in a car. Stuart put her in the back, tossed her bag in the trunk and then got into the driving seat.

  Karen twisted to look at her over the shoulder of the front passenger seat. “You look amazing, you’re tan like you’ve been on vacation for a month. Did you do any work?”

  “I don’t care what she did as long as she got paid,” Stuart said and signaled to merge into traffic. “We’re going to cash your check and then we’re going back to Karen’s to figure this out once and for all.”

  The worst part about her panic and the drama she’d feared would be waiting for her at home, was the idea of dealing with it alone. She hadn’t suspected for a second that Stuart would come swooping back in to play the hero, but there he was.

  Her brother wasn’t the coward Karen had said he was and if this couple were together now, Sassi hoped that meant they were all the way together again. Her brother had his head screwed on better when Karen was around.

  They were a family. Maybe she wouldn’t have to marry Dario after all. Maybe they could actually figure this out.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Karen’s apartment was a studio; it was small, but it would work as a crash pad.

  One way or another, this was all going to play out in less than two weeks. There were nine days until her deadline was up. Dario would get his money and they could all move on or she’d have to marry him to save their skins.

  Karen made coffee and listened to Sassi’s tales from the high seas. Stuart paced, stealing glances at the cash on the coffee table that they’d gotten from the bank before coming back to Karen’s place.

  “I’ve been doing nothing but talk since we got back,” Sassi said. “What about you two? Are you back together?”

  Stuart stopped pacing to lock eyes on Karen. Sassi recognized the exchange of reticent lovers. Maybe her brother hadn’t come back for her or maybe the couple thought she’d judge them for being intimate with all this trouble going on.

  But, every person who knew what was going on with Dario was in this room. If Stuart needed support or wanted to talk, Karen was the only one who understood their predicament, which would’ve given her brother the perfect excuse to knock on Karen’s door.

  “I couldn’t leave without explaining,” Stuart said, still locked on Karen. “I got back into town last week. I felt like shit for the way things ended.”

  That meant he’d been in the wind for almost a month. “Did you pull together any funds?”

  “I have an idea,” Stuart said, rushing over to sit on the coffee table between where she and Karen were on the couch.

  “An idea?” Sassi asked, her sixth sense twitching. Stuart hadn’t answered her question and he was too happy for a guy whose sister might be walking down the aisle to the head of a vile money lending gang in a couple of weeks. “What kind of idea?”

  “A way we can turn your eighteen grand into twice as much.”

  Sometimes it was like their father was right there with them. “No,” she said, quelling an urge to throw her body over the money to protect it. “We are not gambling on any crazy scheme. Did you forget how we got into this?”

  “We got into this ‘cause of Dad’s gambling. This isn’t a gamble. It’s a business transaction… this boat you were on—”

  “Ship.”

  “Right, ship,” Stuart said. “The guy in charge, did you get friendly with him? What can you tell me about him? Like, is he a smart guy?”

  “The captain? Yes, he’s smart,” she said, confused about what her brother was getting at. Karen had her knees tight together and her hands clasped around her mug in a posture that was suddenly anything but comfortable. “Why do you care about Swain?”

  Stuart took her coffee away from her to set it aside. “I need you to introduce me to him.”

  “Ha!” Sassi laughed and pulled her hands away from her brother. “Not a snowball’s chance, Stu. No way in hell. Why would I do that?”

  Stuart was all confident innocence, but she didn’t buy it for a second. Sassi knew her kin too well to believe he was anything close to naïve. “You said he’s a business man, I have a business proposition for him.”

  Dubious, she eyed her sibling. “What kind of proposition?” Stuart didn’t say anything, he looked to Karen as if he was appealing for help. But, the temp agency account manager said nothing. “Look, you can already tell I’m against this idea. There’s no way you’ll change my mind by not cluing me in. Either you tell me everything or you don’t get near Swain.”

  Her brother wasn’t going to get near Swain anyway. She’d told her captain that once they docked their association was over. Going down there with Stuart would just look like game playing and she wasn’t interested in making her captain’s life more difficult.

  Besides, Swain and his crew had another job on the horizon and it was going to make them a lot more money than the few measly bucks she and Stuart would be able to offer them with any hare-brained scheme, whatever it was.

  “He’s got a boat, a ship, and I know a guy. Well, they’re a team actually, and they use one of the islands as a kind of conduit for merchandise. Thing is, they’ve had some logistical problems, and I know they’d be damn interested in connecting with someone who could offer logistical support. It’s complicated, but—”

  “No, it’s not,” Sassi said, so angr
y that she wanted to hit her brother hard. “You’re talking about drugs. You want me to ask my former boss, who runs a totally legit, above-board company to ferry drugs for you on his ship. I can’t fucking believe you, Stu!”

  But, her brother wasn’t contrite. “It’ll be lucrative for him, it makes sense. Trust me, this will work. I’m sure this Swain guy will be going out there anyway, and it’s just a quick stop, he doesn’t even have to be involved. He can let the guys load and unload, all he has to do is show up.”

  Trust Stuart to find some way of justifying doing something completely wrong like it was benign and she was overreacting. “That might work as a reason for you, Stu, but it won’t for Swain. He knows everything that goes on with his ship and he’d never take on cargo without checking it himself.”

  “This is a one-off—”

  “This is a nothing because it’s not going to happen,” she said. “He could lose everything!”

  Stuart flew to his feet. “And, what the fuck are we doing this for? Fun? We’re fucking desperate, don’t you get that? Desperate! I’m not fucking happy at the idea I might have to send my fucking baby sister down the aisle to that fucker, but you’re not the one who’ll have to watch him torture your fucking girlfriend! The only fucking person you’ve ever loved! You’re not the one worried about having your fingernails pulled out with pliers.”

  He was furious, but his strong reaction was rooted in fear. Reaching up, Sassi took his hand. “I know, Stu, but I’m never going to let that happen. If I have to marry him to keep you and Karen safe, I will. I’m sorry if you think I don’t understand. I do. I really do. But it’s useless, Swain won’t do it. He’s too good a man.”

  And he had a past that could create problems for him if they were caught. With one felony on his sheet, even a juvenile one, his punishment could be harsher than everybody else’s. Sassi didn’t know how it worked. He’d probably lose his license, which would mean losing the company. No, she’d never let him take that risk. Her marrying Dario was a better option than asking her captain to lose everything that he’d spent his life building.

  “We can do this,” she said, sensing her brother’s frustration. “We’re only a few thousand dollars short.”

  “I have five grand.”

  Optimism made her pull him onto the coffee table again. “There you go! We’re seven grand short. That’s nothing! I can try to pull in some clients, we’ll get jobs, ask for advances, maybe we can sell something, like Karen’s car that’s got to be worth a thousand or two, we’d pay you back. If we get close, we can ask Dario for more time and…” Stuart made eye contact with Karen who seemed paler than she had before. “What?”

  “We need more than thirty grand,” Stuart said, taking his hand out of hers.

  The tension between the couple was scaring her. “I don’t understand.”

  “Dad owed more than thirty grand. He owed a heap more to a bunch of people, little amounts all over. Couple of grand here, few hundred there, he owes one guy ten K.”

  Sassi had suspected that there would be more lenders. But, as far as she was concerned, they’d deal with them one at a time. Asking for trouble would get them nowhere. “How the hell do you know that?”

  Karen got up and went to retrieve something from the windowsill. When she brought it back, she handed it over to Sassi who unfolded the paper to read it. “Stu didn’t come back for me… One of the things I brought from his apartment was the bag with your dad’s hospital stuff in it.”

  Scanning the scrap of paper, Sassi read names and numbers, scrawled in different colored inks, at different angles, some upside down, some slanted, but there was no mistaking what it was.

  “Dad kept a ledger.”

  “Such as it is,” Karen said, sitting on the couch again. “I was just organizing things. I didn’t even realize it was your dad’s stuff when I opened the bag, but… When I figured out what it was, I emailed Stu… about a week after you left.”

  “I was in Texas,” Stuart said. “I didn’t even go into the coffee place to check my email, but when I saw they had computers I thought it couldn’t hurt…”

  “I’d scanned in the page at work,” Karen said. “I emailed it to him and to you… I didn’t know if you had access on the ship.”

  Shaking her head slowly, Sassi turned the piece of paper, picking out names she recognized and others she didn’t. “I haven’t checked it at all.”

  “I could’ve kept running,” Stuart said. “But, this was different. This wasn’t just Dario… Everyone will be coming for us Sass… we won’t be able to walk down the street without looking over our shoulders, you know? I don’t know how we’ll fix it or if we’ll all end up on the run. But, I know that if I run again, I’m taking both of you with me.”

  Sassi couldn’t imagine a life on the run. Never being able to relax or come back home. They’d have to take on false identities, to keep moving, they’d never be able to stay still.

  “What about mom?” she asked, thinking of the woman who had a habit of keeping her wheels turning.

  “Fuck knows where she is,” Stuart said. “We can’t rely on her. Wasn’t she in Italy the last time you spoke to her?”

  Yes, she had been, but that was two years ago, maybe more. “She could be in danger too… we have to find a way to warn her.” When Sassi forced herself to stop reading the names, she started to take in the numbers. “There’s a hundred grand of debt on here… at least.” Without including the thirty they still owed Dario. “Fuck, Stu…”

  And, there would be more. “Dario has to know about it,” Stuart said. “He has to be holding those guys back. I think it’s his ace card. Even if we show up with the thirty K, he’ll drop this on us.”

  “And, offer to take care of it,” Sassi said, playing it through as Stuart had. “So, I’ll have to marry him either way.”

  “How many of these guys will give us extensions?” Stuart asked. “I know you don’t know a lot of the guys in dad’s circles, but I do, and Sass… some of them are just plain fucking evil.”

  “What was he thinking,” she exhaled, dizzied by the letters and numbers on this dog-eared sheet.

  Karen shimmied down the couch to offer a comforting hand. “He was an addict. I’m sure he didn’t mean for this to happen or for you guys to be left with his debt.”

  Pulling her hand away, Sassi thrust up to her feet and scrunched the paper. “He had the balls to say my attitude would kill him? He’s ruined everything! All of our lives!”

  “Yeah,” Stuart said, matching her stance. “And, if he was here, I’d put my fist through him a few times. I wish we could just tell these guys it wasn’t our problem, I wish we could. But, they want their money, Sass, and we’re the only link to him they have left.”

  So, that was it. The situation was hopeless. Their last shred of help was gone. “Then, why are we putting it off?” she asked, letting go of the ledger. “If Dario is our only way out, why don’t we just go to him, get it over with. What’s going to change in the next nine days?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But, I’m not giving up. We’re going to keep thinking and working until the very last second. You’re not going to give yourself to him willingly; you’re going to fight it. Use that attitude that pisses the rest of us off. You don’t lose hope!”

  “What hope is there?” she asked, bending to scoop up the paper that had landed on the couch. “Look at his legacy! This is what we have left of our father and I’m the only one who can keep all of us alive.”

  “No, you’re not,” Stuart said, his anger and fear becoming a deeper annoyance. “Your friends on the boat can…” But, she was shaking her head. “Shake your head now, but I’m not giving up and I won’t let you give up either.” Reaching to the back of the couch, he swiped up his jacket. “I need some air.”

  She and Karen watched Stuart stalk out and slam the door. “He really doesn’t want you marrying Dario,” Karen said.

  “I’m not wild about the idea myself, Karen
,” she said. “But, if it has to be done to keep you two safe. I’ll do it…” Worried about her brother and what he might do, her attention moved around to the door again. Karen must have read her mind. “I’ll go check if he’s okay.”

  They shared a smile as Karen went to the door and out after Stuart who could be impulsive and reckless. He wasn’t a bad guy; he just tended to act on emotion and had always been happy to take the easy way in life rather than pick an ideal or a goal and stick with it.

  Out the window, Sassi just managed to see a slither of the ocean between the buildings and the horizon. It felt odd that the ground was static beneath her feet. She’d been so used to the movement of the ocean keeping her on her toes that it made her a bit light-headed to be completely still.

  And, alone. She hadn’t been alone for a month. Even in a room without others, she knew there was the possibility of a person walking in at any time, and everyone was only ever a shout or intercom call away. Not anymore.

  Sassi didn’t have time to pine for the life she’d just lost or the relationships she’d abandoned. Going to her backpack, she opened the top, ready to unpack and move on. The item folded then squashed on the top made her pause.

  She hadn’t packed it, she knew for sure because she hadn’t packed any of her uniform apparel. In the end, she’d figured if she asked to keep anything her captain would know that she didn’t really want to go.

  But, it turned out that she hadn’t needed to ask.

  Scooping up the huge black hoodie from the top of the pack, Sassi bit her lip in response to the heat that blurred her eyes. The act of pulling it on over her head made the first tears escape her eyes. Sassi took the cuff to nose to breathe him in, and gave into her longing.