“It doesn’t matter.” She put her hands on his face and looked into his eyes. “I arrived in Crete last night and boarded this morning. I’m here now.”
“You talked to Jérôme,” he said, his eyebrows crinkling in surprise. “He was the only one who knew where I was.”
She paused, brushing the hair from his forehead. “I was desperate.”
“You shouldn’t have come here.”
She let go of his face and pulled away. “Why did you leave? You just ran away in the middle of dinner with no warning, no explanation.”
“I left a note.” He regretted the words as soon as they slipped out of his mouth.
She threw her manicured hands in the air. “That was so very considerate of you.”
“I just couldn’t stay in that town another minute,” he said, feeling suddenly silly for being dressed the way he was. He removed the bellboy cap from his head and ran his fingers through his hair.
“I know you blame that town for every shitty thing that’s happened in your life, but one day you’ll have to face the truth.”
“And what truth is that?” His glare challenged her to put into words what he knew she had always thought. It felt like he was back in that place, standing on the side of the street, feeling small and powerless.
“You can’t keep believing it’s everyone’s fault but your own.” Sophie paused as her face softened. “You own some of the blame.”
The clamour of the atrium returned as they stood across from each other. They were familiar faces in foreign circumstances, two people so far removed from their context they might as well have been strangers.
Sophie took a step back as Sebastien spun his body around the balcony. He’d just remembered something critical.
“Where’s Nikos?”
“Who?”
He grabbed her by the hand and led her down the carpeted hall toward the front of the ship. She ran alongside him despite her hazardous heels, not bothering to ask where they were going. They reached the double doors at the end of the hall. With a flick of the wrist, the door was unlocked and opened.
“Athena!” His voice slid along the curved walls of the still room. The House of the Heel was empty.
“Who’s Athena?” Sophie let go of his hand and examined the strange room draped in white sheets and soft light.
“Nikos,” he said, shaking his head and clenching his fists. “He took her.”
At his feet was a silver tray. The bowl was empty except for a few curled noodles and streaks of red sauce. The napkin and silverware lay on the sheet Athena had been sitting on. If it weren’t for the evidence, he might have thought she had never been there to begin with.
For over a thousand years, the city of Heraklion on the island of Crete was coveted and conquered by whomever had the power to decide it was theirs. The Arabs called it rabd al-handaq and made it the capital of their far-flung island emirate, where pirates took refuge between attacks at sea. The Byzantines watched it burn, along with everyone in it, before building a new city on the ashes they called Chandax. The Venetians brought the enlightenment of the Renaissance to their newly christened city of Candia. It took twenty-one years of siege for the Ottomans to breach the fortified walls and conquer the city, killing tens of thousands and calling it Kandiye. Eventually it was reclaimed by the Greeks, who gave the city its present name after the symbol of strength and masculinity that was Zeus’s son — Heracles.
It’s not enough for men to take something away from another. They must make it their own. Brand it for themselves. Leave their mark.
The city of Heraklion was several shades of rust from outside the large windows of Sophie’s cabin on Riviera Deck. Just beyond her balcony were the stone battlements and parapets of the fortress of Koules. It stood watch over the harbour as it had done since the Venetians built it centuries ago.
Diya and Ilya sat on the sofa like captivated schoolchildren as Sebastien filled them in on everything that had transpired that day: what he found in cabin A66, Athena’s story of abduction, Nikos’s claim about her identity, and the unexpected reunion with Sophie. The three of them were dressed in their evening uniforms. They would be on duty in their respective corners of the Glacier as soon as they set sail from Crete.
“Do you trust this man? This Nikos?” Sophie leaned against a pillar beside the sofa, her arms crossed in front of her.
Diya and Ilya turned to face him with impressive synchronicity. They wondered the same thing.
“I thought I did.” Sebastien could hear the strain and uncertainty in his own voice. “He’s been on my side up to this point. He could have turned me in when he found the ear stud I left in Alexis’s cabin. He didn’t.”
“He lied about escorting Athena down to her cabin on black-tie night,” Diya said, clearly skeptical. “Why lie about that if she were just Kostas’s niece?”
“I don’t know.” Sebastien reclined in the cushioned armchair with his arms hanging over the sides. “He said he got mixed up.”
“And if she really is Kostas’s niece, why doesn’t anyone know about her?” Diya scanned the room like a prosecutor seducing a jury. “Nobody’s seen her anywhere except in Sirens, and it was clear she wasn’t welcome there. It sure sounds like she’s being hidden to me.”
Ilya leaned forward, his arms flexing underneath the fitted polo shirt. “She came on board the same day Dominic disembarked, right? So she couldn’t have been what he saw in that cabin. It was something else. If Athena is Kostas’s delusional niece, what are the chances of her being put in the same cabin where Dominic saw something he shouldn’t have seen? Her story lines up. She says she’s being hidden away in the same cabin where Dominic saw something that was supposed to be hidden.”
Sophie placed her hands on her temples as she struggled to follow along. “Wait a sec. This Dominic person saw something in that cabin he shouldn’t have seen, right? But it couldn’t have been Athena because she hadn’t boarded the ship yet. So if it wasn’t Athena, what did he see?”
All eyes turned to Sebastien.
“Another woman.” He said it quietly as if to himself. “That was my first thought. Athena is one of many. Dominic saw another woman trapped in that cabin on her way somewhere terrible. They get coaxed or coerced on board, then they’re transported — trafficked — somewhere along the ship’s route. Athena says she’s being taken to France. Maybe the woman Dominic saw was removed in Athens.”
“It makes sense.” Ilya had a fearful look in his eyes.
“This is fucking bad,” Diya said, wrapping her arms around herself.
Sophie shook her head in disbelief. “Sebastien, what did you get yourself into?”
“This is what we’ve been fighting for,” he said. “How can we stand for justice, then sit back and do nothing when this is happening right in front of us? We need to stop it.”
Ilya leaned back on the sofa with a sigh. “You’re right. But how do we do it?”
“We arrive in Cannes in a week,” Sebastien said. “That means one week before Athena is taken away. We need a plan. This is no longer a little rebellion. This is war.”
“Smile!”
The smiles remained on the faces of the elderly Norwegian couple a few seconds longer than necessary as they were blinded by the light from the camera’s flash.
“Come back in an hour,” Sebastien said in his sweetest voice. “It’ll be ready for purchase in the portrait gallery.”
The massive horn bellowed across the harbour from several decks above. The sound was muted from within the ship, but it reverberated through the glass and marble of the central atrium. It signalled their departure from the island of Crete. The upcoming voyage would be thirty-six hours at sea before their next port of call: the ancient city of Palermo on the island of Sicily.
The photo station on Adriatic Deck was quiet. Sebastien leaned over the edge of the balcony to view the Agora below. The evening was coming to life with the arrival of passengers in tasteful gowns and summer suits. C
ontessa’s replacement, a Scottish singer who had boarded that morning, began her first performance from a small, oval stage. She crooned into the microphone, matching her predecessor’s technical prowess but lacking the special something that made Contessa a star. The pianist accompanying her was also new, a slight young man with brilliant orange hair.
Sebastien watched the staff and crew put on a performance of their own. Bartenders stood guard behind their countertops, mixing and shaking their potions. Waiters and waitresses carried trays with poise, handing out glasses and dishes with flirtatious charm. The attendants at the guest services desk answered questions as if they were animatronic. Everyone’s smiles were convincing, their movements perfectly timed. A passenger would never guess these charming members of the underclass were in the throes of rebellion below decks in Hades — a fight between the rulers and the ruled.
The Kourakis family, minus the patriarch, stepped gingerly down the marble staircase that led from Adriatic Deck to the Agora below. Alexis was less ostentatious than usual in a simple black dress and her hair pulled back in a pony-tail. Katerina trailed two paces behind while Kristo held his mother’s hand protectively. They were followed farther back by one of Nikos’s blue-shirted guards.
Little Kristo’s eyes widened when he noticed Sebastien staring at them from across the atrium. His body went stiff. Sebastien gave him a discreet little wave. He looked away and urged his mother down the stairs.
Where’s father?
Seeing Kristo brought Sophie’s musical voice into the chamber of his mind.
You can’t keep believing it’s everyone’s fault but your own.
“You own some of the blame.” He repeated her words under his breath.
His thoughts were interrupted by the chirp of another woman’s voice. “Sebastien?” He turned around to see his manager, Claudette, standing in front of him. She forced a smile but there was an unusual quality in the way she held herself. “Nikos here wants a word with you.”
Sure enough, the brooding officer stood beside her.
“Come with me, please.” He spoke with his most authoritative tone, deep and firm. His voice softened as they walked away from Claudette, side by side. “I’m supposed to bring you to Kostas.”
Sebastien sensed a hint of unease. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure,” Nikos said, “but he wants to see you immediately.”
They walked along the arcade of shops selling everything from Baltic amber to Greek loukoumi. Recorded classical music was piped into the hall.
“Does this have anything to do with Athena?”
“I don’t think he knows she was taken to begin with, unless she told him.”
“Why did you take her back down there?” The words sounded more like an accusation than he had intended.
“I did that for you,” Nikos said, shooting him a cautionary glance. “You’d be packing your bags, or worse, if Kostas had found out what you did. I got her back below decks just in time.”
They stepped into an empty elevator at the end of the hall. The walls were mirrored with shiny gold trim. Sebastien looked at Nikos’s reflection and noticed how striking he was. It was funny how some things could be seen more clearly in a reflection than in reality. He looked at himself and saw the strain around his eyes and his untidier-than-usual hair.
“How do you know she’s Kostas’s niece?”
“It’s what he told me.” He turned to face Sebastien and something flickered between them that could have resulted in a kiss. It lasted only a moment as the elevator made its way skyward.
Sebastien didn’t move, but he felt a tickle of relief. Nikos might still be innocent, might be trusting enough to be deceived by Kostas’s lies.
“Does Achilles believe everything he hears?”
“Achilles knows when it’s in his best interest to not question what he’s told.” The slightest suggestion of a smile danced in the corners of Nikos’s lips. “It’s something his dear Patroclus could afford to learn.”
The elevator doors opened to a rush of salted Mediterranean air. The expanse of the sea spread outward from their view on Sunset Deck. The sun was a fiery disc in the distance, casting flames along the waves. Guests gathered by the edges of the deck to watch the Glacier sail away from the storied island of Crete, now nothing more than a bald, featureless mound of rock.
Nikos led him through a pair of glass doors to a lounge at the stern of the ship. Tables and chairs were neatly arranged on the teakwood deck. Past the railing was the enormous wake left by the Glacier. It snaked across the rippling sea like the tail of a dragon.
“I’ll leave you here,” Nikos said under his breath. “Don’t do or say anything stupid.”
Sebastien stepped into the lounge as his hair was tossed in the wind. Sitting alone at a table by the railing was his father.
Ruby Goh and Marcel Lamoureux stood frozen in the dim corner of the athletics wing. The startled look in Marcel’s eyes would have been comical if it weren’t for his hand gripped tightly around her arm. Or the blushing of freshly struck skin on her cheek. Or the fearful, defensive splay of her fingers. Her veil of long black hair fell across her face.
“Mama?” Sebastien’s voice trickled out like water from a loose faucet. “What …”
“Go back to the party,” she said. The words were meant to be firm, but they came out shaky. He saw that Ruby’s red lipstick was smeared around her lips.
“What’s going on?”
“You heard her.” Marcel’s hand remained fixed around her arm. “Get back to the party.”
That feeling Sebastien feared pressed against his lungs. Warmth spread across his chest like fire. “Let go of her.”
Ruby winced as the man’s grip tightened, but then something flickered behind his eyes. He exhaled loudly, then released Ruby’s arm. “Get out of my sight,” he said with a flick of the chin. “Both of you.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Ruby turned to Sebastien and took him by the wrist, pulling him toward the exit. She pulled harder when she realized he wouldn’t move. “Let’s go,” she said, her voice frayed at the edges.
She continued to tug at Sebastien’s wrist in desperation, but his legs were stiff as stone. All he could feel was the burn and smoulder as it pushed its way up his throat. He could barely hear himself when he said, “Did you hit her?” The words sounded quiet and composed, even though a dangerous frequency hummed along his skin.
Marcel hesitated, his eyes darting between mother and son, as if deciding whether to offer a damning truth or an unbelievable lie. As the features of his face tightened, it seemed as though he’d choose denial. But the creases around his eyes softened at the last second, and Sebastien knew he’d be given the truth. Marcel Lamoureux was too proud a man to play pretend for someone like Sebastien.
“What if I did?” Marcel took a step toward him. His tone was unthreatening, but he was four inches taller and thirty pounds heavier. The buttons of his crisp white shirt strained against the heaving of his chest. “Your mother’s no saint. Everyone knows it but you. Maybe it’s time you learned.”
“Be quiet,” Ruby said, her voice sharp.
“Tell the boy the truth,” Marcel said, challenging her. “Doesn’t he deserve to know?”
“What’s he talking about?” Sebastien’s teeth ground in his mouth as he fought the violence pounding against his ribs. Every nerve flared with electricity.
His mother whimpered as her shoulders collapsed forward, closing like a clam shell.
“Every time she came looking for me, luring me, I gave her what she wanted.” Marcel’s breath smelled like chalky mint and cigarette tar. “I always knew she was trouble, but how could I resist? I’m only a man. Now she wants to leave, just like that. Move to the city with her worthless son. What gives her the right to do that? So sure, maybe I lost my cool, but someone had to teach her.”
It flooded his arteries, pure and white. He could barely see Marcel’s face in front of him. The world was
blinding.
“But I’m glad you know,” Marcel went on, a hint of a smile gathering in the corners of his lips. “You should know the kind of woman she really is.”
Ruby screamed as she lunged forward, clawing at the side of his head, leaving jagged lines of red across the skin of his neck. The sound was deafening, like a rock through a window, as the back of his hand connected with her face.
Sebastien didn’t recognize the noises that growled from his throat. He grabbed a lacrosse stick from the rack on the wall. It sliced through the air onto Marcel’s back like an axe against timber. The man buckled against the blow before being tackled to the floor. Sebastien pinned him, and his fists pummelled downward. Splatters of red redecorated his robe.
Marcel’s hands grasped for anything he could defend himself with until his fingers wrapped around a helmet on the floor. It crashed against Sebastien’s skull with a dull thud. Sebastien fell backward as a fist found his gut.
Marcel got to his feet and stumbled down the hall. Ruby grabbed him by the arm, but a shove sent her colliding with the brick wall. Sebastien watched as he made his way toward a sliver of light before pushing through the double doors.
The sunshine was glorious as Marcel staggered across the grassy field. Blood gushed down his face from his newly broken nose, leaving trails of gore down his white shirt. His mouth was a gaping red wound. The expensive suit he wore was torn at both shoulders.
A crowd of students and their families were standing paralyzed on the lawn. Marcel seemed unaware of Sebastien chasing him from behind with a lacrosse stick in his hand. Everyone else on the field saw, though.
They watched as Sebastien Goh swung the wooden stick again and again until Marcel Lamoureux lay in a heap on the ground. It took three men to pull Sebastien off of him. Every witness interviewed later that day said the same thing. The boy was consumed by rage.
SEVENTEEN
The Calm or the Storm
The sun’s dying light and the hum of voices dimmed as Sebastien stepped toward the back of the deck. Kostas sat at a table for two set with linen napkins and polished silverware, a good distance apart from the other diners. The shallow bowl in front of him displayed the vibrant red of ripe tomatoes and distilled gold of olive oil. Two of Nikos’s blue-suited guards stood against the railing about two metres from him on either side. A feeling of unease rumbled from the bottom of Sebastien’s stomach.
The Rebellious Tide Page 17