Page 3 of Emi's Hero

His eyes narrowed. “You’ve become more insolent and disobedient since I allowed you to have her.”

“I forgot myself,” she said, trying to tamp down her anger and fear, knowing it wouldn’t help the situation with Fallon. “Trust me, I won’t do it again.”

He snorted. “I don’t trust you. You’re a useless woman when you aren’t obeying my orders. And I have no use for children. They’re a distraction. I don’t know why I let you keep her. I think it’s time to remove her from the property.”

All the pent-up emotions she’d held back for years exploded inside Emi. “No!” She raised her fists and pounded them against his chest. “She’s my child. You can’t take her away.”

Fallon snagged her wrists in a tight grip, yanked her close and sneered into her face. “I can do whatever the hell I want,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “I own you. I own your brat. I own the people who work for me. No one cares about you or that little shit. The only reason you’re alive today is because I allow you to live. Remember that. And if I say the brat has to go, it goes.” He shoved her away from him, releasing her wrists. “Hit me again, and you’ll pay.”

“Anyone who could throw a child away like so much garbage is a monster,” she said between gritted teeth. She should have stopped there, but she couldn’t, the words pouring out unguarded. “You can’t get a woman to sleep with you, so you hold us prisoner so you can rape us whenever you like. You’re a bastard, a colossal asshole and your dick is as small and insignificant as your mind.”

Fallon’s narrowed eyes became ominous slits.

He crossed his right arm over his chest and then swung it out, backhanding her so hard that her head snapped to the right, and she flew across the deck. Her hip hit the rail so hard, she tipped over the shiny metal rail. She reached out in an attempt to grab for it. Her fingers only grasped air as her momentum carried her body over the side of the yacht.

With her head spinning and pain making her world grow dark, she fell. As if in slow motion, she plunged into the water below, sinking beneath the surface, churned by the yacht’s wake.

The abrupt dunking triggered survival mode in her hazy mind. She kicked her feet, unsure of which direction was up. Her body churned in the water thrust out by the propellers. The knot she’d tied on her swimsuit top must have come loose in her fall. The red bikini top lost in the sea was the least of her worries.

When she’d fallen overboard, she hadn’t had time to catch a breath. If she didn’t surface quickly, she’d drown.

Her first clear thought was of Sara. If Emi died, what would happen to her daughter?

Panic pushed back the threatening darkness.

The more Emi flailed in the water, the more disoriented she became. Her chest burned with the need to breathe.

She remembered what she’d read before she’d come to Hawaii, something about snorkeling and scuba.Watch which way the bubbles go. They always rise to the surface.

Emi forced herself to be still and let out the last little bit of air still in her lungs.

For what seemed an eternity of the second it took for the bubble to orient, she watched. As soon as the bubble established a direction, Emi kicked her feet, chasing the bubble all the way to the surface.

As her head breached, she sucked in air, filling her lungs.

She looked ahead at the vast expanse of ocean.

Where was the yacht?

Her heart still thundering against her ribs, she spun in the water, waves splashing up into her face.

A small spec on the water’s surface grew even smaller. With no other shape on the water besides small waves, that had to be the yacht.

Fear and despair washed over her like a tsunami.

“Wait!” she cried and waved her arm.

The spec on the water didn’t slow or turn around. It disappeared into the distance, leaving Emi alone in the ocean with no other vessel in sight, no land to swim toward and no hope.

Tears joined the water splashing against her cheeks.

“No,” she moaned. “He’ll kill her. He’ll kill Sara.”

Emi couldn’t let this be the end of her. She had to make her way back to land, find help and get to Sara before Fallon. She prayed Maria would find a way to hide her little girl, at least until Emi found a way back to save her.

Striking out in the opposite direction from where the yacht had disappeared, Emi swam, pacing herself for what could be a long way back to shore, fighting back the gloom and doom of the what-ifs.

What if she wasn’t going in the right direction? What if she never made it back to shore? What if some sea creature decided she looked like a tasty snack? What if she was out there for days without food and water?

---