Chapter 2

Vivienne's POV

The ship left New York just after dawn.

I stood at the narrow iron ladder entrance of the lower deck, and the hull gave a violent shudder. My ears were filled with the low rumble of machinery.

For that instant, I almost turned back.

But the hatch had long been sealed shut. Not even the sea breeze could get in—only a suffocating stench of machine oil, sour sweat, and the rustling of rats beneath the floorboards.

"You, laundry room." A red-faced deckhand jerked his chin at me, then pointed at Autumn. "You, galley."

I grabbed Autumn's wrist.

She turned to look at me. The red threads in her eyes from a sleepless night were even worse than mine, yet she still shook her head at me first. "Vivienne, don't make trouble."

"I'll go with you." My voice came out tight.

The deckhand was already impatient. He shoved me: "Can't understand words? Get moving."

Autumn immediately stepped between us, her voice low: "Vivienne, let go."

I didn't let go.

She leaned closer, her voice dropping so low it was almost against my ear: "Survive first. We'll see each other tonight."

After saying this, she pried my fingers open one by one, then turned and followed another galley worker away. Her gray, dusty skirt flickered once in the crowd before disappearing.

I stood there, my chest feeling like something had been violently ripped out of it.

"Still standing around?" The red-faced deckhand cursed at me. "Waiting for someone to serve you, princess?"

Princess.

The word was like a slap, making my face burn.

I lifted my feet and walked toward the laundry room.

The moment I pushed open the iron door, hot steam and the smell of bleach rushed up together, choking me until my eyes immediately watered.

Several women were bent over, throwing piles of dirty clothes into wooden tubs—wine stains, grease, blood spots, sweat marks, all mixed together.

"New girl?" A yellow-toothed old woman dumped a bundle of clothes into my arms. "What are you staring at? Get to work."

The pile of wet, heavy fabric weighed down my arms, and I nearly couldn't hold it.

I looked down. One man's shirt collar was still stained with dark red blood, another napkin was covered with lipstick marks and wine stains, the sour smell drilling straight into my nose.

I shoved the clothes into the hot water. The moment my hands went in, my knuckles felt like they'd been scalded.

The fingernails I'd torn grabbing wooden planks during last night's escape, the broken skin—the hot water brought it all out, frighteningly red.

The next second, a woman beside me scooped up a ladle of lye water and splashed it into the tub. The liquid splattered onto the back of my hand, and the pain made my legs go weak—I nearly dropped to my knees.

"Stop acting delicate." She rolled her eyes. "Don't finish washing, don't eat tonight."

I bit down hard on my teeth, my fingers gripping that filthy, stiff bundle of fabric, scrubbing again and again.

The grease and blood on the cloth seemed impossible to scrub off. The bleach fumes made tears stream continuously from my eyes, and the wounds on my hands grew redder and redder.

I couldn't stop.

If I stopped, there was only death.

All morning, I was submerged in that acrid white fog, my arms aching to the point of trembling, my back unable to straighten.

Midway through, people kept throwing more filthy things over—crew jackets, bed sheets, kitchen rags, women's torn stockings, undergarments stained with body odor—everything.

I used to have my gloves ironed and handed to me by maids. Now I was scrubbing other people's filth at the edge of a wooden tub, the backs of my hands stung white and wrinkled by lye water, my cracked knuckles going numb in waves.

But the most ridiculous thing was that later, I actually stopped feeling disgusted.

I only thought about how to finish this basin, then hold on until the next one.

When I returned to my bunk that evening, I practically collapsed into it.

The living quarters in the lower deck were even worse than the laundry room.

Low wooden bunks stacked layer upon layer, crammed with people. Breathing, coughing, crying babies, men's heavy snoring—all mixed together. A limping gambler leaned against the wall smoking, his eye sockets bruised black, cheap playing cards pinched between his fingers. Not far away, a woman clutched her ribs, her face deathly pale, every breath seeming like it might break her—someone nearby whispered that she'd run away from her husband's house with broken ribs. Further in, a Mexican couple held a baby so tightly they didn't dare relax even in sleep.

I'd just crouched down by my bunk when several pairs of eyes fell on me at once.

More precisely, on my neck.

My heart sank, and I immediately raised my hand to cover it. But it was too late. Though the emerald necklace was hidden beneath my collar, the diamonds and green gems still showed a bit of their gleam—even in such a filthy place, they were as conspicuous as "PLEASE ROB ME" written across a fool's forehead.

The smoking gambler grinned, his eyes turning sinister. "Little miss has such a good life. Escaped all the way to the lower deck and still carrying her treasures."

I said nothing, just stared at him.

The woman clutching her ribs took a soft breath, her voice hoarse: "Hide it."

I looked at her.

She lifted her chin, her gaze direct: "If you don't hide it, after you fall asleep tonight, first you'll lose the necklace, then you'll lose your life."

The Mexican man also added in a low voice: "No one here follows rules, señorita."

My throat tightened. I nodded slowly.

After people dispersed somewhat, I turned my back and, by the dim yellow light that was almost dying, carefully tore open the inner lining of my undergarment.

The needle and thread I'd smuggled back from the laundry room. The thread was coarse, the needle dull. I'd never done this kind of work before, and with my fingers hurting, I nearly stabbed myself bloody on the first stitch.

But I still took off the necklace, carefully wound it into a ball, stuffed it into the interlining, and sewed it shut stitch by stitch.

As the needle pierced through the fabric, my hands kept shaking.

The emerald no longer felt cool against my collarbone. Instead, my chest felt hollow.

This was something my mother had left me, something the Vivienne Ashford from before last night would never have parted with.

But now, I could only hide it like stolen goods, sewing it into the cheapest fabric.

I lowered my head and bit off the thread. My mouth was full of bitterness.

So my old identity wasn't armor.

It was a target for knives.

It was deep into the night when Autumn returned.

I heard footsteps and immediately sat up from the wooden plank.

She bent over, squeezing through the crowd, her hair half-undone, her face white as paper, her lips drained of color. She held half a piece of hard bread and a small bowl of thin soup in her hands, offering them to me first.

"Eat," she said.

"What about you?"

"I already ate."

She said it too quickly. I knew immediately it was a lie.

I tore the bread in half and shoved it back into her hand. She looked at me, then finally accepted it.

Neither of us spoke again. We lowered our heads and slowly swallowed down those hard bits that hurt our teeth. The soup had almost nothing but salt, but when the warmth slid into my stomach, I nearly cried.

Autumn was abnormally quiet today.

Before, no matter how tired she was, she'd curse those bastards in a low voice, then coax me to sleep first. But tonight she barely said a useless word, and wouldn't even raise her eyes.

"Was the galley very hard?" I asked.

"Mm."

"Did someone give you trouble?"

She put down the bowl, saying flatly: "Where isn't there someone giving people trouble."

I stared at her. She avoided my gaze, moving very slowly as she lay down, curling herself into that thin, stiff blanket.

When I pulled the blanket corner down for her, my hand suddenly froze.

Her skirt hem had ridden up a bit, exposing the skin on her inner thigh. In the dim yellow light, mottled bruises and bite marks were impossible to hide. Some were purple, some were fresh, their edges tinged with red, like someone had pressed down hard and gnawed them out.

My whole body went rigid.

Those weren't marks that could be left from last night alone.

"Autumn..." My voice came out hoarse, unlike my own.

Her body clearly tensed.

My fingers went cold. I slowly pulled the blanket up, but the moment I touched her leg, she flinched violently as if scalded. The blanket slipped open more, and I saw deeper at the root of her leg, another abraded red mark, like it had been repeatedly rubbed raw by coarse fabric and an even coarser body.

My chest seized up.

"He came for you again, didn't he?"

Autumn closed her eyes. No answer.

I reached out to touch her shoulder. She suddenly grabbed my hand, her grip so tight it trembled.

"Stop asking."

"Was it that Irish laborer?" My throat tightened, my voice shaking. "Last night wasn't enough, he still today..."

She finally turned to look at me, her eyes dark and heavy.

"Changing shifts in the galley requires a work pass, clearance, someone's nod." Her voice was very soft, so soft it seemed about to break. "He controls this. At noon today he cornered me behind the coal bunker, and tonight he waited for me in the storage room. Once the door closed, what could I do?"

I opened my mouth, but my throat felt blocked.

She stared at the wooden ceiling, as if she wasn't talking about herself.

"At noon, he complained I wasn't making sounds, so he grabbed my neck and forced me to look at him. Tonight he'd been drinking, reeking of onions and cheap liquor, pressed me against flour sacks, biting like a rabid dog. After he finished, he laughed, said if we want to stay on the ship from now on, we have to be obedient."

Each word was like a nail, hammering viciously into my ears.

My vision went black. My fingers slowly tightened, my nails digging into my palms without feeling pain.

"I'm going to kill him." I suddenly stood up.

Autumn grabbed me, nearly yanking me back onto the wooden plank. "Are you insane?"

"He dares..."

"He dares because we're nothing now!" She pressed her voice down, but her eyes immediately reddened. "Vivienne, do you think this is the Ashford house? You go find him, and tomorrow you'll be the one thrown into the ocean. If you die, what was the point of what I endured last night and today?"

This sentence nailed me in place. Even my breathing caught.

Someone nearby turned over, the wooden plank creaking. Autumn immediately released my hand, turned her face away, and pressed her voice even lower.

"Sleep. We still have to work tomorrow."

After saying this, she turned over, her back to me. That silhouette was pulled taut and straight, swallowing all the pain back into her belly, not willing to let out even a single gasp.

I sat in the darkness, my lips bitten numb by myself, but still couldn't hold back—tears fell drop by drop, hitting the moldy blanket and quickly disappearing without a trace.

For the first time, I knew so clearly that what I owed her, I might never be able to repay in this lifetime.

I closed my eyes, but couldn't sleep at all.

Forty-eight hours ago, I was still trying on gowns at the Ashford estate. Servants held rows of satin and pearl embroidery standing behind mirrors, the florist held samples asking whether I preferred white roses or lily of the valley, whether the newly opened champagne in the wine cellar should be changed to a more expensive vintage.

I'd found that pearl belt too vulgar and casually had someone replace it. Back then, I thought the worst annoyance was just which man had sent another bouquet of flowers I didn't like.

Now, I was curled up on a moldy wooden plank, even my breathing carrying the scent of rust.

Father standing at the staircase adjusting his cufflinks, Mother turning to instruct the maid with a slight lift of her chin, Julian smiling as he stole a strawberry from my plate only to have me swat his hand away the next second... these images flipped up one by one, then were immediately crushed by another scene.

The blood exploding from Father's chest when he fell.

Mother's short gasp as she lunged toward the balcony.

And in the ballroom downstairs, some face holding a wine glass with a nonchalant smile.

I squeezed my eyes shut, clenching my jaw until it hurt.

Hatred was like a ball of scalding iron lodged in my chest, pushing upward, pushing until I almost wanted to immediately climb up, rush back to New York, and tear those people apart one by one.

But the next second, the bruises on Autumn's legs crashed back into my mind.

I forced myself to swallow down that breath like blood.

I couldn't turn back.

Right now, the most important thing wasn't hatred, wasn't crying, wasn't how much dignity the Ashford family had left.

It was survival.

Only by surviving would I have the right to remember those people's faces.

The next morning, I was dragged back to the laundry room again.

The cracks on my hands were worse than yesterday. The moment the hot water touched them, the pain turned my vision white.

I gritted my teeth and turned crew jackets inside out to shake off the dust. The pockets usually had cigarette butts, dirty handkerchiefs, loose change, lighters, and occasionally notes left by women. I mechanically pulled them out, separated them, threw them away, until a dark blue coat fell open in my hands and a folded newspaper slipped out.

The paper landed at my feet.

I hadn't wanted to look, but the front-page photograph was too conspicuous.

It was me.

More precisely, it was me from the birthday banquet that night. Dripping with jewels, smiling properly, wearing the emerald around my neck, like a fool who had no idea death had already walked to her door.

My heart seized violently. I practically lunged to pick up the newspaper.

The headline was starkly black—

New York's Elite Family Collapses Overnight, Ashford Patriarch Executed for Massive Fraud, Only Daughter's Whereabouts Unknown.