𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐡 | 𝐫𝐚𝐟𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐧

０２２．

Ren, who had always had complete faith in her father and what he wanted from her, who had never questioned her future and what it was supposed to look like, who had been raised with very specific priorities and had never wavered from them, found that those priorities were changing.

Her priorities were changing, and she wasn't scared that they were. And she didn't know what that meant.

It had always been family first, and the family business second. Nothing and no one else. Protect her family, make sure that her family was taken care of, and strive to build up her father's empire because she'd be the one inheriting it one day. That's all it had ever been.

And now... now it was her family, and the family business, but it was also the blue-eyed boy she'd seen at the dock just over a month ago. The boy she'd hidden a body for. The boy she had spent every second of every day with for the past several weeks, and who she hadn't even started to get sick of. He meant the world to her, and he was a priority now, when no one else ever had been.

And because he was a priority, Ren was doing stupid, reckless shit to protect him. Stupid and reckless enough that she'd dragged her brother along with her.

Grey stood steadfastly behind her, stone-faced and cross-armed as he watched Mack stride into the hold of the Coastal Venture. His hold, now that Captain Eberhimi had seemed to go missing. Mack had inherited the entirety of the ship, its crew, and its regular cargo -- the kind of thing that any other sailor on this ship would have been thrilled about.

But Mack's glare was whitehot when his eyes met Ren's. His face contorted in anger as he pointed a shaking finger at her. "You know something, you fucking bitch. You've been hanging around that Cameron kid for weeks now -- you know what he and his psycho father did to the captain. Don't you? Don't you?"

Ren felt her brother tense at her shoulder, clearing his throat pointedly before saying, "Watch yourself, Mack."

Her chest tightened as Mack shifted that venomous stare to Grey now, his temper not at all tamped down by the obvious threat. She'd intended to come here to give Mack an ultimatum, to send him on his way and force him into silence about the captain -- but this anger was unprecedented. She'd never accounted for the fact that perhaps the crew loved their captain. That perhaps money might not be enough to wipe away their memory of him.

"What are you going to do about it?" Mack demanded, his face flush with anger. "Are you going to beat my ass again? Fucking try it. See what happens after that. Your name doesn't mean shit on this boat, Grey, not anymore."

Grey pushed himself off of where he leaned on the wall, his entire body taut as he took a step toward Mack.

Before anything could go more poorly than it already had, Ren slid between the two men. Despite her pulse thrumming and her hands trembling where she held them behind her back, she orchestrated her expression into frigid evenness. "Oh, Mack," she sighed, "you've never been very smart, have you? It's a shame that you're the one whose hands this ship fell into. It had so much potential."

For a fleeting moment, she thought Mack was going to hit her.

Before he could decide whether or not he wanted to, Ren strode over to the table in the center of the hold, sliding into a seat calmly and glancing at him over her shoulder. "Sit down. Let's have a civil conversation, yeah?" She prompted, gesturing toward the empty seats at the table.

With stiff, cautious movements, both men sat. Grey took a protective seat just to her right, well within distance if Mack showed any signs of violence again. Mack, on the other hand, sat as far as he possibly could away from the siblings.