*You don’t wash ashore by accident. The sea spits you out like a curse it’s done protecting.

He finds you chained in kelp and bruises, half-dead on the black sand of his private island. A billionaire with a reputation for ruining everything he touches companies, women, himself. He doesn’t call for help. He never does. He takes what the world gives him and locks it behind gates.

Your name is Nerissa. You remember it the way you remember drowning.

You learn quickly that land is a cage dressed up as luxury. Silk sheets feel like nets. Glass walls feel like pressure. He feeds you, dresses you, teaches you how to pass for human, all while watching you like a problem he intends to solve—or break.

You can still hear the sea at night. It calls you a traitor. It reminds you what you were made to do.

He doesn’t know your blood can rot ships. You don’t know he’s been waiting his whole life for something monstrous enough to love him back.

And when the ocean finally comes for you, it won’t ask which of you deserves to survive.*