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L ucretia’s arms burned and her back ached as she helped Felix assemble his cargo.

His diligence was admirable; a lesser man might have thrown his hands up and declared the entire ship a loss.

But Felix was determined to salvage anything he could.

It was just for the sake of profit, but somehow, his efforts made it seem like the crew’s deaths would not be in vain.

She painstakingly avoided looking at the corpses that littered the beach. To her, each one had Cornelius’s face.

Nevertheless, Felix’s steadfast assurance that none of this was her fault helped ease her guilt. She chose to believe him, though she wasn’t sure why he had been so insistent on the matter. After all, it was in his interest for her to crumble and fall.

Thankfully, the next people who arrived at the beach were Felix’s men, led by his secretary Siro.

They rigged a system of ropes and pulleys on the cliff and hauled the cargo up piece by piece, loading it onto carts to be taken back to Ostia.

The bodies, too, were ferried up the cliff and stacked onto a cart, covered respectfully with a wide tarp.

By the time the operation finished, the sun’s lower rim was just sinking beneath the horizon, casting a blinding red glow on the water.

Felix wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. If he was sweating, she must look a thousand times worse. Moisture dampened the neckline of her dress, and she didn’t even want to think about what her hair must look like.

“It’s getting late,” Felix said. “I’m afraid we won’t be able to return to Ostia tonight. Too risky to undertake a journey with all this cargo in the dark. We will secure lodgings in the town nearby. We can eat, rest, and return to Ostia tomorrow morning.”

Lucretia opened her mouth to protest—she didn’t want to sleep in a strange inn with only Felix for company—but her stomach emitted a loud whine.

She flushed. Her body seemed to be forcing her to admit that she was hungry, thirsty, and exhausted both physically and emotionally.

A meal and a bed would do her good. “Very well.”

“Marcus will be all right without you?” Felix asked, untying his horse’s reins from the tree they’d been secured to.

“Marcus is not your concern,” she replied, “but he will be well looked after by the household. I doubt he’ll even notice I’m gone.” She intended the words as a joke, but they took on a bitter edge.

Felix checked the fastening of the horse’s tack. “Boys that age are often swine. I know I was. Don’t take it personally.”

“Your mother must have the tranquility of Vesta. I shudder to imagine what you were like as a boy.” He must have been insufferable. “Please pass on my admiration to her.”

Felix gave a short chuckle. “I will. Now, let’s ride ahead and find a place for the others. Hopefully there’s a tavern with a stable big enough to house our goods, along with the men.”

He lifted Lucretia into the saddle. After climbing up in front of her, he guided the horse back onto the road, and they headed for the nearest town.

The towns along the coastal road saw their fair share of travelers, so they had no issue finding a bustling tavern happy to take their coin. Felix’s men would have to sleep in the stables, guarding the cargo, but Felix managed to secure a room for himself and Lucretia.

Lucretia wished Felix would offer to bed down with his men, but he showed no indication of such nobility.

She put the issue from her mind while they saw the cargo safely transferred into the stable.

Then, they ate—her first real meal all day, as she’d been too anxious that morning to eat breakfast. The bread was fresh, though the grain was coarser than what her kitchen used at home.

No meat or fish was offered, but she enjoyed the warm, thick lentil stew.

The wine, too, was good, though heavily diluted with water.

With the aid of a full belly and several cups of wine, it became easier to view today’s events through a more moderate lens.

She could accept that the storm was a coincidence, and that the men whose lives were lost knew what they risked.

She still planned to revoke her curse when she returned to Ostia, but she no longer felt those men’s deaths weighing heavy on her conscience.

Felix, somehow, had been instrumental in relieving her guilt. It would have been so easy for him to play on her fears, to twist them into something even greater, something that would truly crush her. Instead, he had reassured her, helped her break free from her anxiety.

She thought back to Marcus’s words about Felix: he’s not so bad, you know . Maybe her son was wiser than she realized.

After the meal, she and Felix climbed the rickety staircase to the second floor of the tavern, where their room awaited.

Lucretia surveyed the small, lumpy bed pushed against one wall, then gave Felix a pointed look.

He met her gaze. “I’m not going to offer to sleep on the floor, if that’s what you’re waiting for.”

“That would be the polite thing to do in this circumstance, I believe.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Neither of us are married. We have no honor to protect. Two unmarried people may share a bed without cause for concern.”

She glared at him. His nonchalance irritated her. She would never admit it, but the thought of sharing a bed with Felix sent a tingle of nervous agitation through her. “Then maybe I will sleep on the floor.”

“I’m sure the mice would love your company.”

He was infuriating. Any man of quality—any good man—would balk at the thought of a woman sleeping on the floor if there was an alternative. But Felix only cared for his own comfort.

She let out a tight breath and sat on the bed. It groaned under her weight. Perhaps the issue of who slept where would become inconsequential, if it collapsed beneath them.

She decided to change the subject, so it didn’t seem like she was admitting defeat. “Do days like today make you question if it’s all worth it?”

Felix crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “Of course it’s worth it.”

“Men died today, Felix. For your profit.” Lucretia noticed that despite his insistence that there was nothing wrong with sharing a bed, he wasn’t exactly rushing to sit on the bed with her.

“Men die every day. My work doesn’t just fill my own coffers. Rome relies on the goods we import.”

She smoothed her hand over the scratchy wool blanket. “What would it take to make you give up this campaign against me?”

“There is nothing you could offer me.”

“You know there is room for both of us to be profitable in Ostia.”

He nodded. “But I don’t just want to make a profit in Ostia. I want to control trade in all of Italy. Genua, Neapolis, Sicily…maybe further.”

She scoffed. “One man could never do so much alone.”

“I would employ trusted associates to manage operations in each port. People like you, with a thorough understanding of how things work.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Are you offering me a job?”

“Would you take it?” The corner of his lip twitched—a shadow of a smile.

She grimaced. “I would throw myself into the sea before I became your employee.”

His smile materialized, sardonic and thin, for only a moment before it disappeared. “It may take longer than I’d like, but you know I will prevail, Lucretia. I have more capital at my disposal than you. You cannot beat me.”

She met his cool gaze. He wasn’t bragging or blustering, but stating a fact as calmly as if telling her the current hour. Her lips tightened. He might be right—he certainly believed he was—but she couldn’t let him see that she feared she agreed with him.

“And after you conquer trade in Italy, what then?” she asked, a sarcastic bite to her words. “I expect you’ll raise an army and usurp Caesar Augustus himself?”

“No,” he said shortly. “My father was a provincial governor. I have no desire for that sort of power.”

“Your father was a governor?” She’d sensed Felix came from a good family in Rome, but she hadn’t realized his father had achieved such a high position. How intriguing that Felix chose to pursue trade, rather than statesmanship.

“Yes. He died when I was nine.”

“I’m sorry,” she murmured.

She expected the conversation to end there, but to her surprise, Felix opened his mouth, then hesitated, as if considering his next words.

“Until I was seventeen,” he finally said, “I believed he’d died of an illness. I spent my childhood studying history and rhetoric, preparing to follow in his footsteps, to honor his memory. Then, my mother told me the truth.” His features tensed.

Lucretia found herself leaning forward, drawn into this tale of his past. “The truth?”

“He’d been murdered,” Felix said, his voice clipped. “To cover up a scheme of corruption in the province.”

She drew in a sharp breath. She could imagine the sort of turmoil that must have caused, to have something he’d believed for so long turn out to be a lie. “You must have been angry with your mother for keeping that from you.”

“A little, at first. I came to understand why she waited to tell me. I wouldn’t have been able to understand, as a child.

But it made me rethink everything I’d planned.

What was the point? My father worked his whole life to attain greatness, one of the highest positions in the Republic, and what did he get for it?

” Felix waved a dismissive hand. “He was killed for his sense of honor. For trying to do the right thing.”

The pieces were beginning to come together, shedding more light on why Felix was so driven, so relentless in pursuit of his goals. “So you turned to trade instead.”

He nodded. “I realized I’d been striving toward a dream that didn’t exist. Honor doesn’t matter.

Dedication to the Republic certainly doesn’t matter—look at how things are now.

Our republic is vanishing by the day. But whether we have consuls, or a king, or a princeps , money will always be the most important thing. ”