Chapter 676: The Right Way

Ian sat in his office staring at pictures of Mina. Drax's wedding was quickly approaching, and it reminded him of his own plans for the woman. He missed her so much that it hurt, and nothing he did took the sting of her death away. Making Luna miserable had helped in the beginning, but it was only temporary, and he could not bring himself to drink his pain away because the smell of liquor only reminded him of what he lost.

On the bright side, Lisa was taking his openness to being seen with her as a good thing. Ian sometimes wondered if he was going too far by stringing the woman on, only to publicly humiliate her later, but she had gone too far first. Lisa's words took the life of someone special to him, and maybe even the life of someone who had yet to live.

The light on Ian's desk blinked, and he buzzed the person into his office. That was something that had now become commonplace. Since someone had been able to get into his home, security had to be increased, and while the Lee building had always been secure, it was now equivalent to a bank with a high value vault in its safety measures.

"President Lee, there is a woman in the lobby asking for Miss Mina." Ian raised a brow at Rachel who had finally come back from maternity leave. He liked having her around because she was one of the first people to befriend the woman he loved and, unlike many of Mina's other friends, she was not on the receiving end of her monetary contributions. Rachel had given Mina her kindness for free, and the woman repaid her in the like.

"Send her up," Ian ordered. In a few short minutes a woman Ian did not immediately recognize stood in his office. She looked intimidated by him, and there was clear confusion written on her face.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm looking for Miss Mina Harlow."

"Why are you looking for her?" Ian asked. He knew the woman was the widow of a real estate mogul who unexpectedly died. It made no sense why she would be looking for Mina, and he was immediately suspicious of her motives.

"I met her at a charity event, but honestly, I can't remember which one." The woman slightly bowed her head before she continued speaking. "I'm sorry sir, this is a waste of your time."

"Wait," Ian said. It was not a suggestion, but an order, and the woman knew that. "Tell me why you are looking for her."

"Miss Mina said that if I ever needed her help, I should come here to find her, but I'm assuming she no longer works here." Ian felt his heart rate increase. He hated to speak the words he needed to speak aloud but, in the situation, there was no way around it.

"Unfortunately, Mina passed away three months ago." The woman's face became downcast, and she looked as if the news were truly a blow to her. "What is it that she asked you to come here for? Ian asked, wanting to know if there was something he could do to fulfill one of Mina's past promises.

"I couldn't ask you for help," the woman replied, but Ian waived her words away.

"I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing it for Mina."

With a nod, the woman first introduced herself as Natalie Reed. With her husband's unexpected death, she was left to keep the business afloat. However, she was ignorant on how to do it. She claimed that back then it was her husband who spoke with Mina, and he was impressed with the woman's ideas. She said that later in the same evening, Mina sought her out and told her that she could find her at the Lee building if she ever needed help or advice.

Ian knew that Mina was likely to volunteer her services, especially if she had any reason to believe that the woman was being unfairly treated by her husband. She was always sympathetic in that manner and wanting to keep Mina's memory in line with the kind person she was, Ian asked Natalie to hand over her documentation. she did and he saw that she was mere weeks away from bankruptcy.

"Miss Natalie, I'm sorry but I don't even think Mina could have helped you with this." The woman weakly nodded, then extended her hand to have the files returned to her. That simple gesture reminded Ian so much of Mina that he told himself he had to help her.

----

Because they were headed back to the country where the slimy harbor master worked, Mina made sure to 'lose weight' before seeing the man again. Nael never seemed to notice her figure unless it was in a negative light, but she was afraid that if the skinny man bought it up again, her 'host' would begin to ask questions.

Mina still did not trust Nael enough to reveal her true appearance to him. Not that she thought he was going to do anything bad to her, but she was uncertain, and that was reason enough. She had already been violated, and she was uneager to experience anything similar on a ship with no one to save her.

Like everyone else, Mina waited at the docking bridge for the ferry. She believed that Nael and Leal would allow her to roam the area in peace, however, that is not what the men had in mind. They dragged her to the shooting range, which was the last place she wanted to go. It was there that Nael had spoken so terribly of her that it continued to mar her impression of the man.

No matter how hard Nael tried to prove to her that he was changed, she could not forget the way he looked at her, the way he pulled her hair, the way he was trying to elicit a smile from his friends using her suffering as a catalyst. It was all too much for Mina, and she did not want to experience that feeling again. She tried to refuse, but Nael put his foot down. He told her that if she did not practice shooting then he was going to make her move out of his suite.

Mina knew what that meant, and she did not want it. She was still generally disliked among the ship's crew. They called her an omen or a demon, they claimed that she had bewitched their captain, and they believed that her scars were put there by 'dark forces.' The amount of superstition surrounding her was absolutely unreal, but the hate that was attached to it was very much apparent.

Without a real choice, Mina finally gave in. When they arrived, the two men that Nael had spoken to about her in such a vulgar manner were there and sitting between them was a third man she had never seen. She did not make eye contact with either man, instead she focused on shooting which she had gotten better at. Nael once told her that wind played a significant role in shooting outside and without it, she was able to hit her target.

However, according to Nael, none of her shots were deadly. He wanted her to get used to shooting someone in the head, the heart, or stomach, and if she only wanted to incapacitate a person, he made her practice shooting near the knee cap. Mina did not want to shoot anyone, but she saw the wisdom in learning how. If she were attacked again and no one had a change of heart during the assault, it was very likely that she would die in a gruesome manner.

After several consecutive failed attempts at a headshot, Nael stood behind Mina, steadying her hands. He spoke softly into her ear, telling her to close her eyes and imagine the target as someone who hurt her the most. Many people went through Mina's mind, but at the end of a long hard mental struggle, only one person remained in her mind. She imagined President Lee's smiling face in the photo with Miss Lisa, she imagined the man moving on with his life, while she was stuck in a constant loop of pity, dread, heartache, pain, and longing.

Mina thought of the various emotions that weighed her down physically and drained her mentally, and when she opened her eyes, in place of the dark silhouette stood the man that she thought was hers; the man who she thought she would spend her life with; the man who she believed really wanted her. For days she put off leaving Pan, hoping that he would come find her, but he didn't, did he?

Mina pulled the trigger and like magic the bullet went straight through the silhouette. She jumped excitedly, turning around to give Nael a high five. She did not think she was ever going to be able to do it, but she did, and she was proud of her progress.

"Try it again," Nael said, and this time Mina did not have to imagine President Lee to be successful; all she had to do was draw on the hurt he caused her. "I told you that you would get better at it," Nael praised.

Mina found herself smiling in complete satisfaction, not because she planned on actually killing people, but because she had achieved something that in all her life, she never thought she would do. It was a new experience, and that was how Mina was teaching herself to cope with the struggle of life on a pirate ship. Every day was part of a new journey; she was learning, she was growing, and ultimately, she believed it was going to make her a stronger, more independent, and less needy woman.

Mina and Nael were still eagerly discussing her success when the man in the middle started to make fun of her. He called her fat, misshapen, ugly, and any other shallow insult he could think of. She ignored it, but she could see that Nael was strongly affected especially when the man questioned the nature of their relationship. She knew that was a trigger for Nael, so she tried her best to talk him down, but he could not let it go. He pulled out his gun, opened it, took out the bullets, (except for one,) handed it to her, and pointed.

"Shoot him," Nael said, but Mina did not want to shoot the man. The two men who had been on the ends of the couch stood, but Leal forced them back down by pointing a gun at them.

"It's just words," she said, trying to de-escalate the situation. "He didn't mean anything by it." The other two men on the couch mirrored Mina's words, but Nael gave them death glares that forced them to stop speaking. Nael then took the gun from her and handed it to the man in the middle.

"Shoot her," he instructed, and with the words 'no problem,' the man pulled the trigger, but there was only a series of empty clicks. Mina's eyes went wide; she could not believe a man she had never offended would be willing to kill her so casually. Nael gestured for the man to return the clearly unloaded gun, and this time he put all the bullets in it. "Did you see that Ami? He was ready to kill you after you spared his life," he said. "What will you do now?" Mina shook her head. She did not like how the man's 'lesson' was making her feel. She turned to him, hugging him before breaking down.

"Please Nael; you are confusing me. It's just words." Nael felt terrible making the woman cry, but she was far too soft and needed a change.

"I'm not confusing you; you were already confused. I'm just teaching you the right way."