Darius pushed away the memories he had long repressed and focused on the woman before him. She seemed to have noticed that he had gone into a short daze and waited for him to return to full awareness.
"In the dark, you cannot direct your fate. You can only go where those at the top lead you and hope your skills are good enough to allow to you climb to the top. Otherwise, you will die by the wayside, your corpse being used to harvest organs for sale on the black market or being used to feed the fishes in someone else's shark tank."
Deia said this with haunted eyes, clutching her legs closer in fear. Darius' casual smile faded when he saw this as his heart palpitated.
While he had some knowledge of the dark side of society- in truth everyone in the light had some idea, but pretended not to see it - he didn't think it would be that cruel.
Darius could infer even more from the woman's reaction. Deia appeared to be a petty thief who stole the money off of rich and wealthy men through seduction, making her merely a 'pawn' in the grand scheme of things.
If she had witnessed such horrors at that a level - and the look of horror in her haunted eyes convinced him that she had indeed seen everything she had described live and colored - then what about those who fell at the higher levels?
Ideally, it should get better the higher one's position is, as they would have some sort of power and prestige, preventing them from being easily manhandled...
Alas, the reality was more a case of the higher you were, the harder you would fall.
Darius had seen powerful men in the light ripped to metaphorical shreds even worse than a salaryman who had been fired from his job, making it impossible for him to even pay rent.
Both men had lost everything, but the one on the top had his wife and daughter taken while his son had been forced to sign what was practically an indentured contract.
His estates had been ripped from him by law and his name had been tarnished forever, anyone who had mentioned him after his death sneering at how vile he had been, whether or not that was the truth.
Dalvin Stone, his father, would have shared a similar fate. Once the news got out that he had hung himself, he had received no pity, only scorn.
Those on social media in his town had started a trend, #DalvinDeservedDeath.
People had spat on him, criticizing him for having taken a coward's way out and leaving his son alone in the world. They all had wanted him to stay alive to atone for his supposed sin of raping a poor woman.
Had Darius not been slapped awake by the trauma and cleared his father's name using every means at his disposal, Dalvin would have forever been remembered as a rapist and coward, someone who had destroyed the Stone legacy… a fool.
This was far worse than being a nobody who had been fired and had lost barely anything in comparison. The salaryman would certainly face difficulties, but no one would remember him after his death except a small few, and very few would spit on his name for generations to come.
In the dark, it had to be similar, where there was some horrifying deeper punishment for failing or losing.
Just as Deia was about to continue enlightening Darius on what the dark side of the world was like, the entire yacht shook, throwing Darius and Deia to the floor. The duo struggled to regain their footing, and the lights in the room flickered on and off repeatedly.
"What the hell…?" Darius questioned in a low tone.
Deia also seemed confused, but her face changed. "I hear gunshots!"
Darius' eye widened as he also heard similar, then the duo heard screams and cries.
Deia shivered in fear and Darius was no better. It was one thing for him to overpower a practically naked woman, but there wasn't much he could do against guns.
"Is there a way out of here that isn't visible?" Deia asked hurriedly.
Darius focused carefully. He remembered being briefed on the various safety measures the crew would take in the case of an attack on sea when he had rented this yacht.
"Follow me." Darius pulled the bed's mattress up, moving aside the wooden slats hurriedly. There was a large trapdoor beneath the bed and he gestured for Deia to enter first.
After she went down, he made sure to replace the slats over the trap door as best as he could before closing it. As for the mattress, unless he wanted to stay outside and hope that the pirates were lenient, there was nothing that could be done.
Through the passageway, Deia and Darius moved quickly. The redhead beauty turned around to ask Darius with worry in her eyes. "Where does this lead to?"
Darius answered quickly and quietly. "The nearest lifeboat. Be silent though, as we'll be passing under the main meeting room to reach the hidden lifeboat."
Deia opened her mouth but didn't ask the subsequent question that formed in her mind due to Darius's warning. However, he could infer what she wanted to ask, so he answered her with a whisper.
"Yes, they would have likely cut down lifeboats before boarding the yacht to prevent escapees, but technology has progressed. What we're going to get isn't exactly a lifeboat but more of a small submarine."
Deia nodded with relief. After all, not only had she been worrying about the fact that any lifeboats might be damaged or monitored by the pirates if they were slightly competent, even if they did reach a lifeboat, wouldn't they be seen and chased down?
A lifeboat against a ship would be horrific, not to mention that the nearest island was more than 100 kilometers away. Before they had crossed even half that distance, they would have long since been recaptured.
A submarine though, would allow them to flee without making any waves. If they were lucky, they could just return after the pirates were done looting.
However, Darius frowned as the lower they went, the more cramped it became. After all, there couldn't be too much space set aside for the emergency escapes since there also needed to be space for the functions of the boat.
Darius pulled Deia back and took the lead before they entered a narrow passageway, which they had to crawl through.
