To the Shark

My wife Isabella bought me a yacht for my birthday, but her male assistant, Ryan Lane, had the audacity to name it after himself. He claimed it was to comfort his dying mother. I laughed bitterly and had his name removed from the hull.
When Isabella found out, she was angry. “He was just comforting his mother!”
“He could have rented a yacht or faked a photo,” I retorted. She fell silent.
At my birthday party, she pushed me into the ocean, live-streaming my humiliation with a drone. A photo of me fleeing a shark in my underwear went viral. After the initial panic, a cold calm took over. I stared into the camera and said, “Had your fun? Now come get me.”

01
The moment the words left my mouth, a wave of derisive laughter rolled down from the yacht above.
“Hilarious! Look at Caleb Prescott, still acting like he’s the heir to the Prescott fortune!”
“That idiot cut ties with his family to marry Ms. Forte. He’s nothing but a stay-at-home husband now. How dare he look down on Ryan, a man who actually works for a living? The nerve!”
“Ms. Forte is such a great boss! Punishing her spoiled husband for bullying an employee. We should all learn from her example.”
“So, any bets on how long Ms. Forte’s pretty little husband can last in there?”
“I give him ten minutes before he’s crying and begging for her to pull him out.”
The glacial water swallowed me whole, its icy fingers clawing at my skin. My tailored suit, now a dead weight, dragged me down, tangling around my limbs and making it impossible to stay afloat. More than once, I felt my lungs burn as I sank, convinced I was about to drown.
And every desperate, pathetic struggle was captured by the drone hovering above, a live feed of my misery.
Isabella’s voice crackled from a second drone’s speaker, sharp and imperious.
“Caleb, you want me to pull you out? Apologize to Ryan. Then, scream ‘Caleb Prescott is worthless’ three times.”
“Otherwise, you can forget about getting back on this boat. You can wait for the sharks to finish you off.”
Ryan’s voice, oozing with false concern, followed hers.
“Ms. Forte, I’m just a humble assistant. Mr. Prescott comes from a prestigious family. Making him apologize to me… wouldn’t that be too much to ask of him?”
“Prestigious? Ha! The Prescotts disowned him. If he wants to be my husband, he plays by my rules,” Isabella’s voice was a whip-crack. “If I tell him to kneel, he doesn’t dare stand!”
Her words hit me like a physical blow, plunging my heart into an icy abyss.
I had given up everything for her. I’d refused the arranged marriage my family wanted, severed all ties with them, all to be with Isabella.
And this was my reward.
Her chilling voice cut through the air again. “I warned you not to mess with Ryan. He’s a kind, gentle soul. But you wouldn’t listen, so don’t blame me for teaching you a lesson.”
Kind and gentle?
My mind flashed back to the day I’d visited her office. Ryan had “accidentally” spilled coffee all over himself, then run to Isabella with tears in his eyes.
“It wasn’t Mr. Prescott’s fault,” he’d stammered. “I was just being clumsy.”
Isabella’s face had hardened instantly. She wouldn’t listen to a word I said. She just warned me to stop causing trouble and threw me out of her building.
That afternoon, Ryan posted a photo of himself in a new, expensive suit. The caption read: It feels so good to be cherished!
When I confronted Isabella about it, she tore into me, accusing me of being petty and bored, telling me to get a job if I had so much time on my hands.
From then on, any time Ryan looked even slightly upset, Isabella automatically assumed it was my fault.
When he “tripped” and fell down a flight of stairs, she was convinced I had pushed him. She took a fruit knife and carved shallow cuts into my arm, one for each of his supposed bruises, forbidding me from treating them. She wanted me to feel what it was like to be hurt.
The memory faded, and the saltwater stinging my eyes mixed with tears.
I looked up at the drone, my lips moving, forming a single, silent sentence.
Isabella, I’m divorcing you.
Someone on the yacht must have read my lips and translated for her.
Isabella froze for a second.
Then I heard Ryan’s oily voice again. “Ms. Forte, maybe we should just pull him out. He’s still a Prescott, after all. What if he gets his family to come after our company?”
That was all it took. Isabella’s expression turned to stone.
“A disowned reject? He thinks he can threaten me with the Prescott name? Throw the bait in. Let’s see how his precious family helps him now.”

02
The moment she gave the order, crew members hauled over a massive crate of chum and dumped it into the water right where I was struggling.
The sea instantly erupted.
Swarms of fish descended, their frenzy creating a swirling vortex that sucked me under. I fought against the pull, kicking desperately for the surface, only to be dragged down again and again.
The livestream chat was going wild, placing bets on how much longer I could hold on. Someone even claimed they had audio equipment ready, just waiting to capture the moment I screamed that I was worthless.
“Sir, just apologize!” Ryan’s voice, a mockery of concern, drifted down. “You wouldn’t want to bring shame upon the Prescott family name, would you?”
Isabella’s voice followed, cold and self-righteous. “Ryan, you’re just too good. He’s been bullying you for weeks, taking advantage of his position as my husband. He even scratched the word ‘worthless’ on you with a knife. This ocean needs to wash away the filth from his soul.”
I wanted to scream that I’d never done any of those things.
But the vortex below me and the dead weight of my suit were a constant, suffocating force. Every time I opened my mouth to shout, the bitter, salty sea rushed in.
Ryan’s pathetic sobs echoed from the drone. “Ms. Forte, please don’t blame him. It’s all my fault. I’m just clumsy and I made him angry. It’s okay if he hits me or screams at me, or even forces me to drink from the toilet. I’ll do anything, as long as I can keep working by your side.”
“Caleb! You vile, disgusting creature! You made him drink from a toilet?” Isabella’s roar of fury was terrifying. “I was so wrong about you.”
She ordered her staff to bring cases of bottled water so Ryan could throw them at me.
He feigned reluctance. “Oh, I don’t know… What if I actually hurt him?”
“He deserves it,” Isabella spat. “For everything he’s done to you. Throw them. If anything happens, I’ll take full responsibility.”
“Ms. Forte, can we play too?” someone shouted from the deck.
“Go ahead,” she replied. “Just don’t kill him.”
A sick wave of excitement swept through the crowd on the yacht. They started grabbing whatever they could find and hurling it down at me.
CRACK.
Something sharp hit my forehead. A warm gush of blood streamed into my eyes. A barrage of objects rained down—bottles, ice cubes, pieces of fruit. I dodged what I could, but more of them found their mark. The cuts on my head multiplied, and the water around me began to bloom with red.
Through the chaos, I heard a voice speaking to Isabella.
“Ms. Forte, he doesn’t look good. This might be going too far.”
Isabella scoffed. “Relax. He won’t die. Caleb is the king of drama. This whole pathetic act is just to get your sympathy so I’ll pull him out. He’s a spoiled, vicious brat. If I don’t teach him a harsh lesson today, he’ll only get worse with Ryan. Besides, he’s not an idiot. If he was really in trouble, wouldn’t he be screaming for help? Have you heard him beg for his life even once?”
The other voice went quiet.
Their conversation, every single heartless word, reached my ears. Isabella’s indifference was a dagger, twisting deep in my chest. Just as my vision started to blur and I felt myself giving up, a fresh surge of adrenaline, born of pure rage, coursed through me.
Gritting my teeth, I used the last of my strength to tear off the suffocating suit jacket and shirt.

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