The yacht, The Neptune’s Crown, felt less like a vessel and more like a floating stage for the worst impulses of the obscenely wealthy. It wasn’t just a boat; it was a monument to excess, a seventy-meter behemoth of gleaming white fiberglass, polished teak, and gaudy gold fittings that glittered under the cold, indifferent stars. The exclusive champagne being poured by silent, uniformed staff only amplified the toxic atmosphere curated by the Johnson family, a dynasty notorious for their arrogant, almost theatrical scorn toward anyone they deemed socially or financially inferior.
My sister, Clara, stood beside me, her knuckles white as she gripped the railing. I, Anna, observed the scene, my role for the evening, as always, to be the calm anchor in the storm of my sister’s marriage. Clara was married to John Johnson Jr., who was supposed to be her protector, her partner. Instead, he was the leader of the pack, the chief tormentor, a man seemingly determined to use this public gathering of his family’s most important business associates to assert his dominance in the cruelest way possible.
“Look at them,” John sneered, his voice a stage whisper designed to carry across the deck to his parents and their sycophantic guests. He gestured vaguely toward my family’s humble background, a topic he wielded like a weapon. “They look like they won a lottery ticket just to smell our air. You can take the girl out of the trailer park, but you can’t take the trailer park out of the girl, can you, darling?” he added, looking directly at Clara.
