Chapter 19 #2
That meant Rosetta had once been a tea drinking, dress wearing, high society woman who would never have fought back.
Could never have fought back.
He was almost twice her age, stronger than her, bigger than her. Alister could only imagine the kind of damage this man had done to her.
Theodore uselessly threw his hands up in surrender with a terrified expression as Alister raised his cutlass, preparing to cut the man down with a growl in the back of his throat. He wanted to exact revenge for a woman who couldn’t have done it herself.
There may have been another emotion pushing him... one envious of everything this man ever possessed and he never had. Power, wealth, freedom, Rosetta.
The barrel of a gun pressed to his temple.
“I told you to stay out of this,” Rosetta said, pulling back the hammer of her pistol.
He heard it clicking back in his left eardrum, but he couldn’t see her; she was standing on his blind side.
Alister’s gaze narrowed on Theodore, who gave him a smirk. He slowly released the collar of the commodore’s shirt.
She saved him.
Rosetta had protected her husband from him.
Alister took two steps back, and she turned her weapon to Theodore’s smirking face, which instantly fell.
“I have waited three years for this, Theodore.”
Once more, the man threw his hands up in surrender. “Whatever you’ve done, Rosie, I’ll forgive you. Just put the gun down before you accidentally hurt someone.”
A snort of laughter came from her. “No.”
“We’ll get you the help you need,” he offered, gesturing a hand towards her in hopes she would take it. “Please, dove.”
“What? Like some loony house for women?” She stamped her foot, her lips turning into an irritated pout. “I don’t need any help! I’m not fucking crazy!”
“I know things were hard for you after you lost our child.”
The things Alister was learning this day were just becoming more and more damning.
“I didn’t lose it!” She stamped her foot again, but this time, her face screwed up into a terrible expression of anguish. “You hit me so hard I fell down the stairs! You killed our baby!”
“I did no such thing! I only shoved you a little, but you’ve never been steady on your feet.”
Not once in the three weeks that Alister had known Rosetta had he ever seen her trip or fall, even when drunk or when the sea was turning with violent waves.
“You still can’t admit to it.” Her hand was beginning to shake, her heavy gun quaking in the air. “You believe your own stupid lies.”
It took Alister longer than it should have to realise her face had turned bright red with tears. Real tears.
She won’t kill him. Alister almost wanted to laugh. And she told me she didn’t have a tortured past.
This had never been about procuring the Laughing Siren.
This whole endeavour had been about a wife trying to get her husband to change, to apologise, to get her own version of revenge.
I was used as a tool. To get her here, to cheat on this man, to hurt him. Alister knew, at the end of this day, she would go back to her husband, just as she was supposed to.
He and his men, her men, were like cattle to the slaughter. She would defend her husband’s life – had already done so twice. She was going to get them all hung.
What should I care what he does with her? By law, she was his property. He could do what he wanted. Take her without her consent. Beat her. Put her in a looney house. Keep her locked up for the rest of her life.
It was cruel, but that was the society in which they lived.
Rosetta was no longer a weak woman, and he was sure she would teach Theodore Briggs to keep his hands to himself.
Rosetta Briggs. Alister’s upper lip curled back a little into a hateful sneer as he stared at the crying woman. She had deceived him, tricked him, lied to him in so many ways, and he was no longer interested. She won’t shoot him.
He would leave her to her chosen fate.
He couldn’t find it in himself to hurt her for deceiving him when he really should, but he wouldn’t stick around to be captured because of her.
He turned away from them, quickly heading down the stairs of the quarterdeck without even wanting to look back.
“Pierre!” Alister yelled, seeing the man at the bottom of the steps. “Get us the fuck off this ship.”
“What about Rosetta?” he asked, his green eyes darting to her. “I saw she was with you.”
Pierre raised his sword to deflect an enemy before someone else killed the attacker while he was distracted.
“We’ve been duped. I’ll explain later.” He threw his arm forward. “Call the Howling Death before it’s too late–”
A loud bang sounded off behind him. He ducked, thinking the bullet was aimed at him. A moment later, a bone-crushing thud filled his ears.
His head turned to find the body of Theodore Briggs lying on the ground, a bullet hole replacing his right eye socket.
With his mouth agape, he turned his head further to look up at Rosetta, still holding the pistol with smoke coming from the barrel.
She shot him. He couldn’t believe it.
“Commodore Theodore Briggs is dead!” she shouted from above. “Lower your weapons or you’ll join him.”
Alister’s gaze fell onto the main deck. Already, his men had started to turn the tide, spraying the blood of more soldiers than their own.
There weren’t many left to protect the Laughing Siren above the surface.
With her shout, they began to drop their weapons, seeing they weren’t going to be able to win.
“I am now the captain of this ship.” Her eyes trailed across the deck, over every person standing. “Bring everyone trapped below deck to the surface. If they fight, kill them.”
A stunned Alister was shoved out of the way by Mr Smith, who bolted up the stairs to join her. Naeem was helping the men rally up the soldiers.
What did this mean for him?
His gaze found Theodore dead on the ground. How was he supposed to feel now that he knew she’d killed this man? That she’d been determined to take his life for everything he’d done to her? That she’d truly wanted the Laughing Siren and was planning on sailing it?
It meant her truths had been shadowed with hidden things rather than complete lies. He hadn’t been completely deceived... again, by her. Alister had his own secrets, surely not as damning as this, but still secrets he’d rather not share.
“Mr Smith, get us out of here,” she told the man.
He ran to the helm to take control of the ship before she’d even finished speaking.
When Alister turned on the staircase to confront her, she walked to the one on the other side. Her heavy stomps thudded against the timber as she strode down the stairs with purpose.
She was avoiding him.
“What do you want us to do with them?” one of the men of her original crew asked when she reached the bottom.
After walking over to Theodore’s body, she started casually digging into his pockets to pull out a ring of keys. She jiggled them in her hands while she thought for long moments until she stood up straight, her stare fierce as she looked at them.
“Dead men tell no tales.” She made her way to the door of the main cabin.
One man scrambled forward, his shoulders swaying from side to side as he struggled against his bindings and the men pulling him back. He was most likely Samuel Lester, the first officer.
He tripped and fell to his knees. “Rosetta, you can’t do this!”
She paused, turning back with a such a bored expression, it almost appeared sinister and mean. “Why not?”
“Because I’m your brother!”
The cold look she gave the man with light-brown hair, blue eyes, and freckles across his face, just like hers, was bone chilling.
“Rosetta Silver doesn’t have any family.” She turned her back on him and leaned closer to Naeem as she went to open the door. “Make sure this ship gets out of here and that they’re all dead.”
She slammed the door behind her.
“Rosetta!” Samuel yelled at the closed door. “Wait, please!”
Naeem stalked forward and grabbed the man by the collar. The pirate holding him let him go, but his hands were bound behind his back with rope.
“You don’t get to ask for mercy.” Samuel struggled in Naeem’s grip, his eyes stark with fear for his life. “You knew what was happening and you did nothing about it!”
“She was his wife, and he was my commanding officer. What was I supposed to do?”
“Not nothing! You saw everything, and you still kept quiet.” Naeem pulled his fist back and punched the man across the face.
His head twisted to the side as spittle flung from his mouth.
“Do you know the kind of lashings I received for trying to help her, a servant of their household who dare to touch a noblewoman?” He punched him again.
“You did nothing to save her, so why should she save you?”
“I know.” Her brother’s eyes crinkled in what seemed like genuine misery. “I’ve regretted it ever since she went missing.”
“Missing?” Naeem released a dark laugh, letting go of his coat to stand back.
“She was never lost, mate.” He pulled his sword from its sheath and pressed it to Samuel’s throat.
“We planned before we ever left the mansion that we would come back and kill him. We were never lost, Sammy. We’ve always been on course to this future.
” The smile Naeem gave was one of the biggest Alister had ever seen.
“Freedom, lad. That’s all she’s ever asked of us, and that’s what we all now have. ”
Freedom. Alister remembered her men had chanted that singular word when he’d told them to abandon her and join his crew. They started chanting it now, confusing his own men and the soldiers tied up.
Without warning, Naeem slit her brother’s throat, pouring a waterfall of blood down his torso.
They’d all known. They’d all known what Rosetta had planned, why she planned it. They had all agreed to help her.
Alister turned from the chanting men and headed for the cabin. It felt like there was a fire in his stomach, burning higher with every second that passed. It threatened to scald him further with everything new he learned.