Chapter 19
Alister stomped his way through the mansion he was currently inside of with unstoppable force. He was like a wild, runaway carriage with no breaks as he barrelled through people carelessly.
Pushing everyone who tried to get in his way – women, men, even a child – he made his way deep inside. He didn’t need to ask for directions; he knew the entire layout by heart. He didn’t ask for permission, didn’t speak to another person as he stormed his way to his destination.
When he finally got to the double doors, he flung them both open and entered.
The woman inside gave a loud gasp of surprise as she was tying up the back of her dress. The man, still buttoning his tunic but otherwise fully dressed, turned to him suddenly, like he intended to fight.
His face went white at the sight of Alister, who was far bigger and younger than him.
“Has he paid?” he asked, turning his face towards the woman as he made his way to the man.
“Y-yes.” She ran forward with reaching hands. “Alister, wait.”
“Good.”
He grabbed the man by the shoulder of his tunic, dragged him to the door, and turned him so he was facing forward. He proceeded to kick him in the backside so he would stumble out of the room.
Alister slammed the door behind him so loudly, the thudding bang made the woman flinch.
He turned to his mother. Her shock had frozen her on the spot.
He was back after so few months at sea, and he was sure she was surprised. He hadn’t killed that man as he promised he would, which was probably even more shocking.
“What are you–”
“Where is Rosetta?”
He folded his arms across his chest, keeping his feet planted in a wide stance. His eyes were narrowed in mistrust, in suspicion, as he stared at his frail mother.
Her blond brows drew together, her head shaking just slightly from side to side. “I don’t know.”
For two months, he had sailed directly to Tortaya, thinking he’d catch up to her, that he’d see her ship if he headed this way.
He never did.
His frigate was faster than her galleon. He knew the truth, but he refused to accept it. He wanted her to have come here, to have given him a clue to find her. She knew his mother and had considered this a place of safety.
“You do. You know where she would have gone.”
She’d been here on and off for the past four years! If anyone knew where Rosetta had gone, it was Lillian.
“She left?”
“Aye, two months ago.”
Two long, terrible months.
While he’d sailed with tenacity and unbending resolve, something nasty had crawled its way inside him over time. His anger, his sense of betrayal, was accompanied with a pining he didn’t think he could handle.
It felt like a venomous, blue-ringed octopus had shuffled its way under his skin with its slimy, slithery limbs and clutched his heart in its tentacles. Squeezing it. Crushing it. Damaging it.
It was painful. It felt disgusting.
If he thought of her, the tentacles moved with a swirl of emotion to strangle his beating heart. Blood rushed through his veins in deep, pounding pumps, like it was going to explode in his chest from the force.
When he remembered she’d left him, that deadly octopus would nip with its beak to pang him.
Alister didn’t like it. He didn’t want to feel like this.
He refused to show his men the deep, ever-present agony. He was ashamed of it.
With a sigh, the tension in her shoulders lessened. “What did she take?”
“What do you mean?”
Everything. He felt like Rosetta had taken everything from him, which didn’t make much sense.
“If you’re this determined to find her, she must have stolen something. What did she take?”
“Father’s ring,” he answered, turning his head to the side to look at the wall.
“That’s all?” She gave him a scoffing huff, the noise bringing his focus back to her. “You don’t care for his ring much, and I can see you’re already wearing a replacement.”
He wiggled his hand, indeed feeling the ring on his finger. There was always a replica in the top drawer of his desk.
It was the one ring he didn’t want to be without, but being on a ship was wet. One slip of a rope, one wet and stormy night, could see any of his rings lost to the bottom of Davy Jones’ locker.
So, just like his father did, Alister always had a replica made and kept safe in the top drawer of his desk, exactly the same. He was sure his father, or perhaps even an earlier relative, had lost the original and had done the same.
“You said you know of her past, that she told you everything. Where would she have gone?”
It wasn’t often they had a standoff or argued about something. To see his mother fold her arms and turn her head to the side to dismiss him rather than answer him made his eyes narrow further.
“Leave her alone, Alister.” Her arms tightened further, her pale, bony hands turning into little weak fists. “Whatever she’s stolen, let her have it. Whatever she’s done, let it go.”
He couldn’t believe it! His own mother was taking Rosetta’s side, defending her against her own son.
“I will find her!”
When he did, he was going to wring her neck for leaving him. He was going to kiss those soft lips until they were so bruised and swollen, she would never forget the feel of his own against them.
Lillian threw her arms to the side and quickly raised one to point at him. Her brows were crinkled tightly, her eyes bowed in concern and worry.
“You will leave that girl alone!”
She came forward with fury, continuing to point at him until she reached his chest and poked him with quick jabs. His mother never had any fear of him. She knew, no matter what she did, no matter how many times she slapped him, hurt him, he would never lay a hand on her.
“Rosetta has been through enough torture at the hands of men!” she yelled, tears of sympathy filling her eyes. “She doesn’t need another man chasing after her for god knows what reasons just to hurt her! Theodore and the men of this town have done enough to break that woman.”
“She’s not broken,” he sneered. She was too free-spirited, too bubbly, too cheerful to be broken.
“That’s because you’re too blind to see the truth!
” She took in a shaking breath, trying to bring back her usual calm composure.
“I have seen that woman so terrified she refused to leave a cupboard for days because she was hiding from that cretin. I’ve seen her so broken that she couldn’t leave her own bed to eat.
I saw her break down when she got her first ship and crew because she couldn’t believe it after everything she’d been through. ”
She stepped away from him to place her hands on her cheeks, shaking her head with sadness. She stared at the floor, as though she couldn’t believe what she’d witnessed.
The more she spoke, however, the more Alister felt his arms loosening. His brows crinkled into a knot.
I’ve never seen these sides of her.
He’d never seen Rosetta cry, even when he’d found her three days after Mr Smith died. Even though he’d been concerned, even disappointed, that she may be grieving for a crew member when it was foolish to get attached, she’d never once cried during those days.
She’d giggled with him, had teased him for letting her lie against him while she got better from her flu.
Not once, in the months he’d been sailing with Rosetta, had he ever needed to comfort her. He’d never needed to bring her in for a caring hug.
“All the things she’s told me, I don’t think I would have survived it.
” His mother was strong in will, even if she wasn’t strong in body.
To hear her say this made his gut tighten.
“I thought raising you and your sister while working the streets was hard. I thought losing you was even harder, but what that girl has lost will never come back. What she has been through will never be erased.”
She turned her head back up to him, her hands sliding to cover her mouth like she wanted to hide her emotions.
“She lost her family, her friends, her home, everything in one day. She left a life of unimaginable wealth just to be free.” Once more, her face fell in sadness and sympathy, but her eyes held a beseeching hint in them.
“Don’t take that away from her, Alister.
Don’t make her run again. Please, I’m begging you.
Whatever she’s done to anger you, just let it go. She’s already been punished.”
Hearing this made that cruel octopus curl its tentacles tighter, making his chest ache so terribly, a coldness washed over him.
She’s been hiding it. Rosetta had tried not to allow the depth and darkness of her pain bubble to the surface around him. He knew it now, and he could remember seeing small peeks of it.
The day she’d gotten the Laughing Siren, she’d been embraced by Mr Smith. He’d thought it was in celebration, but even he’d been surprised by it, since she rarely hugged anyone, including him.
The last night they’d been at Tortaya, she’d revealed so much, making him want to reciprocate. He’d told her about his father, not realising she’d been feeling sorrow before he’d arrived, had been sharing a small fraction of how she felt about her past.
She told me she’s done things she wasn’t proud of. He thought she’d meant her time with his mother. Now, he was sure there was more than what he’d been told.
Learning just how deeply her pain ran from his own mother... well, that was a hard bit to swallow.
He finally unfurled his arms, palming the top of his head to run his hand over his hair. “I can’t.”
He didn’t want to make her fear for her own life by running across the sea like she had with Theodore, but Alister wasn’t bent on hurting her like he was.
He wanted her. He wanted to know why she left. Alister wanted to go after her more than anything.
“Tell me how to find her, Ma,” he almost pleaded, feeling his hand shaking as he ran his palm across the back of his neck. Alister couldn’t handle this woman not knowing he cared for her, not when it could be the reason she wasn’t with him.
And after what he had just learned... well, shit. He wanted to hold her in a warm embrace, see if he could help heal her wounds.
“Alister, please. I’ve never truly asked you for anything.” His face twisted in agony at her plea, and he turned his eyes away from her. “She–”
She suddenly paused.
A long, silence-filled moment thickened between them. He knew she was examining his soul with those green eyes that could always see through him.
“Oh, my dear, sweet boy.” She came forward to place her hands on both his cheeks, turning his face gently until he was forced to look at her. “I was telling her to guard her heart when I should have been telling you to guard yours.”
Her expression melted into something so remarkably soft that he knew she understood his feelings better than he did.
“You’re not after her because she’s wronged you. You’re after her because you love her.”
He wanted to deny it.
He wanted to laugh, as though what she’d said was ridiculous.
He couldn’t.
He’d never even contemplated what he’d been feeling was love. How could he, Alister ‘One Eye’ Paine, the Bloody Storm of the Seas, love anyone?
He was a murderer. He had so much blood on his hands, had killed so many people – how could he feel something so pure?
Hearing his mother tell him what he was feeling, he knew it was the truth.
I love her. He cringed at hearing his own mind say it for the first time. The tentacles around his heart squeezed tighter.
Lillian lowered her palms from his face so she could tug on his hands, dragging him to the table to sit.
“If you feel this way, why did you let her leave?”
He averted his gaze until she sat in front of him to hold one of his hands on the table.
“She left in the middle of the night,” he grumbled. “We anchored near some shallows. They took the watch and made sure no one was above deck to alert me her ship was leaving.”
“Then she probably doesn’t want you to follow her, dear.”
She started rubbing her thumb over the top of his hand in comforting circles. He barely appreciated the familiar warmth.
“Aye, I know that,” he admitted, his lips tightening. “But I’m still going to.”
“You might be chasing a woman who doesn’t want you.” Her brows crinkled in worry for him. “You might discover something you may not be able to handle.”
He gave a dark, humourless laugh.
“I don’t think so.” He finally brought his gaze to her. “She told me I could call her Rosie, Ma.”
He knew she would understand what that meant as much as he did. It was one of the reasons he was sure she felt the same way for him.
“Well, that’s awfully convincing.” She patted his hand before climbing to her feet. “I think we both need a drink.”
For his mother to say she wanted a drink of whiskey this early in the day, which she usually reserved for him, told him he’d fried her nerves.
“Nay,” he said, shaking his head as he pulled her to sit. “I don’t want a drink.”
Alister hadn’t let a drop of it, except from the grog water, touch his tongue since that night. He wanted to be clear-headed, and he worried that if he started to drink his sorrows away, he wouldn’t stop.
She gave him a strange look but sat back down.
“If she didn’t come here, where would she have gone?”
Lillian shook her head, the yellow waves of her hair bouncing. “I really don’t know. The world is a big place, Alister. You could be searching for her forever.”
His face clenched into a wince on one side.
The thing was, Rosetta was like him. She may not have a bounty on her head specifically, but there was already a bounty for the captain of the Laughing Siren.
They would soon realise that was her.
If she docked in any port that wasn’t a haven for pirates, she and her crew would be arrested.
He just needed to jump from port to port to eventually find her, or at least find people who had seen her ship.