Chapter 24
Alister stared at the woman in front of him. Her curly hair was a fiery red, framing deep-brown eyes widened in shock and fear.
Then his bewildered gaze greeted someone else.
“Elizabeth, leave,” Rosetta demanded. “Go to my room and stay there.”
Alister didn’t dare grab her as the stranger ran past him. He was too busy staring at the other person in the room.
A baby? His head reared back in confusion. Why the hell would Rosetta have a baby on her bloody ship?
It was bundled up in a soft-looking grey blanket, all tucked in and warm, resting in a small, child-sized hammock.
Deep-blue eyes looked back at him, observing him, while little hands waved in the air as it squirmed and kicked. With a tuft of fluffy black hair on top of its head, Alister knew it didn’t belong to the woman who had just run from the room.
The strange sound he’d heard was this child struggling to be free of its blanket. It wasn’t hard to know who those blue eyes belonged to, not when he’d been staring at them only moments ago.
His own widened. “You knew you were pregnant. That’s why you left.”
“Yes.”
His stomach tightened, while everything else inside him seemed to release. Alister had his answer.
A sense of ease pulsed through his system, and the dagger fell from his limp hand. It clanked against the floor, but the sound seemed distant in comparison to the thoughts that raced through his mind, the emotions that ensnared him.
He went to take a step forward, but she shoved that pistol harder against him. “I told you. If you move, I’ll shoot you.”
Alister put his hands up in surrender.
“It’s my child, Rosetta!” He wouldn’t allow her to keep him from his own child!
Shit. I’m a father. It was freshly born, couldn’t be more than a month old.
“I don’t know who he belongs to,” she callously rebuffed.
“Aye! You fucking do.”
It may have blue eyes like her, but its hair was as black as his.
“I don’t know who his father is.” He heard the sneer in her voice, knew her eyes must be squinted into a glare that he thought he could feel the cold stab of in the back of his head. “I had plenty of fun in Tortaya.”
Such words cut him terribly. “With me, lass!”
She could lie as much as she wanted, but Alister knew. He knew, looking at this child, that it belonged to him. She’d referenced a boy twice now. I have a son.
What she’d said to him earlier suddenly made perfect sense. This was the man she loved. A child, her child, their child. Of course, Alister could never compete with him.
He also didn’t have to.
“You will let me meet my son!”
“N-no. He’s mine.” He heard a tremble in her voice before she cleared her throat. “If you want to live, you will forget you ever saw him.”
“Nay! Never.”
How could he? What she was asking of him was ridiculous. How was he supposed to just sail away and forget that she’d had his child? That he was on the seas and Alister had no idea where he was? That he couldn’t return to him to make sure he was well?
She’d left him in the middle of the night to steal his child away with no intention of telling him he had one! How fucking dare she!
“He’s mine!” she yelled, and he thought he might have even heard her stamp her foot. “Y-you can’t have him.”
The gun pressed to the back of his head started to shake. Her hand was trembling and Alister recognised if he didn’t get it away from her, she might actually shoot him.
“I won’t let you take him away.”
He turned his head slowly so he could look back at her through a spiteful squint. “You have no right to–”
His words were cut short by the sound of a sharp sob before he even took in the sight of her.
Alister quickly ducked his head to the side and back, bringing the pistol next to his face so it was pointed at the wall. He swiftly reached for it, grabbing it from her before she had the chance to pull the trigger.
When he turned to her, she flinched so deeply, it made his stomach twist in gut-wrenching agony. She thought he was going to hit her – just like Theodore, just like every other man she’d known.
Holding the pistol, he hooked his free hand around the back of her head and yanked her towards him. He pressed her face against his chest, slipping his arms around her shoulders to keep her to him.
“No!”
She bashed the bottoms of her fists against him, hitting him randomly across his shoulders with weak, little punches.
A shuddering, trembling, heart-rending cry fell from her as she started to weep against him. It was slow to build, but grew stronger with each passing second that he refused to let her go – no matter how much she struggled to get away.
For the first time since he’d met her, Alister was seeing Rosetta’s pain.
What he’d seen when he’d turned around was a blotchy, agonised, swollen red face of tears. Her forehead had been so scrunched with fear and anxiety that it nearly felled him the moment he saw it.
Seeing those drops falling freely from her eyes and moving down her cheeks had felt like a slap across the face. Alister coming here was the catalyst, and he didn’t like that he was.
When she realised bashing on him wasn’t working, she gave up on trying to get away. She curled her fingers into his tunic to grip it tightly, burying her face against him.
“Y-you can’t have him. You can’t take him away from me. P-please...” It was a desperate plea.
Rosetta was begging him, and he held her tighter because of it. She left because she was afraid I’d take him like my father did me. Rosetta was afraid of ending up like his mother.
Why wouldn’t she be? If it had been done to his mother, in Rosetta’s eyes, why wouldn’t he have followed in his father’s footsteps?
She’s already had one child taken from her. One that had never even taken a breath, one he now could see she had desperately wanted.
He didn’t understand it, but with how much pain she was in now, Alister knew she had wanted that bastard’s child. He’d originally thought she might have been relieved in some way to not have birthed it, but she wouldn’t be this frantic and hysterical if she was.
He uncocked the hammer to his pistol and gently dropped it to the floor so he could free his hand and pat the back of her hair. So as to not spook her, he slowly brought her in for a comforting hug, surrounding her in his arms.
This poor woman.
“I’m not going to take our son from you, Rosetta.” A louder cry sounded from her at his words, almost like a shriek, and he felt her clutch his tunic tighter. “He’s yours.”
Her entire body began to tremble, her feet slipping beneath her like they couldn’t take the weight of what she was feeling.
“I’m sorry!” She sucked in a shaking breath before it came out as a squeaking yet quiet heave. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You should have told me.”
She started to weep harder as she shook her head. “I c-couldn’t.”
He was thankful he was already holding her as her legs gave way. He lifted her, supporting her small frame on her useless legs as everything inside seemed to give.
“I-I didn’t know what you’d do. I didn’t know if you would try to make me get rid of him.”
Fuck... what kind of person does she see me as? Was it just because of how the men had treated her in the past? He wanted to believe Rosetta didn’t truly see him as that kind of monster; otherwise, why would she have stayed with him so long?
Alister turned his head to the ceiling, trying to draw strength from it. He was trying to kill his anger, trying to snuff it.
His mother had been right, and he’d been blind this entire time. She’s broken. A scared, confused, broken woman who did everything she could to protect herself.
Alister couldn’t blame her for this, not when it wasn’t rational, just as him chasing her halfway around the world hadn’t been rational.
“I-I knew it was wrong,” she started, “to just leave in the middle of the night without telling you. But I didn’t know how you would react, and I was so scared.”
“How long did you know?” How long had she kept this secret from him before leaving?
“Um... a month.”
He’d not once noticed.
She’d been napping through the day. Eating more. Had spent less time at the helm. He’d even thought she was putting on weight.
“And you chose that night because it was easier to trick us so you could leave quietly, and you had the coin to last you.”
She gave another sob, this time nodding her head.
Everything made sense.
If I didn’t go after her, I would never have known.
“I want to meet him, Rosetta.”
She finally turned her head up to him, and he winced at the state of her, the obvious pain and guilt in her eyes.
“You will let me hold him,” he demanded in a deadly tone as he looked down at her solemnly.
The way her brows furrowed said she didn’t want to let him, as if she worried he might bolt with him the moment he had him in his arms. She eventually – finally – nodded.
When she started to settle, Alister set her back on her feet, bracing her until she was steady. Then he backed up from her, eyeing her carefully as he moved towards the hammock. He may have been a little worried she’d dive for the pistol.
With her hands clasped in front of her near her chest, she watched him as he turned to look down at his son.
He hesitantly reached up and removed his eye patch, wanting him to look up at all of his father for the first time.
Gently and carefully, so as not to hurt or crush him in his meaty hands, Alister scooped the boy up. He slid him around in his arms until his head was tucked near his elbow.
He only needed one arm to hold him, cushioning him completely across his forearm.
Rosetta gave him a few minutes to soak in his first moments with him alone. He didn’t seem to mind Alister’s ghastly appearance as he cooed at him, happy to be free of the hammock and blanket before giving a joyful squeal.
A small smile curled Alister’s lips.