Storm over the Caribbean

32. The Mastermind Comes Knocking

"To success, men!" Roared Captain Rockface, who, by now, had settled down with his newly arrived sailors and was celebrating. "To gold and silver, all ours to plunder!"

Yep, definitely. Rikkard Ambrose would never do something as dastardly as stealing.

"To success!" the enthusiastic pirates roared, smashing their tankards together in a toast. "To the captain!"

"Drink, men, drink!" my dear husband shouted, lifting his tankard. "The one who's the last to fall unconscious will get ten gold sovereigns!"

And the others will get nothing, no doubt. I smirked.

The pirates happily cheered and began to guzzle their drinks, blissfully ignorant that they had just signed away their share of booty.

Speaking of which...where was my share?

...

Goddammit! That bloody son of a bachelor managed to cut my pay again! And this time, he didn't even bother to tell me!

But before I could stalk over to Captain Rockface and test his new nickname with a good punch, my attention was drawn by a shout from the shore.

"A ship! A ship approaching!"

Now, normally, this would be nothing out of the ordinary. Vessels of the pirate fleet left and arrived at this place all the time. But there was one problem with that: currently, the entire pirate fleet was anchored at the island.

Crap!

I leapt out of the treasure cave, or at least tried to until the weight in my belly reminded me I wasn't particularly aerodynamic right now. By the time I managed to struggle over the rocks at the entrance, Mr Ambrose was already halfway to the beach. Moments later, he reached the palm on top of which our lookout was posted. The lookout who was currently waving and shouting. He leapt down, his ashen face becoming visible for all.

"Sir...Captain, they...they...!"

"Calm down, man!" Mr Ambrose barked, stopping the man's blabbering. "What is the matter?"

"It...it's them, Captain Rockface, Sir!"

"Them? Be clear!"

"A-aye aye, Sir! You...you remember the disagreement you had with our last captain, Sir?"

"You mean the one during which I killed him? Yes, I do have a faint memory of that."

"You remember how he told you we were being paid by people not to attack anyone except ships owned by this one filthy rich tosser?"

A muscle in the cheek of said filthy rich tosser twitched. "Oh yes, I do."

"Well...that's them. The people who paid us. The people we screwed over."

At that, all the other pirates paled. Well...all of them except Mr Ambrose, as I happened to notice. Reaching out, he put a hand on the panicking lookout's shoulder.

"Don't you worry. Yes, we 'screwed them over', as you put it. But do you know what's more important?"

"N-no?"

"They don't know it was us."

Slowly, very slowly, a devious grin spread over the lookout's face.

"You mean..."

"I do indeed."

The rest of the pirates started grinning as well.

***

In the harbour of a certain coastal city, a certain ship was approaching a pier. Soon, the ship had dropped anchor, and the gangplank was being lowered—although, for some reason, the captain seemed to be behaving strangely hesitantly.