Read Chapter 22: The Empty Vault

The fort’s heart was a hollow wound. The vault door hung open, its iron band splintered where the governor’s own men had forced it from within. Aidan stepped over the threshold, musket low, and found nothing but scuffed flagstones and the sour smell of fear.

Then he heard the breathing.

It came from behind a stack of empty crates in the far corner—shallow, panicked, the sound a child makes when trying not to cry. Aidan lowered his weapon and crossed the vault in three strides. He swept the crates aside with one arm and found a boy of perhaps nine years, pressed into the corner with his knees drawn to his chest. The boy’s clothes were fine once—blue velvet and silver buttons—but now they were smeared with mortar dust from the collapsed wall behind him. His eyes were wide and wet.

“Don’t shoot,” the boy whispered. “Please. I’ll tell you where the gold is.”

Aidan crouched, bringing himself to the boy’s eye level. “The gold’s not here, is it?”

The boy shook his head, a jerky motion. “He took it. Took the big carts and the servants and the chests. He left me.”

“Who?”

“My father.”

Aidan studied the boy’s face—the pale skin, the slight Englishness of his accent, the way his fingers twisted in his coat. “The governor,” Aidan said. “You’re his son.”

The boy nodded, and something broke loose in his expression. A sob escaped him, quickly swallowed. “He said the pirates would come and that I was to hide until they left. But they didn’t leave. They’re everywhere.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Are you going to kill me?”

Aidan glanced over his shoulder. Beyond the vault door he could hear the distant crackle of musket fire from the parapets, where Osei and Groves had taken positions against the approaching Royal Navy ships. The fort was a cage, and every minute they stayed inside it, the bars tightened.

“No,” Aidan said. “Get up.”

He reached for the boy’s arm and hauled him to his feet. The child was light, trembling, but he did not resist. As Aidan turned him toward the light spilling through the door, he noticed the leather cord around the boy’s neck. Hanging from it was a small brass key, tarnished and worn, its bow shaped like a fleur-de-lis.

“What’s that?” Aidan asked.

The boy’s hand flew to his chest, covering the key. “Nothing.”

Aidan caught his wrist gently but firmly. “I didn’t ask if it was nothing. I asked what it is.”

The boy’s chin trembled. “It opens my father’s safe.”

“Where’s the safe?”

“In his house. In the capital.” The boy’s eyes flicked to the side, and Aidan knew he was deciding whether to lie. He decided not to. “He has a house in Santo Domingo. Behind the cathedral. He keeps his private papers there.”

Aidan’s mind raced. The governor had fled with the treasury—the real treasury—leaving this decoy fort to burn. But he hadn’t taken everything. There were papers, records, the sort of documents that convicted a man of embezzlement and treason. If Aidan could reach Santo Domingo, if he could lay his hands on those papers and expose the governor for what he was—

“What’s your name?” Aidan asked.

“Edmund.”

“Edmund. You’re going to come with me. You’re going to show me that safe. And if you behave yourself, I won’t hurt you. Do you understand?”

Edmund swallowed and nodded. He was trying to be brave, Aidan could see it, the same desperate courage he’d seen in boys pressed into service aboard men-of-war. It made something twist in his chest.

“What’s your name?” Edmund asked.

Aidan almost laughed. “Not a name you need to know, lad. Come on.”

---

They found Groves in the courtyard, reloading his pistol behind an overturned cart while Osei and the others traded fire with the redcoats massing on the beach below. The fort’s guns had fallen silent—the governor’s men had spiked them before they fled, leaving only small arms to defend the walls.

Groves looked up as Aidan approached with the boy in tow. His eyes narrowed.

“Bloody hell, O’Malley. We’re fighting for our lives and you’ve gone and adopted a child?”

“He’s the governor’s son.”

Groves’s pistol nearly slipped from his fingers. “The governor’s—you mean the same governor who just emptied this fort and left us to the Royal Navy? That governor?”

“The very same.” Aidan glanced at the beach. Three ships lay at anchor beyond the reef, their launches already cutting through the water, packed tight with red-coated marines. “We can’t hold this fort. And we can’t run—not with those ships between us and open water.”

“So what do we do?”

Aidan looked at Edmund. “We go where the governor went. Santo Domingo.”

Groves stared at him as if he’d suggested sailing to the moon. “That’s a Spanish stronghold. We’d be hanged before we reached the harbor.”

“Not if we’re not pirates anymore.” Aidan pulled the royal commission from his coat—the one he’d stolen from Vane’s chest, the one that named him a King’s officer with authority to press seamen into service. “We sail in as a royal press gang. A shattered one, survivors of the wreck, seeking the governor to report our losses. They’ll believe it.”

“And the boy?”

“Hostage. Insurance. If anyone doubts us, Edmund here will vouch that we’re his father’s men.” Aidan crouched, gripping Edmund’s shoulder. “Isn’t that right, Edmund?”

The boy nodded slowly. He was sharp, this one. Smart enough to know which way the wind blew.

Groves shook his head, but a grim smile tugged at his mouth. “You’re mad, O’Malley. Properly, certifiably mad.”

“The best plans usually are.” Aidan rose and scanned the courtyard. Osei was crouched near the collapsed gate, firing at the advancing marines. Beyond him, three men lay dead—new names added to the fort’s tally. “Where’s Darrow?”

“Still on the reef, last I saw. The wreck’s hull is above water. He was alive when I looked.”

“Can we reach him?”

Groves thought about it. “There’s a skiff on the east beach. Small, but seaworthy. If we slip out under the fort’s sea wall, we can make it before the marines close.”

Aidan nodded. “Do it. Get everyone to the boat. I’ll grab whatever provisions I can and meet you there.”

---

The east beach was shielded from the Royal Navy’s view by a low ridge of broken coral and the fort’s own crumbling bastion. The skiff was exactly where Groves remembered, half-buried in sand but intact. Aidan counted heads as the crew scrambled aboard—nine men, Edmund pressed between Osei and a one-eyed gunner named Tallow. Groves took the tiller.

Aidan was the last to board. He looked back at the fort one final time, at the smoke curling from its walls and the redcoats swarming over its parapets like ants over a sugar bowl. Somewhere in the confusion inside, a brass key lay in the mud, lost by Vane in the chaos. Aidan still had the one from Captain Vane’s chest—the eagle-and-crown key, the one Vane had nearly killed for. It had to mean something. He didn’t know what yet, but he’d find out.

He shoved the skiff into the surf and climbed aboard.

They rounded the point and found the Sea Wyvern’s wreck, a blackened ribcage of charred timber and snapped masts, wedged against the reef. Darrow was exactly where the storm had pinned him—a broken spar across his legs, his face pale as driftwood, but alive. His eyes found Aidan as the skiff pulled alongside.

“You came back,” Darrow rasped.

“I’m not in the habit of leaving captains behind,” Aidan said, though they both knew that wasn’t entirely true.

They hauled Darrow aboard with as much care as the cramped space allowed, laying him across the thwarts. His wounded hand had gone black along the edges, and his breath rattled in his chest. He looked at Edmund, then at Aidan, and a spark of understanding lit his eyes.

“The governor’s boy?”

“He’s our ticket to Santo Domingo.”

Darrow laughed—a wet, broken sound. “You mean to chase him, then. To the capital itself.” He coughed, and blood flecked his lips. “You’ve got more nerve than I ever gave you credit for, O’Malley.”

Aidan settled at the bow, watching the fort grow small in the distance. Behind them, the Royal Navy ships were still massing, preparing their assault on the empty shell they thought held the treasure. They’d find nothing but ashes and the governor’s taunting gold leaf.

But Aidan would find the governor himself. And when he did, he would have the boy, the key, and the truth.

He wasn’t sure which was more dangerous.