Read Chapter 24: The Governor's Gambit

The harbor at Santo Domingo stank of tar, rotting fish, and the particular musk of men who believed themselves safe behind stone walls. Aidan watched the governor’s mansion from the shadow of a chandler’s shop, its whitewashed walls glowing sickly in the lantern light of early evening. Edmund stood beside him, wrists bound loosely, his young face a mask of sullen dread.

“He’ll have guards at every door,” the boy said. “Papa doesn’t receive strangers after dark.”

“Good,” Aidan replied. “Then a stranger is exactly what he’ll expect least.”

He had left the surviving crew anchored in a mangrove cove two miles north, with orders to wait until dawn and no longer. If he wasn’t back by first light, they were to scatter and find their own fortunes. Darrow had protested from his stretcher, but the old man could barely lift his head, let alone a musket. Aidan had pressed the brass key—the one from Vane—into Darrow’s palm and told him to keep it safe. Some instinct told him not to carry every secret into a governor’s house.

The plan was simple. Edmund would present Aidan as a Royal Navy courier bearing dispatches from the fort—dispatches that would, with any luck, send the governor into a rage of confusion long enough for Aidan to get close. A knife at the throat, a confession dragged out of him, and a way out of this colony before the noose remembered his name.

He never got within ten paces of the door.

The alley behind the chandler’s shop erupted with booted feet. Aidan spun, hand going to his pistol, but a musket butt caught him across the temple before he could clear it from his belt. The world went white, then red, then black.

He woke to the smell of piss and mildew. Stone walls. Iron bars. The cell was barely six feet across, and the floor was slick with something he chose not to examine. His head throbbed in rhythm with his heartbeat, and when he touched his temple, his fingers came away sticky.

“You look worse than I feel.”

Aidan’s eyes snapped to the corner of the cell. A figure sat propped against the wall, one leg bent at an unnatural angle, his face a ruin of bruise and dried blood. Vincente. The Spanish spy he had shot in the brig what felt like a lifetime ago.

“You’re dead,” Aidan said. “I put a ball through your chest.”

Vincente laughed, a wet, rattling sound. “Through my shoulder, you bastard. Missed the heart by half an inch. The governor’s men fished me out of the wreckage after you lit out. Seemed I was worth more to them alive than dead.” He shifted, grimacing. “They were wrong. The governor doesn’t pay debts. He collects them.”

Aidan tested the bars. Solid iron, set deep in the stone. No give. “Where’s the boy?”

“Edmund?” Vincente’s cracked lips twisted. “Safe in his father’s house, I imagine. He told them everything. The fort, the key, your plans. All of it. The governor knew you were coming before you ever set foot in his harbor.”

A cold fury settled in Aidan’s gut. “I’ll kill him.”

“You’ll hang first.” Vincente dragged himself closer, leaving a smear of blood on the floor. “The governor has made a pact with a hunter named Corvus. A privateer who takes pirates for the bounty, no questions asked. He was already in the harbor when the dispatch from the fort arrived. By morning, Corvus will have your crew’s names and your descriptions. He’ll hunt them down one by one and string them from the yardarm.”

Aidan’s jaw tightened. “And what does the governor get out of it?”

“Your head, for one. And the pleasure of watching the man who threatened his son swing from the gibbet.” Vincente’s eyes glittered in the dim light. “But that’s not the whole of it. He’s been selling supplies to the French for two years. Powder, shot, salt beef. All under the crown’s seal, all paid for by the colony’s coffers. The treasury he ‘lost’ wasn’t lost at all. It’s his personal war chest, sitting in a vault beneath his house, funding both sides of this damned war so that whichever flag flies over Santo Domingo, he profits.”

Aidan stared at him. “That’s why he framed the pirates. The Edict of Seclusion, the pirate hunts—it was all to cover his private trade.”

“Now you see it.” Vincente nodded, wincing as the movement pulled at his wound. “And now you see why he can’t let you live. You know too much. I know too much. We’re both dead men the moment his patience runs out.”

“Then why tell me?”

Vincente was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was quieter. “Because I was a spy, yes. But I was also a soldier once. A man who believed in honor. The governor used me, just as he uses everyone. And I find I would rather see him fall than see you swing.” He motioned to the wall behind him. “The guard changes in two hours. He comes alone, and he carries the keys on a ring at his belt. If you can get him close enough to the bars, I can get the keys.”

“You can barely stand.”

“I can still kill one man.” Vincente’s smile was bloody and grim. “But I want something in return. When you get out, when you expose the governor—testify. Tell the colonial assembly what I told you. Clear my name, such as it is. Let them know Vincente Álvarez died serving the crown, not the governor’s purse.”

Aidan met his gaze. “You have my word.”

Two hours crawled past like a wounded snake. When the guard finally appeared, a fat man with a lantern and a whetstone in hand, Vincente began to moan. Loud, pitiful sounds that drew the guard close.

“Shut your mouth in there,” the guard growled, rattling his keys. “Or I’ll come in and shut it for you.”

“Please,” Vincente gasped. “Water. Just a sip. I’m dying.”

The guard sighed, fished a key from the ring, and stepped within reach of the bars. Vincente moved faster than Aidan would have believed possible. His good arm shot through the gap, caught the guard’s wrist, and yanked. The guard’s face smashed against the iron, and Vincente’s other hand snaked up, snatching the keys from his belt. The guard staggered back, cursing, hand going for his knife, but Aidan was already through the door Vincente had flung open, and his fist connected with the guard’s throat.

The man crumpled.

Vincente followed, dragging his broken leg, pale as death. They made it down the corridor and out into the prison yard before Vincente stumbled. Aidan caught him.

“Go,” Vincente gasped. “The gate. I’ll hold them off.”

“You’ll die.”

“I’m already dead.” Vincente shoved him hard. “Remember your word, gunner. Remember mine.” He turned, drawing the guard’s knife, and limped back toward the sound of shouting men.

Aidan ran. Behind him, he heard Vincente scream a challenge, then the wet, meaty crunch of steel finding flesh. The sound followed him through the gate and into the night, and he did not look back.

He found the crew in the mangrove cove, exactly where he had left them. They gathered around him, questions dying on their lips at the look on his face. Darrow was awake, propped against the mast, his eyes sharp despite the wound in his side.

“Well?” the old gunner asked.

Aidan unslung a satchel he had lifted from the prison guard. Inside were papers. The governor’s correspondence. Supply manifests stamped with French seals. Ledgers that showed the true movement of the colony’s gold.

“The governor didn’t lose the treasury,” Aidan said, his voice flat. “He spent it. On powder and shot and salt beef, sold to both sides of this war. Every pirate he hanged was just an excuse to keep the books closed.”

He spread the documents on the deck, lantern light flickering over the damning columns of figures. The crew leaned in, faces shifting from confusion to fury as the scale of the corruption became clear.

“He made his fortune off the blood of this colony,” Aidan continued. “And he plans to make a bit more by selling us to a hunter named Corvus. But he’s made a mistake.” Aidan looked up, meeting each of their eyes in turn. “He thinks we’re cornered. He thinks we’ll run. He thinks the word of a pirate means nothing against the word of a governor.”

He smiled, and it was not a pleasant smile.

“Tomorrow, we prove him wrong.”