Read Chapter 26: The Aftermath of the Storm

The Sea Serpent groaned beneath them, a sound Mack felt in his teeth. She listed five degrees to port, her deck slick with spray and the scattered debris of the storm. The sky had cleared to a hard, brittle blue, but the sea still ran heavy, gray-green and heaving like a creature catching its breath.

Mack stood at the rail, the salt crusting on his lips, and watched the crew move. Diego was already up the mast, calling down damage reports in a clipped, professional cadence that Mack was grateful for. Rosa was below, checking the bilge pumps. Abigail knelt near the stern, sorting through the sodden mess of charts and gear that had been scattered across the deck.

The Santa Catalina was gone. The ghosts were gone. The only sign that any of it had happened was the lingering cold in Mack's chest and the weight of the few coins still tucked in his dive bag.

"Port side hull's holding," Diego called down. "We lost the aft radar mount, and the dinghy's gone—torn clean off the davits."

Mack nodded. "Engines?"

"Rosa says they'll turn over. She's got water in the fuel line, but she's flushing it."

Mack dragged a hand over his face. He should help. He should move. But his legs felt like they were filled with sand, and his mind was still churning through the wreckage of the last few hours. Blackwood's ghost, fading into light. Cruz, stealing the chest. The storm that had nearly torn them apart.

The confession he'd made to Rosa. The lie he'd told.

She emerged from the companionway now, wiping her hands on an oily rag. She moved toward him with the flat, deliberate stride of someone who had made up her mind about something. Mack straightened, bracing himself for whatever was coming.

"Engines'll hold," she said. "Long enough to get us to port, anyway."

"Good."

She stopped a few feet from him, close enough that he could see the dark rings under her eyes. She'd been awake as long as he had. Longer, maybe.

"You lied to me," she said.

The words hung in the air, simple and heavy.

Mack's throat tightened. "I know."

"You told me you were honorably retired. Medical discharge. Told me you left the Navy because of a knee injury."

"That's not—"

"Don't." Her voice cracked. "Don't you dare make up another story for me. I looked you up, Mack. Before we left. When I found out we were going after a goddamn ghost ship, I looked up every one of you. Want to know what I found?"

Mack said nothing.

"Disciplinary discharge. Conduct unbecoming. You were dismissed, not retired. And it wasn't a knee injury that took you out of the water. It was a fight. A fight that got another man hurt."

Mack closed his eyes. The memory came up like a bubble from deep water—the smell of diesel and blood, the shouting, the crack of a jaw under his knuckles. Jake's face, split open, hitting the deck.

"I tried to stop it," Mack said quietly. "The fight. I didn't start it."

"But you finished it."

"Yeah." He opened his eyes. "I finished it."

Rosa's jaw tightened. She folded the rag in her hands until her knuckles went white. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I was ashamed." The truth of it sat heavy in his chest. "And because I thought if you knew, you wouldn't come. And I needed you."

"You needed me?"

"To keep the boat floating. To keep me honest. To—" He stopped, fumbling for the words. "I've been lying to myself for years, Rosa. About Jake. About what happened. About what kind of man I am. When we started this, I told myself I was doing it to save Grace, to fix my debts, to put my life back together. But the truth is, I was doing it to run. And I've been running for a long time."

Rosa was quiet for a long moment. The boat rolled, and she steadied herself against the mast, her eyes fixed on the horizon.

"So what are you going to do?" she asked.

Mack let out a breath. "When we get back, I'm going to turn myself in."

Rosa blinked. "You're serious."

"I am. I don't know what the Navy's going to do with me. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. But I'm done running. I made a choice down there, on that wreck, and I have to live with it. Or not live with it. But I have to face it."

"You've got a debt to pay. A daughter to support. You go to prison, Grace—"

"I know." The words came out rough. "I know what it costs. But I've been telling myself I can't be the father she needs until my problems are solved. The truth is, I can't be that father until I stop lying to myself. And to everyone else."

Rosa studied him, her expression unreadable. Then, slowly, she nodded. It wasn't forgiveness. It wasn't even acceptance. But it was something.

"All right," she said. "We finish the job, we get back safe, and then you do what you have to do."

"That's the plan."

She turned and walked toward the companionway, pausing at the hatch. "Don't make me regret coming out here, Mack."

"I won't."

She disappeared below. Mack stood at the rail for another moment, letting the wind pull at his clothes, then turned to help with the deck.

Abigail was where she'd been, kneeling over the sodden journal. But something had changed. Her movements were slower, more deliberate. When Mack approached, she was staring at a single page, open in front of her.

"What is it?" he asked.

She looked up. There was a strange light in her eyes. "This journal—it wasn't written by Pimm."

"What?"

"It's Blackwood's handwriting. I've been comparing it to the pages in the captain's quarters. This isn't Pimm's record—it's Blackwood's. His own log, disguised to look like the admiral's."

Mack crouched down beside her. The page she was pointing to was covered in cramped, sloping handwriting. At the bottom, half hidden by a fold in the paper, was a small symbol—a triangle inside a circle.

"Blackwood kept a second log," Abigail said, her voice hushed. "A secret one. He never trusted Pimm, even in the beginning. He knew Pimm was planning to hand the treasure over to the Crown if they found it, and Blackwood wanted it for himself. So he kept his own map."

"A map to what?"

"To the second cache." She turned the journal toward him. "The real treasure. What they found on the wreck—Cruz's gold, the chest we just dumped—that was the decoy. Blackwood hid the true haul on Myrrdin's Island, at the base of the big tree. He buried it there himself, the night before Pimm's supposed death."

Mack stared at the page. The neat lines of the map, the careful X marked at the base of a tree. The words 'THE TRUE TREASURE' written above it in block letters.

The ghost had said the curse was broken. The gold was gone, the souls were freed. But this—this was different. This was a man's secret. A pirate's last card, hidden from the world.

"Blackwood never told anyone about this," Abigail said. "Not even his first mate. It's the reason he was so desperate to clear his name. He wanted to come back and dig it up."

Mack's chest felt tight. The weight of the coins in his bag seemed heavier suddenly.

"How much is it?" he asked.

"I don't know. The journal doesn't say. But it's the real haul. What they spent years hunting."

Mack looked at the map, then at the horizon. The sun was climbing higher now, burning off the last of the storm clouds. The boat was battered but afloat. The crew was alive.

And the treasure—a real treasure, free of any curse—was out there. Waiting.

He thought about Grace. About the debt. About the shop he was about to lose, the life he was about to rebuild. And then he thought about the look in Blackwood's eyes when the ghosts faded. The quiet release of a man who had finally let go.

"We're not going after it," he said.

Abigail's head snapped up. "What?"

"The journal. The treasure. We're not going after it."

"Mack, this is everything we—"

"We went after the wrong thing." Mack met her eyes. "We spent all this time chasing gold, chasing ghosts, chasing a way out of our problems. And look what it cost us. It cost Jake. It nearly cost all of you. It almost cost me my soul."

"But this treasure is clean. No curse, no ghosts. We could dig it up legally, pay off our debts, and never have to work again. Grace would be—"

"Grace would have a father who's still lying to himself." Mack's voice was quiet but firm. "If I go after this, it's for the same reason I went after the first haul. Greed. It doesn't matter if it's cursed or not. It would make me the same man I've been trying to stop being."

Abigail opened her mouth, closed it. She looked down at the journal, then back at him.

"Do you mean that?" she asked.

Mack exhaled. "I don't know. I'm not sure I mean anything yet. But I know I'm not done figuring it out. And I know I can't do that while I'm standing at the bottom of another hole, pulling up someone else's treasure to pay for my mistakes."

Abigail was silent for a long moment. The boat rolled gently. Somewhere below, Rosa's voice rose in a song Mack had heard her hum before—a low, mournful tune that seemed to settle the sea around them.

Slowly, Abigail closed the journal. She didn't hand it back to him. She tucked it into the inner pocket of her coat, pressing it flat.

"Okay," she said.

Mack blinked. "Okay?"

"We don't go after it. Not until we're done with the other things." She looked at him, and there was something steady in her gaze. "But I'm keeping the map. And when we're back, when you've done what you need to do, I want you to look at it again. I want you to decide with a clear head, not a guilty one."

Mack opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. She was right. He was exhausted, still shaking off the storm and the confession and the weight of everything that had happened. This was no time to make a decision that could shape the rest of his life.

"Fine," he said. "Keep it."

The sun climbed higher. The Sea Serpent rode the swells, her engines humming beneath the deck as Rosa coaxed them back to life. Diego came down from the mast, reporting that the hull was holding and they could make port within two days.

Mack stood at the rail, watching the water slide past. The cold in his chest had faded, but the memory of it lingered. He thought about Blackwood, finally freed. About the crew, finally at rest. About the coins in his bag—a handful of them, still warm.

An inheritance, Blackwood had called them. Not a curse. A charge.

Mack looked down at his hands. They were scarred, calloused, still trembling with the residue of adrenaline and fear. And yet, they were still his. He could still choose what they did next.

He turned away from the rail and went to help Diego with the rigging. The work was simple. The day was bright. And for the first time in years, Mack didn't feel like he was running.

He was just sailing.