Read Chapter 30: The True Treasure

Dawn came gray and swollen over the water, the sky the color of a healing bruise. Mack stood at the helm of the Sea Serpent, coffee cooling in his hand, Javier's fishing boat riding easy on their starboard quarter. The men had asked for an escort back to their home port, and Mack had said yes without counting the hours it would cost. He had a little less than four days, now, before the Navy would expect him in Nassau.

Rosa found him there, her boots quiet on the wet deck. She didn't speak, just stood beside him, watching the horizon. He could feel the coat against his back, heavy and still. It hadn't pulsed since the storm, and Mack had begun to suspect it was waiting, like a held breath.

“Jake says the window on the wreck is closing,” she said finally. “Forty-eight hours, maybe less, before the cave mouth collapses completely.”

Mack nodded. “I know.”

“So what are you going to do?”

He turned the coffee cup in his hands, feeling the warmth bleed through the ceramic. His cabin still held those few cursed coins in a canvas bag beneath his bunk. He could feel them down there, even now, a low heat that didn't come from the sun.

“I'm not going back for the second treasure,” he said.

Rosa was quiet for a long moment. “You're sure?”

“Abigail thinks it's uncursed. Might be. But we got what we needed from that wreck—the map, Blackwood's records, your mapping credits. The rest is somebody else's history. And the date on that map—same day I'm supposed to turn myself in.” He shook his head. “That's not fate. That's a test. And I've already lost enough of myself to that ship.”

He pulled the folded chart from his jacket—Abigail had marked it with a trembling hand, the third location circled in red ink off the coast of Hispaniola. He pressed it into Rosa's hands.

“Get this to the Admiral's family,” he said. “Or give it to a museum. Sell it. Use the proceeds to help Javier repair his boat. I don't care. Just make sure it doesn't go to someone who'll dig it up and get themselves killed.”

Rosa studied his face, searching for something. Whatever she found there seemed to satisfy her. She nodded, folded the chart again, and tucked it into her oilskin.

“He’s proud of you, you know,” she said quietly. “Your father. Wherever he is.”

Mack didn't answer. He couldn't.

They made good time with the escort, and by midday the fishing boat's home port was a smudge of rust-red rooftops on the horizon. The crew was lighter for it—Pete had finally slept through the night, and Abigail had stopped flinching whenever someone opened the log room door. Even Jake seemed at ease, sitting on the bow with the brass helmet in his lap, polishing it with a worn rag.

Mack left Rosa on deck and went below to his cabin. The coins waited beneath his bunk. He could feel the heat pulse as he crossed the threshold, stronger now, like a heart beating in the canvas.

He didn't open the bag. He just knelt beside the bunk and pressed his palm to the rough cloth, letting the warmth seep into his skin.

“Not yet,” he said to the emptiness. “Just a little longer.”

The ship gave a low groan, as if answering.

He was still on his knees when the hatch behind him opened. He turned, expecting Rosa or Jake—but the man standing in the doorway wasn't part of his crew. Salt-stained canvas coat, a face he knew only from old photographs on Cruz's desk, and eyes that had gone flat and dead like coins.

“You're Mendoza,” Mack said, rising slowly.

Cruz's old partner smiled, and the expression didn't reach his eyes. In one hand he held the canvas bag of coins, its ties loose, the gold gleaming in the dim light. In the other, he held a small black-powder revolver, steady and sure.

“Took me three weeks to find you,” Mendoza said. “Had to promise a lot of men a lot of money. But when I heard you were sailing around with Captain Cruz's ghosts, I figured you'd have something worth taking.”

Mack's hands stayed at his sides. “Those coins will kill you.”

“Everything kills you, Donovan.” Mendoza stepped back through the hatch, the coins clinking softly. “At least these will make me rich first.”

He was gone before Mack could move. By the time Mack burst onto the deck, Mendoza was already in a small skiff, engine roaring, cutting a white line toward a low, dark island on the horizon—rocky, uninhabited, big enough to hide a man for a long time.

Jake appeared at his elbow, helmet still in hand. “What the hell was that?”

Mack watched the skiff grow smaller, the coins gone from his cabin, the warmth already fading from his chest. He could chase him. He could dive after him. He could bleed.

He didn't.

“Let him go,” Mack said. “He's already dead. He just doesn't know it yet.”

The coat stirred against his back, a ripple of cold, and then went still. Somewhere out on that island, the curse was about to find a new host.

Mack turned away from the rail.

“Set a course for Nassau,” he said. “We're done here.”