Read Chapter 16: The Debt Collectors

The pounding on the hull came at dawn, three heavy blows that set the Vagabond’s repaired frame groaning. Elias was already awake, having slept poorly in the cramped quarters of the undermanned ship. He swung his legs off the cot and reached for his coat.

MacReady’s voice came through the door, rough as sandpaper. “Captain. We’ve got company.”

Elias was on deck in under a minute. The morning mist clung to the mountain valley below, and through it, a sleek merchant cutter rose on a direct intercept course. She flew no colors, but her hull was too clean, her lines too sharp for a trader. And her guns—two brass swivel cannons glinting on her foredeck—were far too new.

Pip stood at the rail, spyglass pressed to her eye. “She’s hailing us, Captain. Signal flags. Says… ‘Debt due. Prepare to receive.’” She lowered the glass, her face pale. “That’s not a merchant’s greeting.”

Elias’s jaw tightened. He’d known this day would come. He just hadn’t expected it to come here, not now, not with his ship barely held together by MacReady’s stubborn genius and a heap of chromium-cobalt ore.

The cutter closed the distance, her engine thrumming with quiet power. When she pulled alongside, a boarding plank dropped with a clang. A figure stepped across—tall, lean, dressed in a black greatcoat that did nothing to hide the long-barreled pistol holstered at his hip. His face was all sharp angles and pale scars, and his eyes were the color of a winter sea. Cold. Patient. Calculating.

He didn’t look at Elias. He looked past him, at the ship itself. “Captain Thorne,” he said, voice flat as slate. “You know why I’m here.”

“I know you’ve got terrible timing,” Elias said, crossing his arms. “We just finished a fight with the French. MacReady’s still tightening bolts. My crew hasn’t been paid in weeks.”

“Their problems are not my concern.” The man stepped fully onto the deck, boots echoing against the boards. He stopped an arm’s length away. “My name is Voss. I represent interests that hold your marker—the one you signed in Port Royale, three years ago. The principal is due, plus interest.” He pulled a folded paper from his coat and held it out. “Your balance.”

Elias took it. Didn’t open it. “I know the number.”

“Then you know the time for extensions has passed.” Voss’s gaze swept the crew gathered on deck—Cora, dark-eyed and watchful, her hand resting on the pistol she’d been given; René, hung back in the shadow of the mast, still unknown to most; Pip, clutching the chronometer like a talisman; MacReady, wiping grease from his fingers with a rag that had seen better days. “Your creditors grow impatient. They have allowed you latitude because you occasionally produce. But there has been no production for six months. The agreement was simple: you pay, or they take your collateral.”

“The Vagabond’s not for sale.”

“Not for sale,” Voss agreed. “For seizure.”

The silence that followed was thick as fog. Cora shifted her weight. Elias could feel the crew’s eyes on him, their uncertainty, their unspoken questions. He’d never told them about the debt. He’d never told anyone.

He remembered the night he signed that marker. A smoky office in Port Royale, a bottle of rum half-empty, and a man in a crimson coat who spoke of patents and privateering licenses. Elias had needed funding to salvage the Vagabond from the breaker’s yard. He’d needed it fast. The terms had seemed simple enough back then—a cut of future earnings, a percentage of every prize taken. But the prizes had dried up. The war had shifted. And the note had grown teeth.

“I don’t have the full amount,” Elias said flatly.

Voss smiled. It was not a pleasant expression. “I know. You’ve had a string of… misfortunes.” He gestured at the patched hull, the scorched gunwale. “Your reputation precedes you, Captain. You’re a bold tactician, but a poor businessman.”

“Flattery won’t change my ledger,” Elias said. “I’m telling you I don’t have it in coin right now. But I have a prospect.”

“Prospects don’t pay debts.”

“This one will.” Elias stepped forward, closing the gap between them. He’d learned long ago that the crew judged him by his posture as much as his words. He made his voice low, steady, unbreakable. “I’m hunting a man. He’s worth more than my marker by tenfold. A mercenary named LaRoche—scarred, dangerous, and connected. He leads me to a prize bigger than anything I’ve pulled from the sky. I take him down, I take his cargo, and I pay off every shilling I owe—plus a premium, for your trouble.”

Voss studied him for a long moment. His eyes moved over Elias’s face, as if searching for a lie beneath the skin. “LaRoche,” he repeated. “The French attack dog?”

“The same.”

“You’re hunting a ghost, Thorne. He moves through the deep lanes like smoke. And you think you can catch him in a ship that barely flies?”

“I caught the French at the mining colony,” Elias said. “I caught Roux’s trap before it closed. I’ll catch LaRoche.”

Voss was silent. The morning wind picked up, tugging at his collar, rattling the rigging. He looked at the Vagabond again, at her repaired engine housing, at the cargo hold where the ore still sat heavy in her belly.

“How much can you give me now?”

Elias felt the crew’s stare burn into his back. He knew what was coming. He’d known it the moment Voss stepped aboard. He reached into his coat and produced a leather pouch—his own share of the ore sale, kept hidden, meant to line his pockets for the next month’s provisioning. He tossed it to Voss, who caught it one-handed, weighed it, and nodded slowly.

“Half your debt is cleared with this, by value.”

“A third,” Elias corrected.

“A third, then.” Voss tucked the pouch into his coat. “The rest is due in thirty days. If you don’t produce, I’ll return with more than a boarding party. I’ll return with a warrant to take your ship, your crew, and your name. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

Voss looked at the crew once more, his gaze lingering on Cora, who had not moved. “You keep interesting company, Captain. For your sake, I hope they’re loyal.” He turned, stepped back over the plank, and the cutter’s engine roared to life. Within minutes, she was nothing but a dark speck against the morning haze, swallowed by the clouds.

Elias let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He turned to face his crew.

Their faces said everything. Pip’s was pale, uncertain. MacReady’s jaw was set hard, the grease-stained rag forgotten in his fist. Cora’s expression was unreadable, but her eyes were sharp. And René—René had stepped out of the shadows, arms crossed, watching Elias with a tangle of suspicion and curiosity.

“What was that?” MacReady asked, his brogue thick with frustration. “You said the ore was gonna pay our shares. That was the deal, Captain. We work, we risk our necks, and we split the take.”

“That was the take for the ship,” Elias said. “Now the ship owes a debt. And so do I. The crew’s wages—they’ll come. After LaRoche.”

“After LaRoche,” Cora repeated, her voice flat. “You keep saying that name like it’s a promise. But promises don’t fill weary bellies or buy ammunition.”

“No,” Elias admitted. “They don’t. But coin does, and the man’s worth a mountain of it. Trust me a little longer. One run. One target.”

“And if we don’t?” René asked quietly.

Elias met his gaze. “Then the Vagabond goes to the syndicate’s auction block, and every one of us goes to jail—or worse—when the French and the British come calling. There’s no way out but through.”

He turned and walked toward the helm, putting his back to them. Let them talk. Let them grumble. He’d earned it.

But Cora’s voice followed him, low enough that only he heard: “You lied to him, didn’t you? About the amount you have.”

Elias didn’t stop walking.

“You kept some ore back,” she pressed. “Hidden. That’s why you paid him a third, not half. You’re holding out—planning something.”

For a moment, Elias paused at the helm, hand resting on the wheel. Then he looked over his shoulder, meeting her eyes.

“I paid him enough to buy us a month.” His voice was quieter now, stripped of defiance. “But it wasn’t the full measure of what I owe. You’re right. I kept a few bars back—enough to bribe a dockmaster or buy a false flag if we need to run.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You think we’ll need to run?”

“I think we’re hunting a man who knows too much about us.” Elias turned the wheel, steering the Vagabond toward the deeper lanes. “And someone’s been feeding him information from London. If LaRoche knows we’re coming, running might be all we have.”

Cora was silent for a long moment. Then she nodded once, slowly, and moved to the rigging, climbing high into the shrouds to watch the horizon.

Behind them, the crew muttered among themselves. But no one challenged him again.