Honor Among Thieves || Book Two

~19~

After enjoying a refreshing bath, Sera changed into a cream nightgown with small rubies sewn around the frilly collar and reached for her coat--she intended to find out just how they were able to be ambushed so easily--but thought better of it. She would not trouble herself with it, not now.

She tossed her coat aside and looked at her bed, the sheets luring her with the promise of a restful sleep, something she needed desperately...

No sooner than her head hit the pillow, she heard her door open and a pair of heavy footsteps. "Cap'n, we need--"

"What is it, Mange?" She asked angrily, not bothering to turn over. He wrung his hands. "Eddie's dead."

Her eyes flew open. "What?"

"Eduardo. He's--"

"I know who it is." She snapped as she abruptly sat up and clutched the linens over her chest. "He's dead?"

Mange quickly averted his eyes. "A-Aye, Miss Drake."

She struggled to swallow the bile boiling up her throat. "Where is he?"

"I-In the crow's nest. I--"

Before he could finish, Sera was out of the bed with the linen draped around her shoulders. She pushed past Mange and stomped out onto the deck barefoot, not caring that she was in her nightclothes, and found everyone gathered around a small pool of blood.

"'E's up thar." One-Eyed Sam muttered in his gruff voice, pointing his thumb toward the crow's nest. Sera looked just in time to see another drop of blood fall from what appeared to be Eduardo's head and land in the puddle at her feet.

A chill ran up her spine.

"What d'ye want us t' do, Cap'n?" Wolfie asked quietly. She stared at the puddle. "Get him down. I want to see him."

Les and Spoons made the climb and carefully handed Eduardo's limp body down. There was no need for her to check for a pulse; a butcher knife was buried deep in his forehead.

Her blood boiled.

"What now?" Wolfie murmured, toying with his short beard. She balled her hands into fists and glanced at her crew's downtrodden expressions. "What more is there to do? Prepare his body." She tightened her grip on the linens draped around her shoulders. "We'll sink him in the sea at dawn."

She turned to leave.

Barbossa glanced at Jeremy, who was staring at Eduardo's corpse with wide eyes, and lumbered after her. "Cap'n, I think--"

"I want to know who's behind this." She said through gritted teeth, spinning around so fast her hair wrapped around her face. He glanced over his shoulder. "I have me suspicions."

Sighing, she walked into her cabin. He followed.

"Although," He continued, quietly closing the door behind them. "I s'pose he coulda been killed when those marauders attacked."

"No." She shook her head and ran her fingers through her damp hair. "He was dead before that. In the three years he was on this ship, we were never ambushed. Not one single time."

He nodded, eager to put in his two cents worth. "I think--"

"There is something going on." She interrupted, yanking open the top drawer of her nightstand. "I had a man murdered in Tortuga with this."

She handed him the dagger she had retrieved from the dying woman. He turned it this way and that, studying the ivory hilt for any inscriptions or markings.

"Got it from one of the whores." She explained as she gently plucked it out of his hands. "She said she was paid to do it, paid to kill Monty and two of her fellow 'ladies', but I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why someone would pay to have him killed. He was a devout Roman Catholic, he--Well, I don't know that much about his past, but--"