"Why is the door closed?"
I ask the two men standing next to it.
One of them cups his eye and when he releases it it reveals a nasty purple and black bruise.
"That girl knows how to throw a punch."
"Rogers took some hits before running out like a scared little girl."
The other man says while pushing the guy with the black eye.
"Stop fucking around, will you!"
I lose my temper. I can't help it, everything is getting too much.
My dad disappears, Rachel gets killed and now I have to deal with a god damn Prescott. Could it get any worse?
The two guys swallow their words and open the door. A gunshot fires and chips the door, closing it again.
"I won't hesitate to shoot again!"
A female voice yells from the other side.
I grab one of the guys by his collar and drag him towards me.
"How the hell did she get a gun!"
The color in his face disappears and he stares at me with fear. Good, let them be scared. I'm fucking done being patient, trying to stay calm cost me my first mates' life. It's the age of aggression now, they need to stop seeing this like a fucking vacation.
"She disarmed one of our men when we went in."
"And that small brain of yours didn't think that would be something you'd report to your Captain."
I feel like someone else, angry and bitter. Let's get this shit over with.
I burst into the room with my guns ready to shoot. The girl pulls the trigger but the gun only clicks. She accepts her defeat and drops the gun but still stand strong in her shoes, ready to fight her way out. Of course I'm not planning to kill her but something about that arrogant look just makes me want to shoot her in the face. Her appearance somewhat surprises me but I don't know what is bothering me so much.
"Never learned to reload a gun, or was that done by servants as well."
My men walk into the room and laugh about my remark. I stare at the lady in front of me. Her hair is a beautiful brown and hangs over her shoulders like a graceful curtain. Her eyes are hypnotic, colored in with a blue as soft as the silent waves washing ashore. She doesn't seem scared or afraid, she looks determined and angry. That's basically the face all the Prescotts seem to share. Yet she seems different, less entitled in one way or another, a more genuine and soft face than the other royalty brats.
"One less of you're kind wouldn't hurt the world."
"You got a very big mouth, for a young lady."
She crosses her arms and stares at me.
I holster my revolvers and let my men lower their weapons.
"Why are you here?"
"I got kidnapped by these savages."
"Because you're a Prescott."
"Wearing that name by marrying Nathan hasn't lifted the value of my life. To them I'm worth nothing more than a whore."
That's a shame, I certainly had hoped she was worth atleast a months worth of food and supplies for my crew.
"Leave her. We don't need a Prescott on our ship."
The men leave the room, some of them disappointed. I feel their pain, you don't really encounter a lot of beautiful women on the open waters.
Before I can close the door the woman begs me to stay.
"Wait!"
She yells. I gesture my men to move on with raiding the ship and enter the room once again, this time no empty gun pointed at me.
"You speak lowly of them, I can only assume that you have problems with the family."
Her voice is different, as if she's trying to sell something to me. Or when a whore tries to lure you into their beds.
"We have some unfinished business, then again who hasn't."
She takes a seat in the captains chair and makes herself comfortable.
"You make a fair point. I also have my certain issues with the family. It would be very unfortunate if they found me."
Now I notice what bothered me so much about her appearance when I barged in. She seemed well fed and clean, not something prisoner's are granted on a pirate ship.
"You're not a prisoner."
"I paid these pirates a lot of gold to stage my own kidnapping. Of course I had thought my loving husband would pay a bigger ransom than a measly two pints at a bar."
"What do you want from me? A refund because you choose some shitty ass pirates."
"I want you to take me with you. I want Nathan to think I sank with this ship."
I take the chair on the other side of the magnificent hand crafted wooden desk.
"I'm listening."
"I'm going to be honest with you, I didn't feel safe around these men. I was planning to escape the next time we would board the ship in a harbor.
But I can somehow sense that I can trust you. Any other pirate wouldn't have hesitated to take advantage of me or to end my life. But you are different."
"What's in it for me."
She scoffs and shakes her head while hanging back in the chair.
"Typical. There must always be a price huh." She pauses and glares at me, I simply put my feet onto the table as an answer to her deathstare.
"I have incriminating information about the Prescotts, black on white. Affairs, blackmail, extortion , even death threats to other royal families. If you help me find the right person they will pay a lot of gold, enough for you to retire early. It is crucial though that your men don't see me as a special case, I want them to treat me like one of their own. It's important that I won't be found."
I think, my main priority still is and always will be to find my father, but we'll be making a stop in Nassau, there will definitely be someone willing to pay for that kind of incriminating documents and I'd love to see the Prescott family reduce to ashes and disappear by a gust of wind.
"Deal."
We shake hands and share a soft smile.
She rises from the captain's chair and slides over the books on the rack with her finger. She stops at an old worn out book and takes it from the shelf.
She flips trhough it and retrieves a stack of letters with the sigil of the Prescott family on them.
I walk towards the door and stop before exiting.
"One more thing. Loose the pink, it makes me nauseous."
"Don't you pirate's have any fashion sense."
I can't help but to giggle lightly. Maybe she's not another Prescott asshole after all.