No more sea shanties sounded from the deck as I trudged up the stairs behind Red Legs, the man who had saved my honor. And my life. Though that fact might not matter as much as I hoped it would as soon as we reached the deck.

When we reached the deck, there was no sound apart from the creak and groan of the ship as it sat lightly atop the waves. The gentle rocking was reminiscent of a cradle rocking in a nursery.

I was rocked as a baby when I came into this world. I suppose the ship will rock me as I leave it.

Russian Jack stood in the middle of the deck, a deep frown on his angry face. Moonlight bathed the haphazard and hangdog crews of The Spanish Rose and The Black Otter as they draped themselves around the railing.

This is what it must have felt like for the gladiators in Rome when they were pitted against wild animals, and certain death, in the coliseum.

My filmy nightgown, the one I hoped Jack would have relieved me of by now, was half soaked in blood. It did nothing to keep out the nighttime chill on deck. I hugged my arm across my chest. At least the bleeding seems to have stopped.

“Piranha!” Jack’s voice was steely sharp.

Solo still gripped Piranha by his collar. With a fling, he tossed the one-eyed pirate at Jack’s feet. The crumpled man groaned. Whatever Red Legs hit him with had split the back of his head open like a melon, though I hadn’t noticed until now.

“Stand up when you are before your captain,” Solo barked.

My back straightened at his tone. I thought about glancing to see how Red Legs was standing, but looking around at such a time seemed a criminal idea. I wasn’t in line at boarding school, waiting for dismissal. No, this was a matter of live and death. Though who would be left alive and who would be dead was anyone’s guess at this point.

Jack didn’t look at any of us. The lantern glowed at his feet and gave him an otherworldly, almost divine, look.

This must be what Adonis looked like.

Something deep in my core longed for a kind glance from him. But it didn’t come.

Piranha managed to get to his feet, but his pants stayed down around his ankles. His head hung at an odd angle and blood flowed from his split skull, soaking the back of his grimy shirt. A blind man could see that something necessary was irreparably broken inside the insidious pirate.

“Loyalty.” Even the sea itself seemed to quiet when Jack spoke. “Loyalty is our creed, no matter the name of the ship we sail aboard The Black Otter fleet.” Jack’s jeweled cutlass hung hungrily at his side.

“Loyalty,” he boomed again. “Loyalty to God Almighty. And, more importantly, loyalty to our code.” Jack turned his back on us and strode in front of his men, to the furthest reaches of the lanternlight. “Did each of you not swear this when each of ye first came aboard? Your hand upon God’s own Word?”

“Aye,” they grumbled.

“I said,” Jack thundered, “did ye not swear?!”

“Aye!” The word resonated from the band of rum-drunken pirates and seemed to fill the whole of the sea itself.

With his hands clutched behind his back, Jack strode easily before his men. From where I stood, it seemed as though he made lingering eye contact with each one.

“And which man dares test that loyalty now? Step forward if you are he.”

Not a soul moved. I wasn’t certain if anyone even breathed.

“Very well,” Jack said. “I take your silence as your agreement.” He waited a moment. Only silence echoed above the ship. “Because I will not tolerate a repeat of what is going to happen here tonight again.” For an instant, I thought my husband was going to look at me. But he did not. “Or what already has.”

Cold stones knotted in my throat and dropped down into my gut. I am alone in the coliseum and the lions are roaring.

I sucked in a breath. The world spun around me.

Don’t pass out, Red.

Jack circled back around to us. “Nobody speaks until I ask, and when I ask you will speak.”

Silence.

“Piranha.” Jack situated his flinty black stare on the bleeding man. “First, I want to hear from you.”

The broken pirate struggled to stand on his quaking legs.

“What happened tonight so that you found yourself in your commodore’s quarters?”

Drool slimed from Piranha’s mouth when he opened it to speak. “To satisfy your wife, at her request.”

I closed my eyes. In a London courtroom, such a statement would elicit groans from the opposing party. On Russian Jack’s deck, nobody made a sound.

“I see.” Jack rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “And did she request that you cut her neck, too?”

Piranha tried to speak, but succeeded in only gurgling.

Jack turned away from the blood-spattered pirate with a pshaw. “Red Legs Roberts.”

“Yes, Cap’n.”

“Tell me,” Jack started. “How did you find yourself in your commodore’s quarters tonight?”

Red Legs spoke calm and easy, as though Jack had simply asked about the weather. “I was standing at the railing having a smoke when I saw Piranha come out of the wheelhouse. He crossed the deck, looked around, and took to the stairs. Your stairs.”

Jack stopped pacing. “And then?”

Red Legs continued. “And then, I heard your woman scream. She screamed help me, somebody. There was terror in her voice, but then the screaming stopped.”

Jack stood with his hands clasped behind his back and his eyes the same shade of black as the nighttime sea. “So, what did you do?”

“Well Cap, I went to help her. I opened the door to your quarters. It was dark, and I had no lantern. I swung the butt of my blade and hoped I didn’t hit your woman. When the moon came out, I saw she was bleeding from the neck. I didn’t know it was Piranha till I seen him crumpled on the ground.”

“Is that all you wish to say?”

Red Legs nodded. “Yes sir, except that’s when you and Solo showed up.”

“Liar!” The word was garbled as it exited Piranha’s mouth. “Damned liar you are, Red Legs.”

Jack didn’t silence him. Instead, he tapped his foot. “Adultery is a killing offense when you sail the seas. So a killing we shall have.”

Jack’s black stare fell on me. “Redella. Step forward.” His Russian accent flexed its fingers around the words—then strangled them.

He didn’t call me Red.

Behind Jack, Poison Lightning studied the deck. For once, even Tommy was silent. Charles and Dark Water, however, stared straight at me. For the first time since coming aboard, I saw a smile curve Dark Water’s lips into a sinister scowl.