"So we have a deal?" Beckett asked, his tone smooth, assured—as though the matter had already been decided in his favor.
Will held his gaze for a mont, then gave a slow nod. It cost him nothing. An hour from now, none of this would matter anyway. Let Beckett believe he had won sothing. Let him savor it.
"Excellent," Beckett said lightly. "Then your first act of loyalty will be simple. The Black Pearl sails these waters. You will sink her. Captain and crew—sent straight to the depths."
The words had barely left his mouth when a shout tore across the deck.
"Sir! Ship sighted off the larboard bow!"
Beckett turned calmly, though several officers rushed to the rail. Through the thinning mist, sleek and unmistakable, the dark silhouette of the Black Pearl cut across the water.
Her black sails caught the wind like a predator stretching before a hunt.
Will did not turn imdiately. He didn't need to. A faint smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Beckett lowered his spyglass slowly. "How… convenient."
Behind him, the guns of the East India Company shifted with chanical precision, rows of cannons grinding into position as they tracked the dark silhouette of the Black Pearl. Officers barked orders. Powder was prid. Matches were readied.
"Then show conviction," Beckett said coolly, folding his hands behind his back. "Prove your loyalty. Sink that ship."
Will held his stare for a long second, then inclined his head as though conceding. Without another word, he stepped back toward the rail where ropes were lowered once more.
In a single smooth motion, he descended and crossed the narrow stretch of water, boots striking the deck of the Flying Dutchman.
The Dutchman answered its captain instantly.
The hull groaned. The sea darkened around her. Slowly, deliberately, the ghostly ship angled toward the Black Pearl, cutting through the waves with unnatural silence. Cannons slid from their ports like watching eyes.
On Beckett's flagship, the chairman resud his seat, expression composed, as if settling in for theatre.
"Let us see," he murmured, lifting his spyglass again.
Under the gaze of every officer on the East India deck, the Flying Dutchman and the Black Pearl shifted position.
The Dutchman did not fire.
The Pearl did not flee.
Instead, both ships angled subtly—too subtly for most to notice—until they were no longer facing each other but drifting apart at asured distance. Their broadsides turned… not inward.
Outward.
Toward the East India Company fleet.
A beat of silence passed.
Beckett lowered his spyglass slightly, irritation flickering across his face. "Why have they stopped?"
Before rcer could answer, a thunderous crack split the air. A cannonball from one of the Company ships struck the Dutchman's hull—an impatient officer firing too soon.
The response was imdiate.
The Flying Dutchman's gunports flung open in unison. The Black Pearl mirrored the motion. Rows of cannons rolled forward, black muzzles aligning with cold precision.
They were not aid at each other.
They were aid at Beckett.
"What is happening?" Beckett demanded, rising sharply.
"Sir—!" a lookout shouted, too late.
Both ships fired.
The roar was deafening. Fla and smoke erupted from their broadsides as iron shot scread across the water. Company vessels shuddered under impact, masts splintering, sails tearing apart in seconds.
Beckett's composure tightened rather than broke.
"Shoot the heart!" Beckett ordered sharply.
rcer stepped forward, flintlock raised—but then paused.
The heart inside the chest was not moving.
No steady pulse. No grotesque twitch of stolen life. It lay still, dark and slack like any ordinary organ carved from a corpse.
rcer hesitated. "Sir… it isn't beating."
Beckett's mind raced.
If the heart was dead… then the leverage was gone.
And if the leverage was gone—
Why?
Beckett's gaze sharpened.
He had co here because of one man. One man who delivered the heart. One man who brought news of the Dutchman's appearance.
Slowly, he turned.
Daniel was smiling.
"You planned this," Beckett said, and the calm refinent that usually coated his words finally cracked.
"Yes," Daniel replied evenly, stepping closer to the rail as another cannonball tore through the sail behind him, showering splinters across the deck. "It took effort to make you believe. Did you truly think your threats would make hand you the sea?"
"Fool!" Beckett snapped as the ship lurched violently from another impact. Smoke and shouting swallowed the deck. "Do you imagine you will be safe after this?"
Daniel's expression did not change. Wind tugged at his coat while firelight flickered across his face.
"There's one thing you never understood," he said calmly. "No one threatens my family and lives to profit from it."
Another cannonball struck the deck just behind him, exploding in wood and fla. Smoke engulfed his figure entirely.
When it cleared—
He was gone.
"Sir, what should we do?" rcer asked urgently as the ship groaned under the relentless assault, masts splintering and n scrambling in panic.
Beckett stood amid the chaos, eyes fixed on the two ships hamring his fleet from both sides.
"I was fooled," he said quietly, watching the destruction unfold while cannon blasts echoed across the sea like judgnt.
He had miscalculated.
He had believed Daniel to be useful—ambitious, perhaps dangerous, but ultimately controllable. A man who could be maneuvered with leverage and fear. Instead, he had been lured, positioned, and stripped of advantage in a single stroke.
The deck shuddered violently beneath his boots.
For a heartbeat, everything went still.
Then the sea itself split.
A massive black blade surged upward from beneath the hull, cleaving through timber and iron as though they were canvas.
The East India Company flagship cracked down the center with a deafening roar, the sound of rending wood and snapping beams swallowing the screams of the crew.
The ship broke.
Water rushed in instantly, swallowing the lower decks as n scrambled and slipped, their orders dissolving into panic. Fire t seawater in hissing clouds of steam while the two halves of the vessel tilted away from each other.
Beckett stumbled, losing his balance as the deck gave way beneath him.
The sea claid him without ceremony. He fell with the wreckage, coat dragging in the spray as cold water swallowed him whole. Around him, sailors thrashed and vanished beneath splintered beams and sinking cannon.
*****
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