Cash Remington and the Rum Run (Sexy Dreadfuls Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

girl still trembles, her eyes wide.
    “I don’t know. I’ve heard tales of such creatures, but only in the Mediterranean, not here.” My heart still pounds, and I’m covered in blood and the black eye fluid. “Never here.”
    “Will it come back?”
    I stand and yank her up with me. The ship is whining and falling apart around us. “We need to get to the open deck. Come on.”
    Everything in the room is wrecked, but the door is untouched. I swing it open and survey the blood and destruction wreaked by the filthy monsters. The sails are all but destroyed, masts splintered, decks pocked with holes, and I see only two men left. Turning, I watch as the six-headed beast sinks beneath the water, its heads focused on the ship, the eyes staring. The whirlpool dissipates and fades.
    I whip my handkerchief from my head and wipe my face clean. It does nothing to calm my thoughts. The water quiets, giving no hints as to the terrors we’d just encountered.
    I shake my head and stare up at the endless dark. “What in the queen’s quim is going on?”
     
     
     

 
    CHAPTER FIVE
     
     
     
     
    T HE SHIP SINKS TWO days later, only two miles out from Port Royal. The girl—Nere is her name—my two remaining men, and I all load into the one remaining rowboat and row toward shore.
    I keep the gem tucked in a pouch under my shirt. Nere sits in my lap and lays her head against my shoulder. Not from any love for me, but from exhaustion. None of us have eaten or slept since the day our ship was crippled.
    The rowboat, too, is damaged and becomes unmanageable about twenty yards from land. I jump from the boat, the water to my neck, and pull Nere onto my back.
    We drag ourselves onto the sand and into the town that sits right on the water. The bars and brothels are in full swing, a half-moon high overhead. The road is sandy and rutted. Nere stumbles into my side. I’m beat, but I can’t let her fall, so I hoist her up in my arms.
    She hasn’t given me much information about her ship. Only that she sailed from Jamaica with her family until they were set upon by pirates. Problem is, I’ve blown plenty of holes in ships, boarded them, took who and what I wanted, and left. But I’ve never seen a ship torn apart the way hers was.
    It would take a prolonged volley from a multitude of cannons to even come close to that level of destruction, and pirates wouldn’t waste that much powder and lead on a simple merchant vessel. Even more telling, the ship was still full of bounty. Her answers haven’t satisfied me, and I intend to discover the truth. Until that time, Port Royal will provide a respite.
    We trudge through the streets, and my men break off and head to their taverns of choice. My ribs ache, and the rest of my body doesn’t feel much better, but rest is nigh. Up ahead, the meager streetlamps illuminate a sign for The Mermaid’s Conch, a favorite inn of mine. The shabby two-story building leans haphazardly toward the street, but it’s withstood more hurricanes and storms than most of the shanties in this pirate shithole. A buxom mermaid perches over the door, her tits spilling over and her long hair curling down to the tip of her wooden fin.
    Drunks stumble through the street around us, and a prostitute moans with dramatic flair as she’s fucked up against a pub wall. Nere rests her head on my shoulder, her light breath tickling my neck. Music and laughter swells from the Conch as the owner, Crook, tosses a patron into the garbage at the edge of the street. He’s gotten more piercings since I saw him last. Light glints from several hoops of silver through his lower lip.
    “And stay out, you lousy piss-swilling son of a maggot’s cunt!” Crook is taller than I am, and twice as broad. He’s a titan in this town, so large that many suspect he’s descended from giants. He turns toward me, his blind eyes seeking me out in the dark. “Cash, that you?”
    “Sure is. How’d you know?”
    “I always know the footsteps of a