Thebaypirate -

The Scarab howled in agony, metal screaming against stone. Eli circled back, his own hull whispering over the mud.

His latest quarry wasn't treasure. It was a secret.

Eli smiled in the dark. "No," he said, raising a dripping dive bag onto his deck. "I’m the Bay pirate. And the Bay protects its own." thebaypirate

A modern-day corporate raider named Silas Croft had caught wind. Croft’s ancestor was the lead name in those ledgers. Now Silas ran a shipping conglomerate that bore the same stolen crest. He arrived at the marina not with a boat, but with a gleaming black helicopter and a lawyer who smiled like a shark.

"Not all treasure is gold. Not all pirates steal. Some just return what the tide borrowed." The Scarab howled in agony, metal screaming against stone

The fog over Chesapeake Bay was thick as stolen wool, muffling the world into shades of grey. To the tourists docked at the Annapolis marina, it was a nuisance. To Elias "Eli" Vane, it was a cloak.

Croft, knee-deep in his flooding cabin, spat static. "You’re a pirate, Vane. You have no honor." It was a secret

Eli had found the wreck two weeks ago using declassified sonar data and a weather anomaly that had shifted the sandbar. But he hadn't raised the chest yet. Because he wasn't alone.