“Phoenix,” Conrad grits out, eyes still on the team. “Put on somefuckingclothes, and we’ll talk.”
I fold my arms over the towel and dig in. “You can either tell me right now, or you can stand here in solemn silence until I get back. Your call.”
His jaw knots. He looks like he wants to argue and also like he knows he will lose. “Nobody says a word until she gets back,” he snaps.
Storm’s mouth almost tilts. Atticus’s throat works, once. The room holds its breath because I asked it to. I hesitate, then turn and leave, my bare feet slapping the hall in quick, wet steps.
Thirty seconds. T-shirt. Leggings. Hair in a knot that will surrender the second I ask it to. I come back the same way I left, faster, heart in a higher gear from running and from the way the house feels like a drawn bow.
“Talk,” I say, planting myself at the table. I don’t sit. None of them do either.
Atticus lays the sketch down, palm on the edge to keep it flat. The face looks up at us like it’s bored. Clean hair, strict brow, small ears, that thin white line near the ear. A mouth that does not have to sneer to hurt you. I hate him more on paper than I did on the boat.
“His name is Rafe Collier,” Atticus says. “Former head of security at the Wynn. He ran access logs before I did. He engineered the last version of our camera coverage, and more importantly, he wrote the exceptions.”
I can feel my pulse in my temples. “He works for Conrad’s father,” I say. It’s not a question. It clicks into place with a sound I don’t like.
Atticus nods, once. “He did. Officially. After I replaced him, he left with a package and a recommendation,” the word sour, “to ‘pursue opportunities.’ Unofficially, he contracted for Masterson Holdings. Security audits. Quiet work.”
“So either he acted alone for money,” Maverick says, voice low, anger rinsed out until it gleams, “or he took a job for Masterson senior that wasn’t on a spreadsheet.”
“Or both.” Storm’s fingers drum once on the table, then still. “He knows our infrastructure. He knows where to put a knife.”
Conrad’s gun is down now, but he hasn’t holstered it. His stillness is louder than shouting. “My father knew about Danner,” he says, voice flat enough to cut. “He called me the night she disappeared and told me to find her before someone used her against me. He might as well have confessed with that. I just didn’t…put it together.”
“Or he might have been testing how much you already knew,” Atticus says. “Either way, Collier doesn’t move without money and cover. He’s a mercenary with a tie clip.”
I’re aware of the team around the perimeter without looking straight at them. They’re good enough not to react when the room gets uglier.
“Where is he?” I ask.
“Savannah for sure. The docks, likely,” Storm answers. “We’re pulling port access rosters and tug captain logs.”
“His last personal residence on record is an address on East Jones,” Atticus adds, already sliding me a print-out, “but the utilities went dark six months ago. I’ve got a storage unit under a shell company that still autopays. We’re looking.”
I stare at Rafe’s paper eyes and say the thing I don’t want to say. “If he works for your father and he took me, then your father wanted me taken.”
Conrad doesn’t flinch. He already lived with that weapon in his ribs. “Yes,” he says. Then jaw, tighter. “Or he wants us to think he did.”
“And you want to go to him,” I say. Every part of me recognizes the shape of the urge that’s holding Conrad tense. “Kick his door in. Demand an answer. Break a knuckle and call it closure.”
Conrad’s silence is an admission. Storm looks at him, then at me. Atticus looks at the wall like there’s a line of code there he hates and is willing to rewrite anyway.
Maverick taps the sketch and smiles the kind of smile that isn’t friendly. “We don’t need to guess. We have a face. We have a city he’s comfortable in. We have friends who hate human traffickers more than they like their own mothers.”
“Blackvine again?” I ask.
“They offered,” he says. “This morning. They like us in their debt. I like us alive. The Venn diagram is a circle this week.”
Atticus finally looks straight at me. He’s moved past the edge we left him on last night. There’s color in his face that isn’t just rage now. “We don’t make a move without you knowing about it,” he says. “But we are going to move.”
“Good,” I say. “Because I didn’t go through a container and an ocean to live in a house that only makes toast.”
Maverick snorts. Storm’s mouth flickers, almost a smile, gone.
“I wish I could say I was surprised, but I’m not. The man’s as crooked as a Lowcountry politician in election season. Security procedures?” Spencer asks from the doorway.
I didn’t hear him come in, which means he chose not to be heard. He looks from the sketch to me to his son, expression stormy.
