Then I see that Dad's on his phone, his jaw tight with whatever he's hearing. Not good news.
"I understand." His voice drops low. "Keep everyone there. Nobody moves until I arrive."
He ends the call.
Mom's already heading for the door, following Lorenzo and Moira to the waiting cars. She pauses, turning back to look at me.
"Fee. You coming?"
"Right behind you, Mom."
But Dad's hand lands on Anton's shoulder. A warning.
"We have a problem," Dad says in a hushed tone.
Anton stops. "What kind of problem?"
"The shipment." Dad's eyes cut to the guards still around us, then back to Anton. "It's gone."
The weapons shipment. The one we suspected might be compromised. The one Anton and Yuri have been monitoring for days.
"Gone how?" Anton's voice stays low. I feel the tension radiating through his fingertips against my spine.
"Vanished from the manifest. No record of it clearing customs, no record of it arriving at the warehouse. The entire container just disappeared."
Mom calls from the doorway. "Connor, I'm leaving."
"Fee." Anton turns me to face him, both hands on my shoulders now. His storm-gray eyes lock onto mine. "You go to the hospital and stay with your sister and your mother. Stay at the hospital."
The cars outside roar to life. Doors slam. Tires crunch on gravel.
Mom's waiting for me at the door. "Fee?"
Dad's already moving, phone back to his ear, barking orders in that clipped tone that means someone's about to have a very bad day.
Anton leans down, pressing his forehead to mine for just a moment.
"I'll come to you as soon as this is handled." His voice drops to that gravelly whisper. "Stay with your family. Yuri will take you and keep you safe."
Then he's gone, following Dad out into the afternoon light.
As if he were invoked, Yuri appears in the doorway. He's slightly shorter than Anton, maybe an inch, not as broad, but pure muscle too, and definitely dangerous if need be.
Piercings line both ears, one through his eyebrow. He looks like a soldier, moves like one, too. But he's more than that. Much more. Put him and Anton together, and you've got a bomb with a genius-level IQ and zero moral boundaries.
"Mom." I turn to her. "I'm going with Yuri."
She glances at him, then back at me. Something passes across her face. I see she wants to ask about this driving arrangement, but passes. "I'll see you at the hospital."
I walk toward Yuri. We head to the car in silence. Once we're inside, I turn to him.
"Shouldn't you be helping Anton?"
"Who says I won't be?" He pulls two laptops from a bag in the back seat. One he keeps. The other he hands to me. "All I need is this. I've got yours too, in case you want to keep training. But your sister comes first. I'll work from the hospital."
I take the laptop. "You're tracking him?"
"Always."
