The raw honesty in his voice stops whatever response I was building. He's not being dramatic. He's genuinely concerned about finding me dead.
"You won't be too slow." I say it with more certainty than I feel. "And I'm not planning on dying."
"Plans don't mean shit when the syndicate decides you're a problem worth eliminating." He stands abruptly, putting distance between us. "You do your job. I'll do mine. When this is over, when they're not hunting you, we'll figure out the rest."
The dismissal stings more than it should. I grab my jacket, the fish and chips forgotten.
"Catriona." His voice stops me before I reach the door.
I turn back. "What?"
"I'm picking you up when your shift ends. You're not going back to your cottage alone."
"Kian—"
"Not negotiable." The command in his voice sends inappropriate shivers down my spine despite the tension between us. "The syndicate knows where you live. You're staying at the safe house until this is handled."
I leave without responding, leaving him alone in the warehouse with the takeaway and whatever the fuck we're not saying to each other.
Back at the station, I force myself to finish the report, to maintain the appearance of normalcy despite the tension still crackling under my skin.
Another text arrives mid-afternoon.
Beautiful day on Skara. You should enjoy it while you can.
Generic threat. Vague enough to apply to anything. They're trying to keep me rattled, keep me looking over my shoulder. The psychological warfare is effective, I'll give them that.
"Everything alright, Chief?" Rhona's voice carries false concern.
"Fine. Just coordinating with mainland operations." The lie tastes bitter, but necessary.
She doesn't look convinced, but returns to her own work without pushing.
I finish the incident report and send it to Lansing, then pull out my personal tablet. The camera footage from the warehouse operation loads slowly, but eventually the images appear.
The footage captures everything. Dimitri negotiating with Kian, the artifacts laid out on the loading dock in careful arrangement, the moment gunfire erupted and chaos consumed the operation.
The artifacts hold my attention longest. I pause the footage, zooming in on individual items. Carved stones that look ancient, Celtic knotwork intertwined with symbols I don't recognize. Jewelry incorporating both precious metals and materials I can't identify from the footage alone, and documents that might be historical records or bills of sale.
I open my case files, cross-referencing the artifacts with trafficking operations I've been tracking. The patterns emerge quickly, connecting dots I couldn't see before. Similar items appeared in operations across Europe. Edinburgh two months ago, authorities seized carved stones during a raid on suspected smugglers. Dublin three months before that, customs intercepted jewelry matching the description of what Dimitri was moving. Then Reykjavik, Bergen, Amsterdam.
The syndicate is moving supernatural and other valuable artifacts through the same infrastructure they use for trafficking.Each operation I've been tracking wasn't separate—they're all connected through this network.
This is the break I've been chasing, the connection that ties everything together and provides leverage to dismantle their network.
But dread pools cold and heavy in my gut. If the artifacts are this valuable, the syndicate won't abandon Skara without a fight.
"I'm heading out for a walk." I tell Rhona, needing air and distance from her watchful presence.
The afternoon sunlight hits hard when I step outside. High Street stretches before me, tourists and locals moving through their daily routines. I scan the crowd automatically, cop instincts cataloging faces and behaviors.
Then I see him.
A man stands near the corner, tall and lean with features that might be Russian or Eastern European. He wears expensive clothes that look wrong against Skara's casual aesthetic, dark suit and polished shoes that announce wealth and power.
The air around him shimmers with heat.
This isn't visible heat distortion like summer pavement. It's something else, something that makes my instincts scream danger despite the distance and the normalcy of his posture. Power radiates from him like pressure against my skin.
