“What happened?” Isaac glanced back at the closed door. “With Thorne? You two were fighting. And then—”
Christian met his eyes, unreadable. “He got away.”
A fist of frustration twisted in Isaac’s gut. He dragged a hand through his hair. “He was right there, Christian. We could’ve ended this.”
“I know.”
“We—you had him.”
“I know.”
Isaac ground his teeth together, frustration building. “Yet he slipped through our fingers. Again.”
Christian’s gaze darkened. “You think I don’t know that?” He poured another drink. “We’ll get him.” His voice had gone quiet. “One way or another.”
Would they?
Isaac wanted to believe it. Wanted to believe that after everything—after almost losing Josephine, after everything that had gone wrong—they could still bring Thorne down. But for the first time, doubt clung to him like the smoke in his clothes, and he didn’t know how to shake it off.
Christian’s soft voice brought him back. “I need to know what you found in Norfolk, Isaac.”
He stared out the window. “What did Samantha tell you?”
“That it was an inside job. That the government is responsible for my mother’s death.”
Isaac nodded, his throat going dry.
Forest eyes found his, intense and searching. “Why? Why is Thorne after Ross?”
Isaac pressed his eyes closed for the space of a breath before turning to his friend. “Ross is the one who gave the orders for your motherto be kidnapped.”
Christian stood and leaned over the desk, jaw tightened. “And we let him leave? Why?”
“Because Thorne would have killed him and his daughter. Would have tortured them.”
Christian’s eyes flickered with something sharp, something cold. “Maybe he deserved it.”
Isaac pressed two fingers to his pounding temple. “I’m not willing to see a man cut down based on one sheet of paper. Even if guilty, the law must be upheld.”
Christian began to pace. “I don’t understand. Ross worked with my father. Why would he betray him like that?”
“Thorne said… He said Ross approached him and tried to convince him to take part in a lucrative deal. He wouldn’t tell him what, only that he would need to agree to look the other way and keep his mouth shut. He was offered a large sum of money. He declined.” He took a slow breath. “Ross mentioned something about an investigation led by your father in the order.”
Christian’s hand tightened around the glass, the flickering light from the fire catching in his eyes. He didn’t speak at first, his jaw set as he stared down into his drink, swirling it absentmindedly. Then he let out a long breath, shaking his head slowly.
“Ironic, isn’t it? That such an honest man could become the monster he is today.”
Isaac curled his hands into fists. “He had a choice. We all do. He could’ve stayed the honest man. But he chose the wrong path. He chose revenge.”
“I didn’t understand before.” His friend’s voice came whisper soft as he stared out the window. “But now that I have Samantha, it all makes sense. How losing my mother broke him, changed him.”
“It’s not the loss that makes a man a monster—it’s what he does in response to it.” Isaac pressed his lips together. “How deep do yoursympathies go, exactly?”
Christian leaned forward, sharpness tightening his eyes. “It’s easy to judge someone when you’re not in their shoes. Easy to say you’d never let grief turn you into that monster. But you don’t know. You don’t know what it’s like to lose everything.”
Isaac set his jaw, thoughts racing as he fixed his eyes on Christian, trying to make sense of the words that didn’t quite sit right. The pressure in his chest grew, each breath thinner than the last as his pulse quickened.
“Don’t look at me like that.” Christian raised his hands. “I’m not on his side.”
