The next ten minutes feel like the longest in my life.
I just keep looking at Keira, watching her smile, unaware that inside I'm panicking a little bit. Which is new fucking territory for me, because I don't panic. Ever. That's why I'm good at what I do. But add love to the mix, and apparently this is what happens. Sanity off the boat.
Calder re-emerges from below deck, grinning like an idiot.
Time crawls. Every second feels like it's stretching into an eternity.
Normally I'm calm in situations like this. I've done dozens ofambushes before, but this one's different. This one's too close. Nothing I do steadies my pulse.
"I don't have eyes on the package." Zoe's voice slices through the static, threaded with quiet terror.
"Repeat that," I grit out.
"The room is empty. They're gone." A shaky exhale. "I don't understand. I was watching the doors the entire time. No one went in or out. But the room is empty, and they're gone."
"When?"
"I don't know," she whispers, sounding defeated. "Maybe ten minutes."
"Zara is pulling security footage from every camera in a three-block radius." Aaron's voice has shifted into that cold operational mode I've heard a hundred times before. "Nick is running plates on every vehicle that left the hotel in the last four hours."
Zara and Nick.
Names I haven't heard since I ripped out my tracker and went dark on everyone who ever gave a shit about me.
They're here. They came anyway.
And it doesn't matter.
None of it matters, because my son is gone.
"Find the car." I'm trying to keep my voice down, trying to stay in character. It's so impossibly hard to care about any of it right now.
"We're working on it."
"Find. The. Fucking. Car."
My hands are shaking. I'm losing all control.
"Tristan, we need you to stay calm. If Calder sees?—"
I turn my head, taking a few steps back, but it's no use.
The words rip out of me anyway. "FIND HIM."
Heads turn toward me, but I don't care.
I've broken character so completely that I might as well have set myself on fire in front of all of them.
I don'tcare.
Someone took my son.
I don't know if he's scared, where he is. I don't know if he's crying for Keira…
I'm going to kill someone.
I'm going to tear this entire yacht apart with my bare fucking hands.
