6
PREDATOR'S WAKE
DOMINIC
Ilooked at the mask sitting on my desk like evidence. Black silk, simple cut, the elastic stretched where I'd ripped it from his face.
He'd run. I'd chased. And by the time it came off, he was already moving, face turned away, rain and darkness swallowing any details before I could catch them.
But I had this. And I knew his build, his movements, the exact way he'd climbed that scaffolding like gravity was a suggestion.
The light made it look ordinary. Just fabric and elastic. Nothing that should matter. But I couldn't stop turning it over in my hands, couldn't stop thinking about the man.
My phone buzzed. Dmitri. I answered on the second ring.
“Tell me you found something,” I said.
“Footage pulled. You were right.” Dmitri's voice was clipped. “Same build, same movement pattern. He entered Eden at 10:19 using a stolen key card. Exited at 11:47. No name on file.”
“Where did he go after?”
“Lost him three blocks out. Too many blind spots. But I'm running facial recognition on what we have. Already sent it through to your email.”
“Good. Send anything else the moment you have it.”
He ended the call without ceremony. That was Dmitri.
I opened my laptop and pulled up the message. The attachment loaded slowly — grainy footage from Eden's exterior camera showing the stranger without his mask. Poor quality, but good enough. Sharp jaw. High cheekbones. And eyes that didn't match, one darker than the other even in the black-and-white frame.
Heterochromia. Rare enough to be memorable. Useful for identification if you knew what to look for.
I forwarded the image to Luka with a single line:
Who is this?
His reply came back fast.
Give me an hour.
I spent that hour at Ravenswood's gym, working through routines that usually cleared my head and left me too tired to think about questions without answers. A barbell loaded heavy enough to make my muscles scream. Deadlifts until my grip failed. Pull-ups until my shoulders gave out. Physical exhaustion standing in for the other kind.
It didn't work. I kept seeing those mismatched eyes, kept feeling the moment in the corridor when we'd collided and my instincts had screamed conflicting warnings I still didn't understand.
Luka called forty minutes later, not waiting for the full hour.
“Callahan Mercer,” he said, no preamble. “Goes by Cal. Private investigator. Former detective, forced out three years ago under circumstances that smell like a frame job. Clean record before that. Decorated, even. Works solo now, takes cases nobody else wants. Reputation for being thorough and expensive. No known criminal associations. No obvious reason to be at Eden unless he was working.”
Private investigator. It explained the surveillance, the way he'd moved through Viktor's wedding like he belonged while watching exits and tracking targets. It explained Eden, if he'd been following someone. It explained everything except why his presence made my chest tight and my hands want to reach for things I'd learned not to touch.
“What kind of cases?” I asked.
“Corruption. White-collar crime. He's made enemies in high places. Interesting enemies.” A pause. “I'll send you the full file.”
I showered, dressed, tried to focus on the work Adrian actually paid me to do. Security assessments. Background checks on potential business partners. The careful architecture of protection that kept Ravenswood functioning and Viktor breathing and Adrian's empire operating without drawing attention it couldn't afford.
My mind kept circling back to Cal Mercer anyway. He was hunting something. Someone. Whatever it was had led him through Viktor's wedding and into Eden's private rooms with techniques suggesting he'd crossed every ethical line investigators were supposed to respect.
I needed to know why. Needed to understand what he was hunting and whether it posed a threat to the people I protected. Needed to map the shape of this variable before it became a problem I couldn't contain.
