“Found it.” He sounds confident. “Meridian Coastal holds a lease on an abandoned marine storage facility in the Upper Keys. It has a private access road, perimeter fencing, and a single building with dock access. The lease has been active for four years, and utilities were reconnected three weeks ago.”
Three weeks. They’ve been preparing this property since before Eric made contact with Karpov’s shipping people. The timeline confirms what I already knew. This was never improvised. Eric was probably late to the party, and Karpov pivoted from whatever plan he’d had in mind to utilize him instead.
I look at Viktor. “Eric Hayes has made the last mistake of his life.”
Viktor nods once and starts making calls. Within twenty minutes, I have twelve men assembling at the house, weapons checked and assignments distributed. Dr. Zarlova clears Arseny and Maxim for the operation but sidelines the other three for severe injuries. Fedor is protesting loudly in a back room when she delivers that information to me.
I nod, focusing on the marine storage facility forty-five minutes south by road, and vaguely aware when she leaves. I don’t know if she’s returning to the injured men or if she’s done here for today. It’s not a priority right now. Knowing the plan is. We’ll approach from the water using two boats that Viktor arranged through his port contacts, eliminating the access road as a chokepoint.
I load my weapon in the kitchen while my men prepare in the garage. The Glock I moved to the nightstand drawer two nights ago so I could touch Aurora without reaching for it goes into my shoulder holster. I check the magazine, rack the slide, and holster it. The press of it against my ribs is familiar in a way thatcomfort never will be. The espresso machines, the hospitality programs, and the ultrasound printout still folded in my jacket pocket belong to the life I’m building. The Glock belongs to the life I inherited, which is the one that brings Aurora home.
Viktor appears in the doorway. “We’re ready.”
I walk past him toward the lead vehicle and stop at the door to look at him directly. “If Aurora isn’t alive when we arrive, nobody at that property walks out.”
Viktor doesn’t argue, qualify, or advise caution. He just nods once, and the nod carries seventeen years of loyalty and the understanding that some orders aren’t up for discussion. He gets behind the wheel.
Within minutes, we pull out of the driveway in a convoy of four vehicles. I sit in the passenger seat of the lead SUV with my weapon holstered, my phone tracking Grigor’s real-time feed of the storage facility’s perimeter cameras, and a coldness inside me that I recognize from one other moment in my life.
I was nineteen, and three men had just murdered my father. I dismantled their entire operation within six months.
Eric Hayes has far less time than that.
23
AURORA
Iwake to the smell of mildew, dust, and old water damage. I ache everywhere, wrists burning from the cord, side throbbing from the struggle, and for a few seconds, I don’t know where I am. Then the memories reassemble in the wrong order, first with the van, then the marina, the metal floor, and the hand over my mouth. I force them into sequence and hold them there until the timeline makes sense.
Marina. Van. Long drive. Gravel near the end. Somewhere secluded.
I’m lying on a concrete floor in a dim room with no windows. The light comes from a single bulb recessed into the ceiling behind a wire cage, and it casts a sickly yellow that makes everything look older and dirtier than it already is. My wrists are bound behind my back with nylon cord, snug enough to restrict circulation without cutting off blood flow entirely. Whoever tied these knots wanted me restrained, not damaged. That tells mesomething about my at least short-term value to whomever is running this.
I don’t panic. I listen, detecting no traffic or nearby voices. There’s a low mechanical hum that could be a generator or an HVAC unit, and the faint sound of water against something solid, which means I’m near the coast. At least one heavy door stands between me and open air, because the outside sounds are muffled, suggesting concrete or metal walls.
I press my forehead against the wall. The concussion from the van floor is still punishing me, and when I try to get to my knees, the room tilts. I brace one shoulder against the wall and push myself upright, then sit with my back against the concrete until the dizziness settles into something I can manage.
I look around the room more carefully. It’s a storage space, maybe fifteen by twenty feet, with industrial shelving along one wall and a rusted drain in the center of the floor. The shelving holds nothing except dust and a few corroded brackets. The door is metal and windowless. I test my restraints by pulling my wrists apart, and the cord has a small amount of give, maybe half an inch. Not enough to slip free, but enough to work with if I find something to cut against.
I press my bound hands against my stomach. Both babies are still in there, and I’ll do whatever I can to protect them.
After a half-hour or so, the door opens, and Eric walks in. He looks different from the last time I saw him. The professional composure is gone, and so is the detective’s wardrobe. He’s wearing dark civilian clothes, a holstered weapon on his hip, and looks like he’s standing on the wrong side of a line, trying to convince himself that the view is better.
“You’re awake.” He closes the door behind him and stands three feet away, looking down at where I’m sitting against the wall. “I didn’t want it to happen like this.”
“You kidnapped me, Eric.” I keep my voice level because giving him my fear would be giving him what he wants. “You used my mother as bait, orchestrated an ambush at a public café, and had your men assault my security team. Which part of this didn’t you want?”
“I gave you chances to come to me willingly. You ignored every one.”
“Because I don’t want to come to you. I told you that when I left you two years ago, and I’ve told you through every unwanted conversation, blocked number, and message since. You chose not to hear it.”
He crouches so we’re at eye level, and the intimacy of the gesture repulses me because he used to do this during arguments in our apartment. He’d crouch beside me on the couch and speak quietly, reasonably, as though proximity and soft volume were the same as kindness.
“Adrian is using you.” He says it with the earnest concern that fooled my mother, his lieutenant, and me for two years. “He killed Dominic, and he’s keeping you close because you’re a witness he can control. Everything he’s given you…the houses, the money, and the protection…is leverage. When he doesn’t need you anymore, you’ll disappear, and nobody will find you because he’ll make sure of it.”
“You’re describing yourself, Eric. You’re describing exactly what you’re doing right now.”
He looks wounded. “I’m protecting you.”
