“I know. I want to see it myself.”
The mezzanine was accessible by a staircase tucked behind a partition near the hotel’s main lobby. Isaac took the stairs and found one of his guys at the top, holding position with the practiced stillness of someone who could stand in one place for six hours without losing focus.
Isaac checked the sight line. Ryder was right—the second column created a shadow in the camera’s coverage, a wedge-shaped gap that swallowed about twelve feet of the walkway. The post coverage eliminated the problem, but a permanent camera adjustment would fix it for good. He made a mental note to flag it for the hotel’s security coordinator.
He stood at the railing and looked down at the ballroom. The crowd moved and talked and performed. Endicott was still at his table. Laura was leaning into him now, her head close to his, and whatever she was saying made him smile.
Isaac’s grip tightened on the railing.
He’d asked Fallon to come with him.Talk to me.That had been the whole offer. But she’d chosen to rip her shoulder out of its fucking socket rather than say yes.
He wasn’t going to hurt her, wasn’t going to turn her in. He’d told her she wasn’t his concern—that Zodiac had bigger problems than her petty theft.
But she’d chosen agonizing pain over staying with him.
He pushed off the railing and headed back downstairs.
The crowd had shifted in the ten minutes he’d been on the mezzanine. New clusters near the bar, a few couples on the dance floor, the auction tables drawing a thicker knot of guests. Isaac moved through it, nodding at guests who made eye contact, sidestepping a waiter carrying a tray of some kind of architecturally designed hors d'oeuvres with salmon.
Near the bar, a dark-haired woman in a fitted dress crossed his peripheral vision, moving with too much purpose toward the terrace doors. His focus snapped to her. She turned to takea glass from a passing tray, and it was no one—a complete stranger reaching for champagne.
He exhaled through his nose and kept his circuit going. “Primary, status check.”
“Package hasn’t moved. Third drink now. Wife is with him. No concerns.”
“Copy.”
The room hummed along on its own expensive momentum. Isaac let the work carry him—positioning adjustments, crowd assessments, the steady rhythm of comms that kept the operation tight. This was what he knew. The scanning, the positioning, the comms—all of it familiar, all of it solid ground under his feet.
But his mind kept slipping back to that gate. The practiced quality of it—the way she’d known the angle, known the force, known exactly how to put herself back together on the other side. That wasn’t a woman doing something desperate for the first time. That was someone who’d made peace with hurting herself, and he couldn’t stop wondering how long ago she’d made that peace.
“Command.” Ryder’s voice was in his earpiece, sharper now. “I’ve got a male, late twenties to early thirties, dark suit, no invitation visible. He came through the main entrance without checking in at registration. He’s circling Endicott’s position—adjusted his route twice to keep the table in his sight line.”
Everything else dropped below the surface. Isaac’s focus narrowed to the room, the geometry of the threat, the position of his team.
“Describe him.”
“Five-ten, one-seventy. Navy suit, white shirt, no tie. Fidgeting. Keeps touching his jacket like he’s checking for something.”
“Armed?”
“Can’t tell. Jacket’s cut loose enough to conceal.”
Isaac was already moving toward Ryder’s position. “Primary, tighten up on the package. Don’t move him yet, but be ready. Ryder, maintain visual.”
He found Ryder’s sight line and followed it. The man was easy to spot. Twenty feet from Endicott’s table, standing near a column with a drink he wasn’t touching. His weight kept shifting. Left foot, right foot, left again. His jaw was working, and his eyes were locked on Endicott.
“I see him,” Isaac said.
“He hasn’t approached. But he’s locked on.”
“I’m going to intercept. If he moves toward Endicott before I reach him, you take him.”
“Copy.”
Isaac walked straight at the man. No angle, no flanking. Just a direct line, because directness was its own tool. A man walking toward you with eye contact and purpose either froze you in place or flushed you into motion, and either one told you what you needed to know.
The man saw him coming. The fidgeting stopped. His chin came up and his hand went flat against the front of his jacket.
