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I get into the SUV.

Mackensie takes the other side.

The engine turns. The docks slide away behind us, black and industrious and finished with the man we brought here.

Tito Lucci is still out there.

Hiding. Planning. Believing that a general can sanction my death and sleep through the winter.

He is wrong. I will find him. I will take his world apart the way I took this one soldier’s last refusal and fed it to the river.

I look at the tracker app on my phone once more. It’s time to ride back toward it with gunpowder still in my nose and the tracker quiet in my pocket and the knowledge that mercy, as ever, is for the weak…

Mackensie leaves me on the curb and the SUV melts back into the traffic. Keller’s takes me in.

Heat. Burning wood in the grand open fire. The low murmur of men who think privacy is something you can buy by the hour.

I start for the bar.

Then I see him on the stairs.

Elias.

Coming down like the building might accuse him of something if he takes the steps too loud.

Chin tucked. Hands neat. Eyes on the runner instead of the lobby.

A boy who has been upstairs for reasons that are not napkins...

Damn, if you’re not the most interesting thing here.

What are you up to, boy…

I smile where the boy cannot see it. Then I wipe it off and walk to the bar as if the staircase is furniture.

Jacque has the bottle before I finish sitting.

“The usual,” I say.

He pours. The vodka is cold and honest. I let it sit on my tongue and wait for Elias to decide whether he is going to hide in the kitchens or finish the performance.

He chooses the bar.

Good. Pride is useful if you know how to aim it.

“Another vodka,” I tell Elias. “And one for yourself.”

Elias does not hesitate. Jacque’s mouth does a little twist of theater. The mock scandal of a man who has seen worse and will see worse again before the night ends.

Jacque pours for Elias. The boy takes it, drinks like he needs the burn to stand up straight.

“I need to speak with you,” I say.

I stand. The young man follows without a single hesitation. We leave the public room and its polite eyes and I take him into the staff locker room.

Benches. Metal doors. The smell of other people’s nights.

I lock us in. The sound makes his shoulders jump.