Chapter Ten
The conference room had never felt small before.
It wasn’t the size that had changed—it was the people in it. The way they filled the space without crowding it. The way every chair scrape and footstep carried intent instead of noise. Ethan felt it the second he stepped inside: this wasn’t a discussion room anymore.
It was a war room.
Kael stood at the head of the table, forearms braced against the glass surface, shoulders squared. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. Everyone who entered instinctively oriented toward him, gravity pulling them into position.
Ethan took the chair beside Niko, the familiar weight of his presence grounding him even as his chest felt too tight to draw a full breath.
The images on the main screen hadn’t changed since the call—Vermont, the campus layout, timestamps blinking red where lives had ended—but seeing them again made his stomach twist all over.
“All right,” Kael said. “You all know why we’re here.”
The room quieted fully.
“Primary objective,” Kael continued, tapping the screen once, “is recovery of Marcus Payne. Secondary objective is neutralization of Gregory Payne.”
Neutralization.
The word slid into Ethan like a blade wrapped in silk.
Victor shifted back in his chair. “Alive or—”
“Alive?” Niko cut in, sharp enough to slice the air. “Hell no.”
Every head turned.
Ethan felt the heat of it—Niko’s fury, clean and unfiltered, no hesitation in it at all.
“We’ve taken out assholes who deserved it less,” Niko went on, voice cold, absolute. “This man murdered teachers to make a point. He tortured his own kid to send a message. He doesn’t get a cell. He gets a grave.”
The room didn’t argue.
Ethan turned to Niko slowly. “What does we’ve taken out assholes who deserved it less mean?”
Kael met his gaze instead.
“It means,” Kael said evenly, “that Black Tide are assassins.”
The word hung there, heavy and unashamed.
“We don’t kill for money,” Kael continued. “We kill on contracts that we believe in. We kill when leaving someone alive guarantees more blood. When the math is clear. When the world is safer without them breathing.”
Ethan listened. Really listened.
Niko’s hand slid over his forearm, thumb pressing in once—with you.
“We decide together,” Niko added. “We argue. We vote. And when the line’s crossed, we don’t hesitate.”
Ethan exhaled slowly.
He hadn’t realized until that moment how badly he needed to hear that this wasn’t chaos. That there was structure. Ethics. A line that wasn’t arbitrary.
“Good,” he said quietly.
Several of them blinked.
“Because if I had to choose between mercy and certainty where my father’s concerned,” Ethan continued, voice steady now, “I’d choose certainty.”
Something unreadable passed across Kael’s face. Then he nodded once.
“Digital update,” Luca said, fingers already moving across his tablet. “Gregory entered Vermont two hours ago under a shell identity. He’s airborne now.”
The screen shifted—flight path data, altitude, velocity.
“Filed destination is Kansas City,” Luca continued. “But—”
“But he’s ghosting half the grid,” Marsh cut in over comms. “Transponder behavior says misdirection. Old-school tricks, not Directorate-clean. He’s good.”
“Good,” Luca said dryly. “Not invisible.”
Marsh huffed. “Yeah. He’s trying. He’s just ... not you.”
Ethan barely registered it.
“He’s moving fast,” Luca said. “But he wants you to follow.”
Pathfinders’ channel chimed.
“We’re closer,” Bateman said. “We can intercept. Pull him off the board now.”
Ethan shook his head immediately, the motion sharp enough to make his neck ache. “No.”
Bateman paused. “You sure?”
“If my father thinks this is a trap,” Ethan said, and felt the words settle into something iron-hard inside him, “and he doesn’t see me, he’ll kill Marcus.”
The room went still.
“This isn’t about speed,” Ethan continued. “It’s about control. He needs to believe he still has it.”
Niko’s thumb traced a slow line against his wrist, grounding, steady.
“He needs to see me,” Ethan finished. “In person.”
Kael nodded once. “Then it’s us.”
Movement followed instinctively—chairs scraping back, gear being grabbed, tablets snapping shut. No wasted motion. No questions left hanging.
“What are we flying?” Niko asked as they moved.
Ethan didn’t break stride. “The Aquila X-1.”
Marsh let out a low, reverent sound over the channel. “Of course it is.”
“It’ll get us there ahead of him,” Ethan said. “Fast enough, he won’t see us coming. Quiet enough, he won’t know we’re there until I want him to.”
They were almost out the door when his phone rang.
The phone rang again.
Not loud. Not urgent. Just a clean vibration against Ethan’s palm that felt far heavier than it should have.
He knew before he looked.
The room seemed to sense it too—movement stalled, voices cut off mid-word, the air tightening as if everyone had collectively drawn the same breath and forgotten how to let it go.
“I’ll take this,” Ethan said, already pulling the phone free. His thumb hovered for half a second before he set it to speaker. He didn’t trust his hand not to shake if he held it to his ear.
Gregory Payne’s voice slid into the room like oil.
“Ethan.”
There it was. Calm. Fond, almost. As if he were calling about dinner plans instead of bodies on a school floor.
“I thought you might take my call,” Gregory continued, amused. “It seems I have something you want.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
Then he heard it.
A sound—muffled, choked, unmistakably human. Pain, barely restrained. Breath forced through clenched teeth.
Marcus.
Niko moved instantly, his body angling toward Ethan, one hand gripping his arm hard enough to ground him, the other flexing like he was ready to tear something apart with it.
“Careful,” Gregory said softly, almost conversational. “You wouldn’t want to miss anything.”
Ethan opened his eyes.
The conference room had vanished. There was only the voice, the sound behind it, and the cold certainty settling into his bones. Gregory wasn’t improvising. This wasn’t rage. This was theater.
“You killed them,” Ethan said quietly. Not a question.
Gregory sighed, as if disappointed. “They interfered. You know how that goes. Tragic, really. But useful. It reminds people to stay in their lanes.”
Niko made a sound low in his throat, something feral. Kael’s jaw tightened, his gaze already distant, calculating, storing everything.
“You didn’t have to do this,” Ethan said.
“Oh, but I did,” Gregory replied. “You’ve been very busy, Ethan. Pulling threads. Breaking things that took years to build. I thought it was time we talked face-to-face again.”
Another sound from the line—sharper this time.
Ethan felt something tear loose inside his chest. He forced himself to breathe through it, slow and steady, the way he did when the aircraft shook and everyone else panicked.
“What do you want?” he asked.
Gregory smiled. Ethan could hear it. “Come home,” he said. “A family reunion is long overdue.”
Silence followed. Heavy. Expectant.
Ethan looked around the room.
At Kael, already mentally mapping routes and exits. At Luca, fingers flying across unseen systems, hunting angles. At Victor and Drew, coiled and ready. At Niko—who was watching him, not his father, eyes steady and fierce and full of trust.
Ethan swallowed once.
“I’ll be there,” he said.
The line went dead.
For a moment, no one spoke.
The hum of the room returned slowly—the systems, the quiet click of someone shifting their weight, the distant sound of the building breathing around them. Reality seeped back in, sharper now, edged with blood.
Niko didn’t let go of Ethan’s arm. “You okay?”
Ethan shook his head once. “He thinks he’s won.”
Kael straightened, all command now. “Then we let him think that, and we show him that he is dead fucking wrong.”
Ethan drew a slow breath, spine settling, fear transmuting into something harder, cleaner. Resolve.
“He wants me,” Ethan said. “He wants control back.”
Niko’s mouth curved into something dangerous. “He doesn’t know what he’s inviting.”
Ethan met his eyes, felt the certainty lock into place.
“No,” he said. “He doesn’t.”
He turned toward the door, toward the hangar, toward the jet already being readied. Toward the man who had shaped his nightmares—and the team who would help him end them.
“Let’s go,” Ethan said.
And this time, as they moved, it didn’t feel like a chase.
It felt like a reckoning.
****
Kansas City greeted them with darkness and distance.
The private airstrip sat low against the land, a long strip of asphalt cut into farmland that stretched away into black nothingness. No lights beyond the bare minimum. No signage. No noise. The kind of place that didn’t exist unless you knew exactly where to look.
Pathfinder connections.
Niko felt the Aquila settle beneath him, wheels kissing the ground with barely a whisper, and for the first time since Vermont, his pulse slowed. Not because he felt safe — but because they were finally where they needed to be.
The hangar doors were already open when they rolled in.
Two SUVs waited beyond them, matte black, wide-bodied, unapologetically armored. They didn’t scream military. They didn’t need to. Everything about them said survive first, ask questions never.
Two men leaned against the vehicles like this was a casual meet-up instead of the opening move of a bloodbath.
The taller one straightened as the team disembarked, dark hair pulled back, sharp eyes amused by everything. Greek, if Niko had to guess—and he didn’t often miss.
“Please tell me you’re the welcoming committee,” Drew muttered under his breath.
The man grinned. “Depends. You planning on tipping?”
Niko felt the edge of his mouth lift despite himself.
The second man pushed off the hood of the SUV, Polynesian for sure, broad and grounded, moving with the easy confidence of someone who’d survived enough violence to stop advertising it. His smile was warm. His eyes were not.
“Alexios Petrakis,” the Greek said, offering a quick nod. “Independent contractor. Transport. Extraction. Bad decisions.”
The Māori clapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Rangi Te Aho. Same business. Better driving.”
Alexios scoffed. “Debatable.”
Keanu brushed past them without slowing. “Cars. Now.”
Alexios blinked. “Wow. Usually, I get at least one joke in before a hot silent assassin shuts me down.”
Rangi’s grin widened, sharp and delighted. “I like him.”
Keanu didn’t even look back.
That made Niko pause.
Torch was usually the first to crack a joke, the last to let tension sit unchallenged. Tonight, he was all coiled muscle and closed expression, eyes hard, posture locked down.
Niko caught Kael watching him, too.
They shared a look.
Later.
“Two vehicles,” Rangi said, opening the rear doors. “Armor-plated. Reinforced suspension. Bullet-resistant glass. Routes preloaded.”
Alexios slid into the driver’s seat of the second SUV. “You get shot at, please aim better than they do.”
Niko snorted as he climbed into the first SUV with Ethan, Kael, and Drew. The interior smelled faintly of leather and oil. Purpose-built. Ethan sat beside him, spine straight, jaw set, eyes fixed forward like he could already see the estate rising out of the dark.
“You good?” Niko asked quietly.
Ethan nodded once. “He’s already there.”
It wasn’t fear in his voice.
It was certainty.
The SUVs rolled out in tandem, engines barely audible, Kansas City’s outskirts sliding past in long stretches of shadow and distant light. The land rose gently as they moved, the road narrowing, trees crowding closer.
Comms crackled low as they went call signs active.
The closer they got, the heavier the air felt.
Wrong.
“Breaker,” Kael murmured. “Status?”
Static. Then Luca’s voice, tight. “Stand by. I’m ... seeing discrepancies.”
Too late.
Gunfire erupted from the tree line—sharp, bright muzzle flashes tearing holes in the dark.
“Contact!” Drew snapped.
Rounds sparked against the SUV’s armor, the impact reverberating through Niko’s chest as the vehicle lurched.
Rangi didn’t flinch.
“Hold on,” he said calmly.
Ahead, the wrought-iron gate to the estate began to descend, hydraulics whining as it dropped like a guillotine.
“They’re already here,” Niko growled.
Rangi hit the accelerator.
“I’m going to drift us through,” he said, like he was announcing a lane change.
Niko cracked the window just enough to slide his weapon through the armored glass, adrenaline lighting him up like a live wire. “Do it.”
The SUV swung hard, tires screaming as Rangi kicked the rear end out, momentum carrying them sideways. The gate shattered under reinforced steel, metal screaming as it folded.
Three men came into view, rifles raised, firing wildly.
The drift lined them up perfectly.
Niko fired.
Once. Twice. Three times.
Clean.
The shooters dropped where they stood, bodies folding as the SUV straightened and surged forward like nothing had happened.
“Nice shooting,” Rangi said mildly.
“Nice driving,” Niko replied, heart hammering, grin sharp.
They were out of the vehicle before it fully stopped.
The night exploded into motion.
Comms lit up with the second SUV engaging from the opposite flank—Victor’s voice sharp, Tane calling angles, Luca feeding data faster than the words could land.
“Multiple hostiles,” Victor snapped. “Engaging.”
Niko checked Ethan instinctively. “Stay with Kael.”
Ethan met his gaze, gray eyes burning. “Not a chance.”
They moved.
Across manicured grounds that had once hosted charity galas and family dinners. Past fountains and hedges and stonework built to impress—now torn apart by muzzle flash and blood.
Gregory’s men went down fast.
They weren’t amateurs. But they weren’t Black Tide.
Niko took them apart with ruthless efficiency, every movement honed, every shot measured. No wasted rounds. No hesitation. This wasn’t a raid.
This was extermination.
The estate rose ahead of them, lights blazing against the night like a dare.
Gregory Payne was home.
Niko felt the weight of it settle into his bones—not fear. Not rage.
Purpose.
Whatever trap Gregory thought he’d laid.
Whatever game he thought he was still playing.
He’d forgotten one thing.
Ethan Payne was no longer alone.
And Black Tide had come to collect.