Chapter 26 Ridge
TWENTY-SIX
Ridge
Jean Lafitte: A prominent figure in New Orleans, initially presenting himself as a legitimate businessman and privateer.
Operating from Barataria Bay, Lafitte and his brother Pierre engaged in smuggling and piracy, covertly distributing contraband goods to New Orleans residents.
While publicly maintaining an image of respectability, Lafitte's clandestine activities were eventually exposed, revealing his true role as a pirate and smuggler.
His dual identity highlights the complex interplay between legality and deception in New Orleans' history.
I get in my car and slam the door.
The leather steering wheel is cold under my palms. Agitation coils through my arms and shoulders, spreading through my chest. The pressure is tight enough that it needs somewhere to go.
I start the engine and dial Vin’s number, putting the call on speaker as I pull away from the curb.
The hum of the engine fills the space between rings. He picks up on the second.
“Ridge,” Vin says.
I keep my voice level. “Where are you?”
There’s a brief pause, the kind that tells me he’s reading more than the words. “The Orchid.”
“Stay there. I’m on my way.” I end the call before he can respond.
I head down Annunciation Street, streetlights sliding past the windshield as everything stacks at once. My name is tied to a fentanyl shipment I know nothing about, and Tripp’s half-answers keep replaying in my head, louder now that the Duvalls are barely cold in the ground.
The fact that the rumor reached Coco tells me it traveled too far, too fast. Someone let it move when it should have been buried. Or worse, someone wanted it circulating.
I didn’t deny it because I don’t know the truth yet. And that’s the problem. As long as there’s even a question, she can’t be near me. Not standing close enough to get hit by something meant for me.
Whether the rumor is real or manufactured doesn’t matter. My reputation is suddenly radioactive, and her safety comes before my pride, my anger, or whatever this thing between us is trying to become.
Either someone inside my operation is moving product without my consent, crossing a line my father and I never touched.
Or someone let the lie breathe long enough for it to become useful.
Regardless, oversight failed somewhere it never should have. And until I get it back, Coco stays out of my world. Even if it costs me her.
If anyone would have heard the noise before it reached the street, it’s Vin. That isn’t faith, it’s function. He’s always been the filter, tracking what’s real, what’s planted, and what needs to be contained before it escalates. If he hasn’t heard, he knows where to go to find out the source.
My phone buzzes against the console. Gabe’s name scrolls across the screen.
“Yeah?” I answer, keeping my eyes on the road.
“I’ve been going through the photos Wells pulled,” he says. His voice is steady, but there’s something careful underneath it.
The photos. The ones that never quite lined up.
“And?” I ask.
“You need to see this in person.”
I tighten my grip on the wheel. “Just tell me.”
“I can’t,” he says. “Not without walking you through how it fits together. I want to show you in person.”
I glance at the clock on the dash. Vin can tell me what people are saying. Maybe Gabe can show me why they’re saying it, so I want to see what he has first. This all has to connect back to whatever the fuck is going down with this fentanyl shipment.
“Where are you?”
“Office.”
“I’m on my way.”
I thought removing the Duvalls from the equation would mean things would stabilize and we would go back to normal. Whatever that is. I’m more interested in running ports than playing defense against someone else’s criminal mess.
I realize now that normal is no longer in the cards. That’s the line for me. Not fentanyl, or money, or reputation.
It’s her safety.
The building comes into view a few minutes later, brick and unremarkable. I pull into the lot and shut the engine off, sitting there for a moment to collect myself before going in.
I reach under the seat and take the Sig into my hand.
I don’t like needing it, but tonight isn’t about comfort. It’s about contingencies. I secure it at my back and step out into the night.
I push through the door to Gabe’s setup.
It’s tucked into a quiet corner of the operations hub, the kind of space meant for focus, not comfort.
The air smells faintly of gun oil and old coffee. The temperature is a few degrees cooler than the rest of the building. The constant hum of equipment running travels through the exposed brick walls.
Gabe sits at his desk with his prosthetic leg propped against the frame, posture relaxed but attention razor-sharp. His eyes are locked on a monitor filled with grainy images and annotated notes. He doesn’t look up right away.
When he finally turns, his expression is flat and all business. The only tell is the tight set of his jaw, irritation flickering there at being pulled into our business fallout.
He was hired as a logistics manager, not a prison guard or forensic detective.
“You wanted to know what the photos are about,” Gabe says, not as a question. He gestures toward the chair opposite him. “You’re going to want to sit down.”
“I’m fine,” I say, staying where I am. I fold my arms, more to anchor myself than to make a point. “Just tell me.”
Gabe watches me for a beat, then nods once. He turns back to the workstation, turns the screen so I can see it, and brings an image up and enlarges it so I can see it clearly.
I recognize it immediately.
Vin. The man with the birthmark. Two of the Duvalls’ people. All four of them are standing outside a warehouse near the river, caught mid-conversation.
No weapons are drawn, no tension is visible. Just men talking. The kind of photograph that looks harmless until you put it against all of the murders and fallout that have gone down in this city in the last several weeks.
My chest tightens, like it knows to brace itself.
“Wells handed these to me after your conversation about Tripp,” Gabe says.
His prosthetic gives a faint, mechanical sound as he shifts his weight.
“Something about the timing bothered him. The photos didn’t line up cleanly with the story we’d been working from.
So he asked me to trace where they came from. ”
I keep my eyes on the screen. “And?”
“I found the photographer.”
That gets my attention, but I keep my expression neutral. “Did he shed any light? Vin said my father hired someone to document those meetings in case things went sideways. Is there more to it than that?”
Gabe clicks to the next image. Same warehouse, different day. This one is of Vin shaking hands with the man with the birthmark.
“That’s true,” he says. “Robert hired him. The photographer didn’t know why, just that he was on round-the-clock surveillance of this specific warehouse.”
I turn slightly, attention sharpening. That distinction matters.
“So what’s the new news, then? I know all of this.”
“The photographer wasn’t one of ours,” Gabe continues. “No background in this world or affiliations. He does corporate surveillance and industrial work. Shipping disputes. Zoning conflicts. He was hired because he wouldn’t raise alarms.”
“Okay,” I say. “So where does this go wrong?”
Gabe exhales slowly and brings up a third image. Another warehouse. Different men, same long lens distance.
“The problem isn’t the photos themselves,” he says. “It’s what your father did with them.”
I wait.
“Robert didn’t just collect these images,” Gabe continues. “He cross-referenced them against dates, locations, and shipping manifests. He compared the faces in these photos to names that had already been flagged by federal task forces for fentanyl trafficking in the States.”
My jaw tightens. Fentanyl.
“He didn’t say anything to me,” I say.
“No,” Gabe agrees. “He didn’t. He was still trying to get to the bottom of everything before he decided what to do with it.”
He pulls up a timeline now. Dates stacked alongside shipping lanes, port arrivals, and warehouse transfers.
“Your father realized what was happening the day before he was murdered,” Gabe says. “He found out the shipment was already en route.”
A slow, cold weight settles in my chest.
“From Asia,” I say.
“Yes. Fentanyl was already en route and scheduled to move through the infrastructure he controlled. That meant two things. One, he had the power to stop it. And two—” He pauses, letting it sit. “—anyone involved stood to lose hundreds of millions if he did.”
I drag a hand over my mouth, the pieces clicking together with sickening precision.
“And the photographer?” I ask.
Gabe shifts again, his expression hardening. “That’s where it escalates.”
He brings up a final set of notes.
“The photographer was approached the morning of the murder,” he says. “Whoever it was wanted to know who hired him and why. He panicked because he wasn’t trained for that kind of pressure.”
“So he talked.”
“He told them Robert Stone hired him,” Gabe says. “He told them what he’d been photographing. He told them that Robert had been asking for additional coverage. Specific dates. Specific warehouses.”
I feel it then. The inevitability of it.
“They knew he knew,” I say.
“They knew your father was close to shutting it down,” Gabe says. “They knew he had proof. And they knew once he moved, the shipment was dead.”
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
“So they killed him.”
“Yes.”
The word lands like a blow. Not shocking. Just brutal in its simplicity.
“They didn’t kill him to expand,” Gabe continues. “They killed him because the shipment was already too far along to abandon. There was too much money on the water. Your father became an obstacle they couldn’t afford.”
He brings up another image. It’s timestamped, geo-tagged, and closer to the port.
“They still needed time,” he says. “Time to make sure the container reached its destination.”