Chapter 26 Ridge #2
“So someone on the inside had to make sure nothing slowed it once our port was listed,” I say. “Not approval. Just a clear path.” I pause. “Did Tripp’s access touch that lane?”
Tripp is the one variable I haven’t been able to resolve. The story he told sounded impossible. Too thin. I needed it to break somewhere. Otherwise, his death meant nothing.
Gabe straightens, as if he’s been waiting for the question. “Yes. But not in the way you think. He was telling the truth.”
I hold his gaze. “How do you know?”
He switches the display—no photos this time. A data map. Timestamps, metadata, location pings.
“Wells traced the account that first contacted Tripp,” Gabe says. “The one who told him to make himself useful. It wasn’t Duvall. And it wasn’t anyone inside their operation.”
My stomach tightens. “Then who?”
“Your father.”
The room goes quiet.
“You’re sure?” I ask. Not because I doubt him—but because it never occurred to me.
Gabe nods once. “We followed the trail all the way back. Robert didn’t want anyone else to know. Not Vin. Not Wells. Not you.”
I scrub a hand over my jaw. “Why Tripp?”
“Because he was low-risk,” Gabe says. “He wasn’t chasing leverage. He wasn’t tied to any single operator or terminal. He moved easily through shared spaces without drawing attention.”
Shared spaces.
My father wasn’t looking for power. He was looking for invisibility.
“And no one knew he was being watched,” Gabe continues. “Tripp already had access to the overlap points—vendors, terminals, third-party operators. Your father didn’t need to bring him inside to see how he’d behave.”
I nod slowly.
“He wasn’t recruited,” I say. “He was selected.”
“Exactly,” Gabe says. “Your father wanted to see how he handled limited direction. Whether he stayed in his lane. Whether he could follow the scope without needing validation.”
Not used.
Observed.
“Robert suspected the Duvalls were circling something bigger than electronics,” Gabe continues. “He didn’t know what yet. Only that they were meeting people they didn’t need, in places they didn’t usually meet. He wanted time. And he wanted options.”
“So Tripp was one of those options.”
“Yes.”
“They needed Stone Intermodal’s lanes,” Gabe says. “Their usual routes couldn’t handle the volume without drawing scrutiny. Baton Rouge was tightening. The shipment was already too far along to reroute without catastrophic losses.”
That lands.
“Your father said no,” Gabe continues. “And once the photos confirmed what was actually in the containers, they knew he wouldn’t bend.”
“And Tripp?” I ask.
“He was adjacency,” Gabe says. “Accessible without being embedded. Your father kept the directive narrow. No questions. No information gathering. Just proximity—if he ever needed it.”
I breathe out slowly.
“Tripp didn’t know what he was orbiting,” Gabe adds. “He wasn’t working toward an outcome. He wasn’t playing both sides. He was exactly what he appeared to be—someone already in the room.”
It fits. Cleanly. Horribly.
“Once your father confirmed the fentanyl,” Gabe says, “everything accelerated. Whatever he might have done with Tripp became irrelevant overnight.”
“And Tripp never knew any of it.”
“No,” Gabe says. “He was never brought inside. He stayed exactly where he was told to stay.”
I turn away, pace once, then stop. My hands curl at my sides.
Tripp was never a breach.
He didn’t move product or money or timing.
He operated in the margins, where access overlapped, and relationships blurred.
Enough to be seen.
Not enough to be protected.
“By the time my father understood what was really coming through the ports,” I say, “Tripp stopped mattering.”
Gabe nods. “Once fentanyl entered the equation, everything else became background noise.”
I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth, holding it there.
“He died because he held the key to the port access into the city,” I say.
Gabe doesn’t argue.
I drag a hand down my face and breathe through the tightness in my chest. Tripp trusted the structure. He trusted that saying yes, the way dockworkers always had, meant opportunity, not consequence, and that the real responsibility belonged to someone else.
The anger doesn’t burn. It settles. Cold. Precise.
“Then he wasn’t the problem,” I say.
Gabe looks at me but doesn’t say a word.
“If Tripp wasn’t tied to this,” I continue, my voice flattening, “then he died in vain.”
The thought sucks the air out of me.
I lift my eyes to his. “Juno. How did they get to him?”
Gabe pulls up financial records. Offshore accounts and shell companies are stacked three layers deep.
“Wells followed the money,” he says. “Juno knew the risk. He was paid ten million to kill your father and make it look like Boudreaux was responsible if he was caught.”
“Why does a dead man need ten million dollars? I had a gun to his face. I still don’t understand why he chose to die lying.”
“The money transferred to his wife the day after Robert died,” Gabe says. “It was always set up that way. You were meant to find him and ask him questions. Duvall wanted you to walk away believing the wrong man killed your father.”
“Motherfucker.”
The room tilts. We had pieces of this before, fragments. But seeing the whole structure at once makes my stomach roll.
I stop pacing and look at him fully.
“Does Wells know all of this?”
“He does,” Gabe says. “He’s been working it with me. Once we had enough to justify it, he traced the money and broke into the burner traffic.”
I nod slowly. The facts line up, and the timeline holds. What doesn’t sit as cleanly is that this didn’t break containment until my father was already dead.
“Good,” I say. “Then we’re aligned.”
Gabe watches me for a beat. “What do you want to do next?”
I think of the shipment already on the water, the way the Duvalls almost got it through with no one noticing, and their death didn’t stop it.
Then I think of Vin, waiting at the Orchid. It doesn’t make sense that my father didn’t tell him this. Surely he knows more than Gabe is suggesting.
“Nothing yet,” I say. “I want to talk to Vin.”
Gabe inclines his head. “I’ll stay on standby.”
I turn for the door. The answers about my father are finally in place. The failure in our operation isn’t.
The lounge is quieter than usual, though low laughter and the soft clink of glass remind me it never fully shuts down.
I step inside and give my eyes a moment to adjust. The lighting stays low, the air hazy with cigar smoke and perfume. Rich wood paneling and velvet seating do their usual work, selling comfort and privacy without needing to advertise it.
Tonight, though, the room is tighter than it normally is, less expansive than I remember.
My stomach tightens when I spot Vin at the bar.
He’s relaxed on a stool, one arm draped easily around a blonde in a dress designed to be noticed. He’s smiling, unbothered, his fingers tracing idle patterns along her shoulder like nothing beyond this moment demands his attention.
I feel a flicker of irritation before I can stop it. The contrast is sharp, his ease against the constant pressure that’s been humming under everything lately.
I pause just inside the room and watch him.
He doesn’t notice me right away. When he does, his smile falters for half a second before settling back into place. He knows exactly how unstable things are right now. And still, he looks entirely like himself.
“Well, well,” he says, lifting his glass. “The man of the hour finally shows.”
I cross the room at an unhurried pace. Vin leans in and murmurs something to the blonde. She laughs, slides off her stool, and disappears back into the crowd without looking back.
“What took you so long?” Vin asks as I stop beside the bar. He tips his glass toward me. “You said you were on your way over an hour ago. What happened?”
“Gabe called me on the way here,” I say. “He and Wells found something my father was tracking before he died. It ties back to a fentanyl shipment moving through the ports.”
That gets his attention.
Vin’s smile fades. He sets his glass down and rubs at his forehead, wiping invisible sweat, reorienting.
I rest one hand on the bar and put the other in my pocket as I turn to face him. “I wanted to compare notes. Walk me through everything you know about this.”
“Fentanyl?” He lets out a short breath. “I know it’s flooding street-level markets all over the city. What do you mean by a shipment?”
“I mean that’s what the Duvalls wanted the lanes for,” I say. “And when my father shut them down, they already had hundreds of millions on the water. He became an obstacle they couldn’t afford.”
Vin stares at me. The bar noise dulls around us.
“Holy fucking shit,” he mutters. “Fentanyl would never have flown for Robert. How did Wells find out?”
I give him the rundown Gabe walked me through. The photographer. The surveillance. The way my father cross-referenced faces and manifests instead of sounding alarms too early.
Vin listens without interrupting, his jaw tightening as the pieces settle.
“When?” he asks, rubbing the salt-and-pepper stubble along his chin.
“The day he was killed,” I say. “Duvall learned what he knew through the photographer that same morning. It moved fast.”
“Goddammit.” Vin exhales hard. “Your father and I had a meeting the next morning. I bet he was going to bring me up to speed then.”
“He didn’t tell either of us,” I say. “He carried it alone.”
Vin nods once. “Everything is making so much more sense now. I wondered how this all exploded so quickly, how the Duvalls put all of this together, and if they were even equipped to step into his shoes. It was never about that. It was only the shipping lanes and trafficking of their drugs.”
He goes quiet for a moment, eyes fixed on the bar top as all of it sinks in.
“Weren’t you two supposed to go to the warehouse that night?” I ask, replaying the timing. “And you went alone?”
“Yes.” His voice stays steady. “I called him after I talked to Dane and Ronnie, confirmed it was more of the same. When I couldn’t reach him, I figured he’d gone home. Maybe he came looking for me. I don’t know. I never spoke to him again.”
The words settle between us, heavy in a way that has nothing to do with blame. One missed call. One wrong assumption. Too many things balanced on timing that can’t be revisited.
I nod slowly. The facts line up. The timeline holds.
What doesn’t sit right is how much my father carried on his own. How he kept moving forward without looping either of us in, like he was buying time he didn’t end up having.
Vin watches me for a beat. “He was always like that. Took the weight himself. Thought he could keep everyone else clean by holding the mess alone.”
“Yeah,” I say. “He did.”
Silence stretches, not uncomfortable, just full. The kind that comes when there’s nothing left to clarify, only consequences still unfolding.
Vin reaches for his glass, then sets it back down untouched. “Whatever they were planning, it stops now. No drugs. No lanes. Not on our docks. Not ever.”
“I know,” I say. “That line doesn’t move.”
His jaw tightens in agreement. “Good.”
I take a breath, feeling the shift settle. Answers are finally in place. Not relief. Not closure.
Just the understanding that whatever comes next won’t be clean, and it won’t be quick.