Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
Henry
The highway had long since given way to the back roads, narrow two-lane strips of cracked asphalt threading through endless forests and stagnant, moon-lit marsh.
Central Florida at night had a way of swallowing sound, of making the world feel hollow and forgotten.
The kind of place where bad things could happen quietly, without anyone ever knowing.
I kept one hand on the wheel and the other loose on my thigh, resisting the urge to check my phone for the tenth time. Ariana was safe and secure at my farm property. The perimeter sensors were on. The alarms. The locks. Everything.
Better yet, she had Cato. If all else failed, he wouldn’t. He was loyal to a fault.
I hated leaving her.
But I found a small slice of comfort in the knowledge that Victor was nowhere near Georgia.
And Blake’s surveillance on this cabin had held steady for over twelve hours.
Victor hadn’t left once. The only activity was an electrician stopping by this afternoon to fix a breaker problem, as Blake confirmed with the electrical company.
It did seem too easy, like Ariana cautioned. But like I assured her, Victor had probably gotten lazy.
His laziness was about to cost him everything.
The road narrowed as we approached the turnoff. Spanish moss hung from the trees like skeletal fingers, brushing the roof of the SUV as we eased forward. I flipped the headlights off and let the residual glow from the moon guide us the last quarter mile.
“It’s around the curve,” Blake murmured beside me, studying the feed on his tablet. “We should park here.”
I nodded, rolling to a stop well before the gravel driveway. The night hit me the second I opened my door — dense, warm, buzzing faintly with mosquitoes. I checked my pistol and followed Blake toward the tree line, the two of us moving like shadows through the darkness.
When the cabin finally came into view through the gaps in the pines, I blew out a slow breath. Completely dark. Two stories. No exterior lights. A wraparound porch. A small dock stretching into the lake, the water black and glassy.
Nothing about it screamed hotel magnate. Nothing screamed anything at all. It looked like a place a fisherman might rent for a long weekend.
Or somewhere to go so no one would find you.
But we found him.
Like I knew we would.
Blake crouched down behind a fallen tree, bringing his binoculars up to his eyes. I mirrored him, scanning the structure from roof to foundation, looking for anything that seemed out of place. But there was nothing. Just a regular fishing cabin.
Still, Blake let out a sigh.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“It just…feels wrong,” he replied. “I don’t know. Maybe it was too easy.”
“We’ve had eyes on the house all day. Victor’s in there. Alone. It’s him. He used his credit card at the gas station we passed a few miles back. His cell phone is pinging from this location. The only thing easier would have been if he walked out with a bow tied around his neck.”
Blake didn’t argue again, but the tension in his jaw told me everything. He didn’t like this. I wasn’t thrilled with it, either, but this needed to happen. If for no other reason than to prevent us from having to use Ariana as bait.
“I’ll go in by myself if you’d rather,” I offered. “You can stay on watch out here.”
“And let you have all the fun?” he replied with a smile. “No way in hell.”
“Then let’s go.”
We deftly moved through the night, the only sound the faint rustling of raw earth beneath our feet. When we neared the back door, I met Blake’s eyes.
“Ready?” I whispered.
He gave a single nod and got to work on picking the lock, one of his specialties. He had the door open in less than ten seconds, and we quietly slipped inside.
The air hit me like a wall — stale, unmoving, heavy with the damp wooden smell old cabins tended to have.
“I’ll take the upstairs. You take down here.”
“Copy,” Blake said, and we went our separate ways, sweeping each room.
The first bedroom was empty. As was the second. The last room showed some sign of life, the bathroom light still on and the bed unmade.
But even after looking in the closet and under the bed, there was no sign of him. I even checked the linen closet and laundry room.
Still nothing.
I headed back downstairs, meeting Blake in the living room.
“Anything?” I asked.
He pushed out a breath. “Nothing. Maybe he’s in the garage.”
“Let’s check it out.”
We moved toward a door off the kitchen that led to the attached garage, and Blake eased it open. A thin line of moonlight stretched across the cement floor.
At least, what could be seen of the cement floor.
The garage was filled with every manner of fishing gear — poles, tackle boxes, spools of fishing line. There was even a workbench with a disassembled motor on top.
But that wasn’t what caught my attention.
Instead, it was the form of a man sitting in a chair, the moonlight like a spotlight.
“Victor?” I said, my grip tight on my gun as I slowly moved across the space toward him.
No response.
“Victor?” I repeated, my dread increasing with every inch I erased.
And when I stepped in front of him, I let out a shaky breath.
Because this man wasn’t Victor Kane.
He was dressed like the man we’d seen in the surveillance video. Same jacket. Same jeans. Same boots.
But as I shined my flashlight over his face, there was no mistaking it. He may have had a similar bone structure. Similar hair. Similar build. Enough to pass for him at a distance. Or even up close.
But I’d spent the better part of the last year studying Victor Kane. Learning everything about him.
“Who the fuck is that?” Blake snipped out.
“Someone who looks a hell of a lot like Victor Kane. Who someone wanted everyone to think was Victor Kane. Who wanted us to think was Victor Kane.” A ball of dread tightened in my stomach, and I felt like I was going to be sick. “It was a fucking trap. You were right. Fuck!”
“No time for ‘I told you so’,” he rushed out, quickly moving toward the exterior garage door. “We need to go.”
But just as he opened the door, he froze, darting his eyes toward me. “Henry! Stop!”
I halted in my tracks. “What are you—”
Then I saw it.
A thin plate beneath Blake’s foot.
I pointed my flashlight at it, following the wires along the floor and toward the workbench.
At first, it was nothing but a tangle of black and red lines disappearing under the legs. But then I noticed them coming out from behind it.
Right to the gutted boat motor.
Only it wasn’t gutted.
Not in the way I’d assumed. It had been taken apart and repurposed for something else.
My stomach bottomed out.
“Jesus Christ. It’s a fucking bomb.”
Blake went still, like he didn’t dare breathe.
I returned to him, following the wiring every step of the way. “This plate is a switch. You lift your foot, the circuit closes.” I straightened, my heart slamming against my ribs as I scanned the garage once more. “There has to be a bypass—”
“You need to go, Henry.” His voice dropped. Calm. Steady.
“The hell I do.” My light stayed locked on the plate under his boot, like if I stopped looking at it, it would detonate. “I’m not leaving you here.”
“Yes, you are. If you stay, we both die, and Ariana ends up right back where you dragged her from. You want Victor to win? Because that’s how he wins.
” He held my gaze for a beat, then surveyed his surroundings, moisture forming in his eyes.
“Never thought I’d die in a garage that smells like fish guts and mildew.
” He pushed out a nervous laugh. “Or that your ugly mug would be the last thing I’d ever see. But here we are.”
“Blake…” I shook my head, emotion tightening my throat. There was so much I wanted to say. Other than Gideon, he was the only true friend I had.
And I’d just gotten him killed.
“I’m sorry, Blake.”
“Go, Henry. Please. Get the fuck out of here.”
It was the please that did it.
Blake never said please.
My jaw clenched. My eyes burned, but I did as he asked.
I took a step back. Then another. And another, until the doorframe was at my back.
“I’ll send help,” I promised.
“I’ll be here,” he whispered.
I held his gaze as I backed into the house.
“Go,” he said once more.
And while I hated abandoning him, I knew he was right. If this were a trap, Ariana could be in danger. So I spun around and sprinted out of the house, not stopping until I reached the SUV.
I cranked the engine, the tires spitting gravel as the cabin disappeared behind the curve of trees. Every few seconds, I glanced in the rearview mirror, growing hopeful with each heartbeat that passed without hearing an explosion.
But that hope was dashed when the world behind me erupted, a violent burst of red and orange swallowing the sky.
My vision tunneled.
My hands tightened on the wheel.
But I didn’t slow down.
I couldn’t.
Not after Blake’s sacrifice.
I had to get to Ariana.
And then I’d kill Victor Kane, once and for all.