Chapter 8 #3
He turned without meaning to. Isobel was curled tight beside him, the blanket twisted around her waist. Even in sleep, her body trembled faintly, a shiver running through her as the wind knifed through a loose seal in the hatch.
Before he thought better of it, he reached for her.
His arm slipped around her waist, pulling her gently back against him. She made a small sound—half protest, half surrender—and then stilled. The tension eased from her spine as her body warmed beneath his touch.
He told himself it was just comfort. Just keeping her warm.
But the truth was simpler.
Her hair brushed his chin, soft as sea grass, and he inhaled the faint floral scent that clung to her, some stubborn trace of a life that had nothing to do with guns and shadows.
His hand flexed once against her hip, the reality of her—alive, real, breakable—sliding through the cracks of his defenses.
He closed his eyes and let the rhythm of her breathing anchor him. For a while, the world outside didn’t exist. There was only the quiet, the salt air, and the impossible fact that for the first time in years, he wasn’t completely alone.
Sleep took him.
When he woke, the berth was empty.
Cold.
Rone sat up fast, the sudden absence more jarring than any gunshot. The pillow beside him was still indented where her head had been, her scent faint but fading.
He swung his legs to the floor and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Isobel?”
No answer. Just the soft creak of the hull and the tick of the clock on the wall.
He found her on deck, standing at the bow, staring toward the gray line of horizon where dawn was still dragging itself awake. The wind pulled at her hair, whipped color into her cheeks. She looked carved from the cold—beautiful and unreachable.
“You shouldn’t be out here,” he said in too quick, too tight. He cleared his throat and softened his tone. “Couldn’t sleep?”
Her arms crossed tight. “Couldn’t lie there waiting for a plan that doesn’t exist.”
He winced. “It exists. I told you I have a contact, we’ll make a deal through him.”
“And then what, Rone?” Her voice sharpened, clear and cutting through the morning quiet. “We keep hiding until they find us? Until they finish what they started? FBI can’t protect us. We both know that.”
He leaned against the railing beside her, the metal biting through his palms. “You want a plan? Step one—we stay alive long enough to make one.”
She turned to him, eyes storm-dark. “I’m not just going to run forever. And what happens once we turn it over? Do they kill my father and Echo?”
He met her gaze, steady but weary. “Your father might not—” Her glower changed his course. “We get them back. My contact will help us. He’s an old buddy of mine from my military days. A brother.”
The words hung there—truth, plea, warning.
Her shoulders dropped a fraction, so he thought she might soften. But she turned away instead, staring down at the water. “You should call whoever it is you trust. Since you don’t trust yourself.”
Ouch. That pierced true. He nodded once.
Down in the galley, he pulled his old canvas bag from under the bench seat and unzipped the side pocket. The burner phone sat where he’d left it—cheap plastic, scratched screen, always off until it wasn’t.
He powered it up and waited for the signal to catch. The glow of the screen painted his hands in cold blue light.
He scrolled to a number labeled only with an initial: D.
It rang once. Twice. Then a click.
“Didn’t expect to hear from you again,” said Blake in his Boston accent—dry, calm, too sharp to ever have been a friend.
“Didn’t expect to need you,” Rone clipped.
“That’s usually when you do. Tell me you’re not standing on a wire this time.”
“I need a trace run. Bullet casing and a thumb drive, both tied to the Laurel Tide shell.”
A pause, then a low whistle. “That’s not a nest you want to stir, my friend.”
“Already did.”
“Rone…” The voice dropped to baritone, warning threaded beneath it. “You need to walk away. That organization doesn’t leave survivors.”
Rone’s jaw popped. “Yeah. But a man on the docks and his daughter put me in the middle. A Shane Daniels. WITSEC guy who returned to the organization after they discovered he hadn’t died in prison.”
“I know that case. Crossed my desk when he turned up dead a few weeks ago. Him and three others were executed. I’m guessing they’re cleaning witnesses.”
“Shane, who I know as Shade, just radioed us he’s in trouble.”
“Don’t trust it. Too easy to clone voices now with AI. Send me what you’ve got,” the voice said at last. “If you survive long enough to get it to me. I’ll take it to the top. And then we’ll extract you. Looks like you’re the next to join WITSEC.”
“Me and Shade’s daughter.”
“Anyone else involved?”
Rone pinched the bridge of his nose. “One more.”
“Who’s that?”
“Echo.”
“That a code name?”
“No, it’s a K-9.”
“Don’t provide WITSEC for dogs,” Blake chuckled. “I’ll text you a location to meet.”
The line went dead.
Rone stared at the phone. The screen dimmed, then blacked out, his reflection muted in the glass—haunted, hollow-eyed, and tired of being a step behind.
“Rone?” Isobel stood in the doorway, the rising sun glinting off the water behind her. “What did he say?”
He slipped the phone into his pocket. “That we’re not the only ones running from Laurel Tides.”
Her brow furrowed. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” he said, turning toward the window, scanning the horizon as the tide began to pull, “someone else is already out there cleaning up their mess.”
He didn’t have to say it aloud—the unspoken truth that threaded cold through the air between them.
They were next on the list.