Chapter 27 Tristan
TWENTY-SEVEN
TRISTAN
She's been in there too long for it to be a routine checkup.
I scan the room out of habit, cataloguing exits the way I've done a thousand times before. Front door. Back hallway that probably leads to a fire escape. Windows sealed. No cameras in the waiting room, but there is one mounted above the entrance outside.
Seventeen ways I could get her out of here right now.
But none of them would work, because we don't have Hale.
I know I need to stick to the plan, but it feels like a leash wrapped around my throat.
I pull out the burner phone, praying Aaron has come through early.
There's one message:
Artemis confirmed. East River. 11/15. Formal sale. M&K hosting. Invite only. Window opens 72 post-touchdown. Route is on you. No reply.
I read it twice before deleting the message. I turn off the phone, pull out the battery, and snap it in half. After a quick scan to make sure no one's watching, I wrap the pieces in a paper towel and toss them in the trash bin under the check-in desk.
Artemis is Cat's codename for high-value extractions.
Ever since she took down her father, Mortelle—the most dangerous Italian mafia king in New York City—she's taken what used to be something brutal and unforgiving and reshaped it into power.
She built the intelligence web from nothing, with Aaron, her husband, running the operational side.
Together, they've pulled thousands of women and children out of places no one else could reach.
They kept the Mortelle name. Kept the front intact, because the trust was already there—and access comes easier when the worst people in the world think you're one of them. It lets them move quietly and strike without warning.
Exactly what I need to get Keira and Hale out.
I never doubted they'd come through, and I'm glad I made the call when I did.
Handling this myself, without backup, would've been suicide.
My friends found the bait—the only thing guaranteed to drag Calder out of his safe house and onto ground I control.
New York.
My city. My streets. My territory.
The M&K formal sale must be referring to the Mortelle-Karpov merger. Karpov is a relatively new Russian mob pushing into the Western world. Cat's been trying to broker a mutually beneficial agreement, and it looks like it finally landed.
If that's the case, this event will be the biggest consolidation of criminal assets in over a decade. Every major player on the Eastern Seaboard will be there—cutting deals, forging alliances, circling each other like sharks in bloody water.
Calder will want a seat at the table. It cements his position at the top of the food chain.
He won't be able to resist.
And he'll have to bring Keira. Dressed up, paraded around, displayed on his arm like a trophy he wants everyone to admire but no one to touch. His pretty little prisoner in designer clothes.
He'll walk her right into my hands and never see it coming.
That means I have two weeks to keep this mask in place and plan everything perfectly.
It also means two more weeks of standing close enough to touch her—but not being able to.
Two more weeks of this slow, excruciating death.
Keira is paler than before when she finally walks out of the doctor's office.
Her hands hang limp at her sides, a faint tremor in her fingers. Whatever happened in that room shook loose the last threads holding her together.
She won't meet my eyes.
Two fresh puncture marks dot the crooks of her elbows. "Is everything alright, madame?"
She doesn't answer.
We walk out of the clinic in silence. The parking lot is empty—no sign of Otis anywhere.
She stops at the edge of the pavement, staring out at nothing.
"I'd like to walk for a bit. If that's allowed."
She's asking me for permission to take a fucking walk. To breathe fresh air while we wait. As if existing outside a cage requires approval from her handlers.
"Whatever you want," I say through clenched teeth.
I completely forgot to ditch the rage and put on the accent.
Fuck.
Keira's eyes lift to mine, a small furrow forming between her brows.
She heard it. The slip.
Get it together. You're going to blow everything because you can't keep your shit straight around her.
But she doesn't call me out.
Instead, she repeats the words back to me. Like she's tasting something foreign on her tongue.
"Whatever I want. That's not something I hear very often."
I know.
I know exactly how rarely you're allowed to want anything. How he's trained you to ask permission to breathe. How every choice has been stripped away until you've forgotten you ever had them.
Don't you worry, baby girl. I'm going to kill everyone who made it that way.