Chapter 53
FIFTY-THREE
TRISTAN
When I get back to the main deck, the crowd has swelled, and the music pulses loudly through the speakers. The alcohol and drugs are fully flowing now, and quite a few people are putting on a show in small corners around the room.
Keira is exactly where I left her, but Calder is nowhere in sight. She's standing in front of Marchetti, spine rigid, wearing a smile so tight it looks painful. He's leaning into her space, and I want to snap his neck right off his head in this room full of people.
That would be a great way to start this night.
Calder finally walks in from the opposite side, seeming to be in conversation with a group of men I haven't seen before. His posture has loosened a bit. He looks almost relaxed.
Maybe the weird feeling eating at my insides has nothing to with him and everything to do with what's about to happen.
I know we have enough backup and experience to pull this off, but Keira's here—and I can't stand the thought of a single thing going wrong.
"Ghost to Queen." I angle my head down, lips barely moving. "Back in position."
Cat's response comes immediately. "Don't know who that is, but copy. Ninety minutes to lockdown."
The time drags on like never before.
I track Keira as she moves through the crowd, always keeping Calder in her peripheral, always anticipating his needs before he voices them. She's done this a thousand times. The performance is seamless. But I know her well enough now to see the cracks as obvious as day.
Last time, Red. This is the very last time.
Something about the security detail bothers me.
Calder boarded with six men. I'm counting at least fourteen now.
"Was there an updated security count before departure?"
Dom's voice cuts in. "We clocked twelve additional personnel. They came with Marchetti."
"Are you sure?"
A beat of silence. Then Cat: "Verifying now."
The clock hits 10:45.
Calder excuses himself from his conversation and moves toward the lower deck. The guards go with him. Not all fourteen, but more than half—and I'm not among them.
He did tell me to keep eyes on Keira tonight, but still, something about this doesn't sit right. I was meant to be on his watch for this entire event. Me and Marchand.
He's here too, though, so that brings me a bit of comfort. If Calder was up to something, he would definitely bring Marchand in.
"Target One is on the move," I murmur. "Heading below."
"We've got eyes on him," Aaron says.
11:15.
11:20.
11:25.
The party is getting louder, bigger, more chaotic by the minute. Exactly what we want. People distracted, drunk, enjoying the night, completely oblivious to the bloodshed about to unfold beneath their expensive shoes.
Cat moves through the crowd like she was born to it, playing the perfect hostess while subtly herding network heads toward the lower deck. Dom shifts position, ready to lock down the security systems. Marco's already disappeared into the conference room to prepare.
Twenty minutes until Keira's extraction.
Twenty minutes until I fuck up Calder for good.
I need one final status check on Hale, just to ease my mind.
"Status check on the small package," I mutter.
Static.
"Can I get a status check?" I turn my back, pretending to check an empty corner.
Nothing but silence.
"Zoe, do you copy?"
Crickets.
My comms better be down, because this isn't fucking good.
I'm about to walk over and grab Cat when her voice comes in through my ear. "She might be in a dead zone. We're on water, and she's far away. Give it a minute."
No chance in hell I'm sitting and waiting around for anything tonight.
"Or something's wrong."
"Stand by and take a deep breath."
The next ten minutes feel like the longest in my life.
I just keep looking at Keira, watching her smile, unaware that inside I'm panicking a little bit. Which is new fucking territory for me, because I don't panic. Ever. That's why I'm good at what I do. But add love to the mix, and apparently this is what happens. Sanity off the boat.
Calder re-emerges from below deck, grinning like an idiot.
Time crawls. Every second feels like it's stretching into an eternity.
Normally I'm calm in situations like this. I've done dozens of ambushes before, but this one's different. This one's too close. Nothing I do steadies my pulse.
"I don't have eyes on the package." Zoe's voice slices through the static, threaded with quiet terror.
"Repeat that," I grit out.
"The room is empty. They're gone." A shaky exhale. "I don't understand. I was watching the doors the entire time. No one went in or out. But the room is empty, and they're gone."
"When?"
"I don't know," she whispers, sounding defeated. "Maybe ten minutes."
"Zara is pulling security footage from every camera in a three-block radius." Aaron's voice has shifted into that cold operational mode I've heard a hundred times before. "Nick is running plates on every vehicle that left the hotel in the last four hours."
Zara and Nick.
Names I haven't heard since I ripped out my tracker and went dark on everyone who ever gave a shit about me.
They're here. They came anyway.
And it doesn't matter.
None of it matters, because my son is gone.
"Find the car." I'm trying to keep my voice down, trying to stay in character. It's so impossibly hard to care about any of it right now.
"We're working on it."
"Find. The. Fucking. Car."
My hands are shaking. I'm losing all control.
"Tristan, we need you to stay calm. If Calder sees—"
I turn my head, taking a few steps back, but it's no use.
The words rip out of me anyway. "FIND HIM."
Heads turn toward me, but I don't care.
I've broken character so completely that I might as well have set myself on fire in front of all of them.
I don't care.
Someone took my son.
I don't know if he's scared, where he is. I don't know if he's crying for Keira…
I'm going to kill someone.
I'm going to tear this entire yacht apart with my bare fucking hands.
Across the ballroom, standing beside a pillar with a whiskey glass dangling from his fingers, Calder is staring at me.
He's smiling like he hasn't got a care in the world.
Like he's won.
He raises his glass, toasting me.
It's a declaration of war.
"He has him." My voice doesn't sound like mine anymore. It sounds like something dragged up from the bottom of hell. "Calder has Hale. He's been playing us this whole fucking time."
Silence on the comms.
He continues to watch me, savoring it. Like I'm an animal in a cage, finally understanding the bars were never going to open.
But he's wrong.
Because the thing about cages is this: they only work if the creature on the inside still believes in rules.
I don't.
Not anymore.
I'm not trapped in here with him.
He's trapped in here with me.
And he has no idea what he just unleashed.