Tristan (Salt and Starlight #4)

Chapter One

Austin tucked himself into the pub’s booth, wishing he could fall through the wall and escape the people boxing him in.

The alcohol he’d guzzled the night before to kill a throbbing headache had only made everything worse now that morning had come and the drink had worn off.

He was one town inland from his ex-boyfriend Connor’s home, fifteen kilometres from the ocean, and too far from both.

He longed for the time a few months earlier. Time by the ocean and within reach of Connor’s circle had left him calmer than he’d felt in years. Sam had ruined it. Austin had ruined it first, but he chose to ignore that part.

Tammy sat in a three-piece grey herringbone suit, folders neatly arranged on the weather-beaten, pint-stained table, and calmly lifted a chipped teacup of coffee to her mouth.

“Are you listening?”

Since knocking on his B&B door that morning, she’d hardly stopped talking long enough to catch a breath.

“We dispatched three teams to aid in the oil-spill cleanup in Peru,” and “We’ve begun a ten-year study into the effects of climate change on meerkats,” and jibber jabber polar bears.

Austin had covered both ears and groaned, so he didn’t know whether his company was shooting polar bears, dyeing them blue, or saving the vicious beasts.

He must have given the B&B receptionist Tammy’s information for payment when he stumbled in last night.

“I don’t care what you do.”

It came out sharper than he meant.

Tammy’s eyes widened, her cup wobbling mid-air. The man across from them winced, tilting his head back slightly. The tiny movement caught Austin’s attention.

Most of Austin’s childhood had been spent in labs.

Tests, equipment, scientists, and guards.

It was an exceptionally boring life outside experiments, and in that maddening boredom, something about Liam had stood out.

A child’s instinct, perhaps, to find an adult willing to play.

Or a shark scenting blood and an easy meal.

Despite his stern exterior, Liam had proven a soft mark.

He’d ultimately helped Austin escape Cessair’s clutches.

And screwed up Austin’s relationship with Connor in the process.

Leaving Connor behind to die on a sinking ship while Liam got the two of them to safety had thrown a wrench into everything.

When Austin inherited Cessair’s assets, he’d ripped Liam’s contract into a thousand pieces and sent him across the Atlantic.

Austin had briefly let Liam return to Ireland last year, only to send him packing again immediately after Sam’s “We’re friends? ” imploded his voice control.

Austin’s attention snapped back to Liam.

“I told you to get lost.”

Liam’s wince was more pronounced this time. He rubbed his ear, as if Austin had roared into it.

Tammy set her cup down carefully. “I called him in. I thought a familiar face might make you feel at ease.”

“It doesn’t. Get lost.”

Liam made absolutely no move to do so.

“Liam has been hired to protect you,” Tammy said.

“Protect me? Oh, isn’t that rich…” Uneasiness slithered through him, a tiny coiling snake that tightened into fear. “What’s happened?”

His eyes snapped to the papers laid out on the table, then up and across the pub.

He hated pubs. Hissing spit-fires like Connor’s stepbrother Laurence tended to lurk behind the counters, and they were always dimly lit.

Austin’s eyes picked out little beyond the immediate glow of yellow lights, only vague shadows. None of the shadows resembled people.

“Cessair’s dead.” He locked eyes with Liam. “He drowned.”

“He’s dead. Nothing will ever change that.” A decade in Ireland had muted Liam’s American accent, leaving his voice discordantly neutral. He sounded as if he didn’t come from anywhere. Much like Austin.

Austin had once dreamed that someone threw a blanket over Liam’s emotions, and everything the man felt after that was dampened.

Anger didn’t burn, shame didn’t drown, jealousy didn’t twist. Or ruin.

Liam’s unflappable calmness made Austin’s mood swings unbearable.

On an upswing, Austin didn’t care what Liam was or wasn’t feeling, but on a downswing, which came far more often, he fantasised about murdering the man.

How dare Liam look on calmly as Austin fell apart?

Sometimes, Austin hated Liam even more than he hated Cessair.

Under a yellow light, Liam looked at Austin very calmly.

“Cessair is a problem that we no longer have to deal with, mercifully.” Tammy muttered “mercifully” under her breath.

Several years ago, Tammy had written a passionate article ridiculing Cessair from the top down. The Orotund Bastard was, to her researched, detailed understanding, a blithering idiot with money.

Austin had threatened the board of directors to make her CEO or else he’d dissolve the entire empire.

They caved, but Tammy had wanted a different job.

Austin couldn’t remember what—the weeks after Cessair’s disappearance were an alcohol-fuelled blur—only that he’d threatened hellfire and got it for her.

“What’s happened?” Austin asked.

Tammy squared her shoulders. Her hair was slate grey and fell in perfect alignment with the cut of her jaw.

“Some research was seized. I thought”—she slid a file to Austin—“that everything was destroyed last year. The only lab that should have held sensitive information was the one here in Ireland. However, it seems some information was outsourced to a lab in Miami. I believe physical files containing sensitive information were on-site.”

“Go in person and burn it.” Austin whirled on Liam. “You. You go and do it.”

“It’s too late,” Tammy said. “Everything’s already in the hands of Ocean’s Select. They’re a non-profit backed by some very passionate, very rich sponsors. We’ve been in talks with them since last year after you directed us to sell all the labs—”

“I said destroy the labs.”

“—and Miami was the last handover. I got an email from one of Ocean’s Select employees about some files that didn’t seem to be related to the coral cloning studies Cessair was funding.

I flew out immediately, but they were gone by the time I got there.

The employee who met me there claimed they had destroyed the files, but I saw no evidence of that. ”

As Tammy spoke, Austin studied Liam. His tempered, muted, dead eyes. His forehead and cheeks, reddened by sunburn. “You were there?”

“Tammy called me.”

Austin’s mouth was dry. He swallowed the acrid taste of a night of binge drinking. The few hours of sleep he’d finally snatched in the B&B hadn’t been enough to soothe anything going on in his head, though it was a rare day that Austin felt genuinely settled in his own skin.

“I don’t remember Florida,” Austin said.

Tammy stood abruptly. “I’ll get fresh coffee.”

Liam waited until she had become a shadow on the far side of the bar. “You were never in any lab but the one here. Samples might have been sent for analysis, but you were never there in person.”

Austin remembered the mansion in Los Angeles, the enormous cabin in the Colorado mountains, the penthouse in New York City.

He’d been stowed away at the edge of Cessair’s life, the man unwilling to let him too far out of sight.

He’d fly back to Ireland every few weeks so the labs could take fresh samples.

Usually the labs and the tests were preferable to being alone with Cessair, listening to him rant and rave, trapped within striking distance of his passionate cruelty.

“And Connor?”

“I don’t know if there’s anything about him.”

“Find out!”

Liam winced, rubbing that ear again.

“There’s no way to find out. Everything about the two of you is gone apart from those physical files. I’m only guessing that samples were sent.”

Austin’s body shook. “I said to destroy the labs.”

Liam grimaced, head cocking fully to the side.

“Stop doing that! I’m not shouting.”

“No,” Liam agreed. “But you’re making me feel like I need to jump off a cliff for upsetting you. Your voice is…” He made a vague gesture with his hand.

Nobody in the world knew what Austin’s voice was. He made an agitated, irritated effort to soften himself. He exhaled long and steady, then inhaled just as slowly. He relaxed his shoulders, his spine, his throat. The whirlpool of fear slowed, the rising energy within him settling.

“That wasn’t on purpose,” Austin muttered, realising only as he regained control that he’d lost it in the first place.

Relief filled Liam’s eyes. “I know.”

“Don’t jump off a cliff,” Austin added.

Sometimes when Austin talked to people, they ended up doing things they never would have dreamed of just to please him. Austin didn’t intend it. But things happened. People warped.

“Do I need to go after Tammy?”

Across the bar, she’d moved next to a lamp and was tapping industriously on her phone.

It hadn’t stopped ringing since she’d sat down.

Charity executive, he remembered. She wanted to spearhead the renewal of the charitable programmes that had been dismantled when Cessair had inherited the company from his father.

She’s saving the polar bears, Austin thought. With my money.

Liam followed his gaze. “She’s fine.”

Austin pulled the nearest open file towards himself.

Email correspondence detailed threats of legal action in Tammy’s acid tongue, unleashed on dozens of higher-ups from Ocean’s Select, followed by an actual lawsuit.

All the responses from Ocean’s Select were variations of “I have no knowledge of this” and “Let me find out for you”.

A string of messages listed an army of private investigators being hired and mobilised to retrieve the files.

Liam pushed a basket of buttered toast towards him. Austin mindlessly munched through two slices as he read. Tammy returned with three mugs of coffee, apologising because the pub only had instant.

Food in his stomach and caffeine in his system revived Austin further. Liam’s placid facade cracked when he sipped his.

“It’ll read like bullshit.”

Tammy quickly rose again. “I’ll—”

Austin didn’t look up. “Sit down.”

Before she’d taken over as charity executive, he’d set Tammy to the task of getting every bit of information about him buried.

The main culprits behind the research into merfolk and the modification of genes in humans had died, but reports had been sent to Cessair.

Personal messages between him and the scientists discussing what they’d found and created.

Austin wasn’t so stupid as to think she hadn’t read the files before destroying them.

Tammy sat stiffly. “The files seemed to be in Dr Hurst’s name.

He’s a behavioural scientist. I can’t imagine why he was called in, but I was able to dig up large sums of money deposited into his account over the last ten years.

He died of a heart attack two years ago, and I gather his work was pushed aside and left untouched after that.

The fact that Ocean’s Select is refusing to return it makes me think—”

“They’re reading it,” Austin cut in. “Who, exactly?”

“It’s a worldwide charity dedicated to studying the ocean.

There are thousands in their employ. However, one of the PIs I hired found a private jet manifest for the Miami area, and Ocean’s Select’s biggest donor, Wilbur Riley, landed the morning we were contacted about the files.

” Tammy slid a photocopy of the manifest across the table.

“Given the stonewalling we’re getting even with legal action, it’s very likely that he’s involved. ”

She placed a photo of a family lounging on a yacht beside it. An older man with pure white hair and sun-beaten skin peered over the shoulder of a teenager who was cupping an octopus in his palms.

Austin tried to study the man, but his attention snagged on the teenager instead. He was holding the octopus very carefully, a dimpled smile beaming right off the photograph. It seemed like the kind of smile that belonged to someone with a happy childhood. Austin instantly disliked him.

“Have you contacted him?”

“We haven’t had any luck. And…” Tammy’s gaze shifted to Liam, sending a clear you tell him across the table.

“And?” Austin asked Liam.

Liam gave Tammy an almost annoyed look. He reached across the table and flipped the manifest over, revealing a second page of travel logs. “Wilbur’s private jet landed in Dublin last night.”