Chapter 3 - Poison in the Inner Circle
By two in the morning, the rain had turned into a thick, clinging sleet that glazed the concrete outside the Calder compound. Evelyn stood in the master bathroom, watching in silence as Roman checked the slide action on his customized Kimber .45 pistol before holstering it beneath his dark cashmere overcoat.
“You can’t go alone,” she pleaded, stepping forward and placing her hand flat against his chest. Beneath the wool and silk, his heart beat with an eerie, steady rhythm. “Grant isn't going there to explain himself, Roman. The text message you received tonight with my picture by his car—that was a hunter flushing out his prey. Rostov's men are already in the city. If you walk into that rail yard by yourself, you will never walk out, and our son will grow up with only a headstone for a father.”
Roman reached out, his thumb gently wiping away an errant tear on her cheek. His touch was remarkably tender for a man who had spent his life inflicting violence.
“Evelyn, when Noah died, I spent two weeks locked in this room wondering which one of my enemies had slipped past my guard,” he said softly. “I questioned the Italians. I interrogated the cartel liaisons in Cicero. I tore through two dozen safe houses looking for an assassin who didn't exist. All the while, Grant sat on that sofa downstairs, drinking my scotch, telling me that Noah’s death was an unavoidable tragedy on a slick road.”
His hand dropped to her rounded stomach, resting there for a lingering moment.
“If I take a strike team of twenty men to that rail yard tonight, Grant’s spotters will see them coming from two miles away. He’ll vanish into Rostov’s network, and we will spend the next ten years looking over our shoulders every time our boy steps out of school. This ends tonight. On my terms.”
“Then take this,” Evelyn said. She reached into her robe pocket and pulled out a small, metallic cylinder no larger than a lipstick case.
Roman frowned down at it. “What is it?”
“It’s a military-grade satellite beacon Noah gave me,” she explained. “It doesn't ping cellular towers. It broadcasts directly to an offshore encrypted server linked to Marcus Vance’s team.”
Marcus Vance was Roman’s head of external security—a former special operations commander who answered exclusively to Roman and Evelyn.
“If your vitals stop or if you twist the cap forty-five degrees,” Evelyn warned, “it floods Vance’s tactical feed with your exact coordinates. Don't play the martyr for me, Roman Calder. I didn't marry a saint. I married a man who promised to come home.”
May you like
Roman looked at the small metal cylinder, then back up at his wife. For the first time in weeks, a faint, dangerous smile ghosted across his lips. He took the beacon, slipped it into his vest pocket, and pulled her into a fierce, breathless kiss.
“Lock the vault doors the second I step out,” Roman commanded against her lips. “Do not open them for anyone. Not even the mayor. If Vance calls, tell him the hunt is on.”
