Chapter 890
“He’s not answering,” Skye said, staring at the digital map projected on the table in the Oracle command center. The cinnamon rolls were long forgotten, replaced by cold coffee and colder dread. “Celeste is vain, but she’s also methodical. She needs a safe house. She needs access to the dark web.”
“We’ve flagged every pharmacy, every back-alley doctor within a hundred miles,” Julian Vance said, his fingers moving across a keyboard. He looked tired, dark circles bruising the skin beneath his eyes. “If she buys so much as a bandage, we’ll know.”
“It’s not enough,” Alistair said. He was cleaning a handgun, the rhythmic click-clack of the slide providing an undercurrent to the conversation. “We need to anticipate her. Who does she hate most right now?”
“Me,” Skye said without hesitation.
“And Liam,” Alistair added. “She blames him for her fall.”
“Speaking of Liam,” Skye frowned, checking her phone. “Parker hasn’t checked in. He was supposed to update me on the Kensington board meeting.”
“Parker is probably drowning in paperwork,” Julian dismissed. “He’s not a field agent.”
“Check his GPS,” Skye ordered. A cold, slimy feeling coiled in her stomach.
Julian sighed but typed in the command.
The map zoomed out, then pinned a location.
𝖫𝘢𝗍𝖾𝘀𝘵 𝖼𝗁𝖺p𝘁еr𝘀 𝗈𝗻 𝘨𝘢𝗅𝗇𝗈𝘃𝖾𝗅s.𝘤𝗼m
“West End Shipyard,” Julian said, his brows drawing together. “Why is he at the shipyard? That sector has been abandoned for a decade.”
“His vitals?” Alistair asked, setting down his gun.
“Elevated heart rate… spiking…” Julian’s face went pale. “Signal lost. His tracker just went offline.”
Skye rose from her chair, the legs scraping loudly across the floor. “He’s in trouble.”
“Or he’s meeting someone,” Alistair suggested.
“No,” Skye shook her head. “Parker doesn’t go off-grid. Not now. Not after the promise we made at dinner to stay connected.” She grabbed her coat. “We’re going.”
“I’ll drive,” Alistair said, holstering his weapon.
“Wait,” a voice came from the shadows near the server banks.
Victoria Hayes stepped into the light. She wore a silk blouse and pencil skirt, as though she had just come from a gala, but her eyes were sharp as broken glass.
“You’re going to walk into a trap,” Victoria said coolly.
“How do you know?” Skye asked, her eyes narrowing.
“Because I’ve been tracking that idiot Parker all morning,” Victoria said, crossing her arms. “He got a text, looked like he’d seen a ghost, and drove straight to the shipyard. He didn’t go there for a meeting. He went to play hero.”
“Why were you tracking him?” Alistair asked, his tone sharpening.
Victoria rolled her eyes. “Because he’s my brother, Alistair. And he’s soft. Someone has to make sure he doesn’t get himself killed trying to fill Liam’s shoes.”
“If you knew he was going, why didn’t you stop him?” Skye demanded.
“I tried,” Victoria said, pulling a small pistol from her purse and checking the chamber with practiced ease. “He ignored my call. So now we go get him back.”
Skye studied her — hostile, arrogant, yet undeniably loyal in her own sharp-edged way.
“Fine,” Skye said. “But if this is a setup, Victoria, I will leave you there.”
Victoria smirked. “Fair enough. Let’s go save the boy genius.”