Page 84 of The Captain
“Yeah,” I said, grinning. “Erica Johannson. Dumped me for the captain of the hockey team because she thought he was going to the NHL. Left me high and dry before prom.”
Camille laughed, her stomach shaking under my cheek. “I promise I won’t leave you for a professional athlete,” she said, her voice warm, playful.
I chuckled, but a shadow crossed my mind—the man in the gray suit from the Navy meeting. “Hey,” I said, my tone shifting. “You know anything about that guy in the gray suit? The guy with Admiral Langford?”
She frowned, her fingers stilling. “No. I thought he was some political appointee, sent to watch the Navy. Why?”
“I asked Langford about him,” I said, my voice low. “He told me not to ask. Said he was one ofthosepeople.”
“Those people?” she asked, her brow furrowing.
“Untouchables,” I said. “The kind who go where they want, make world-changing calls, move chess pieces like it’s nothing. But this guy … he felt different. Like he was watchingme. I can’t shake it.”
She studied me, her eyes searching. “You should ask Marcus. Or Caleb.”
“I will,” I said, but the thought didn’t settle. The gray suit was a loose end, like a threat I couldn’t name, and it gnawed at me like the Dane revelation had.
Camille sat up, her hand on my cheek, pulling me out of the brooding. “Shower,” she said, her voice firm but warm. “Then food. I’m starving.”
I grinned, rubbing her stomach gently. “Maybe you’re pregnant already.”
Her eyes widened, and I almost apologized, the words too big, too soon. But she touched my face, her fingers soft, her smile softer. “Soon,” she said. “We’ll make that happen soon.”
Just like that, the gray suit, Dominion Hall, my brothers—all of it washed away. She pulled me off the sofa, her body a magnet, her laugh a tether.
We stumbled toward the bathroom, her hand in mine, and I thought I could live a thousand years and never get over how beautiful she was—body and soul.
The shower hissed to life, steam curling around us, and I followed her in, ready to drown in her all over again.
37
The man in the gray suit stood on a Charleston pier in the dull morning light, the air sharp with brine and diesel. His burner phone buzzed, untraceable. He answered without a word, his eyes on the harbor’s glittering water, calm as a lie.
“Status?” the voice on the other end said, low, clipped.
The man’s lips thinned. “The second brother is in. The rest are coming.”
He watched a shrimp boat nose past the jetties. The Russian submersible had been luck, a tide-tossed gift they did not place. The Vanguard hadn’t conjured it. They only knew how to step into noise and use it.
“Good. Byron’s debt still needs to be paid. We’ll tear it down—brick by brick.”
The man nodded to the dawn, his voice cool. “Let them celebrate. The real storm’s coming.”
“Consider taking a more active role. See what they do.”
“My thoughts exactly,” the man in the gray suit said. “I’ll be in touch.”
Timing didn’t matter. Every member of The Vanguard was patient. They had to be. You didn’t change the course of empires overnight.
The line went dead. Fog rolled in from the harbor, thick and silent, and the man in the gray suit turned, his shadow swallowed as he disappeared into it.
EPILOGUE
CAMILLE
Release day looked the way hope always looked to me—too early, a sky the color of the inside of a shell, and everyone pretending they weren’t crying.
The bottlenose floated calm in the sling, the lines whispering against the canvas as the surf reached and pulled back like it was practicing goodbye.
