Page 54 of Christmas Harbor Secrets
Rone didn’t deny it. Couldn’t. His silence was its own admission.
He stared past Blake, out the window, where the black gulf stretched endless and cold. The reflection of the nav lights shimmered faintly across the glass, eerily green and red. He could almost see himself there—hollow-eyed, haunted, and too damn predictable.
Blake followed his gaze. “You still haven’t learned, have you? The world doesn’t reward self-sacrifice. It chews it up and spits it out. You can’t save everyone, Rone. Especially not some chick from the docks.”
“Watch your mouth.” Rone’s voice came out rough.
Blake smiled again, faint and knowing. “Touchy.”
The silence between them thickened, heavy as the humidity pressing through the cabin. Rone’s heart hammered, but his breathing stayed even.
“Here’s what happens next,” Blake said, turning toward the door. “You’re going to shut this antique down, pack what you can carry, and come with us. There’s no chance you’ll outrun Laurel Tide in this tub.” He jerked his chin toward the window, where the dark water reflected nothing but starlight. “They’ll see you coming from twenty miles out.”
“And where, exactly, are you planning to take us?” Isobel asked, her voice steady and brave despite the three men with guns around her. He couldn’t help but feel a hint of pride.
Blake paused, then smiled without looking back. “Someplace safe. For her sake, I’d think you’d be smart enough not to argue.”
The way he saidher—like it was bait—lit a fuse somewhere deep in Rone’s chest.
He kept his expression still, locked down like the safety on his sidearm, but inside, something brittle cracked clean through. He didn’t trust Blake. He didn’t trust his timing, his story, or the way his men kept their fingers resting just a little too close to their triggers.
But most of all, he didn’t trust himself—because Blake was right about one thing. He’d die before he let Isobel Lane be taken.
Rone stepped forward. The floor creaked, that low, hollow groan that always came before a storm. “We’re not moving,” he said. His voice was quiet, but it cut through the wind like wire. “Not one inch until you tell me what’s really going on. Becauseyou might know me, but I also know you, brother. The way you distance yourself from Isobel, speaking like she’s a foreign object instead of a human. The way you’d speak about villagers before a mission.”
Blake stopped mid-step, hand still hooked over the rail. He let out a low laugh, easy and practiced, and leaned back with one arm overhead, his hand holding the railing in the ceiling, the picture of lazy confidence. “Knew you’d dig in,” he said, eyes glinting with that old familiarity that used to mean trust. “You always could smell trouble before anyone else did.”
“Don’t flatter me. Just start talking,” Rone said.
Blake tilted his head, studying him like a chess player eyeing his next move. “All right,” he said, the amusement thinning from his tone. “You’re right. We have to go—but not to extraction.”
“Told you we can’t trust FBI,” Isobel shot.
Rone didn’t move, though every muscle in his back tightened. “Why?”
Blake sighed, let go of the railing, and dragged a hand through his hair, his palm rasping against the stubble on his jaw. “Because I don’t trust anyone. Not anymore. Laurel Tide’s ahead of us, every time. Two days ago, one of my informants turned up dead. Yesterday, so did an officer working the same op. Both of them burned—clean. No way Laurel Tide knew who they were unless someone fed them that intel.”
The words hit like shrapnel—sharp, unavoidable.
“You watch too much TV or movies,” Isobel cracked behind him.
Rone’s gut clenched, but her words softened the blow a smidgen. “You’re saying you’ve got a leak.”
Blake straightened. “I’m saying someone on my team has been feeding Laurel Tide from the inside. And until I figure out who, there’s no safe extraction. No safe house. Noone I can call.”
He stepped closer, voice dropping low, deliberate. “I’ve narrowed it down to one of the agents on that island.”
Rone’s heartbeat slowed into something heavy and dangerous. “The island,” he repeated. “The one you told me to meet you at.”
Blake didn’t answer. Didn’t have to. The silence said enough.
Rone felt the pressure behind his ribs tighten until it almost hurt. “And you’re using Isobel as bait.”
Blake’s jaw flexed, the humor gone now. For a moment, he said nothing, then his lips curved again, but this time the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “You always did make things sound uglier than they are.”
“Ugly fits,” Rone said, his voice flat.
Blake’s posture shifted—small tells, the kind Rone had learned to read years ago in a dozen dead-end alleys and desert towns. The tightness around the eyes. The set of his shoulders. The faint flicker of uncertainty beneath the charm.
