The wind off the bay whipped my royal blue satin dress against my legs as Marcus escorted me down the long, splintered wooden planks of the north pier. The water below slapped rhythmically against the rotting wooden pilings, sending up a cold, briny mist that clung to my eyelashes and chilled my skin to the bone.
At the very end of the pier, standing beside the rusted iron bollards where cargo steamers had once docked in the city's industrial heyday, Julian Vance stood motionless. He wore a dark, cashmere overcoat that swallowed the ambient city light, his silver-streaked hair swept back neatly from his forehead. He was holding a small, silver cigar cutter in his right hand, snapping the blades open and closed with a rhythmic, metallic click-clack that echoed over the dark water.
He didn't turn around until Marcus and I stopped three paces behind him.
"You always did have a flair for theatrical geography, Eleanor," Julian said smoothly, finally turning his head. His pale blue eyes were as flat and dead as winter ice. "Running to a church basement like a common fugitive. I thought I had taught you better than that during our seven years together."
"You didn't teach me anything, Julian," I said, my voice cutting through the wind with a clarity that surprised even me. "You just kept me in a cage and lied about what was breathing inside it."
Julian let out a soft, dry laugh, snapping the cigar cutter shut with a definitive click. He took two slow steps toward me, his gaze dropping to the bulge in the pocket of my dress where the flash drive rested.
"The boy," Julian said, his voice dropping an octave into a dangerous, silken whisper. "Where did you stash him? Parish priest? Some run-down motel off the interstate? It doesn't matter. By morning, he'll be on a freighter bound for the maritime provinces under a new name, and you will be back in the penthouse, smiling for the charity gala photographers as if none of this ever happened."
"You're late, Julian," I said, stepping forward instead of back.
He frowned, the micro-expressions around his eyes tightening. "What did you say?"
"You said you wanted the watch, the flash drive, and me," I replied, my hand sliding slowly into the pocket of my dress. "You thought I came alone because you're so used to everyone around you being terrified of your money. But you forgot one fundamental thing about Vance Holdings, Julian."
"And what is that?" he asked, his voice tightening with a sudden, sharp edge of suspicion.
"You never check the back seats."
From the shadows near the entrance of the pier, where the rusted iron crane cast a pool of absolute blackness, a small figure stepped out onto the wooden planks. Leo walked slowly, his small white button-down shirt catching the pale light of the distant harbor buoys. In his right hand, held steady and high, was the antique gold pocket watch, its brass casing gleaming like an open eye in the dark.
Julian's head whipped around. For the first time in the ten years I had known him, the color drained completely from his face, leaving his skin the shade of wet lime. His mouth parted slightly—not in anger, but in the raw, primal panic of a man who suddenly realizes the vault he thought he welded shut has rusted through from the inside.
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"You..." Julian breathed, taking a half-step backward toward the edge of the open water. "How did you—"
"He brought me here, Julian," Leo said, his voice ringing out clear and steady over the wash of the tide. "And he's not going back."
