XAVIER POV

“The closer I get to my father, the more I sound like him.”

The night smelled of salt and gun oil. It clung to the air like tension, heavy, unrelenting.

I crouched beside the half-collapsed seawall, my flashlight dimmed, eyes fixed on the silhouette of Charles’s second estate crouched against the waterfront like a sleeping predator.

Luca knelt beside me, typing furiously into his tablet. “The signal's faint but steady. The burner Zayne found was paired to a repeater here. ...