“Still doing the math?” Mercer called.
“Always.”
Mercer spoke like a man discussing business, not murder. Noah’s existence was a succession event. It reorganized the network. It changed every alliance, every future plan.
“Then you understand why I can’t allow it,” Mercer said.
“He’s nine years old,” Ronan said.
“I burned a restaurant to send a message,” Mercer replied. “The child and his mother disappear. You go back to running your operation. Nothing changes that needed to.”
“He’s my son.”
That ended the polite fiction.
Mercer ordered his men to take Ronan.
The fight was fast and brutal. Ronan dropped one, broke the grip of another, and paid for it with his shoulder. A shot shattered stone near his feet. The Denton Avenue team was coming back.
He had one clean exit.
The tunnel.
Ronan went through Stella’s house, down into the basement, through the low concrete passage, and out into the garage next door.
Cullen had gotten Elena and Noah away.
Federal teams arrived behind him, rolling up Mercer’s Queens element.
But Mercer escaped.
At a diner rendezvous before dawn, Elena sat with Noah while Ronan explained the truth. Mercer had gone to ground. Federal protective detail was active, but Mercer knew too much about protocols to trust waiting.
“So what do we do?” Elena asked.
Ronan looked at her, then at Noah.
“We stop waiting for him to come to us.”
He knew where Mercer would go.
Red Hook.
Years earlier, when Mercer ran operations inside Ronan’s network, he had used a decommissioned shipping terminal for work he wanted off the books. Ronan had found it after Mercer left and decided the departure was clean enough.
Another mistake.
Now Mercer would run there because it belonged to him. No file. No Marcus. No standard safe-house trail.
“He’ll expect you,” Elena said.
“Yes.”
“He’ll have men.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re going anyway.”
“I’m going before he regroups and makes another run at Noah.”
Noah said quietly, “I want to come.”
“No,” Elena and Ronan said together.
Noah looked between them.
“I can help.”
“You are helping,” Ronan said. “By staying alive.”
Ronan went to Red Hook alone with a bad shoulder and a small window.
The old terminal was dark and cold, full of concrete, support columns, rusted equipment, and harbor wind. He entered through the west side, moving along walls and shadows. One man at the interior door went down quietly. Another watched from a catwalk above.
At the far end, a battery lantern glowed in an old glass-walled operations room.
Victor Mercer stood beside it with two men.
Marcus Hail sat against the far wall.
When Ronan stepped into the light, Mercer did not look surprised.
“I thought you’d come here,” Mercer said.
“I know you did.”
Ronan counted the room. One man at the interior door. One catwalk. Two with Mercer. Four total.
“You came with four men because you ran out of moves,” Ronan said.