He Walked Away From His Wife Without Knowing She Was Pregnant

The private charter plane touched down on the private airstrip outside Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, with a hard, shuddering jolt that rattled the teeth in my skull.

Outside the cabin window, the North Atlantic drove relentless, gray-capped waves against a jagged coastline of black granite and stunted pines. A freezing drizzle whipped across the tarmac, turning the air into a shimmering veil of ice.

I sat in the leather seat of the Gulfstream, my hands clasped tightly around the leather-bound notebook in my lap. Beside me, Leo slept soundly, his head pillowed against a cashmere blanket provided by the flight crew, completely exhausted from our impromptu cross-country journey.

Gideon Pace sat across the aisle, his eyes fixed on the horizon, his demeanor as unmovable as the stone cliffs outside.

"He’s not expecting us," I said, breaking the silence that had stretched across four thousand miles.

"He’s never expecting anyone," Gideon replied without looking at me. "That’s why he chose the cape. The only way onto the property is by the causeway or the water. Both are mined with cameras."

"Cameras?" I asked, my voice tightening.

"Electronic," Gideon clarified. "Raphael doesn't use explosives anymore. He prefers to know who’s dying before they reach his front door."

I looked down at the notebook. The cover was water-stained from the night I walked out of the Boston house, but the binding held firm. Inside were years of logistical symbols, event layouts, and marginalia—the private secret language I had used to map out my life before the world broke apart.

"Why am I doing this, Gideon?" I asked softly, watching my own reflection in the cold cabin window. "I had a shop. I had a town where nobody knew my name. My son didn't have to look over his shoulder for men with guns."

"Because the North End is coming for you anyway, Marin," Gideon said, turning his slate-gray eyes to meet mine. "The new bosses found the old receipts. They know Beckett is dead—died of an overdose in a flophouse in Toledo three years ago. They know the line of succession runs through a boy with your eyes in Seattle."

The cabin grew so quiet I could hear the rhythmic whine of the jet engines spooling down.

"They want the island, Marin," Gideon added. "And they want the boy to ensure Raphael never comes back to claim his throne. If you stay in Seattle, you die in a grocery store parking lot. If you come here, you give Raphael a reason to pick up his gun one last time."

The airstrip doors opened, letting in a blast of freezing salt air that smelled of ancient kelp and frozen earth.

A black Land Rover Defender sat idling by the hanger, its high-beam headlights cutting through the swirling mist. Behind the wheel sat a man in a heavy fisherman’s sweater, his silver hair blowing wild in the gale.

He didn't get out of the car. He just sat there, staring through the rain-streaked windshield at the charter plane door.