The Meridian 6 AM.
The two detectives cut through the hospital doors with the ease of men used to walking into rooms that didn't want them. Rowan led, calm and steady, while Briggs trailed half a step behind, scanning everything with that restless cop energy.
They stopped at the front desk. Rowan flipped open his badge. "We are looking for Nathaniel Cross."
The receptionist glanced at her screen. "He's not—"
"LaRue here, Mr. Cross' Chauffeur." LaRue interrupted the officers.
LaRue sat hunched, a paper cup clutched in his hands. Briggs got in his space. "We are Detectives Briggs and Rowan. We want to speak with Nate Cross. Where is he?"
LaRue didn't look up. "He might be in the Chapel or maybe gone out for a smoke. A bad habit when his wife isn't well."
Briggs leaned back, sniffing the air. "You smell that, Rowan?"
Rowan cut him a sharp look. "Lay off." But his eyes stayed on LaRue for a moment too long.
They circled back to the desk to request security footage. Nate appeared. He looked ruined, shirt-creased, eyes hollowed out by sleepless grief. "I heard you have been looking for me."
"Mr. Cross. You have been here all night?" Rowan asked.
Nate ran a hand over his face. "In the chapel. Praying for my wife."
Briggs lowered his voice. "Your house was hit, Mr. Cross. Your kids. Where are they?"
"With my wife's best friend," Nate said, the answer too quick. "Sarah. She has a house up in Rhinebeck, off River Road. We sent them there before the IPO." His voice trailed off into a ragged sigh.
Rowan's brow lifted. "The IPO was hit too." He let the silence hang.
Nate said nothing, just stared at the floor.
"The Chef died in the ambulance… and a woman we identified as Carla."
"And Goldie? Our Dog?" His voice cracked, a raw, uncontrollable sob shaking his shoulders. "She couldn't make it; we found her prosthetic unstrapped."
That was when Zola appeared, tugging off bloody gloves. "Cross! Our project was a success. The wife is stable, for now. Come see your new baby."
Rowan clenched his Jaws. Nate blinked, torn between the cops and the mad doctor, then staggered after Zola without a backward glance.
Rowan watched him go. Briggs leaned in. "Sarah in Rhinebeck."
Rowan said nothing.
Back in the patrol car, he made a call. "Nate and Jema Cross. Siblings? Close friends, a 'Sarah'?" The answer came back fast. Negative. No family aside from an estranged uncle downtown. No, Sarah in their inner circle.
Rowan pocketed his phone, his fingers brushing against the digital receiver they'd found discarded near the valet station. It was all connected. No siblings. No aunt. No best friend.
"Yeah, Briggs," he said, staring at the hospital doors. "I smell it."
Rowan stared at the hospital, his jaw a tight line. He saw Nate's performance, the tears, the slumped shoulders, and remembered only the arrogant kid from downtown who'd always taken what he wanted.
Briggs slapped the dashboard. "The lying bastard. Life insurance. Gotta be. Guy's company is about to go public; he's got a pregnant wife... that's a big policy. Stage a kidnapping, maybe even whack the wife during the struggle,' collect the cash and the sympathy. Seen it all before. Sloppy, though, leaving the help dead."
"What…" Rowan got yanked out of thought by the cynical accusation. What. "No, you idiot, is that what you think this is about?"
He held up the receiver, turning it over in his hand. It was sleek, custom-made, not commercial grade. "This was in the evidence log from the Grand Meridian."
"So? The perps dropped it at the gala."
"The perps who vanished into thin air. The ones who knew exactly how to bypass a state-of-the-art security system." Rowan's voice was quiet, methodical. "And the same night his kids are taken from a house guarded by his company's own security tech… which also failed."
Briggs's smirk faded. "You are saying that's not a coincidence?"
"I'm saying only one person on the planet had the blueprints to both systems." He replied.
"You okay, man?" Briggs asked, the edge gone from his voice. "You've been quiet since we met, Nathaniel."
"His wife is in there, Briggs," Rowan said, his voice low and flat. "Jema."
"Yeah. Tough break. But what's that got to do with—" Briggs stopped. He'd been Rowan's partner for eight years. He knew the stories. He'd seen the old, carefully folded photo tucked in a law book on Rowan's shelf. "Oh. Hell. That Jema?"
Rowan's silence was all the confirmation Briggs needed.
"Okay," Briggs said, shifting in his seat. "Okay. So, we tread carefully, right? This is a landmine. We do this by the book."
Rowan finally turned, and the look in his eyes was cold, devoid of its usual calm. "The book?" He held up the digital receiver. "The book doesn't account for a man who uses his own company's tech to rob himself while his wife delivers his baby. He's playing a different game." His phone buzzed.
The forensic tech.
Rowan put it on speaker.
"Detective? That code from the car hack… we found something weird. Buried deep. It's a subroutine labeled 'GList_Optimizer.' It means nothing to us, but the architecture is insane. Elegant, but… personal. Like a signature."
Rowan's eyes locked with Briggs's. "The Glist Optimizer," he whispered.
"Sir?" the tech asked.
"Nothing. Run it against every piece of code Cross Robotics has ever made public." Rowan ended the call. The silence in the car was deafening.
"He is playing us." Briggs let out a low whistle. "So, what's the play? We bring him in?"
"No. He thinks he's in the clear. We just became his shadow. We pull his financials, his phone records, everything. He doesn't get what he wants this time."
…
"Your wife made it, but you can't see her yet. Here is your baby girl," Zola said, pointing to the child in the incubator. "She's breathing normally, vitals are healthy, she's quite healthy if you ask me."
"She looks like her mother. Can I hold her?"
"No, you can't,"
Nate looked down at his child, a mirror of her mom, at the possibility that anything is possible. Someone to remind him how far he had come and how long he needed to keep fighting.
A call interrupted his pondering.
Victor.
"We made enough to get your kids… twenty-seven million total. I will split the seven with my guys. The rest for the kids." A cough. "Make the call."
"What about Flash?"
"Flash is safe, the motherfucker drove off the bridge and made it out."
Nate was silent. He looked down at his child, breathing and beating the odds.
"I will call you soon, Victor."
He called another number. They picked up. Nothing but dead air and the faint, muffled sound of a child's cry. It tore through his chest like a torpedo. "I have your money," he snarled. The line went dead. Then, a text.
Location and time to meet up.
He called Victor.
"Central Park. 9 AM."
Central Park. 8:45 AM.
"There was a spark in your eyes. While you planned this heist. I remember the old days; we could get out of anything if you were there." Victor said, staring at his nephew. The morning was slow the scent of flowers and freshly mowed grass filled the air. People jogged by, occasionally waving at others walking their dogs.
"I remember the old days; you would cut off the finger of whoever didn't go according to plan. How's Flash?" Nate replied. His gaze was cold and distant.
"Flash is a problem because he is cunning. And hungry. That makes him a good weapon and a dangerous heir. I always imagined you taking over. You had the brain to manage the hunger. Banda has the strength but not the mind. Milo has loyalty but not the stomach. Flash…" Victor coughed. "Flash just has the hunger."
"Milo is okay, let him take over," Nate replied.
"Milo would not kill me even if it were a mercy killing."
"And you think I would in your outdated custom of a fight to the death?"
Victor put his hands over Nate's. "When you realize how much you need this, you just might."
"I will not. And none of these matters now. I will have my kids soon and be out of your hair. I couldn't care less who your business is going to. I don't need this."
"How do you think you survived this long, Nate?" Victor asked, then started a bout of coughing.
"Survived what – "
A text popped up, cutting the conversation short.
"South Bench, move there, leave the money on the curb. Take the Kid. No funny business."
He rushed out, and there was Jace, crying. He drove to the southern part of the park. Staggered out to drop the money from the trunk and rushed towards his kid. Behind him, a van screeched away, no plates, and the driver was in a mask. The money was gone.
"Jace," He shouted. The little boy turned and ran towards him with tears in his eyes. He looked around for Lila.
Nate fell to his knees, clutching Jace so tightly the boy whimpered. He buried his face in his son's hair, inhaling the scent of fear and dirt. For one second, it was over. They were safe.
He pulled back, brushing Jace's tears away with his thumbs. "Jace. Where is Lila? Where's your sister?"
Jace's lower lip trembled. "She is playing hide and seek. She is hurt, Daddy." He pointed a shaky finger at the departing van.
The ground fell away from beneath Nate. The air vanished from his lungs. He fumbled for his phone, his hands numb and clumsy. He called the number.
It picked up on the first ring. Silence.
"Where is my daughter?" Nate snarled, his voice a raw, broken thing. "We had a deal! I paid you!"
The voice on the other end was calm, ice-cold. "You paid for the boy, Mr. Cross. The girl… the girl is a separate asset. Her price just went up."
The line went dead. A second later, his phone buzzed.
A new text. An image of Lila, her face pale, the bleeding cut on her forehead, staring in terror at the camera. Beneath it, two words:
20 more, 2 days.
Nate's phone slipped from his fingers and clattered on the pavement. He didn't hear it. All he could hear was the sound of his own world, the perfect, glittering world he had built, ending. Not with a bang, but with a text message.