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  An elusive beauty stood under the British daylight.

  The Highlands in watery winds combed through the slopes, swallowing mud and sound alike, while broken-knuckled hills rolled away from us in every direction, identical and unhelpful. Exuberant fog clung low to the ground, seeping into every hollow and crevice, erasing paths as soon as we walked them. It felt less like weather and more like intention. This was how the morning welcomed my men and me: damp, disoriented, exposed. Curses scattered across the terrain, sharp and brief, quickly absorbed by the wind. I didn’t mind them. Noise felt safer than silence.

  Silence lingered too long out here.

  We moved from ridge to ridge, checking every depression, every shadowed fold of land where Iris might have vanished into. The fog distorted distance; shapes shifted when stared at too long. More than once, I thought I saw movement ahead—only to find nothing but rock and mist, retreating as if it had never been there. When we crested the next rise, the facility revealed itself at last, half-swallowed by moss and stone, crouched into the hillside like something trying not to be found. Rusted doors hung open like loose teeth, threatening to fall out at a touch. The corridors inside dripped steadily, each drop echoing too loudly in the emptiness. Empty crates stank of mould and rot, their contents long gone.

  It had been a safehouse once. Now it only pretended to be abandoned—and that, somehow, felt worse.

  I thought to myself. Late again.

  But I lingered anyway, aware of every sound behind me, every breath that wasn’t mine. Even my own breathing felt too loud. I could have managed everything from the comfort of my secluded home in Notting Hill, flickering screens, relaying orders down the chain, never having to step into the melted clay. Or breathe the rot of abandonment. Distance would have made it simpler.

  Distance always did.

  But that’s not me. I’m not a coward.

  That was how the old farts acted, rotting in their opulent offices, thinking distance would keep them clean and safe. As if life were ever that easy. I needed the dirt under my nails, the wind in my teeth, the sight of my men flinching when I walked among them. You couldn’t smell fear through a screen, taste betrayal in a report.

  Out here, when someone hesitates, I see it, and I cut it out before it festers.

  “Spread out,” I said—measured. “Check for trapdoors, tunnels. Anything that looks like an entrance.”

  They obeyed at once, scattering through the ruin. Mutters slipped from them as they moved, boots hammering against weathered concrete, metal ringing where it shouldn’t. I stayed still and listened to what remained once the echoes thinned out.

  Silence settled in beneath the noise. I leaned in, waiting, but it was a dead channel.

  She isn’t here.

  The conclusion landed wrong, everything felt staged— abandoned too deliberately. A shell meant to draw attention and waste my time.

  The realisation triggered me. I struck the first solid thing within reach. Then again. And again. Each blow harder than the last, waiting for something to crack. But it wasn’t concrete. I blinked, forcing the blur to resolve what was in front of me. An ankle. One of my own men—my personal detail—crumpled at my feet, breath knocked out of him, eyes wide with confusion. As if he didn't expect this reaction from me, after months of serving me. That pushed the anger past the restraint.

  He takes me for a fucking pushover.

  “Billions worth of resources,” I said quietly, “and you still can’t find her?”

  He didn’t answer. He just stood there with that resigned acceptance, eyes lowered—not defiant, not pleading. He knew. He had no leverage here. None of them did.

  So why him?

  The question surfaced too late to matter.

  “Why can’t your blood be hers?” I snarled, the words slipping free before sense could catch them. My foot lashed out on instinct, striking him in the face this time, hardly enough to knock him out.

  A phone vibrated then, mine, the sharp buzz cutting through the boiling anger. The only thing that stopped my foot mid-swing. I let it drop back to the ground, forced my hands to unclench, brushed the loose strands of hair from my face, and pulled the phone free.

  A message.

  Half-coded, smug in a way that made it linger on the screen longer than it should. The latest trace of her had her in the Netherlands. I stared at the coordinates, waiting for them to make sense, to mean something other than movement for the sake of movement. The chase had been running on adrenaline for weeks, maybe months—but even that fuel was thinning out. If this was another wild goose chase, then it was clear they were ahead.

  But what if..

  The doubt barely had time to form before a second beep rang in the air. It came from a phone on the body of the personnel detail I was kicking earlier. He was pushing himself upright with his knee, one hand braced against the wall. My gaze flicked from the device in his pocket to his strained expression. I held out my hand. He passed me the comms without hesitation—no questions. I preferred that. Looking at it, the message was unique. It had a different rhythm to the coding, like a different source behind it than the Foundation. Only one word appeared. And a picture.

  London.

  The park where she’d last been seen.

  Now I was at a standstill. Two locations, two directions, both urgent. I refused to believe both trials were losses. Not with how much I had already spent. I called the men in. Even the injured ones gathered close, forming a loose ring around me. Their eyes were rimmed red from the wind, their faces scraped raw by the cold, quiet shivers running through them despite their discipline. No one spoke.

  “We’re splitting,” I said. I pointed to the nearest man—a scrawny courier whose name refused to stick in my memory. His knuckles were pale where they strangled the radio. “You. Take three and head for Amsterdam. Check it quietly. If the tracks are real, you report back.”

  His mouth opened and closed.

  The hurt looked like slow ice at the corners of his eyes. He wanted to bargain for a scrap of dignity. I let him look for the words and find none that mattered.

  “And you?” The man with the bloodied nose asked, hauling himself upright, stubborn past reason.

  I grinned at that. He reminded me of me when I was the one on the other side of the stick. “London,” I said.

  His gaze lingered on me a second too long. Measuring, maybe hoping.

  “Can I come?” The question underneath was louder: Do I still belong here?

  “No.” The answer came without thought. “You go to Amsterdam. If it’s nothing, you stay there until I say otherwise. Understood?”

  A pause. Then a nod. “Got it,” he managed, voice grating like old rope.

  I didn’t need wounded pride or bruised bodies slowing the pace. I flicked a thumb toward the cars idling near the deserted stretch of beach, and the team peeled away toward the nearest public airport. I waited for my helicopter. Then the jet. Movement had become its own kind of silence, smoothing thought into a dull hum. Forty minutes later, London rose beneath me in tidy grids and muted grey. Twenty more and I was at Brunswick Square Gardens.

  Alone.

  I kept the rest of my men at a distance, scattered where I couldn’t see them. I walked the paths without urgency, scanning faces that never scanned back. Strangers blurred into one another: parents, students, nannies, all sealed inside their own small worlds. I found the playground she’d last visited and took a seat on a bench facing the children at play. The bench creaked under my weight.

  Not my bench. Hers.

  Their laughter carried strangely in the open air—too bright, too careless for the heaviness lodged in my chest.

  This is where she breathed last.

  This was where she’d last breathed freely. Where her shadow must have stretched long across the concrete while she watched the children. The one habit that kept her human, when it would’ve been easier to burn that softness out of herself. I leaned back, stretching an arm along the wooden slats, letting my gaze travel the playground the way hers might have. The slide. The swings. The seesaw whined in protest whenever it moved.

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  Which one? I studied each child in turn.

  Is it the boy with scraped knees climbing the ladder?

  The quiet girl tracing lines in the dirt with a shoe?

  Is it the boy in the bear jumper, waiting for their turn at the slide?

  I could almost picture her attention snagging on small things—the wobble before a fall, the breath before a cry until they blurred together into one faceless child with her blood in his veins. A presence shifted near the gates. A guard approached me, a high-visibility vest catching the dull light.

  “Sorry, sir — adults without children aren’t allowed in the playground.” He advised me to leave politely.

  “No worries,” I said and stood up.

  I didn’t need the child’s name. Not yet. Children are predictable beings with predictable habits, and she would, too, circle back. People always returned to the places that steadied them. I pressed my boots into the gravel and drew in the clean bite of spring air, letting a thin smile settle.

  She thinks distance makes her untouchable. Cute.

  Yet someone had chosen this park to send the picture. They had chosen this backdrop on purpose, so I will make this place my watchtower and wait for her to come back. The guard’s words sat in me like grit: only adults with children allowed. I stepped outside the gates, lit a cigarette, and let the smoke curl upward where it couldn’t be traced back to me. Ash fell into the gravel at my feet.

  I pulled out my phone.

  Not to call in favours from girlfriends. Not yet. I needed something quieter first. I dialled Claire.

  She answered on the first ring. “Yes, sir?”

  “I need a property,” I demanded, my voice flat, devoid of the rage still simmering within me. “A flat. Direct sightlines to Brunswick Square Gardens. Top floor. Purchase, not lease. Discreet holding company. Make it happen by the end of the week.” It was Saturday, but it didn’t matter. Money was power, and power was a permanent key opener to anything.

  “I’ll have options ready for you by morning,” she replied, with no tasteful memories from the night before. Guess her price was set then.

  “Clear your schedule,” I added, testing her facade.

  “...understood.” The hesitation made its comeback, and I knew I had to work on her to mould her into the perfect personal plastic doll.

  I terminated the call. Now for the scaffolding. I thumbed my radio, catching Ashton’s number.

  “Get me eyes on my current location.” I began. “Loop the local CCTV and hold it in a private monitor. Alerts only if a woman matching Sharp’s profile appears. No chatter on open lines. I want to push the second she crosses that gate.”

  “On it.” Ashton’s click was thin with obedience.

  I left the park and moved to a wider green nearby to wait for the helicopter. Once inside, the human element returned to my thoughts. The rotor blades throbbed overhead—a steady, numbing rhythm softened by the plush interior as we cut across the London skyline. I scrolled through my contacts, a curated list of accessories.

  My thumb paused on Charlotte.

  A redhead who lived on the other side of the city, in a house I paid for. Of all the women, she was the easiest to read—the type who still believed in gestures and promises, in meanings behind things that had none. She’d been annoyed, lately, that I kept my distance from the child from our one-night stand. She preferred to call it fate. A miracle, even. She’d never tried to corner me for money, never made demands the way others had. That almost made it worse. It meant she still believed there was something to preserve. I knew sooner or later, the boy would turn into a bargaining chip—people always reached for what mattered most. Anticipating it simply meant I stayed ahead.

  She answered on the third ring, her voice a mix of surprise and caution.

  “Jax? After all this time—”

  “I know, babe. I’ve been busy,” I cut in, flat. “That’s on me. Thought I’d make it up to you. You, me, and the boy. Park date. Brunswick Square. Tomorrow afternoon. What do you say?”

  “The boy?” Her tone sharpened, irritation thinly veiled. “You don’t even remember his name, do you?”

  Fuck. “Of course I remember.” I quickly motioned to my guard to pass me the second phone, and barely managing to keep the cig in my mouth, I flicked my thumbs across the touch screen, scanning his birth registration in seconds. “...But Jaime isn’t why I called.”

  She didn’t react. I gave back the second phone and inhaled the smoke. Silence stretched, loaded. I could almost hear her weighing every word, questioning whether this was a trap. They always did, eventually.

  “Tomorrow?” she asked finally. “You haven’t seen him in months.”

  “Darling, you know I’m busy,” I said, smooth as syrup. “But I carved out some time. Thought we could meet—just the three of us. A family afternoon.”

  “I don’t believe you. Not after all this time, Jax.” She tried to hold firm, but the tremor in her voice gave her away.

  “I know,” I said softly. “And I’m sorry, truly. I just—” I let a breath catch, like the memory surprised me. “I couldn’t stop thinking about that little black dress you wore in Monaco.”

  I lowered my voice, warm with borrowed nostalgia. “You said it made you feel invincible. I remember that.”

  A pause. Then, quieter: “…and?”

  There it was—the crack in the door.

  “And I realised I’d rather be with you than buried in meetings. I know Jaime is at a friend's house like he always does on Saturdays, so I’ve cleared my schedule, and I’m heading to your place. I want to see you now.”

  “Now?” The shift in her tone painted the picture clearly enough—movement, surprise, hope outrunning caution.

  “Now. Be outside in ten minutes.”

  I ended the call before doubt could regroup. Monaco lingered in my mind—a useful fiction, or maybe a blend of half-remembered summers and different faces. The specifics didn’t matter.

  They all want to be remembered.

  I didn’t deserve any of it, but she wanted to believe, and that was the leash I needed. When she agreed, I ended the call before she could hear the mocking laugh building in my throat.

  Dumb bitch.

  The helicopter began its descent, the city swelling beneath us. As it did, I placed two more calls, adjusting my tone each time like a linguistic expert. People responded to the version of you they preferred. Christie first—the one with a life carefully split in two, with another child of mine she disguised as her husband’s.

  “It’s me,” I said quietly. “I’m in the city. Where are you?”

  No answer. That told me enough.

  “Don’t speak,” I went on, calm and low. “Just listen. I know you’re suffocating there, so I’ve freed my schedule on…Wednesday to liberate you for a couple of hours. Just say the words.” I could almost hear her heartbeat quicken through the phone, the addiction to danger overriding her guilt. A pause. Then a small, hurried agreement.

  “Yes.”

  To the last one, Emily, who craved dominance, I was blunt and commanding.

  “Milly. It’s me.” I spoke frankly.

  "Jack.” She was not surprised at all. “Took you long enough, I was wondering if I had to find a new rope buddy. When are we meeting?”

  I liked her attitude. “Friday afternoon, at my new place. Bring the kid as usual. Don’t be late.”

  “Got it.” It was an order she would obey because she was into BDSM, and the kid was a surrogate accessory she had with her polyamorous partner, to take time off work.

  The helicopter touched down in a high-end gated community helipad outside London. Charlotte waited, shivering slightly in the evening air in front of her house, eyes wide. I stepped out, immaculate, a bouquet of imported, black-edged roses in hand—a gesture so cliché it was disarming, and so expensive it felt like an apology. She took them, her fingers brushing mine.

  “Jax, what is all this?” she asked, captured in my gaze.

  “Consider it a down payment,” I said, guiding her back into the helicopter with a proprietary hand on her back. The door shut, sealing us in opulent silence. I didn't look at her. I looked out at the city, my city, spread out like a luminous map in the twilight. “Of the time, I owe you and Jaime.” Her eyes glistened with choked tears, and she launched herself into my arms.

  “I really thought you forgot about us.”

  “I would never,” I whispered with all the honesty I could fabricate and laid a virgin kiss on the top of her head.

  If you help me get Iris, I’ll definitely give you the wedding you are so desperately begging for, girl.

  “I love you.” The lamb did not hold back.

  “I love you too, my dear,” Lamb. I replied and devoured her that same night.

  Later, in her bed—a king-sized expanse of Italian linen my money bought—the final transaction was completed. The room was dark, lit only by the city's orange glow through the window. It smelled of her jasmine perfume and the faint, cloying scent of the roses I’d given her, already beginning to rot.

  As Charlotte moved against me, her hands clutching at my back with a fervour I found both predictable and tedious, my mind was a world away. I had performed efficiently, like a well-oiled machine. Every sigh, every whispered “I've missed you,” every shift of my body was a perfectly scripted part of the plan. I used the precise pressure to apply to her back to make her arch in ecstasy. After a long series of positions, she was able to climax at last.

  It can’t end like this. I thought, dreading sleeping with blue balls.

  I rolled away, trying my hardest to freeze my expression in that of a satisfied man.

  She lay beside me, breathing heavily, a satisfied, drowsy smile on her face. Her hand was creeping across the sheets, her fingers tracing the scars on my back—a map of a history I never shared.

  “Promise you won’t leave again,” she murmured, her voice thick with the fog of it all.

  “I'm right here, and I’m not leaving you,” I whispered back; the words were true in the most literal, hollow sense.

  I was present as the prince for her fantasies, while the footage of the park replayed in my head, over and over, praying I wouldn’t have to keep this theatre going for too long. She sighed contentedly and curled into my side, her head a heavy, irritating weight on my shoulder. I waited for her to be deeply asleep, extracted my arm from beneath her, pulled out essential drops filled with sleeping liquid, and slid them into her mouth. I then slid out of the bed at last. I stood naked by the window, called in one agent and ordered him to do the same thing I did to the kid in the next room. Then I messaged Claire to find me two whores to fuck properly and send them to my location. 5 minutes later, while admiring the city from the living room, two women dressed in Prada walked in.

  Now we're talking about.

  I enjoyed their company all night till morning, their moans echoed through the apartment with each thrust, while I laughed at the city, laughed at the lambs in the other room, at my guard standing statue near the door trying his hardest not to meet my gaze. I laughed and penetrated the holes in front of me till they both collapsed, exhausted. I let them leave only when my arms could not hold them. Transactions were made as promised, while the guards lifted their flopping bodies from the ground and exited the room. I took a quick shower, ordered breakfast, and strolled away to wake up the sleeping lambs.

  I headed to the kids’ room first.

  As I glared at the child she had tricked me into having, I thought of the many children at the park, Iris’s park and set my mind straight with one thought-out goal.

  I will steal your peace, and I will destroy it.

  I promised her. When she would come back —to the human thing she was stubborn enough to care for—she would find me waiting like winter does: inevitable.