Page 89 of Fate and Family

None of us say it aloud, but I see it on everyone’s face. The whole task force has been brought in and it’s the first time I’ve seen Marshall in months. He spins his wedding ring on his thumb—a tell he can’t hide when he’s uncomfortable. Bernie, our tech guy, is so jittery I’m waiting for the pen he’s twirling in his hand to launch down the hallway.

But Declan? Declan’s too calm. His ticks are there—habitual, almost practiced—but his eyes don’t match his movements.

We’re about to walk into a room full of nervous parents and relatives of the hostages, and the knot in my stomach tightens so much I’m surprised I can still breathe. I’m about to give the worst news of my career, maybe of my life.

The moment I step inside, my gaze locks on Dimitri.

He’s pale, drenched in sweat, and broken in a way I haven’t seen since the day I left him in Russia. I fight every instinct to cross the room and remind him he’s not alone. He glances at me briefly, then looks away. At least he’s good at keeping up the charade. I’m not sure I’ll hold out much longer.

Focus. Fix the problem. Redirect your attention. The kids are in that building. We confirmed it five minutes ago.

Penny Olympian is speaking, her sharp words cutting through the air, but I’m only half listening. My attention flicks to the screen just in time to catch something—a small, fast-moving dot traveling in a straight line.

It separates.

One part continues forward, the other drops toward the building. The motion is so fast, so small, that for a second, I’m not even sure I saw it.

Donny is throwing credit cards on the table, ranting about Costco and potato salad. The dots vanish from the screen.

I blink.

And the screen flashes white.

The explosion is immediate.

Someone screams.

Is it me?

The room erupts in chaos—shouts, cries, gasps—but the stillness in my chest is deafening. It’s as if all the air was sucked out of the room, leaving behind only noise without meaning. I feel it, the ground slipping out from under me, the cold rush of failure settling in.

Do not look at Dimitri. Don’t do it. The last of his family was in that building. And there’s nothing I can do to save him from this pain.

Once the camera refocuses, it’s hard to identify where the damage was done because a second explosion happens in the field behind the building.

Two.

“Go back,” I say to Bernie. “I need you to go back and enhance the image.” He grumbles something along the lines of how it’s not that easy. But he gets it done.

Find it. Find the dot.

“There.” I point to the screen. “Zoom in.”

Marshall looks over my shoulder. “Is that a drone?”

Leaning closer to the screen, I squint. “No, it’s two.”

I follow the drones on the screen and watch one clearly hover over the back half of the building before the roof explodes and it’s annihilated. I can’t find the second one in the frame, but it appears fifteen seconds before the explosion in the back field. It drops something small, zooming halfway across the field by the time its payload makes impact on the ground. We slow the video by the millisecond to see the second and third payload drops before the drone can no longer outrun the fire, and it too vanishes.

“It’s an attack,” I whisper. But who?

Dimitri’s voice cuts through the madness around us, or maybe I hear it because he’s the only one I care about. “Why is the field burning purple?”

Behind us, there’s a live stream of the building. Marshall, Bernie, and I turn around to the screen. Giant plumes of dark purple smoke billow out of the back half of the building, filling the air, but new lighter shades of purple burn from the field as well.

Declan whispers, “It’s Majesty.” His frown deepens.

Marshall blinks. “That’s a fuck ton of it.”

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