He dialed a number, not convinced it was the correct one. If he had picked the right number, the call wouldn’t go straight to Ranger. Instead, it would bounce through a chain of randomized virtual nodes—an encrypted relay network designed to obfuscate both the origin and the destination of the call. Each hop would strip metadata, encrypt the next leg, and reroute through another anonymized node. Even the most advanced surveillance systems would struggle to trace the call or listen to it. Or at least that’s what he’d been told.
The line rang once. Twice. A click. Then it rang again.
“Tell me you’re calling from a beachside bar with a drink in your hand,” Ranger said, her voice coming through somewhat computerized.
Caspian glanced at the two people he had knocked out, then gazed at the distant white trail of the Azimut.
“No such luck,” he said. “I need your help with something.”
Chapter Eight
Palma
Mallorca, Spain
Maximilian Kross turned on his phone, which instantly buzzed with a flood of notifications.
“Someone important?” the woman seated across from him asked, glancing up from the breakfast she was enjoying on the balcony of their luxurious hotel suite.
She spoke in English with a pronounced Spanish accent that Kross had found irresistible the moment he had first heard it the night before.
He raised an eyebrow.
“Jealous already, Mia? We’ve barely known each other twelve hours.”
She laughed softly as she used her fork to cut a delicate bite of her omelet.
“After everything you saw last night and again this morning, twice, do you really think jealousy is something I’d feel?” she asked, her warm eyes brimming with mischief.
Now it was Kross’s turn to laugh, genuinely entertained. He liked her. She was confident, bright, and stunningly beautiful. She had thick waves of dark chestnut hair cascading down her back, and her skin had a golden tone that he knew didn’t come from a bottle but from a life spent under the Andalusian sun. But it was her eyes that he’d foundimpossible to ignore. They were a rich hazel green, the kind that seemed to shift in shade depending on the light.
He took a sip of his coffee. It was strong, black, and just a touch bitter. Exactly the way he liked it. As the flavor settled on his tongue, he wondered, not for the first time, why anyone would want to ruin something so honest with milk, or God forbid, honey. Kross winced at the thought.
Coffee should taste like coffee.
As the warm liquid slid down his throat, he took a moment to enjoy the scenery. From the suite’s veranda, they had a spectacular view of the Mediterranean Sea and of the turquoise waves that broke gently against the golden sand three stories below. To their left, they had a side view of Palma’s skyline, crowned by the majestic Gothic spires of the Cathedral of Santa Maria of Palma. The warm breeze coming from the ocean drifted gently through the balcony, carrying with it the scent of sea salt mingled with hints of the fresh lavender plants he’d seen the day before in one corner of the hotel’s lush garden.
“This is lovely, Max,” Mia said. “My room is nice, but it isn’t facing the sea. This is so much better.”
He smiled at her.
Despite her undeniable beauty, it was Mia’s performance at the piano the night before at the lobby bar that had truly enchanted him. She hadn’t just played; she had commanded the room with every note, her fingers gliding over the keys like she’d been born to do it. Watching her play had felt magical, as if he’d been caught in a spell. But it wasn’t just the music that had drawn him in. More than once, Mia had looked up from the keys and found his eyes with hers. Never long enough to be obvious, but just enough to make him wonder if it was intentional. Each glance had felt like an invitation, a dare for him to cross the room and to introduce himself. Something he knew he shouldn’t do. Not when he was working, but in the end, it had been an invitation he hadn’t been able to resist. He had found her after her last set, near thebar, nursing a glass of white wine. As he watched Mia take another bite of her omelet, he replayed their conversation in his mind.
“You play like you’re hiding something,” he had said to her in Spanish.
“Maybe I am,” she replied in the same language.
“You kept looking at me,” he said.
“Did I?” she asked, taking another sip. “Then maybe I wasn’t subtle enough.”
“You’re talented. I mean you no disrespect, but if you ask me, you’re too good for hotel lobbies.”
“It’s a hard business to be in, you know? But I’ve played bigger venues. Smaller ones too. Touring Europe mostly. I play classical, but I can do the occasional jazz set if the mood’s right,” she told him with a smile.
“So ... this is what you do?”
“No. It’s who I am.”
