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CHAPTER ELEVEN

J ACK

Jack shoots up in bed, jolted from sleep by the sharp pounding outside his bedroom. In the darkness, his eyes dart to Makayla’s side of the mattress, and he remembers she’s on her way home from Alaska with Liam. Despite the air-conditioning, his hairline is damp from sweat. Lionel’s betrayal—and threat—comes flooding back to him.

He’s wondering if he dreamed the noise, when three more sharp raps beat against the door to his condo. His pulse quickens, and he swings his legs onto the floor. He unplugs his phone, checking the screen as he rushes out of his bedroom in his boxer briefs.

He has a missed Wi-Fi call, along with a voice message from Makayla. Seeing the time, he guesses she still has a few hours to go on the flight. The pounding against his door persists as Jack passes through the kitchen. Groggy from the scotch he polished off before his few hours of sleep, he flicks on the lights, squinting when he reaches the door.

The building has a twenty-four-hour doorman, so it must be one of his neighbors. He thinks of the young tech entrepreneur down the hall who once rapped on their door by mistake after coming home drunk. Jack peers through the peephole. A gray-haired man in a suit stands beside a woman around Makayla’s age wearing a white blouse.

“This is the FBI, Mr. Rossi.” The man lifts up a gold badge below his chin. “We need to speak with you. It’s urgent.”

That was fast. Jack presses his palm against the door before turning the lock and swinging the door wide.

“Mr. Rossi?”

“Yes?”

“I’m FBI Agent Mike Pratt.” The man extends his badge toward Jack before motioning to the woman at his side. “And this is my colleague, Intelligence Analyst Tina Farrar.”

The woman nods. A ripple of apprehension runs down Jack’s spine.

Agent Pratt folds his badge into an inner pocket of his suit jacket. “I’m afraid we have an urgent matter to discuss with you. May we come inside?”

Jack makes no effort to move, mentally replaying his boss’s threat. If you breathe a word of this to anyone, you’ll be the one to take the fall.

Should he call a lawyer? Or would that make him look guilty? He looks between the agent and analyst, feeling completely unprepared for their questions. Then, it strikes him that he shouldn’t appear like he knows why they’re here.

“What’s this about?”

A flicker of pity appears in the agent’s brown eyes. “It’s about your son, Liam.”