Salt Kiss – Episode 51
The confiscated phone continued ringing until Tristan sealed it inside an evidence sleeve. The unknown number displayed no location, but the timing proved someone was monitoring the failed operation.
“Answer it,” Mark said.
Tristan activated the speaker without revealing his voice. For several seconds, only breathing came through the line.
Then a distorted voice addressed Mark by a name from his past. “You always collect beautiful weaknesses.”
Mark went still. Isolde noticed before Tristan did.
“Who are you?” Tristan asked.
The caller ignored him. He described the assassination that had killed Mark’s former lover with details never released publicly.
“The same man,” Mark said after the call ended. “Or someone with access to him.”
The conspiracy suddenly stretched back years. The attacks were not only about the marriage or Laurence money; someone had revived the method once used to punish Mark through love.
Agents traced the signal through multiple countries before losing it. One fragment remained: a relay registered to a defense contractor.
Tristan recognized the company. It had supplied his father’s unit.
The connection felt impossible, yet his father had arranged the bodyguard position and knew Mark’s influence. He might possess information he had never shared.
Tristan called General Ricker Thomas and requested a meeting. His father demanded that he report in person and alone.
“You are not going alone,” Mark said.
“He will refuse to speak if I bring you.”
Isolde placed the confiscated phone between them. “Then we protect him without being seen.”
Mark disliked the compromise but agreed. Tristan prepared to confront the man who had controlled his life long before Mark entered it.
As he left, the distorted voice sent one final message to the recovered phone: Ask your father why he chose you.