The fog rolling off the Hamburg docks was thick enough to swallow a man whole. It tasted of salt, rusted iron, and the cold finality of the North Sea.
Ren stepped out of the van. The gravel crunched under his boots—a harsh, rhythmic sound that replaced the velvet silence of the concert halls he used to call home.
The woman in the suit didn't flinch. Her name was Elena Vance, and she had spent ten years making Arthur Laurent's sins look like virtues. She looked at Ren—at the black dye staining his forehead and the raw fury in his eyes—and she didn't see a boy. She saw a PR disaster that needed to be erased.
"Fifty-eight minutes, Ren," Elena said, tapping the glowing screen of her tablet. "In fifty-eight minutes, the Red Protocol goes live. Every satellite in the hemisphere will be tracking this van. Every contractor with a sniper rifle will have a green light. There is no 'Underground' deep enough to hide from what's coming."
"Then why are you here, Elena?" Ren asked, his voice low and dangerous. "If I'm already a ghost, why waste the breath?"
"Because your father is a businessman," she replied, stepping closer. The smell of her expensive perfume fought with the scent of the docks. "A dead heir is a loss. A 'recovering' heir is a comeback story. Surrender now. Tell the press the drummer drugged you. Tell them you were held in a basement. We'll send the girl to a boarding school in Switzerland—untouched. And Jace... Jace goes to prison, but he stays alive. That is the only deal on the table."
Ren felt a hand on his shoulder. Jace was standing behind him, still pale, still bleeding, but his grip was like iron.
"Don't listen to her, Ren," Jace rasped. "Switzerland is just a prettier word for a cage. He'll use Mia to keep me quiet for the next twenty years."
Ren looked at Elena. "You heard him."
"Then you've chosen a suicide pact," Elena sighed, turning her back to him. "The Red Protocol doesn't miss, Ren. It's not a threat. It's an execution."
Inside the van, the atmosphere was a pressure cooker.
"We can't take the boat," Klaus growled, checking the GPS. "They'll sink it in the harbor and call it an accident. The Red Protocol means they don't need a body; they just need a 'resolution.'"
"Then we don't go to the harbor," Ren said. He was staring at the tablet Klaus had thrown in his lap earlier. He wasn't looking at the news anymore. He was looking at the livestream metrics of his father's "Grieving Father" press conference.
The view count was in the millions. The whole world was watching Arthur Laurent cry.
"Sophie," Ren turned to the cellist. "How much power do we have in those portable transmitters?"
Sophie tapped her headset. "Enough to hijack a local signal, but not enough to reach the national grid. Why?"
"Because my father is playing a concerto of lies," Ren said, his fingers ghost-playing a frantic melody on his knees. "And I'm about to jump on the stage. We aren't running anymore. We're going to give them a live broadcast they'll never forget."
"Ren, if you broadcast our location, you're inviting the snipers to dinner!" Klaus shouted.
"Not if we broadcast from inside the noise," Ren countered. He looked at Jace. "Jace, can you drum for ten minutes? Just ten minutes of the most violent, soul-crushing beat you've ever played?"
Jace leaned back, a grim, beautiful smile spreading across his bloody face. "Maestro, I can play until the sticks break."
40 MINUTES REMAINING.
The Rebel Symphony moved with the precision of a clockwork bomb. They didn't head for the ships. They headed for the massive, abandoned radio tower at the edge of the shipyard.
Ren climbed the rusted ladder, the wind whipping his black hair. Below him, the shipyard was crawling with black SUVs—the Red Protocol contractors were arriving early. Their infrared lasers danced across the fog like red needles.
Ren reached the top platform. Sophie had rigged the transmitter. Jace was sitting on a crate, a pair of heavy iron pipes in his hands since his sticks were back at the mansion.
"We're live in three... two... one..." Sophie whispered.
Every screen in the city—every phone, every billboard, every television playing Arthur's press conference—suddenly flickered.
The image of the crying billionaire was replaced by a grainy, wind-swept shot of a boy with black war paint and a drummer with blood on his shirt.
"My name is Ren Laurent," Ren's voice boomed through the speakers of millions of devices. "And I am not a kidnap victim. I am the witness."
Jace slammed the pipes against the metal railing. CLANG. CLANG-CLANG.
The sound was primal. It was the sound of a heartbeat being ripped out of a chest.
"My father is currently spending five million euros to kill me," Ren continued, staring directly into the lens of the camera. "He is using the 'Red Protocol' because I found out the truth about the 'Ghost of Berlin' fund. It wasn't for charity. It was for—"
CRACK.
A bullet splintered the metal railing inches from Ren's head.
"They found us!" Sophie screamed.
"Don't stop!" Ren yelled over the rising wind. "Jace, keep the beat! The world is watching!"
Jace didn't flinch. He played harder, the iron pipes sparking against the metal, creating a rhythmic, industrial scream that echoed across the entire harbor.
Down below, the contractors were storming the base of the tower. But they couldn't just shoot Ren now. Not with ten million people watching him live. If he died on screen, Arthur's "Grieving Father" act would turn into a "Murdering Monster" reality in seconds.
"Look at them," Ren said, pointing the camera down at the snipers. "Look at the 'rescue team' my father sent. Do they look like they're here to save me?"
The door to the platform burst open.
It wasn't a contractor. It was Elena Vance. She wasn't holding a tablet anymore. She was holding a suppressed pistol, and her face was pale with panic.
"Turn it off, Ren!" she screamed. "Turn it off or I swear—"
"Or what, Elena?" Ren asked, stepping toward the edge of the tower, the drop behind him a hundred feet into the freezing black water. "You'll kill me on live TV? Go ahead. Give the people the ending they paid for."
Elena's hand trembled. The Red Protocol was still active. The timer hit 30 MINUTES.
From the distance, the sound of a heavy military helicopter approached, its searchlight blinding everyone on the platform.
"Ren," Jace whispered, dropping the pipes and standing up. "They aren't going to let us finish the song."