Southern Cross Drive was a slick, black ribbon under the late afternoon rain. The wipers on the unmarked Commodore beat a frantic rhythm, clearing the deluge just long enough for Trent to see the taillights of the cars he was aggressively tailgating. He pushed the speedometer past one hundred and twenty, weaving through the southbound traffic with a reckless, heavy-handed precision.

Mac sat in the passenger seat, her right hand gripping the grab handle above the door so hard her knuckles were white. She hadn't said a word since they cleared the M5 tunnel. She didn't need to. The tension radiating off Trent was enough to choke on.

He hadn't slept in nearly forty hours. His eyes burned, his jaw ached from grinding his teeth, and his chest felt tight, hollowed out by too much caffeine and a gnawing, low-level rage. He was losing his grip on the case, and worse, he was losing his grip on himself. Stokes's words in the briefing room were a constant, corrosive loop in his head.

The phone on the centre console buzzed, vibrating against the hard plastic. Mac hit the speaker button.

"Talk to us, Joey," Mac said over the roar of the road noise.

"You're tracking a ghost," Joey's voice crackled through the speakers. "I've had the tower data running a continuous triangulation. The GPS ping bounced off the cliff face at Malabar. It threw the initial reading out by about eight hundred metres."

Trent didn't take his eyes off the road. "So he's not in the bunkers."

"No," Joey said. "He's sitting on Anzac Parade. There's a local pub just back from the headland. The South Bay Hotel. The device has been stationary inside that footprint for the last two hours."

"Holden wouldn't hide in a public bar," Mac said, frowning. "He's too recognizable."

"He might not be hiding," Trent said, his voice flat. "He might be organising. Send the address to the dash, Joey."

"Done," Joey said. "And Trent? Be careful. It's a rough joint. A lot of local heavy hitters drink there."

The line clicked dead.

Trent took the exit off the highway, the tyres protesting as he pushed the Commodore hard through the wet corner. They hit the suburban sprawl of Maroubra, navigating the grey, rain-washed streets until the ocean opened up in front of them, a churning mass of dark water under a bruised sky.

The South Bay Hotel sat on a corner block, a two-story brick monolith that looked like it had survived a half-dozen wars. Faded beer logos clung to the frosted windows. A few battered dual-cab utes were parked haphazardly in the side street. There was no sign of Holden's dark blue FPV ute.

Trent pulled into a loading zone across the road and killed the engine. The silence in the cabin was immediate and heavy.

"We sit on it," Mac said, her tone leaving no room for argument. "We wait to see who walks out. If it's Holden, we call the local uniforms and box him in. We do not go through the front doors."

Trent stared at the pub. The frosted glass glowed with a dull, jaundiced light.

"If he's in there, he's got a back exit," Trent said. "He'll slip out through the loading dock. We sit here, we lose him again."

"Trent." Mac turned in her seat, forcing him to look at her. "You are running hot. You went off the reservation this morning and it blew up in our faces. Do not compound the error. We observe."

Trent looked at his partner. He respected Mac more than anyone else on the squad. Under normal circumstances, he would have listened to her. But he was looking through a lens of total exhaustion, and all he could see was Liam Connor's purple, swollen face on the autopsy table.

"I'm just going in for a beer," Trent said. He unclipped his badge from his belt and shoved it into the glovebox. He checked the Glock in his shoulder holster, making sure the jacket covered the bulk.

"You're a bloody idiot," Mac hissed, but she didn't try to physically stop him. She knew better. "Five minutes. You eyeball the room, and you walk straight back out. If you're not out in six, I'm bringing the cavalry through the front window."

"Five minutes," Trent agreed.

He stepped out of the car into the driving rain. The cold hit him instantly, slicing through his jacket, but he welcomed it. It sharpened the dull ache in his head.

He crossed the road, his boots splashing through the overflowing gutters.

A massive Tongan bouncer in a black security polo was standing under the awning, his arms crossed over a chest the size of a beer keg. His name tag read Sione. He looked Trent up and down, taking in the wet clothes and the hard stare.

"Quiet night, mate," Sione rumbled, his voice deep and resonant. "Keep it that way."

"Just passing through," Trent said.

He pushed open the heavy wooden doors and stepped inside.

The pub smelled exactly how it looked—stale beer, damp wool, and fifty years of ingrained cigarette smoke. The carpet was a sticky, dark geometric pattern that swallowed the light. To the left, a bank of poker machines flashed and chimed, occupied by a few solitary ghosts feeding fifties into the slots. To the right was the main bar, a long expanse of scarred timber.

There were maybe fifteen people in the room. A mix of local tradies waiting out the rain and older regulars welded to their stools. A young Asian bartender was wiping down the taps, looking bored.

Trent moved slowly toward the bar, keeping his back to the wall, his eyes scanning the booths in the dim light at the back of the room.

No Holden.

Trent ordered a soda water with lime from the bartender, paid with a crumpled ten-dollar note, and turned his back to the bar to survey the room again.

That was when he saw him.

Sitting in a booth in the far corner, half-hidden by a structural pillar, were three men. Two of them Trent didn't recognize—heavy-set, bearded, wearing high-vis workwear.

But the third man was facing the room. He was the kid from the gym. The one who had dropped the duffel bag when Trent put the gun on him. He looked jittery, tapping a beer coaster aggressively against the table.

Holden had split his forces. The phone pinging in Malabar was a decoy, or the kid was holding it while Holden went to ground somewhere else.

Trent knew he should walk out. He knew he should go back to the car, call the uniforms, and have the kid picked up quietly. That was the procedure. That was the job.

Instead, he picked up his glass and walked straight toward the booth.

The detachment was gone. The professional distance he usually maintained to survive the horror of Homicide had evaporated. He wanted answers, and he wanted to hurt someone to get them.

Trent stopped at the edge of the booth. He stood there, letting the silence stretch until the three men stopped talking and looked up.

The kid from the gym froze. Recognition hit his face like a physical blow. The colour drained from his cheeks.

"You," the kid breathed, pushing back into the vinyl seat.

"Me," Trent said. His voice was dangerously quiet. "Where's Brett?"

The two tradies at the table looked from the kid to Trent, their expressions hardening. They didn't know who Trent was, but they recognized the threat.

"Who the hell are you, mate?" the bloke on the left demanded, starting to slide out of the booth.

"Police," Trent said, not taking his eyes off the kid. "Sit down."

"I don't see a badge," the tradie sneered, standing up fully. He was an inch taller than Trent, broad and carrying the weight of a man who swung a hammer for a living.

"I'm not going to ask again," Trent said.

The kid from the gym panicked. He didn't wait to see how the standoff played out. He lunged across the table, knocking over two schooners of beer, scrambling over the back of the booth toward the rear fire exit.

Trent moved instantly. He shoved the standing tradie hard in the chest, knocking him backward into the table, and vaulted onto the vinyl seat of the booth to go after the kid.

The second tradie grabbed Trent by the back of his jacket and hauled him backward.

Trent hit the sticky carpet hard.

It was sudden. It was messy. It was exactly what Mac had warned him about.

The first tradie recovered and threw a heavy, looping right hook. Trent ducked it, rolling on the floor, the smell of stale beer filling his nose. He scrambled to his feet, slipping slightly on the wet carpet.

He didn't reach for his gun. You didn't draw a firearm in a crowded pub unless you were prepared to put a bullet in someone, and Trent wasn't there yet.

The tradie lunged again, grabbing Trent in a bear hug, trying to use his superior weight to wrestle him to the ground.

Trent dropped his centre of gravity, pivoted his hips, and drove a savage, short elbow straight into the man's face. He felt the cartilage in the nose crunch. The tradie howled, blood spraying across Trent's jacket, and stumbled backward, clutching his face.

The second man came in low, tackling Trent around the waist, driving him back into the wooden paneling of the bar. The impact knocked the wind out of Trent's lungs.

Trent fought back dirty. He didn't use police academy restraint holds. He brought his knee up hard into the man's groin. The man doubled over, gagging. Trent grabbed him by the back of the neck and drove his face down onto the solid timber edge of the bar top.

A heavy, sickening crack echoed over the noise of the poker machines. The man dropped to the floor like a sack of wet cement and didn't move.

The pub erupted. Patrons were shouting, scrambling out of the way.

Trent spun around, breathing heavily, his fists clenched, blood smeared across his knuckles.

The kid from the gym was gone. The fire exit door at the back of the room was slowly swinging shut.

Trent started toward the door, ignoring the two groaning men on the floor.

"Hey!" a massive voice boomed.

Sione, the Tongan bouncer, had cleared the distance from the front door in seconds. He grabbed Trent by the shoulder. His grip was like a steel vise.

"That's enough, mate," Sione growled. "You're done."

Trent turned, his adrenaline spiking, ready to throw a punch at a man who outweighed him by fifty kilos. He saw red. The rational part of his brain—the detective, the professional—was completely offline. He raised his fist.

"Police! Nobody move!"

Mac burst through the front doors, her badge held high in one hand, her Glock drawn and pointed at the ceiling in the other.

The entire pub froze. Even Sione paused, his eyes flicking from Trent to the gun in Mac's hand.

Mac's eyes locked onto Trent. She took in the blood on his jacket, his bruised face, the two men bleeding on the floor, and the raw, unhinged violence still burning in his eyes.

She lowered her weapon slightly, her face pale.

"Sione," Mac said, her voice tight but authoritative. "Let him go. He's my partner."

Sione looked at Mac, then back at Trent. He slowly uncurled his massive fingers and stepped back, shaking his head. "Your partner's got a screw loose, lady."

Trent didn't wait for permission. He shook off the remaining adrenaline, shoved past Sione, and sprinted for the fire exit.

He hit the alleyway hard, the rain instantly soaking through his clothes. The alley was dark, lined with overflowing industrial bins and stacked beer kegs.

It was empty.

Trent ran to the end of the alley, looking left and right down the slick pavement of the side street. Nothing. Just the rain and the distant roar of the ocean.

He stood there in the downpour, his chest heaving, rain mixing with the sweat and blood on his face. He had let his anger take the wheel. He had walked into a public bar, started a brawl, assaulted two civilians who likely had nothing to do with the murders, and he had let a primary suspect slip right through his fingers.

Mac walked out into the alleyway behind him. She didn't say anything for a long time. She just stood under the small awning, out of the rain, watching him.

"Uniforms are on the way," Mac said finally. Her tone was cold. Clinical.

Trent turned around. He looked at his hands. The knuckles on his right hand were split and bleeding, already starting to swell. He felt a throbbing ache at the base of his skull where he'd hit the bar.

"He was there," Trent said, his voice hoarse. "One of Holden's boys. He rabbit-holed out the back."

"And you let him," Mac said. She walked out into the rain and stopped a few feet away from him. "You let him go because you wanted to play the tough guy in the bar. You wanted to hurt someone."

Trent looked away. He couldn't meet her eyes.

"I'm pulling you," Mac said.

Trent snapped his head back. "What?"

"I'm calling Harris, and I'm telling him you're medically unfit," Mac said, her voice shaking slightly with residual adrenaline and real anger. "You are a liability, Trent. You aren't thinking. You're reacting. If Stokes gets wind of what just happened in there, he won't just take your badge, he'll put you in a cell."

"I can find him, Mac," Trent pleaded, stepping forward.

"No," Mac said, holding up a hand to stop him. "You go home. You look at yourself in the mirror, and you figure out if you're a cop or a thug. Because right now, I can't tell the difference."

Mac turned and walked back into the pub to deal with the mess Trent had left behind.

Trent stood alone in the dark alley. The rain beat down relentlessly, washing the blood from his knuckles and soaking him to the bone.

He was supposed to be the one hunting the monsters in the dark. But as he stood there, feeling the lingering, dark thrill of the violence humming in his veins, he wondered if the park had finally dragged him down into the dirt with them.