Chapter 858
He hung up and lay back, staring at the ceiling. A single tear escaped the corner of his eye and tracked silently down into his ear.
“I’m sorry, Skye,” he breathed. “But this is the only way to protect you from what comes next.”
An hour later, Skye was back on the private jet. Felix sat across from her, staring out the window, his face set with quiet determination.
“We’ll find them, Felix,” Skye said, reaching across to squeeze his hand.
“I know, Boss,” Felix said.
The engines roared, and the plane lifted off into the night sky, banking toward Europe.
Skye looked down at the fading lights of Sea City below. A strange heaviness settled in her chest — a premonition she couldn’t name. She was flying into the dark, chasing ghosts. And for the first time in a long time, she felt truly afraid.
Because the Mastermind wasn’t just playing chess. He was flipping the board.
The air inside the vault was so cold it felt like a physical weight pressing against Skye’s chest. It wasn’t just the temperature control of the Zurich Private Bank — it was the silence. The kind of silence that swallows sound and breath alike, amplifying the frantic rhythm of her own heart.
Felix stood beside her, his silhouette sharp against the brushed steel walls. His usual stoic bodyguard demeanor was gone, replaced by a rigid tension coiled in his shoulders. His hands, usually steady on a weapon, were clenched at his sides, braced for a threat that wasn’t physical.
𝗦𝘩a𝘳𝗲 𝗒о𝘶r 𝘧a𝗏𝘰𝗿i𝗍𝘦ѕ 𝗳𝗋o𝗆 𝗀𝘢lո𝗈𝘷е𝗹s.сo𝗺
The bank manager — a man who looked as though he had been starched along with his suit — placed a heavy black iron box on the steel table. He bowed once, a sharp and precise movement, then retreated. The heavy door hissed shut behind him, sealing them inside the tomb of secrets.
“This is it,” Skye whispered, her breath misting in the frigid air. Her voice sounded too loud in the confined space.
“The deposit box of Celeste Cain,” Felix murmured, scanning the room for hidden cameras. “If the intel from the decrypted tablet is correct, the override codes for the Nevada black site should be in here.”
Skye reached out. The metal was freezing under her fingertips. She entered the code she had extracted from the tablet — the numbers burned into her mind like a brand.
Click. Whir. Thud.
The mechanical lock disengaged with a sound like a breaking bone.
Skye lifted the lid. She expected papers. Ledgers. A USB drive containing the digital keys to Parker and Victoria’s prison.
Instead, there was only a swatch of deep blue velvet.
She looked at Felix. He nodded, his jaw tight. “Check underneath.”
Skye pulled back the velvet.
Light seemed to explode from the box — not a flash, but a deep, drowning glow. A sapphire, the size of a robin’s egg, cut in a way that made it look like a captured piece of the midnight ocean. It didn’t sparkle; it pulsed with a cold, malevolent life.
“My God,” Skye breathed, disappointment warring with awe. “This isn’t just a gem. This is the Sterling Sapphire.”