Chapter 1101
Alistair stopped. He looked at the ambulance, then back at the ballroom, then at Skye. His grip on her arm tightened.
“Go,” Skye said, reading the conflict in his eyes. “Ethan needs you. Julian needs you. You’re family.”
“I’m not leaving you here,” Alistair said, his tone leaving no room for argument. “Not with Marcus’s network still active.”
“Look around,” Skye said, gesturing to the room where uniformed police were securing every entrance. “The Feds are here. Marcus is in cuffs. The threat is neutralized — for now. But the media will spin this into a circus if someone doesn’t control the narrative immediately. If stock prices tank tomorrow, everything we fought for is gone. Julian wakes up to a bankrupt empire.”
Alistair hesitated. The ambulance doors were beginning to close. Ethan was shouting at the driver, looking back desperately for his cousin.
“I’ll handle the press,” Skye said, placing her hand flat against his chest. She could feel his heart hammering beneath her palm. “I have the entire Thorne security detail here, plus the federal agents. I’ll wrap this up, give a statement, and go straight to the safe house. Go. Save him.”
Alistair held her gaze for one more second — dark, searching, intense enough to make her breath catch. Then he tapped his earpiece. “Team Alpha, stay with Skye. Do not let her out of your sight. If anyone approaches her, put them down.”
He leaned down and pressed a hard, bruising kiss to her forehead. Then he turned.
“Keep your phone on,” he ordered, and sprinted toward the ambulance just as it began to pull away. He jumped into the back. The doors slammed shut on his dark suit.
Skye watched the lights dissolve into the mist, a cold knot forming in her stomach.
She turned back to the ballroom. “Okay,” she whispered to herself. “Showtime.”
For the next forty minutes, Skye was a machine. She stood before the cameras, fielding questions, shaping the narrative of Marcus Cain’s corruption and the Sterling family’s vindication. She played the role of the strong, aggrieved heir without a single crack in the performance.
Slowly, the guests filtered out. The police escorted Marcus away. The adrenaline drained out of her, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion.
The ballroom — once packed with hundreds of people — was now cavernous and still. Staff moved quietly through the space, collecting glasses. The music had stopped.
Skye looked around for the head of her security detail. “Kovacs?”
No answer.
She checked her phone. No signal.
That was wrong. She was in the center of the city.
She walked toward the main exit, her heels clicking sharply on the marble floor.
“Excuse me,” she said to a passing waiter carrying a tray of empty champagne flutes. “Do you know where the security detail went?”
The waiter stopped. He didn’t turn around.
“They were dismissed,” he said.
His voice was wrong. Not the polite, deferential tone of service staff. Flat. Cold.
“Dismissed by whom?” Skye asked, taking a slow step back.