Chapter 841
The roar of the jet engines faded into the heavy cloud layer, taking Parker and Victoria with it. Skye Sterling stood on the rain-slicked tarmac of the private airfield, her chest heaving, rain plastering her hair to her face. She watched the red taillights of the unmarked aircraft disappear until the sky swallowed them whole, a scream trapped in her throat. They were gone. Taken to the Blue Phoenix.
“We lost them,” Lucian Graves rasped, coming to a halt beside her. He was bent forward, hands braced on his knees, his breath coming in ragged clouds against the cold air. His suit was soaked through, mud spattering his trousers from his sprint across the grass. “My team at the perimeter — they were neutralized. Tires spiked, comms jammed. They never had a chance to block the runway.”
Alistair Thorne walked up behind them, his face a mask of granite. He didn’t look at the empty sky; he looked at Skye. He pulled her back from the edge of the runway, his grip like iron, shielding her from the biting wind.
“We can’t catch them in the air,” Alistair said, his voice a low rumble. “Not without risking a surface-to-air takedown. If we chase blindly, they will shoot that plane out of the sky just to spite us.”
Skye spun around and grabbed his lapels, her knuckles white. “Lucian said the signal trace pointed to the desert! We need a plane — now! We can track their transponder!”
“They killed the transponder the second they cleared the tower,” Alistair countered, his eyes dark and hard. “We need the landing codes. We need the specific coordinates of the drop site. And there is only one man left in this city who knows how the logistics of this operation work.”
“Thomas,” Skye breathed, the name tasting like bile.
“Let’s go,” Alistair ordered.
They turned back toward the hangars, fighting against the driving rain. The walk felt like a funeral procession. Every step away from the runway felt like a betrayal of Parker and Victoria, but Skye knew Alistair was right — blind rage would only get them all killed.
When they reached the sheltered overhang of the private hangar, a black SUV was waiting with its engine idling. Lucian moved ahead, wiping the rain from his face, his expression shifting from exhaustion to cold, predatory intent.
𝗟𝖺𝘁e𝗌𝘵 с𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘵еrs 𝗼𝗇 𝘨al𝗇o𝘃e𝘭ѕ.co𝗺
“Where is he?” Skye demanded.
“Safe house,” Lucian said, opening the rear door for Skye. “The old Chapel on the ridge. My men picked him up an hour ago trying to board a cargo ship. I told them to hold him until we arrived.”
“Take us there,” Skye ordered, her voice stripped of all panic, cold as the air around them. “And Lucian? I don’t care what’s left of him when you’re done.”
Thirty minutes later, the SUV crunched to a stop over gravel.