“Cut the mics! Cut the power!” Grant roared, abandoning his statesman persona. He lunged toward me, but I shoved him back.
“As of this moment,” I yelled over the din, “I am stepping down as CEO of Bellamy Tech. I have submitted a full dossier of our merged financial ties to the FBI and the SEC. I am turning state’s evidence against my own company to expose the Whitmore syndicate. You wanted my empire, Grant? You can have the ashes.”
Tessa grabbed my arm, her nails digging into my skin like talons, her face twisted into a mask of pure, ugly panic. “You’re insane! You’ve ruined yourself!”
“I was already ruined, Tessa,” I whispered. “I’m just finally waking up.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Grant furiously typing on his phone, then whispering to his head of security. The security chief nodded, tapped his earpiece, and sprinted for the service exit.
Move the package now.
“Maren, go!” I screamed into my lapel mic.
I bolted off the stage, dodging grasping board members and confused security guards. I burst through the kitchen doors, sprinting for the loading dock where my SUV was idling. Maren slid into the passenger seat a second later, slamming the door.
“They’re moving the flight up,” Maren gasped, pulling up the FAA tracker on her laptop. “They’ve requested immediate taxi to Runway 3.”
I slammed the car into gear, the tires smoking on the wet concrete. “They aren’t taking off tonight.”
The drive to the private airfield was a blur of adrenaline and flashing streetlights. Maren was on the phone with Evelyn, coordinating the police response, but we both knew the cops were too far away. Money buys time, and Grant Whitmore had bought just enough to get his private jet off American soil.
We tore through the perimeter fencing of the private terminal, the heavy iron gates buckling under the force of the two-ton SUV.
Ahead of us, through the driving rain, I saw it. The sleek, silver Gulfstream G650. The boarding stairs were already retracting. The twin Rolls-Royce engines were spooling up, a deafening, high-pitched whine that vibrated in my teeth.
“Rowan, they’re moving!” Maren screamed, bracing her hands on the dashboard.
The jet began to roll forward, turning onto the active runway. Once it hit speed, nothing could stop it.
I didn’t think. I just acted.
I pressed the accelerator to the floor. The SUV roared, hydroplaning slightly on the slick tarmac. We shot past the wing, aiming dead ahead of the nose gear.
“Brace!” I roared.
I twisted the steering wheel hard, throwing the SUV into a violent drift. We skidded sideways, tires screaming, directly into the path of the accelerating jet.
The impact was catastrophic.⚠️ FULL STORY INSIDE
The front landing gear of the Gulfstream slammed into the side of our vehicle with the force of a bomb. Metal shrieked. Airbags exploded in my face, a cloud of white powder and the sharp smell of deployed chemicals blinding me. The SUV was pushed sideways for fifty feet before the jet’s engines sputtered, choked, and died as the pilot engaged the emergency brakes to avoid a massive fuel fire.
Silence descended, broken only by the hiss of rain on hot metal and the groaning of the crippled aircraft.
I blinked through the blood dripping from a cut on my forehead. Beside me, Maren was already unbuckling her seatbelt. She kicked her jammed door open, crawling out into the rain.
I stumbled out after her, pulling my weapon. We ran to the side of the jet. The emergency door blew open, deployed by a panicked flight attendant.
I hauled myself up the inflatable slide, Maren right behind me.
The interior of the plane was chaotic. Grant was slumped in a leather chair, clutching his chest, the stress of the crash exacerbating his illness. Two private security guards drew their weapons, but I fired a warning shot into the opulent mahogany ceiling.
“Drop them!” I screamed. The guards, realizing their billionaire boss couldn’t pay them if they were dead, slowly lowered their guns.
At the back of the cabin, backed into a corner near the medical bay, stood Tessa.
Her emerald dress was torn. Her hair was wild. And in her arms, clutched tight against her chest like a human shield, was a baby.
Clara.
She was tiny, fragile, with wires trailing from beneath her blanket, attached to a portable monitor.
“Don’t take another step, Rowan!” Tessa shrieked, her voice cracking with hysteria. “I have legal medical guardianship! You have nothing! If you touch me, I’ll have you thrown in a federal penitentiary!”
I froze, the gun trembling in my hand. Tessa was cornered, unhinged, and she held the only thing in the world that mattered.
“Tessa,” I said slowly. “It’s over. The police are coming. The media has the files. Put her down.”
“She’s keeping my father alive!” Tessa screamed, tears of rage cutting through her makeup. “She’s nothing but a parasite you didn’t even know existed! You don’t deserve her!”
Before I could speak, a hand gently pushed my gun down.
Maren stepped past me.
She didn’t look angry. She didn’t look scared. She looked like a force of nature—cold, inevitable, and absolute.
“Tessa,” Maren said. Her voice wasn’t raised. It was deadly quiet, cutting through the ambient noise of the cabin like a scalpel.
Tessa sneered, though her grip on Clara tightened. “Look who it is. The pathetic martyr. Come to beg?”
Maren didn’t stop walking. She moved with slow, deliberate steps toward the back of the cabin. “I’m not here to beg. I’m here to collect.”
“Get back!” Tessa yelled, stepping backward until she hit the bulkhead.
Maren pulled a small black audio recorder from her pocket. She pressed play.
The audio was crystal clear. It was Tessa’s voice, recorded during her visit to the farmhouse a month ago.
“You’re going to sit in this dirt and rot, Maren. Because if you breathe a word to Rowan, or the cops, about the girl in Zurich, I won’t just take the boys. I’ll make sure they stop breathing entirely. Do you understand me? You are a breeding cow, and I took your best calf. Live with it.”
Tessa’s face went paper-white. The color drained from her lips. The legal shield of “medical guardianship” shattered in an instant. This was premeditated kidnapping and extortion.
“That was uploaded to the cloud an hour ago,” Maren said, stopping two feet from Tessa. “It’s currently sitting in the inbox of the FBI Director, the local DA, and every major news outlet in the country. You aren’t going to a boardroom, Tessa. You are going to a concrete cell for the rest of your natural life.”
Tessa looked at her father, who was staring at the floor, defeated. She looked at me, holding the gun. And finally, she looked at the woman she had vastly underestimated.
Tessa’s arms began to shake. The sociopathic confidence crumbled, leaving only a terrified, spoiled child.
