Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 58377 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58377 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
“Bird is overhead—altitude down to legal. We’ve got twenty white vans. Filtering.”
Out of the corner of my vision, a little pink sticky note flutters on the edge of the console—the one she pinned to my chest last night: Trust your gut. My hand shakes once as I anchor it on the desk.
“Dean?” I say, stabbing the satphone.
He picks up in a breath. “Talk.”
“Cam’s grabbed. White panel van, three male perps, inside assist probable. They jammed our cam and sprinted south. Last ping at the 115 on-ramp.”
Dead air. Then: “We’re spinning up. Orange-Plus Team is in the air in thirty. You’re lead, Sawyer. Don’t do anything stupid alone.”
I stare at the monitors, at the emptiness that is a screen without the person you love on it, and feel something in me go diamond hard. “No promises.”
The house turns into a hive. PD locks lanes near the on-ramp as they chase phantom vans. Drone hops feed towers, catches pieces. Every piece mocks me. Cam’s last breadcrumb is that ping and the way the grass bent where she fought. She fought—that helps—but every passing minute is a mile of road.
We tear the inside of Kingsley House apart with a polite smile. Rae traces the text that pinged Cam to the garden. “Spoofed,” she says, frowning. “Sender masked under a known contact, rerouted through a bot farm. Whoever did this borrowed trust to open the door.”
“Inside,” I grind. “They knew the number to fake that would get her moving.”
Who? A friend? A staff member?
I need to move or I’ll put my fist through a screen. I stride into the hall, intending to sweep contractor comms for the fifth time, and almost plow into Gregory Kingsley.
He looks ten years older than this morning. His tie is loosened; one shirt sleeve is rolled, the other still buttoned; his hair is finger-combed, not perfect. He’s carrying a glass he probably meant to drink but hasn’t. He lifts his head at me, and the relief I want to see doesn’t arrive. Something else does: dread, then guilt, then the kind of iron I only saw in platoon leaders right before they confessed to ordering a thing that went sideways.
“Mr. Kingsley,” I say, keeping my voice neutral.
“Come,” he says, hoarse. “My office.”
I follow, shutting the door. He stands at the window overlooking the drive where press vans have clustered like vultures and swat aside my urge to rip them in half.
He doesn’t turn when he speaks. “I never wanted her hurt.”
It’s such a non sequitur that for a heartbeat I miss it. Then my blood runs cold.
“Explain,” I say. Not a question.
He doesn’t immediately. He taps the glass with one knuckle, watching the distorted reflection of his own face. When he finally looks at me, the father is gone; the CEO is there, but cracked.
“Do you know how many IPOs die because the story is boring?” he asks. “We are building aircraft that change how the world moves. Clean. Quiet. Safer. But it’s not enough. The market is a god that wants blood.” He laughs, but there’s zero humor behind it. “And so we fed it a ghost. A crisis that looked like danger but never was.”
I stare at him, motionless.
“Publicity,” he says, as if tasting the word and finding it rancid now. “Momentum. A narrative. Our PR firm connected me with… with a firm that specializes in manufacturing urgency. They proposed something ‘controlled’—mild threats, online chatter, security ‘concerns’ that would put us on screens as a company that takes safety seriously. We agreed to precisely defined boundaries. No weapons. No contact. Ever.”
My heartbeat is a bomb timer—beep, beep, beep—slowing, growing louder.
“What firm,” I say.
“Kestrel Risk Solutions,” he says. “Marcus Vale introduced me—he’s my partner on the roadshow. The fired COO—Spencer DeLuca—put us in the same room as Kestrel’s fixer. We were promised the narrative would elevate the share price by twenty percent.”
Every muscle in my neck turns to wire. “The letters. The cardstock. The staged break-in.”
He nods once, miserably. “The paper came from a list Kestrel gave us—obscure boutique stock, distinctive for recognition by… by your people.” He swallows. “It spun out. After the mural incident, I throttled it and said we were done. Vale insisted the ‘arc’ needed one more crescendo. I refused. He… he found someone else.”
“Who?” I whisper, even though I know. The partner who wants red.
“Vale engaged a freelancer Kestrel had blacklisted. Name I heard was Rourke. Ex-military, fired for using live rounds on a drill.” He grips the edge of the desk until his knuckles bleach. “Yesterday I told Vale if anything else happened I’d burn his funds live on CNBC. We shouted. He laughed. Today… Camille is gone.”
The room tilts. My promise to Cam—keep you whole—burns like a brand.
“Why tell me now?” I ask, and it’s not kind. “Why not before my team risked their lives for a lie you helped start?”