Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 43456 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 217(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43456 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 217(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
She looked up, her expression uncertain. “Are you coming up too?”
“Soon,” I promised, cupping her chin gently. “Got something to take care of first.”
Her mouth opened as though she might protest, but she stopped herself and nodded instead, clearly taking what I’d explained about club business to heart.
She slid from the couch and stood. “Okay.”
I kept my eyes locked on her as she turned and moved toward the stairs. Her hips swayed gently in those tight jeans, every step drawing my gaze until I felt Fallon’s amused stare burning into the side of my face.
He smirked as he approached, waiting until Linden was completely out of earshot before shaking his head with a laugh. “Brother, if you keep holding back, we’re all going to suffocate from the sexual tension in this building. Hell, even Cerberus is wound tight.”
I shot him a dry look. “I have it under control.”
Fallon’s grin widened knowingly. “Yeah, if your control gets any tighter, you’ll snap in half. You do realize that every person in this clubhouse can feel you eye-fucking your girl every time she’s in the room, right?”
“Don’t you have something to tell me?” I ground out.
The humor faded instantly, replaced by something far more serious. “Yeah, man. Wizard and I found something. You’re gonna want to hear this.”
Without another word, I followed Fallon to our tech genius’s den, each step sending a tight knot of unease twisting in my gut.
When Fallon and I stepped into Wizard’s office, the energy immediately shifted. He sat at his desk, his eyes locked on his computer screen and brows knitted together in concentration. The room was dimly lit, illuminated primarily by the glow of multiple monitors. Papers covered the long table along the wall, scattered in organized chaos—notes scribbled hastily in Fallon’s handwriting, flight logs marked with colored sticky notes, and documents meticulously sorted into stacks.
Wizard barely glanced up as we entered, his fingers flying over the keyboard in rhythmic bursts.
“Tomcat,” he greeted without looking away from the screen, his tone all business.
Fallon stepped around the table, pushing a few papers toward me as I approached. “Take a look.”
I scanned the sheets—flight logs and test data, some familiar from Linden’s files, others obtained through one of our Navy contacts. After bringing her to the compound, I’d reached out for intel on those flagged reports she’d stumbled upon. Fallon had been working through them methodically, laying out discrepancies side by side, searching for patterns.
My stomach knotted as I started to grasp what I was seeing as I studied the files for three separate flights.
“These logs all have the same discrepancy?” My voice was tight, frustration building fast beneath the surface. “Each labeled ‘aborted before takeoff,’ but conflicting records say each flight was completed, with fatalities?”
Fallon nodded, his expression dark. “Exactly. Carson Holbrook’s crash wasn’t an isolated incident. There are more, but Wizard hasn’t recovered the redacted info yet.”
Wizard’s gaze finally lifted from the screen, eyes sharp behind his black-rimmed glasses. He spun his chair to face me, crossing his arms across his chest. “I’ve cleaned up some of the redacted crash data from those records. So far, each flight had a completely different issue. One had catastrophic instrument failure, another reported an explosive decompression event at altitude, and the third experienced total engine flameout mid-flight. And Carson’s issue was different as well. They were each caused by problems in an isolated system, but they’re all distinct, no two crashes are alike. And they all resulted in the pilot being unable to recover and their bird went down.”
“All buried under the same cover-up,” Fallon added, his tone grim. “Flights supposedly canceled on paper, but pilots dying in the air. And at spaced-out intervals that seem random at first glance, but when you study them like I have, you eventually spot the unintentional pattern. Someone is hiding something major.”
I stared at the reports again, my mind racing. “What’s linking them together, though? If each crash had different causes, why hide it? Why falsify records?”
Wizard shook his head slowly, his lips pressed into a thin line. “That’s the part we haven’t fully unraveled yet. But the deeper I dig, the uglier this looks. This isn’t just negligence or incompetence, brother. It’s deliberate and calculated.”
Fallon tapped one of the files, his voice edged with quiet anger. “Whatever happened on Carson’s flight, it sure as fuck wasn’t pilot error or some routine mechanical failure. Not based on what we’re seeing.”
My jaw clenched tight as I stared down at the scattered papers, rage simmering just below the surface. A cover-up like this was carefully orchestrated. Someone high up had to know about it, likely profiting from whatever was being hidden. But for now, the truth behind these crashes—and Linden’s brother’s death—still felt out of reach. We needed more.
“What about the black box data?” I asked, my tone clipped. “That would tell us exactly what happened on Carson’s flight.”