Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 215412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 862(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 862(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
“Oliver.” Her voice cracks.
He turns, and his face changes. Not gentleness. Recognition. History.
Oliver Popov was Frankie and Monty’s private chef for years on this island. He fed them while keeping his head down and his knives sharp. They didn’t know then what he’d been before the aprons and menus.
When Dr. Howell abducted her, Oliver stopped pretending.
I wasn’t here when he revealed himself as The Ghost, but I was present for the feral last stand, when he helped us escape the doctor.
Frankie crosses the room in three fast steps and throws her arms around him. He stiffens for a heartbeat then lets it happen, one hand coming up to steady her.
“I missed you.” She presses her face into his shoulder.
“I missed your Eggs Benedict,” Monty mutters.
That earns a small smile from Oliver. “I will make them now while Mikhail works.”
“Please.” Frankie releases him. “Before Monty burns the house down.”
Oliver turns toward the door, already rolling up his sleeves. Monty and Frankie follow him, pulled by routine and comfort.
I stay where I am, eyes on the screens as Mikhail dives deeper, lines of code stacking and feeds flickering.
“You should eat.” Monty lingers in the doorway.
“I can’t.” My stomach is a knot of acid and vicious anger.
With reluctance, he leaves. I grab my sketchbook and pull up a chair beside Mikhail.
Long into the night, Mikhail’s fingers glide over the board, the keys clicking in soft bursts. He doesn’t stretch or drink or look away from his task. Whatever zone he’s in, it doesn’t include time.
With my sketchbook open beside him, I don’t draw princesses. I sketch outcomes, corridors, entry points, and blind corners. I rough out rescues like crime scenes in reverse.
If Jag and Dove are being held in a warehouse, there will be loading docks, forklifts, stacked containers, and snipers on catwalks.
If it’s a cave, it will be single access, choke points, tunnels, condemning echoes, lights out, and close work.
If it’s some underground lair, there will be security doors, biometric locks, cameras, vents, and service shafts.
Every version ends the same way.
Get in. Get them. Get out.
I don’t draw revenge. I can’t let myself plan Crowe’s death. Jag has been watching that man for twenty years, tracking him, studying him, and waiting for an opening that never came.
He’s been sitting on that incriminating audio file of Crowe for seventeen years and never leaked it to the press. Why? Because it would’ve endangered Dove?
If Jag couldn’t topple Crowe with decades of prep, I’m not delusional enough to think I’ll do it in one night.
This won’t be a reckoning. It’ll be a retrieval.
Mikhail exhales softly and shifts screens. Maps snap into place. Routes clarify. Data stops swimming and starts pointing.
My pencil stills.
Whatever he’s seeing, it’s real now.
“What do you have?” I close the sketchbook.
He turns a screen toward me.
Shipping routes? Air traffic logs? What am I looking at?
“They moved fast. Multiple boats, private planes, and vehicles.” His fingers dance across the keys. “I have not identified Dove yet, but Jag is here.” He hovers the cursor over a building in downtown Los Angeles.
The information lands in my chest and detonates.
“They split them up?” I ask.
“Possibly. Or they arrived separately. This will not be a clean extraction.” He opens a digital blueprint. “Jag has been watching this nightclub for years.”
“They’re being held in a nightclub?”
“There is a kill room in the basement.”
“What’s a kill room?” My heart hammers.
“That is what Jag calls it in his notes.”
“What’s a fucking kill room, Mikhail?”
“A room where the killing happens.”
“Why is there a fucking kill room in a fucking nightclub?” Panic swamps my bloodstream. “You think that’s where they’re holding Jag and Dove? Why the fuck would they be in a kill room, Mikhail?”
“Calm down.” He squints at me. “Jag is useless to Crowe if he is dead, and he will not cooperate if Dove is harmed, yes?”
“Yeah. Okay. They’re alive.”
Saying it doesn’t quiet the howling in my wrecked heart. Alive can mean anything. It can mean they’re being brutalized and raped. Barely alive isn’t the same as alive.
“His blueprints detail the layout.” He zooms in on the diagram. “Guards at every entry point. Cameras at all angles. The best security money can buy. I do not see a way in, let alone a way out.”
“I see a way.” I grab my sketchbook and flip it open.
Pages of half-mad contingencies slide past, routes that assume luck, timing that assumes mercy. I don’t stop on those. I skip to the last page, the one that will get me killed if I miscount a breath.
Spinning the book around, I shove it toward him.
Mikhail studies it, leaning in, eyes sharpening, and a slow grin spreads across his face. Teeth this time. Real ones.
“For this…” He taps the page. “You need The Ghost.”
“Yeah, I do, deep and dirty.” Anticipation heats my chest. “Bombs away.”
“It’s suicide.”