Chapter 46
Gunnar pushes the SUV like he’s driving a getaway car.
My world narrows to the growl of the engine under Gunnar’s hands.
Manhattan blurs around us—glass, steel, streaks of yellow taxis, and honking horns.
He’s reckless with his speed. The kind of driving that ends with body bags or headlines, but I can’t bring myself to tell him to slow down.
Tricked from the safety of our home, my girl has been thrown into a nightmare she doesn’t deserve—one I will rescue her from. The only thing I can think about is getting to her. Getting to my princess. As fast as fucking possible, because with every second that passes, we’re running out of time .
“I’ve checked with some contacts,” Nikolai discloses from the backseat.
He might usually be our chaos, but right now, he’s calm and collected.
Tapping his thumbs against his phone, he continues to type to someone on the other side as he shares what he knows, “Sargsyan has a private jet parked on the eastern hangar strip. There’s no flight plan.
The plane is prepped for takeoff. Just waiting for its passengers to arrive. ”
“Let’s be real. Even without a flight plan, we know where he’s taking her,” Cillian mutters. “He’s going to fly her out of the country and disappear to Armenia.”
I stare out the window, my jaw permanently clenched as it has been since they took her.
Towns whizz by as we race down the interstate.
“If they make it into the air, it’ll be near impossible to find her again.
” The thought makes me want to vomit. The fact that no one argues only drives home how accurate my statement is.
Nikolai’s eyes are hard and unreadable as he continues to type into his phone. Cillian has a quiet rage simmering behind his silence—murderous even. Damon is in the seat behind me, checking his weapons with quick and efficient movements.
“ETA?” Cillian asks.
“If traffic stays clear, eight minutes,” Gunnar answers.
“They’re only a few miles from the airfield,” I solemnly share, my eyes not leaving the phone screen.
“We don’t have eight minutes.” We might not have two.
I shove a hand through my hair, gripping hard.
My pulse is a fucking jackhammer, every breath razor-sharp.
Leaning forward, elbows on my knees, I try to focus through the thunder rattling my skull.
All I can see is her face. Eavan… my princess.
The only soft place in my world of bullets and blood.
I told her she was safe with me. She trusted me, and I’ve let her down. We all let her down.
“We need to be there in four,” Cillian mutters, eyes narrowed as he glances between the road and the clock on the dash. “Or we might be too late.” Gunnar stomps on the accelerator, and the engine roars as the speedometer creeps into triple-digit numbers.
“Jagger and Hawk are three miles back, following our trail like vultures,” Damon informs us. “They’ll be a few minutes behind us.”
“Too late,” I gripe. “We don’t wait for them. We go in heavy and fast. No time for back-up. We stop the plane and kill everyone who helped make this happen.”
“The plane is a Gulfstream G550,” Nikolai reads Hawk’s text.
I don’t know if Hawk has a man on the inside, if he hacked their travel manifest, or if he’s using satellites.
And right now, I don’t fucking care where the information is coming from.
“Two-man flight crew, both ex-military. Six ground men we can see—two at the hangar doors, four patrolling the jet. Could be more inside.”
“And Eavan?” I ask, unable to hold back the question.
“I don’t know,” Nikolai answers honestly.
My hands ball in my lap. “No survivors,” I growl.
“None,” Cillian echoes, quiet and deadly.
Nikolai asks, “You want to make the call? Or should I? ”
“You,” I insist, not knowing if they’re still watching my phone.
He taps on his screen, and Jagger answers quickly, “Jagger.”
“What’s your status?” I ask.
“Not far behind you,” he answers. “We can see you a few cars ahead. What’s the plan?”
Nikolai demands, “Give me a rifle and a vantage point.”
“You’ll get it.” I spin in my seat to face him. “We’ll drop you just off the service road behind the northeastern perimeter. Should give you the line of sight.”
“I’ll take the pilot first.” His tone is flat. “Then the crew. No one flies that jet.”
I nod, leaning back in my seat, adrenaline already burning slow and steady in my veins. “Cillian and I will go in head-on. Damon, you and Gunnar circle around. I want fire from both sides. We squeeze.”
Gunnar grins without looking away from the road. “Love a good squeeze.”
“Jagger and Hawk, you follow at a distance, swing around, and flank from the south hangars. Intercept anyone running. Kill them all.”
“Roger that,” Hawk affirms.
“And Jagger? Hawk?”
“Yeah?” they answer in unison .
“If that plane’s wheels leave the ground?—”
“It won’t,” Hawk insists.
I hang up as Gunnar jerks the wheel, abruptly taking the turnpike ramp.
The SUV surges to the left, nearly clipping a slow-moving delivery truck.
I can see the airport fencing now, half-hidden by trees and low warehouse buildings.
Gunnar turns onto a dirt service road running parallel to the airstrip.
“This is your stop,” he informs Nikolai, who is already jumping from the back seat.
Nikolai pops the hatch on the back of the SUV, slings his rifle over his shoulder, and quickly grabs a black duffel with extra mags and a thermal scope. “I’ll be in position in two .”
“Nik,” I call after him, and he pauses. “Don’t miss.”
Glancing at me through the rear of the car, a smug smirk pulls at the corner of his lips. “I never do.” He winks and wastes no time waiting for a response, immediately running toward the hangar, disappearing into the trees like he was never there.
The SUV jolts as Gunnar stomps on the accelerator, kicking up gravel when the tires spin against the road. And we’re at the airfield, the runway stretching into the distance, and at the far end, the white blur of a Gulfstream with the steps already down.
“Drive straight through the fence,” I bark.
“You got it, boss.” Gunnar floors it and yells, “Brace!” He guns it straight through the maintenance access gate, doing at least seventy.
He doesn’t slow until we’re approaching the Gulfstream.
I throw open the door before we stop moving.
Cillian is right behind me, Damon and Gunnar flanking as planned.
The engines hum, runway lights reflecting off the fuselage, and bullets spark off the pavement.
It does nothing to slow us. We move in coordinated chaos—trained, lethal, and unstoppable.
I raise my Glock and fire twice. One of Sargsyan’s men drops with a hole in his forehead.
Another falls to the asphalt beside him, screaming as his leg is shredded by Damon’s shotgun.
Cillian takes two with controlled bursts.
Gunnar drops another as he tries to run for the hangar like a fucking coward.
Then, movement near the stairs draws my attention.
Sargsyan…