Chapter 10
The roar of the twin-engine transport bled into a steady hum as the aircraft dropped toward Burundu. Riley gripped the worn armrest, not because she was nervous about flying—she’d done worse landings on worse planes—but because her chest felt tight with anticipation.
A year. A whole damn year since she’d set foot on this soil. The air here had a weight, a taste—hot dust and faint metal—that hit her even through the sealed cabin. It carried memories she’d spent twelve months forcing into neat boxes.
Her phone, locked in airplane mode, sat in her lap like a live grenade. Talon. His name was there in her messages, miles of texts stretching back day after day. No voice calls. No video. No contact outside the thread that had become the most reliable part of her life.
And now she was back in his area of responsibility.
The plane touched down with a tooth-rattling jolt. Riley’s spine stayed straight, her white-knuckled grip the only betrayal of nerves. The cargo door groaned open, letting in a wall of Burundu heat that wrapped around her like a suffocating wet blanket.
Her boots hit the airstrip, and the old familiarity came back hard. The smell of fuel fumes, scorched asphalt, the muffled sound of French, Burundian dialects, and the mechanical whine of overworked engines were familiar. It was chaos, but a chaos she knew how to navigate.
She didn’t pause. A cluster of Shoemaker Mining Consortium personnel waited nearby. Some of the faces she half recognized; others she didn’t. Most were sweating in the heat, looking like they regretted every life choice that had brought them there.
“Container manifest’s a mess,” a junior logistics tech mumbled, looking flustered over a clipboard.
“Then fix it,” Riley said sharply, her voice cutting clean through the clatter of the airstrip. Heads turned. “And if Customs tries to hold you up over your own paperwork, you stand there until it’s sorted. We’re not losing another forty-eight hours over preventable screw-ups.”
The tech opened his mouth, but she was already moving past him, scanning the unloading cargo with practiced eyes. Two shipping crates marked for Arjun Ridge were stacked wrong, straining the tie-downs. She stalked over, the oppressive heat welding her shirt to her back.
“Hey!” she barked, and the local driver froze mid-shift. “That crate doesn’t ride there. Re-stack it. You shear a bolt on the convoy road, and you’ll have two million dollars of equipment bleeding uranium dust into the Sahel. Move it. Now.”
The driver gave her a look of half defiance and half disbelief, but something in her stance made him reach for the tie-downs without another word.
She felt it then. The old familiar pulse of adrenaline, the sharp-edged satisfaction of being back in the field. It was a thin layer of armor she could pull over herself. And it was just enough to cover the truth.
In actuality, her stomach was a knot of nerves.
She was running on equal parts determination and pride.
She’d come back to prove—to herself, her father, to everyone who whispered that she wasn’t capable—that she could still do the job.
That she could walk into this heat, this chaos, this danger, and hold her own.
And somewhere in that crowd, eventually, there would be Talon.
Her pulse kicked at the thought, and she forced herself back to the task at hand.
“Compliance team, eyes up,” she called, spotting her small contingent lingering by the SUV convoy. “We roll in twenty. I want hazard assessments logged on entry, equipment accounted for before we hit Arjun Ridge. If the mine site wants our stamp of approval, it meets our standards. Move.”
She kept her shoulders square, her tone clipped and professional as she gave orders. But as the team scrambled, she caught her reflection in the SUV’s side mirror—eyes just a little too bright, a faint line between her brows that hadn’t been there a year ago.
She took a slow breath, shoving that doubt back down. The mask had to stay in place. There was no room for hesitation. Not in front of her team, not in front of her father’s company men, and not in front of the local nationals.
But deep in her chest, under all the determination, a single thought burned steady.
Please let me be enough for this. And please, God, let me be enough for him.
The drive to the Arjun Ridge Mine compound took forty-seven minutes along a road that looked more like a scar through the earth than infrastructure. The SUV’s heavy suspension groaned over the pitted ruts and loose rock, the vibration thrumming through Riley’s boots and jolting her bones.
She sat in the back of the armored vehicle, a file folder open on her lap, though her eyes barely skimmed the pages.
The landscape pulled at her attention. The jagged outcroppings, stands of acacia trees, and the sharp flashes of sunlight glinting off distant water caught and held her thoughts.
Each one jabbed at the edges of a memory.
Each gaze sent tight little bursts of fear through her.
She fought to smooth them into something manageable.
Her stomach clenched hard, her pulse knocking against her ribs. She forced her inhale slow, her exhale slower.
You’re not on a ship. The thought had weight. She latched onto it. You’re on land. You’re safe. You have control.
By the time the compound’s fencing came into view, she’d forced her shoulders to loosen and her hands to release their grip on the file.
The Arjun Ridge facility rose ahead like its own fortified city.
Administrative blocks, rows of dormitories, and skeletal mining structures framed against the haze.
A high fence wrapped the perimeter, coils of razor wire catching the sunlight.
The sight was grounding in a strange way.
She breathed a bit easier. This wasn’t the cramped, stinking cargo hold where she’d spent days fighting for her life.
This was ordered, contained. This, she could manage.
As the SUV rolled to a stop outside the administrative building, Riley’s fingers brushed the smooth metal handle of her briefcase, the small motion settling her.
Once inside, the air conditioning hit with a wave of vivid relief.
She didn’t mind that the cool air was laced with the faint tang of industrial cleaner.
Glancing around, nothing had changed. The polished concrete floors gleamed.
Motivational safety posters lined the walls.
It was all exactly as she remembered yet different.
Conversations slowed as she crossed the lobby. Eyes lifted from screens and paperwork, watching her with carefully neutral expressions. Neutral but full of speculation.
She could feel the weight of what they remembered. The rumors that had probably circulated when she’d been medevac’d out of the country and no doubt continued because she’d returned.
Riley Shoemaker, the boss’s daughter who’d been taken hostage. Riley Shoemaker, who’d disappeared for a week, who’d left for a year, and who’d then been sent back by corporate. Riley Shoemaker, who’d traded fieldwork for the safety of headquarters.
The judgment pressed at her like the oppressive outside heat, but she straightened her spine and let her steps fall sharp and certain. Let them look. Let them wonder. She wasn’t the victim they wanted to see. She was a survivor, and she was in control of her narrative.
Her office was on the third floor, overlooking the main processing facility. She paused at the door, her hand resting on the glass, and took a steadying breath before pushing inside.
It was exactly as she’d left it—except for the coffee rings, the half-eaten sandwich, and the ashtray on her desk. There was a stack of unfamiliar files littering the surface.
Her jaw set in stone, and her grip on her briefcase tightened. Who had moved into her office without permission?
“Excuse me.”
She turned. Marcus Webb stood in the doorway. The senior project manager’s expression stuck somewhere between contrite and defensive.
“We weren’t expecting you back so soon,” he said. “I was just—”
“Using my office without permission,” Riley cut in, her voice crisp as she set her briefcase on the desk. She began collecting the files, stacking them with controlled precision. “These need to be returned to wherever they came from. Immediately.”
Marcus shifted his weight, his shirt already clinging to him in the heat. “Of course. I just thought, since you’d been away for so long …”
“Away? I was working.” She controlled her narrative.
Not him, not them. Her eyes met his, level and unblinking.
His shoulders twitched almost imperceptibly under the impact.
“I’ve spent the last year conducting comprehensive audits of major operations in this company’s portfolio.
Now I’m here to ensure Arjun Ridge meets the same standards.
” Which was the truth. Her therapist had helped her build her narrative, and she wasn’t lying.
She was limiting their knowledge of her personal life, which she had every right to do.
She moved deliberately around the desk, reclaiming the space with every step. “I want a full briefing on current operations within the hour. I want environmental compliance reports for the last six months. And I want a complete manifest of all mineral extractions since January.”
“Riley.”
Her head whipped around, and she glared at the man. Oh hell no. “When did we start communicating on a first-name basis, Mr. Webb?”
“I mean, Ms. Shoemaker, some of that information is—”
“Confidential? Above my clearance level?” Her smile was cool, sharp.
“Mr. Webb, I am the ESG Compliance Officer and Liaison for this entire operation. There is no information about environmental, social, or governance practices that is above my clearance level. If you have a problem with that, you’re welcome to call my father. ”
The air between them felt charged. Marcus nodded tightly and backed out, closing the door behind him.