Chapter Five
Ripcord watched Kristin pace.
She'd been at it for an hour—five steps to the window, five steps back, a caged animal learning the dimensions of her prison. The safehouse was secure, the perimeter quiet, but none of that seemed to register. She needed to move. Needed to do something.
He understood the feeling better than she knew.
His phone buzzed. Another update from Forge.
Stanton's got crews at six airfields. Searching hangars, interrogating ground staff. Looking for Danny's stash and anyone who might know where you've taken the woman.
Ripcord typed back: Any heat on our location?
Negative. They're focused on aviation infrastructure. Don't know about the sandhills properties.
Small mercy.
He looked up to find Kristin watching him.
"News?"
"Stanton's searching every airfield in the region. Hangars, offices, planes—anything connected to small aviation." He set the phone aside. "They're also asking about you. Putting pressure on ground crews to give up your location."
"Will anyone talk?"
"Nobody knows where you are except the brotherhood."
She nodded, but the tension in her shoulders didn't ease. She turned back to the window, staring at Carolina pines that offered no answers.
"I can't just sit here."
"You're not just sitting. You're staying alive."
"That's not enough." She spun to face him, pilot's eyes blazing. "Danny hid something valuable enough to kill for. Stanton's tearing apart my airfield looking for it. If we find it first—"
"Then we have leverage."
"Then we have a weapon." Her voice hardened. "I know Danny. Knew him. Better than anyone except maybe his ex-wife, and she stopped talking to him years ago. If he hid something, I can figure out where."
Ripcord studied her.
She wasn't wrong. Intel from someone who knew the target's habits was worth more than a hundred hours of surveillance. And keeping her busy would be better than watching her climb the walls until the stress cracked her.
"Alright." He gestured to the table. "Walk me through it. Danny's patterns, his secrets, anyplace he might have stashed something he didn't want found."
Kristin sat down across from him, energy suddenly focused. This was her element—problems to solve, patterns to recognize, the kind of analytical work that pilots lived on.
"Danny was careful about money. Not in a responsible way—in a paranoid way." She leaned forward, hands flat on the table. "He never used the airfield accounts for personal stuff. Always kept his business separate from the operation."
"Multiple accounts?"
"At least three that I know of. The business account, a personal checking, and something offshore he thought I didn't know about."
Ripcord filed that away. "What about physical locations? Places he went that didn't make sense for the business?"
"The storage unit I mentioned. Highway 87, about twenty minutes from the airfield." Her brow furrowed. "He went there every Thursday, regular as clockwork. Said it was for old parts and archived records."
"But you never saw inside."
"He had the only key. Got defensive whenever I asked about it." Her jaw tightened. "I should have pushed harder. Should have realized something was wrong."
"You trusted your partner. That's not a crime."
"No. But it might get me killed."
The bitterness in her voice cut through the air. Ripcord resisted the urge to reach across the table, to offer comfort that would probably be rejected.
Instead, he kept her talking.
"What about the planes themselves? Danny ever spend unusual time with specific aircraft?"
"Our Cessna 172—tail number November-Seven-Three-Echo. He maintained it himself, wouldn't let me touch it. Said it was his baby."
"Could he have hidden something in the airframe?"
Kristin's eyes widened. "There are compartments. Inspection panels, wing root access, spaces behind the instrument panel. If you know what you're doing..."
"Danny knew what he was doing."
"He was a good mechanic. Better than me in some ways." She stood abruptly, pacing again, but this time with purpose. "The 172 is still at the airfield. If Stanton's crew is searching buildings, they might not think to tear apart the planes."
"They will eventually."
"But they haven't yet." She turned, a fierce light in her eyes. "Ripcord, if Danny hid evidence in that plane—financial records, photos, anything that proves what Stanton's operation looks like—"
"Then we need to get to it before they do."
His phone buzzed again. Forge.
Update on Garvey. He's at Blair-Hadley personally. Tearing the place apart. Getting loud with the ground crews, making threats. Locals are scared.
Ripcord read the message twice. Mitch Garvey—Stanton's chief pilot, the operational backbone of the smuggling ring. The man who'd cornered Kristin in her own hangar and demanded answers she didn't have.
"What is it?" Kristin was watching him.
"The man who interrogated you. Garvey. He's at your airfield right now, leading the search personally."
Something flickered across her face. Fear, anger, and underneath it all—hatred.
"Good."
"Good?"
"If he's there, he's not here." She crossed her arms. "And if he's getting frustrated enough to make threats, he's getting sloppy. Sloppy people make mistakes."
Ripcord felt something shift in his chest. Admiration, maybe. Or recognition.
She wasn't just surviving this. She was thinking like an operator—assessing threats, identifying vulnerabilities, looking for angles to exploit. Most civilians would be curled in a corner by now, waiting for someone else to fix their problems.
Kristin Blair was planning how to fix them herself.
"The storage unit," he said. "You think Danny would have kept his insurance there?"
"If I were stealing from dangerous people, I'd keep proof somewhere they couldn't connect to me. The airfield, my apartment—those are obvious. But a storage unit under a different name, paid in cash?"
"That's where you hide things you want to survive you."
"Exactly."
Ripcord pulled up a map on his phone. Highway 87 ran through sparse territory—tobacco farms, pine forests, the kind of rural Carolina that didn't ask questions. A storage facility out there would be isolated. Easy to approach, easy to surveil.
Also easy to get trapped in if things went wrong.
"We can't hit it alone," he said. "If Stanton's got people watching—"
"Then we bring backup." Kristin's voice was steady. "Your club voted to protect me. Let them."
"The club's protecting you. That doesn't mean—"
"It means I'm not going to sit in a cabin while other people risk their lives for something I can find faster.
" She moved toward him, stopping close enough that he could see the gold flecks in her brown eyes.
"I know Danny. I know how he thought. If there's something hidden in that storage unit, I'll recognize it faster than anyone else. "
She wasn't wrong.
And that was the problem.
"You're asking me to put you in the field," Ripcord said slowly. "In the middle of an active operation against people who want you dead."
"I'm asking you to let me help end this." Her chin lifted. "I'm not a victim, Ripcord. I'm a pilot who built an airfield from nothing and survived a crash that should have killed me. I don't break easy."
He believed her.
That was the terrifying part.
His phone buzzed again. This time the message was longer.
Garvey's losing it. Just fired two warning shots into the ceiling of your girl's hangar. Screaming about time running out. Stanton's putting pressure on him to produce results. Word is Garvey's got until midnight to find what Danny hid or face consequences.
Ripcord read the message aloud.
Kristin's expression hardened. "Consequences from Stanton?"
"Looks like. Garvey's not just frustrated—he's desperate. His boss is holding him accountable for a mess he can't clean up."
"Desperate people do stupid things."
"They also do dangerous things." Ripcord stood, closing the distance between them. "If we hit that storage unit tomorrow, Garvey might be distracted enough to miss it. But if he's desperate enough to fire shots in a public hangar, he's desperate enough to kill anyone who gets in his way."
"Then we don't get in his way. We go around him."
"Kristin—"
"I know the risks." She held his gaze, unflinching.
"I've known the risks since Danny's plane went down and I realized someone had murdered my partner.
Every minute I spend hiding is a minute Stanton gets closer to finding whatever Danny hid.
If he finds it first, I lose my leverage.
I lose my airfield. I probably lose my life. "
"You won't lose your life."
The words came out harder than he intended. Possessive. Certain.
Kristin's eyes widened slightly.
"You can't promise that."
"I can." He reached up, touched her face before he could stop himself. "I am. Whatever happens tomorrow, whatever we find or don't find—you don't die. Not on my watch."
"Why?" The question was barely a whisper. "Why does it matter so much to you?"
Because you're the first person in three years who's made me want to stay on the ground.
The thought surfaced unbidden, dangerous in its honesty.
"Because I decided it does," he said instead. "And I don't change my mind easy."
She stared at him for a long moment.
Then, slowly, she nodded.
"Okay."
"Okay what?"
"Okay, I trust you." Something softened in her expression. "I don't know why, but I do. So we do this your way. We bring your brothers, we hit the storage unit, and we find whatever Danny hid before Garvey figures out where to look."
"And you stay behind me the whole time."
A ghost of a smile crossed her face. "Is that an order?"
"It's a condition." He let his thumb trace her cheekbone, just once. "You want in the field, you stay where I can protect you. Non-negotiable."
"And if I disagree?"
"Then you stay in this cabin until it's over."
Her eyes flashed—anger, challenge, and something else. Something that looked almost like respect.
"Fine. Your way. But when this is over and I get my airfield back, you're going to owe me about a hundred jumps."
The tension broke, just slightly.
"Deal." He dropped his hand, stepped back. "Get some rest. Tomorrow's going to be a long day."
"What about you?"
"I'm going to coordinate with Forge. Plan the approach, line up support." He pulled out his phone. "If Garvey's making mistakes, we need to be ready to exploit them."
Kristin moved toward the back room where a narrow cot waited. At the doorway, she paused.
"Ripcord."
He looked up.
"Thank you. For not treating me like I'm made of glass."
"You're not made of glass." He held her gaze. "You're made of whatever keeps pilots flying after they've already crashed once. That's not fragile. That's steel."
Something shifted in her expression—surprise, warmth, a vulnerability she quickly masked.
Then she disappeared into the back room, and Ripcord was alone with his phone and the weight of what tomorrow would bring.
He texted Forge: Garvey's spiraling. What's his next move?
The response came fast: Unknown. But he's running out of time and options. Stanton doesn't tolerate failure.
Ripcord stared at the words.
Garvey was desperate. Dangerous. Making mistakes that would get people killed if they weren't careful.
But desperate men were also predictable. They went for obvious targets, took unnecessary risks, exposed vulnerabilities they'd normally protect.
If the brotherhood moved fast, they could use Garvey's desperation against him.
And if Garvey was distracted enough, they might just get Kristin to that storage unit before Stanton figured out where to look.
Ripcord started typing his plan to Forge.
Tomorrow, they'd find out what Danny had died for.
And God help Mitch Garvey if he got in their way.