Chapter 6 Ronan
Ronan
Cyclone doesn’t say my name—doesn’t need to. The tone of his voice does it for him.
“We’ve got something.”
I’m already on my feet, blood humming, instincts awake in a way sleep never manages to dull. The ops room is dim, lit by screens and storm light leaking through the windows. Rain lashes the glass like the world knows what’s coming.
Cyclone taps his keyboard, pulling up flight telemetry. “Unscheduled security spike on a private transport. Call sign scrubbed mid-flight. Cabin disruption flagged—not enough to force a landing, but enough to ping three different monitoring systems.”
River leans in. “Define ‘disruption.’”
Cyclone exhales. “Internal movement surge. Elevated bio readings. Acoustic anomaly consistent with… a struggle.”
My jaw locks.
“How long?” I ask.
“Eight minutes. Happened during cruise altitude. Then everything goes quiet.”
I close my eyes once—just once—and see it.
Lena is measuring the distance.
Timing her breath.
Choosing the moment.
“She tried to get free,” I say.
No question in it.
Cyclone nods slowly. “Yeah. Whoever was on board rerouted immediately after. Changed altitude, changed course. Emergency protocol without declaring one.”
Faron swears under his breath. “That’s not a panic response.”
“No,” I say. “That’s damage control.”
River studies the screen. “You’re sure it was her.”
“I’d bet my life on it.”
Because she wouldn’t wait.
Because she wouldn’t break.
Because Lena Hart doesn’t sit still when the door cracks open.
Cyclone zooms in on the new flight path. “They split systems afterward. Manual override. That tells me two things.”
I meet his gaze. “They’re scared.”
“And she hurt someone.”
The corners of my mouth lift—not a smile. Something sharper.
“Good.”
River straightens. “We still don’t have a destination.”
“But we have intent,” I reply. “They’re moving her away from assets. From networks. From anything we can trace.”
I walk to the board, scanning possibilities faster than cyclones can spin up models. Remote airstrips. Medical facilities. Black-site holding meant for problems, not prisoners.
“She’s injured,” I say suddenly.
The room stills.
River’s eyes narrow. “How do you know?”
“Because if she wasn’t, they’d already be dead.”
Silence stretches—thick, heavy.
Cyclone breaks it quietly. “There’s one facility that fits the profile. Not on official grids. Old Cold War infrastructure. Used to be medical. Now… no one’s quite sure.”
I turn. “Where.”
He hesitates. “Carpathians. Deep. Snow. No roads after the access point.”
I grab my jacket.
River’s voice follows me. “We don’t have confirmation she’s there.”
I stop at the door and look back.
“They sedated her instead of killing her,” I say. “They tightened restraints instead of transferring custody. They rerouted instead of landing.”
I meet his eyes, hard and certain.
“They still need her.”
And that was their mistake.
Because Lena Hart wasn’t leverage.
She was a countdown.
Somewhere in the dark, deeper into enemy territory, she woke up angry, injured, and very much alive.
I touch the watch at my wrist—the one that always keeps time even when the world breaks.
“Hold on,” I murmur to no one. “I felt you move.”
And I was already moving faster.