Part 3
The private runway was entirely dark except for the sharp, blinding white lights cutting through the heavy midnight rain.
Dominic Valente walked toward the sleek, black Gulfstream G650.
His long coat trailed behind him, catching the wind.
He didn’t look back.
He didn’t have to.
Behind him, Silas was practically running to keep up, his fingers flying across a military-grade rugged tablet.
The rain soaked Dominic’s dark hair, but his expression remained completely frozen.
Like a statue carved from ice.
“The Boston IP address was a multi-layered proxy, Boss,” Silas shouted over the roar of the jet engines warming up.
“She routed it through three different dummy servers in Massachusetts, then bounced it to a VPN in Montreal.”
Dominic didn’t stop walking.
He reached the stairs of the jet, his boots clicking sharply against the metal.
“But she forgot one thing,” Silas continued, breathing heavily as he followed Dominic into the luxurious, dimly lit cabin.
“She used the old encryption key. The one you built for her personal security protocols three years ago.”
Dominic sat down in the leather captain's chair.
He didn’t lean back.
His posture was rigid, dangerous, vibrating with an energy that made the flight crew look away instantly.
“Where is she, Silas?”
The voice was incredibly quiet.
A contrast to the screaming engines outside.
Silas tapped the screen, bringing up a map with a single, pulsing crimson dot.
“She’s not in Boston.”
A pause.
“She’s in a small, coastal town in Maine. Oakhaven. Population under four thousand.”
Dominic looked at the red dot.
Oakhaven.
An isolated place.
Cold.
Quiet.
The exact opposite of the empire he had built around her in New York.
“She thinks she hid her tracks well enough,” Silas murmured, setting the tablet down on the mahogany table between them.
“If it weren't for the Level 9 internal breach that alerted us, we never would have looked for that specific digital signature.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed into slits.
The Level 9 breach.
The person inside his own organization who had accessed Meline’s records first.
“Who opened the file, Silas?”
Silas swallowed hard. He looked uncomfortable.
“We are still pulling the core logs, Boss. Whoever it is, they didn’t just use your clearance code. They used your physical biometric backup token.”
Dominic’s left hand slowly closed into a tight fist.
The physical token.
It was locked in a vault that only three people in the world had access to.
And two of them were dead.
“We will deal with the shadow inside my house later,” Dominic said, his voice dropping into a register that made the air in the cabin feel heavy.
“Right now, the only thing that exists is her.”
He looked out the oval window as the jet began to taxi down the runway.
“Tell the ground team in Maine to secure the perimeter of that town.”
“No one goes in.”
“No one goes out.”
“And Silas?”
Silas paused, his hand hovering over his phone. “Yes, Boss?”
“If a single hair on her head is harmed because of the leak inside my system…”
Dominic didn’t finish the sentence.
He didn’t need to.
The implication hung in the air like a blade.
***
Five hundred miles away, the storm hadn’t reached Oakhaven yet.
The night was unnaturally still.
Meline Hayes stood by the small kitchen window of her rented cottage, her hand resting flat against her stomach.
It was a habit now.
An instinctive, protective shield.
She looked out at the dark Atlantic Ocean, the waves crashing softly against the rocky shore just fifty yards away.
Her phone sat on the wooden counter behind her, completely dead.
She had taken the battery out after sending the video message.
She knew the risks.
She knew that even with the heaviest encryption, staying on the grid for even five minutes was a gamble when the man looking for you owned half the telecommunications networks on the East Coast.
But she had to do it.
She had to let him know why she vanished.
Because if Dominic thought she had simply betrayed him, his wrath would have flattened the country.
She wanted to give him a reason to stay away.
She wanted him to understand that his world—the shadows, the endless security details, the constant undercurrent of threat—was no place for a child.
A soft breeze blew through the cracked window, carrying the scent of salt and pine.
Suddenly, a cold shiver ran down her spine.
It wasn't from the wind.
It was that feeling.
The one she hadn't felt in six months.
The sensation of being watched.
She turned around slowly, her eyes scanning the dark, empty living room.
Everything was exactly as she left it.
The faded sofa.
The single lamp casting long shadows across the floorboards.
But the air felt different.
Heavier.
Meline walked over to the counter, her heart beginning to throb against her ribs.
She picked up the pieces of her phone, her hands trembling slightly as she tried to force the battery back into its slot.
“Just a precaution,” she whispered to herself, her voice shaking.
“He couldn't have found me this fast.”
“It’s impossible.”
But deep down, in the darkest corners of her mind, she knew better.
May you like
Nothing was impossible for Dominic Valente.
And if he was coming, the quiet life she had built over the last half-year was already dead.
