PART 4
The pilot didn’t look back.
The other men unbuckled.
That was when I understood.
This was not a mission.
This was a transaction.
Crowe leaned forward.
“You closed three routes in six months. Opium, weapons, cash. Do you know how expensive you’ve become?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Try not to flirt with me at work.”
His smile vanished.
“Fifty thousand per man.”
I looked around the cabin.
Five men.
Two hundred fifty thousand dollars.
That was the number they had put on my life.
I laughed.
Crowe frowned.
“Something funny?”
“My student loans were scarier than that.”
One man grabbed my rifle.
Another hit the release on my harness.
Crowe stood.
“Your father had the same mouth.”
Everything inside me went still.
“What did you say?”
He moved close enough for me to smell mint gum on his breath.
“He found the Council. Thought he could expose it. Heart attack was the clean version.”
The side door slid open.
Night exploded into the cabin.
Crowe leaned to my ear.
May you like
“Tell your father the Council said hello.”
Then they threw me into the dark.
