Chapter 129: The face that launched a thousand ships

The location itself told him nothing an empty stretch near the edge of the city, no compound, no obvious building worth storming.

Whatever had been here when she’d sent that signal was long gone now, and the rest of the finding was going to fall entirely on instinct and patience, neither of which came easily to a man currently holding himself together by sheer force of will.

He stood at the edge of the empty lot for a long moment, forcing his mind past the panic clawing at the edges of his composure, forcing himself to think instead like the man who had built an empire out of exactly this kind of calculation.

A man like Fabio would never risk crossing the actual borders by road too many checkpoints, too many eyes, too much exposure for a man moving a captive he couldn’t afford to have questioned. That meant a plane. And not a commercial one, not with a hostage in tow. It had to be something private, something quiet, tucked away in one of the smaller regional strips scattered around the city’s edges, away from the main airport’s cameras and schedules.

"Spread out," Viktor ordered, already moving again, his men fanning into the pre-dawn dark around him.

"Find any plane in the area. Private strips, private hangars, abandoned runways, I don’t care how small. If it can fly, I want to know about it in the next ten minutes."

The hunt had only just begun, and Viktor intended to tear the entire city apart, hangar by hangar, before he let the sun fully rise on a morning where Sienna wasn’t already standing safely in front of him again.

—-

The private strip Fabio had chosen was little more than a stretch of flattened earth disguised beneath a careful arrangement of fake brush and overgrowth, the kind of place that wouldn’t register as a runway to anyone flying over it, let alone anyone driving past on the nearby road.

"Hurry, clear everything. Get the jet started," one of Fabio’s men barked. "We need to be in the air before daybreak."

A handful of hijacked farmhands moved quickly under armed supervision, dragging the last of the fake brush clear of the makeshift runway while the jet’s engines began their low, building whine in the pale grey light.

The trunk popped open.

They pulled the body bag out first, careless and quick, before turning their attention to Sienna, hauling her out by the arms with far less caution than the situation called for.

It was in that rough handling that the small kit slipped loose from her jacket pocket, tumbling onto the dirt with a soft, damning clatter.

Shit, Sienna thought, holding herself perfectly still, every instinct screaming at her not to react.

"What is this?" one of the men said, crouching to pick it up, turning the small box over in his fingers.

"Did you check her?" Fabio asked, already crossing toward them.

They set Sienna down against the dirt and searched her more thoroughly this time, hands moving efficiently through her pockets until they found her phone. Fabio reached for it himself, turning it over, thumb hovering near the screen.

"Don’t worry, boss, it’s off," the guard said, as Fabio toss the dead phone carelessly into the brush without a second glance.

"Search her properly," Fabio said, voice flat. "Make sure she has nothing else on her."

They did, and moments later found the small tracking gadget as well, adding it to the growing pile of confiscated items beside the box of needles.

Fabio crouched down in front of her then, studying her face with an unhurried, almost clinical patience.

He reached out and ran the back of his fingers gently along her jaw, tilting her chin slightly, as if inspecting something precious he’d finally recovered after a long search.

"She looks like her mother," he murmured, mostly to himself, something almost wistful threading through the words. "So much." A faint, humorless smile curved his mouth.

"The face that launched a thousand ships."

"Boss," one of his men asked carefully, "who is she?"

Fabio straightened slowly, still looking down at her, and let out a low, quiet laugh that carried no real humor in it at all, only something colder, more satisfied, the sound of a man who had finally gotten his hands on something he’d spent years chasing.

"A gold mine," he said. Then, correcting himself, almost fondly, "No. Not gold. A ruby mine."

None of his men asked anything further, though the confusion on their faces lingered plainly, none of them any closer to understanding what exactly made this quiet, unconscious woman worth the price of a stolen body, a burned bridge, and a war with Viktor Kessler.

Sienna stayed perfectly still through all of it, forcing her breathing shallow and even, forcing her expression slack despite the storm raging behind her closed eyes.

For one wild, desperate second, she’d considered opening her eyes right then, threatening them with the four needles still tucked deep in the lining of her jacket, the only weapon she had left now that the box itself sat uselessly in a stranger’s hand.

But four needles against this many armed men wouldn’t be enough. Not even close. Not yet.

So she stayed still, filing away every word, every name, every strange, unsettling fragment of what Fabio had just revealed waiting, patiently, for a moment worth the risk.

The explosion tore through the pre-dawn quiet before anyone at the runway had a chance to process what was happening.

One moment the first car was pulling away with a handful of Fabio’s men inside it, and the next it was engulfed in fire, metal shrieking as it flipped onto its side, flames licking up into the grey morning sky.

A second blast followed almost immediately after, catching the other vehicle mid-turn, sending men scrambling and screaming in every direction as gunfire erupted from the tree line beyond the fake brush.

Fabio’s calm shattered instantly.

He’d been carrying Sienna toward the jet himself, one arm locked firmly around her, and in the chaos of the explosions his grip loosened by a fraction just enough.

It was all the opening she needed.