At the mercy of mad men.
Men with no honor. No loyalty.
If she didn’t deliver, Johnson wouldn’t hesitate to dispose of her the way he had so many others, violently and without remorse. Maya knew it too. And that made her even more dangerous. More unpredictable. Because cornered animals fought hardest.
Oh God! Panic engulfed her.
Maya had a talent for slipping out of whatever sticky situation she ended up in. What if this time wasn’t any different? What if somebody got hurt? What if?—
Jay reached over, his fingers brushing down her cheek in a wordless check-in. She lifted her eyes to his, and her breath caught at the gentle reminder they held. She wasn’t alone and weak. Not anymore.
She had Jay. She had the JTT. And she had herself.
Not the shattered version Maya had left behind, but the woman who’d survived. The woman who’d clawed her way back through pain, through grief, through the echoing silence of loss, and found something stronger in its place.
Maya might have broken her once, but she hadn’t destroyed her. And this time, Becca wasn’t the one walking into the trap.
“You okay?” Jay asked.
She nodded, swallowing the lump in her throat. “Just overthinking things.”
“Don’t worry, sugar plum.” Head bent, Jay leaned in and kissed her quick. “She doesn’t get to hurt us anymore. Not you. Not me. Not the JTT.”
“Yeah, we’ve got you covered, Becca. All the way,” Adam added.
“She won’t come alone,” she replied.
“We’ll be ready,” Cody said as he slowed the SUV and turned onto the road leading to Glacier Park’s private airstrip. Moments later, the runway lights came into view. The cold beams slicing across the tarmac bathed the waiting aircraft in metallic blue, and a new wave of panic filled her.
One that had nothing to do with her sister and everything to do with her fear of heights.
She twisted in her seat. “Uh, Doc?”
Jamie grinned before she even finished. Fucking grinned. Because he already knew what was coming. “Gotcha covered,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a rattling pill bottle. “One will knock the edge off. Two will put you out until we land.”
Becca pushed open the lid and tipped two little yellow pills into her hand. “How long before they take effect?”
“Thirty minutes.”
“Here.” Zander handed her a bottle of water. “Boat’s waiting for us in San Diego. Send me the list of equipment you need before you pass out, and I’ll make sure you have what you need by the time we get there, alright?”
Becca nodded, and her heart thudded hard because capturing Maya and getting the kill switch was one thing. Getting everyone off Rook Island unscathed? Another. But stopping Dominion?
That was everything.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Eyes locked on the radar display as the late-afternoon sun streamed through the open hangar doors, Jay’s heart executed a double thump as a blip appeared in the airspace he’d been monitoring for hours.
After two days on Rook Island fighting off mosquitoes and prepping for Maya’s arrival, he was ready for this shit to be over.
Adrenaline spiking, he sat up straighter, and fingers racing over the keyboard, he pulled up the last three radar sweeps. One unidentified object—consistent movement, controlled path, no erratic jumps, no ghost signal.
He switched to thermal imaging, adjusting the contrast until a faint heat signature emerged. Small engine. Low altitude. Definitely not a false reading or weather anomaly. His eyes flicked to the transponder logs. No IFF—Identification Friend or Foe—signal. No civilian broadcast.
This was it.
He exhaled a slow breath, exchanged a nervous glance with Becca, then keyed his mic. “We’ve got an inbound aircraft. Bearing zero-eight-seven degrees, closing fast. Estimated arrival in seven.”
