Chapter 76: (Alex’s POV)
The city didn’t sleep, but I did.
Not really.
I drifted. I haunted the marble halls of my penthouse, the lights of the city blinking below like warning signals I couldn’t read. My mind cycled through every security feed, every news update, every frantic report from Langston’s desk down the hall. But no matter how many times I replayed it—Nell slipping through my fingers, the doors slamming shut, the car speeding away—none of it changed.
She was gone. Again.
I should’ve been used to it by now. Loss. Failure. The feeling that no amount of money or power could force the world to make sense.
But this wasn’t some hostile takeover. This wasn’t a negotiation gone bad, or a business enemy pulling strings behind closed doors.
This was Nell.
And I was running out of time.
\---
I stood at the floor-to-ceiling window, watching the city breathe below. The glass was cold beneath my palm. My reflection looked older than I remembered, like every hour I’d spent searching for her had carved lines into my face.
A phone buzzed on the coffee table.
Langston. Again.
I answered with a clipped, “Yes.”
His voice was tight, careful. “We’ve pulled every security feed from the city and the main access points on the highway. Nothing. They switched vehicles twice—one decoy, one armored. My people are trying to backtrack from street cams. Rick’s working his sources in the city underground.”
“And the flight?” My voice sounded like it belonged to someone else.
A pause. “We traced a Blackthorn aircraft. Same signature as before. It left from the city’s south airfield, under a diplomatic call sign.”
My jaw clenched. “And?”
Langston hesitated. “It vanished, Alex. Not just from the local radar—off every grid. No trace on satellites. The last ping was at twenty thousand feet, then nothing.”
I bit back a curse. “No one just disappears in the air, Langston. Find it.”
“We’re trying.”
I hung up, phone shaking in my hand.
\---
I walked through the penthouse, every step echoing in the empty space. There should have been people here—advisors, security, the endless parade of staff who made my empire run like a well-oiled machine. I’d sent them all away. The only ones left were the ones I trusted with my life. And even that circle felt too wide.
Rick came in, gun holstered, jacket dusted with city grime. “No word. The last guy who saw the convoy said they had at least three unmarked cars tailing them. Military. Might even be Blackthorn’s own security.”
I nodded. My head ached. “She’s not at Echo-6 anymore. They’ll keep moving her until we give up.”
Rick didn’t look away. “You won’t give up.”
“I don’t know what I’d do if I did,” I admitted, voice low.
We stood in silence. The city stretched before us, uncaring.
Rick broke the silence first. “You need to sleep, Alex. Or at least eat.”
I almost laughed. “After I get her back.”
He nodded and slipped out, leaving me alone again with the city’s endless, blinking lights.
\---
I tried to work—calls, emails, encrypted messages from the teams I’d set up in every major city. I kept every resource focused on Nell, every favor called in, every back channel used. I cancelled board meetings, delayed multi-million dollar contracts. My investors would riot if they knew, but I didn’t care.
Money could be made again.
Nell couldn’t.
I glanced at my phone for the hundredth time. Still nothing.
A news alert popped up:
Billionaire Alex Carter cancels global summit appearance—Rumors of a crisis.
Let them guess. Let them talk. None of it mattered.
\---
Around three in the morning, Langston called again. This time, his voice was urgent.
“We have a message. Encrypted. Not from any of our usual contacts.”
I sat up straight, adrenaline washing away the exhaustion. “Who?”
“I don’t know. But they have information. They referenced Project Blackthorn, Phase Zero, and they knew Nell’s code name. I sent you the file.”
It arrived a few seconds later, a string of numbers and letters, the kind of code that made even my most experienced hackers sweat.
Langston was still talking, but I barely heard him. I was already breaking the message apart, every instinct screaming at me to hurry.
The message unraveled line by line, word by word.
“The asset is being transferred. Transfer is final. If you want to save her, stop Phase Zero. You have 48 hours.”
Phase Zero.
Even Langston sounded nervous. “It’s the erasure phase, Alex. Complete neural reset. Wipes out everything—the memory implants, the real memories, her identity. She’ll be a shell.”
I gripped the edge of the desk. “No. We’re not letting it happen.”
Langston added, “The plane—whatever cloaked it is beyond standard military. It’s like they erased its existence from the network. But if we keep following the money, the supply chains, we might find a pattern.”
I nodded. “Do it. Don’t stop for anything.”
\---
I shut my eyes, pressing my palms into them until I saw sparks. I couldn’t afford to break down. Not now.
Memories flashed—Nell’s laugh, her eyes, her voice calling my name when she thought I was asleep. She’d always been my safe place, the only thing that felt real after everything I’d lost.
I thought of our first kiss, the first night we spent in the tiny apartment, before the world got so complicated.
How many of those memories had already been taken from her? How much more could she lose before there was nothing left?
I opened my eyes and looked at the city again. Every window was a secret. Every shadow was a threat.
\---
Rick joined me an hour later, face grim. “We got a partial match from an airstrip out near the old industrial zone. A refueling stop. There’s no footage, but we picked up chatter about a VIP transport heading west, over the border.”
I nodded. “They’re moving her out of the country.”
“Looks that way.”
“Where?”
He hesitated. “If it’s Blackthorn, it could be anywhere—private islands, offshore facilities, deep bunkers. But they always have a paper trail. I’m working my sources in intelligence, but it’s a mess.”
I nodded, already running through possibilities. “Start with every site Blackthorn has ever used for deep work. Cross-reference with their old contractors. Someone has to know where they’re going.”
Rick gave a rare, wry smile. “You don’t ask for much.”
“I’m not asking,” I said quietly.
He nodded and left again.
\---
The sun was coming up when Langston burst into my office, laptop in hand.
“Alex, I found something. A payment trail—big, hidden, but it matches Blackthorn’s laundering patterns. The money ends at a private airfield in northern Europe. There’s a flight plan for a jet that’s registered to a Blackthorn front. It left three hours ago, headed north.”
I was already moving, pulling on my jacket. “Can we catch them?”
Langston shook his head. “The plane disappeared from radar twenty minutes out over the Baltic Sea. It’s gone.”
I slammed my fist onto the desk. “No one just disappears.”
He nodded. “Unless they have a landing strip somewhere satellites can’t see.”
I stared at him. “Find it.”
\---
I paced the room for an hour, rage and terror fighting in my chest. I called every contact I’d ever made in military intelligence, every hacker, every private security consultant with even a whiff of Blackthorn experience.
Most didn’t answer.
A few told me to stop looking.
One said, “You’re in over your head, Carter. Walk away, or you’ll get everyone you love killed.”
I hung up on him.
\---
By midafternoon, Rick and Langston had narrowed it down to three possible sites: a decommissioned Soviet bunker, a cluster of remote islands, and a medical facility deep in the Finnish forest.
I assembled a team for each.
I sent private jets, hired ex-special forces, activated every favor I had left.
Money wasn’t an object.
I’d burn it all if it meant getting Nell back.
\---
I closed my eyes again, just for a moment, and tried to remember her face. The way she’d looked at me the first night she stayed over—wide-eyed, hopeful, already half in love.
I’d never told her the whole truth.
That I’d loved her from the beginning.
That I’d built my empire with her in mind—so I’d always have the power to protect her, no matter what.
But now, with every hour that passed, that power felt more and more useless.
What was the point of all the money, the influence, the armies of lawyers and guards, if I couldn’t even find the woman I loved?
\---
I sat alone in the dark, phone clutched in my hand, waiting for news.
And finally, Langston burst in again, face pale.
“Alex—the jet. It just vanished. Not crashed, not landed—just gone. Off every satellite feed.”
I shot to my feet. “Where?”
He shook his head, showing me the screen. A green dot, blinking, then gone.
“It didn’t land, Alex. They disappeared.”
My pulse hammered. “Find out where they disappeared to. Because I’m going there next.”