Chapter 20 Chapter twenty
The landing was a bone-jarring collision of rubber and steel. The Norton slammed onto the metal deck of the freighter, the suspension bottoming out with a scream that vibrated through my teeth. I fought the handlebars as the bike skidded across the rain-slicked surface, finally sliding to a halt inches from a stack of rusted containers. My heart was a frantic bird trapped in a cage of ribs, and the taste of salt and copper filled my mouth.
I didn't stay down. I scrambled off the bike, my eyes locked on the figure by the railing. The man stood perfectly still, his silhouette framed by the orange glow of the pier burning in the distance. He wore a dark duster coat that whipped in the wind, and his hands were tucked deep into his pockets.
"Dad?" The word was a broken whisper, lost to the roar of the ship's massive engines as we pulled away from the dock.
The man turned slowly. The light from the bridge caught the sharp line of his jaw and the deep, familiar crinkle at the corners of his eyes. It was him. It was Chen Wei. But he wasn't the tired, grieving man I’d found slumped over an engine three years ago. He looked harder, his eyes reflecting a cold, strategic depth I’d never seen.
"You shouldn't have finished it, Mia," he said, his voice a low rumble that cut through the gale. "I left you enough of a trail to keep you safe, but you followed it all the way to the end of the world."
"You died," I stepped forward, my hands trembling as I reached for the small steel wrench in my pocket, an old habit for a new nightmare. "I held your hand while you went cold. I buried you in the rain. How are you standing here?"
"The heart attack was real enough, but the hospital wasn't," he replied, walking toward me with a rhythmic, measured stride. "Vance’s people the agency you just defied they needed me to disappear so they could watch what you would do with the breadcrumbs I left behind. They didn't want the blueprints; they wanted to see if you had the 'touch' to make them work. They were testing the bloodline."
My stomach turned. Every moment of struggle, every night I spent starving in the garage to keep the Norton running, had been a performance for a hidden audience. "And Elena? Was she part of the show too?"
He paused, a flicker of pain crossing his face before it was masked by ice. "Your mother is a ghost I couldn't outrun. She was always the one who wanted the power. I was the one who knew how to build it. We were the perfect team until she realized she could sell the future to the highest bidder."
A sudden, sharp movement on the deck caught my eye. Elena emerged from the shadows of the bridge, her white leathers gleaming like a bone in the moonlight. She held a sleek, black tablet in her hand, the screen glowing with the schematics of the Engine.
"The reunion is touching, Wei," she said, her voice dripping with a lethal sarcasm. "But we have a schedule to keep. The freighter clears international waters in twenty minutes. By then, the data Mia uploaded to the feds will be overwritten by the virus I just planted in their servers. The only working copy of the Engine will be the one sitting on that deck."
"You won't get it to them," I snapped, pivoting to face her. "Dax and the Wolves they'll find us."
Elena laughed, a sound that chilled me more than the harbor spray. "Dax Steele is currently being processed by a federal tactical team on a pier that no longer officially exists. He chose to be a martyr for a girl who doesn't even know her own name. You're alone now, Mia. Just like you were always meant to be."
I looked at my father, searching for a spark of the man who had taught me how to gap a spark plug, but his gaze remained fixed on the Norton. He wasn't looking at me; he was looking at the variable-compression valves I’d perfected.
"Is that why you brought me here?" I asked, my voice hardening. "To be the final piece of the puzzle?"
"I brought you here to save you," my father said, though he didn't move toward me. "If you cooperate, we can disappear. The three of us. We can build a new life where no one ever has to look in a rearview mirror again."
He reached out his hand, but as he did, I saw the glint of a silver cuff beneath his sleeve the same biometric lock Dax had shown me in the clubhouse. He wasn't the mastermind. He was the prisoner.
The ship lurched as it hit the open sea, a massive wave crashing over the bow. In the spray, I saw the shadow of a black helicopter approaching from the coast not the agency’s transport, but something smaller, faster, and marked with a jagged, blood-red wolf’s head.
Dax hadn't stayed on the pier.
The helicopter flared over the deck, the side door sliding open to reveal a figure hanging from a Rappel line. A flash-bang detonated near the containers, blinding Elena and my father. In the chaos, I dove for the Norton, but a heavy hand grabbed my ankle, dragging me back toward the edge of the railing.
"You're not going anywhere, Ghost," a voice hissed in my ear.
It wasn't a mercenary. It was Snake.
He had a jagged scar across his throat where Dax had left his mark, and his eyes were wide with a manic, vengeful light. He held a flare gun to the Norton’s fuel tank, his finger white on the trigger.