Chapter 4 - The Flight to Nowhere
At forty-one thousand feet above the Midwest, the cabin of the Citation Sovereign was warm, opulent, and filled with soft jazz.
Royce Vega loosened his silk tie, leaning back against the hand-stitched cream leather seat. Across the aisle, Kira Sandival was sipping a glass of vintage Dom Pérignon, her manicured fingers scrolling through photographs of the four-million-dollar desert villa Royce had promised to buy her once the Phoenix expansion finalized.
"Did she suspect anything when you left?" Kira asked, her voice silky, laced with that subtle, competitive arrogance that had drawn Royce to her from the day she joined the firm.
Royce waved a dismissive hand, swirling the scotch in his crystal tumbler. "Marisol lives in her own world, Kira. Between the hospital shifts, her prenatal vitamins, and picking out nursery wallpaper, she doesn't notice anything outside her living room. She thinks I'm meeting with the Arizona zoning board."
"She didn't question the jet?"
"Why would she? She thinks airplanes and balance sheets are boring. When I called her from the tarmac, she told me to take the jet and that her lawyer would meet me when I landed. She was probably making some passive-aggressive joke about a will or life insurance." Royce laughed, a confident, deep chuckle that echoed off the mahogany paneling. "She’s a nurse, Kira. She cares about taking pulses and making chicken soup. She has no idea how power works."
Kira smiled, lifting her glass in a toast. "To our new beginning in Scottsdale."
"To the future," Royce replied, clinking his glass against hers.
He closed his eyes, imagining the warm desert breeze, the golf courses, and the effortless life he was building away from the quiet guilt that sometimes gnawed at him when he looked at his wife's swollen belly. He had convinced himself that Marisol was simple, predictable, and too gentle to ever fight back. He had convinced himself that providing a beautiful colonial home was enough payment for her silence.
Up in the cockpit, the flight phone chirped with an urgent automated transponder alert from Scottsdale Executive Airport dispatch.
May you like
Captain Harris, who had flown the Vega corporate aircraft for five years, read the encrypted dispatch message twice before his jaw dropped. The message originated from the FAA registry and the New Haven Superior Court, bearing an immediate writ of attachment and a complete change of operational charter ownership.
Harris switched off the intercom, looked at his co-pilot, and took a deep breath. "Prepare for landing, Tom. And don't bother taxiing to the private VIP hangar. Ground control just assigned us to the impound apron."
