CHAPTER 5 — The Woman Who Had Been Lying Since Day One
The fireball outside illuminated the cabin like lightning.
Victor Black's confident smile disappeared.
"Impossible..." he muttered. "No one knew about the drone."
Amelia stepped between Ethan and the armed men, her eyes never leaving Victor.
"I knew."
Victor stared at her.
"You?"
She slowly removed the flight attendant's name tag from her uniform and let it fall to the floor.
"My name isn't Amelia."
The passengers watched in stunned silence.
"My real name is Evelyn Hayes."
Victor's face turned pale.
"The CIA..."
She nodded once.
"For the past three years."
The cabin exploded with disbelief.
Ethan felt betrayed all over again.
"You lied to me?"
"I had to."
Her voice was steady, but her eyes softened.
"Your father recruited me before he disappeared. My mission wasn't to protect the Crawford fortune."
She looked directly into Ethan's eyes.
"It was to keep you alive."
Victor laughed.
"You expect anyone to believe that?"
Without another word, Evelyn reached into her jacket and placed a small encrypted flash drive on the table.
"This contains every transaction your organization made over the last fifteen years."
Victor's expression hardened.
"The judges you bribed."
"The politicians you controlled."
"The journalists who mysteriously vanished."
"And every murder ordered by your network."
The room fell silent.
Even Victor's own men exchanged nervous glances.
"You've been recording me..." Victor whispered.
"No," Evelyn replied.
"Your own people did."
Before Victor could react, one of his armed guards lowered his weapon.
Then another.
A third stepped away from him.
Victor spun around in disbelief.
"What are you doing?"
The oldest guard removed his earpiece.
"We never worked for you."
Victor froze.
The guard smiled faintly.
"We worked for Mr. Crawford."
Ethan frowned.
"My father?"
The guard nodded.
"Your father knew he would be killed. Before he disappeared, he secretly replaced nearly half of Victor's security team with loyal agents. We've spent fifteen years pretending to obey him."
Victor suddenly realized the truth.
He had never truly been in control.
The empire he believed he owned had been collapsing around him for years.
Furious, he grabbed Ethan and pressed the pistol against his head.
"If I can't have the empire..."
He cocked the trigger.
"...no one will."
At that exact second, the cockpit door burst open.
A terrified co-pilot stumbled into the cabin.
"We've lost both engines!"
Everyone turned toward the windshield.
A violent storm stretched across the horizon.
The jet was dropping thousands of feet every minute.
The emergency alarms screamed.
Victor still held Ethan hostage.
The aircraft was moments from crashing into the mountains.
Then Evelyn looked out the window...
And whispered words that made Ethan's blood run cold.
"That's impossible..."
A second private jet was flying directly beside them.
Close enough for someone to jump between the two aircraft.
And standing inside the open doorway of that jet...
Was a gray-haired man everyone believed had died fifteen years ago.
Ethan's father slowly raised his hand.
Then he shouted through a loudspeaker—
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"SON... IT'S TIME TO COME HOME!"
END OF CHAPTER 5...
