---- Chapter 10 Barron Carroll POV: "Sullivan's jet landed in Zurich three hours ago. He was met on the tarmac by a private ambulance. There was a female passenger on board, heavily bandaged. Identity unconfirmed." The report from my security team sent a chill down my spine. The burns. The fire. Sullivan had gotten to her before | could. He had taken my injured, vulnerable wife. "She' s not a prisoner," | snarled at my head of security, a man named Marcus who had been with me for a decade. "She' s his patient. He' s taking advantage of her." "Sir," Marcus said carefully, "all intelligence suggests their relationship is... consensual. He' s been a ghost for years, but our sources say he came out of the woodwork the moment we took Mrs. Carroll to the clinic." "She is not Mrs. Carroll anymore if she' s with him!" | roared, slamming my fist on the desk. The absurdity of my own words hit me a second later. Of course she was Mrs. Carroll. She was my wife. The rage was making me irrational. | spent the next forty-eight hours in a state of suspended agony, waiting for my jet to be cleared for international flight, a process Sullivan was no doubt using his considerable ---- influence to delay. | paced the penthouse like a caged animal, the silence of the rooms a constant, screaming reminder of her absence. | looked at the ashes in the fireplace, the remnants of our wedding album. | had been so angry at her for that gesture. Now, | understood it. It was a declaration of war. My phone rang. Cydney again. | ignored it. It rang again. And again. On the fifth ring, | answered, ready to unleash my fury. But it wasn' t Cydney' s voice. It was a man' s, rough and panicked. "We have your woman," he grunted. "Ten million Or the baby dies with her." My blood ran cold. The PI' s goons. They had found her again. Or she had orchestrated another ridiculous plot. Either way, it was a distraction | couldn' t afford. "Handle it," | barked at Marcus. "Pay them. Get her back. | don't care what it costs. Just get it done. My priority is Zurich." "Sir, are you sure?" Marcus asked, his voice laced with concern. "This could be a real threat." "I'm sure," | snapped. "Emerson is the only thing that matters." Hours later, as my jet was finally taxiing on the runway, Marcus called me back. His voice was grim. "Sir, we have a problem. We paid the ransom. But the woman ---- they had... it wasn' t Ms. Velazquez." "What are you talking about?" | demanded. "It was a decoy. A hired actress. Ms. Velazquez was never there. We have her on surveillance footage, boarding a commercial flight to Rio de Janeiro two hours ago. She used a fake passport. She' s gone, sir." The pieces clicked into place. The fake kidnapping. The decoy. Cydney had played me one last time. She had created a diversion to cover her escape. And | had fallen for it. While | was wasting resources on her pathetic drama, Emerson was slipping further and further away. "And there' s more, sir," Marcus said, his voice hesitant. "The kidnappers... they said the person who hired them for the original job, the fake one, paid them with untraceable bearer bonds. But they also gave them a tip. They said if things went south, they should mention a name to you. A name that would guarantee their safety." "What name?" | gritted out, a sense of dread closing around my throat. "Keenan Sullivan." The world tilted on its axis. Sullivan. He hadn' t just taken Emerson. He had orchestrated Cydney' s escape. He had masterminded the entire chaotic episode to distract me, to ---- pull my attention away while he spirited my wife out of the country. He had been playing chess while | had been blindly flipping the board. He wasn't just my rival. He was my nemesis. And his target wasn't my company. It was my life. It was Emerson. "Land the plane," | whispered, my voice hoarse. "Turn it around." "Sir? We' re about to take off for Zurich." "| know," | said, my mind racing. "He' s not in Zurich. That was just another feint. He' s smarter than that. He wouldn' t take her somewhere so obvious." | thought back, trying to piece together the fragments of conversation I' d had about him with Emerson over the years. He was a phantom, a ghost in the machine, his empire built on privacy and misdirection. Where would he go? Where would he take her? And then it hit me. A memory from years ago. Emerson, laughing as she told me a story about her childhood. About a summer she and Keenan had spent at his family' s remote, private island in the Caribbean. An island that was unplotted on any map, protected by a state-of-the-art security system of his own design. A place she had called "their secret fortress." "Change course," | told the pilot, my voice shaking with a new, ---- terrible certainty. "Set a course for the Caribbean. And get me every satellite image you can find of the Leeward Islands. | ' m looking for a ghost." As the jet banked, turning south, another call came through. It was Marcus again. His voice was strained, almost broken. "Sir... you need to see this." An image appeared on my screen. It was a news report from a local Caribbean station. A small, private jet had crashed on takeoff from a remote island airstrip. The plane had exploded on impact. There were no survivors. The tail number was clearly visible in the wreckage. It was the tail number of Keenan Sullivan' s jet. "No," | breathed. "No, it can' t be." "We have confirmation, sir," Marcus said, his voice heavy with pity. "The flight manifest listed two passengers. Keenan Sullivan and... Emerson Carrol The world went white. The sound in my ears was a high- pitched scream. It took me a moment to realize it was coming from my own throat. She was gone. He had taken her from me, only to have her ripped away by a random, cruel twist of fate. She was dead. The words were meaningless. They didn' t compute. My mind ---- refused to accept them. Emerson couldn' t be dead. She was the center of my universe. Without her, there was nothing. Just a cold, empty void. "There' s one more thing, sir," Marcus said softly. "They found this in the wreckage. It was in a fireproof-case." Another image filled the screen. It was a tablet. On the screen was a video, paused on Emerson' s face. She was scarred, yes, but her eyes... they were blazing with a fire | had never seen before. A fire of pure, unadulterated hatred. Directed at me. | pressed play. And my world ended for the second time in ten minutes. Title: A Princess? No! I'm the Female General! In "A Princess? No! I'm the Female General!" by CrushReel, Adela Taylor, a noble family's daughter, disguises herself as her brother to secure their Duke title by joining the army. Despite facing obstacles, she achieves remarkable success. 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