Chapter 9 - Flight to Montreal-9-
The private Bombardier Global 7500 cut through the midnight clouds at forty-one thousand feet, banking smoothly toward Quebec under a sky full of indifferent stars.
Inside the luxurious cabin, bathed in soft, warm amber lighting, Luca sat at a polished burl-wood table reviewing architectural blueprints of a private estate located on the wooded bluffs overlooking the St. Lawrence River.
Marco sat across from him, checking the magazines of a suppressed Walther PPK and slipping them into a custom leather shoulder rig.
“Volkov’s security detail is top-tier,” Marco said, not looking up from his weapon. “Ex-KGB spetsnaz, retired French Foreign Legion. At least twelve armed men rotating shifts around the perimeter every twenty minutes. The estate has its own closed-circuit monitoring system, laser tripwires along the northern tree line, and an underground panic room reinforced with three inches of steel plate.”
“Good thing we aren’t planning to knock on the front door,” Luca replied calmly, sliding a finger across the blueprint’s sub-level wine cellar access.
“What about Rachel?” Marco asked suddenly, pausing his work. “You told her you were flying to Chicago for a business conference with port authorities. How long do you think she’ll buy that lie before she checks your itinerary?”
Luca’s expression flickered for a fraction of a second—a rare, unguarded moment of vulnerability.
“She knows I’m lying,” Luca admitted quietly. “Rachel isn’t stupid. She knows the moment I got that intelligence report, my instincts kicked in. She didn’t yell this time. She just looked at me at breakfast, handed me my coat, and said: ‘If you don’t come back, I’ll never forgive you for making me love you again.’”
Marco was silent for a long moment. Then he shook his head slowly. “A trauma nurse who reads you like an open book and isn’t afraid of your shadow. You really picked a terrifying woman, Luca.”
“She’s the only person in the world who ever made me want to stop running,” Luca replied softly.
The pilot’s voice crackled over the cabin intercom. “Mr. Bellini, Mr. DeSantis, we’re forty minutes out from Trudeau International. Preparing our descent vector now. Local ground support is waiting at the designated hangar.”
“Acknowledged,” Luca said into the console mic.
He stood up, buttoning his charcoal wool overcoat, and walked to the mirror near the cabin door. He adjusted his collar, checking his reflection. No bandages. No hospital gowns. Just a man who had looked death in the eye twice and decided he wasn’t done living yet.
The plane touched down smoothly on the rain-slicked tarmac of a private aviation facility just outside Montreal at 2:15 a.m.
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A sleek, matte-black SUV idling near the hangar doors flashed its headlights twice as they descended the mobile airstair.
Marco slipped into the passenger seat while Luca took the wheel, shifting the heavy, supercharged vehicle into gear as they surged out into the Canadian night toward Volkov’s cliffside estate.
