Chapter 323
“Get out,” Eliza hissed. She tried to stand, but her legs were still unsteady.
The doorbell rang.
“That will be the doctor,” Anson said. “Dallas wanted to make sure he didn’t accidentally kill you with the dosage.”
Eliza stumbled into the living room just as Dr. Vance let himself in, carrying a medical bag, his expression grim.
“Where is he?” Eliza demanded, grabbing Vance’s arm. “Tell me where he went!”
Vance looked at her, then at Anson. He sighed, setting his bag down.
“He’s en route to the Syrian border,” Vance said.
“Why?” Eliza screamed. “He’s a CEO! He’s disabled! What is he going to do in a war zone?”
“He’s not just a CEO, Eliza,” Vance said quietly. “Sit down.”
Eliza didn’t sit. She stood rooted to the spot.
“Ten years ago,” Vance began, “when the family exiled him — he didn’t go to boarding school. He went to the sandbox. He joined a PMC group called Xi MO. His call sign was Ghost.”
The name hit her not like a revelation, but like the final, damning confirmation of a truth she had desperately tried to ignore. Azalea had told her parts of the story. She had seen the evidence in his scars, heard it in his nightmares. But hearing it now, in this context, meant something far more terrifying. He wasn’t just a former soldier. He was going back. He was embracing the Ghost again.
“He was a legend,” Vance continued. “Until the extraction mission in Aleppo. He went in to save a team of doctors. Azalea’s parents.”
Eliza covered her mouth.
“He got the girl out,” Vance said. “But the parents didn’t make it. And Dallas — he took a sniper round to the knee and shrapnel to the spine. He crawled three miles with a six-year-old Azalea on his back.”
The room was silent. Even Anson looked away, his jaw tight.
“Estevan Norton — Dosha’s brother — he was there,” Vance said. “He sold out the unit. That’s why Dallas went back. Not just for Azalea. But to finish it.”
“He went to die,” Eliza whispered. Tears streamed down her face. “He thinks he’s broken. He thinks he’s doing me a favor.”
“He is,” Anson said from the doorway. “He’s a killer, Eliza. He belongs in the dirt. You belong here. Safe.”
Eliza turned on him, her eyes flashing. “Safe? With you? You are the one who hurt me. He is the one who saved me. Every. Single. Time.”
She turned back to Vance. “I need a plane. I’m going after him.”
“You can’t,” Vance said. “He locked down the accounts. He grounded the corporate jets. And he used his legal team to file an emergency injunction, citing your recent collapse at the gallery as evidence of medical instability. You’re legally barred from leaving the country. You are trapped here, Eliza.”
Eliza sank onto the sofa. “He thought of everything.”
“He wants you to live,” Vance said gently. “Don’t waste it.”
Vance checked her vitals, left some vitamins, and quietly let himself out.