Chapter 243

“Because of us!” Hilliard snapped. “Because she knew we would do exactly this! Look at yourself. You don’t see grandchildren — you see assets!”

“I see the future of this company!” Amerigo rose to his feet, his whole frame shaking. “You have failed, Hilliard. You let that woman run circles around you. You let her keep what belongs to this family.”

“They are not yours,” Hilliard said, his voice dropping cold. “They are hers. And mine.”

“Then prove it,” Amerigo hissed. “Bring them here by tonight. Now that the world knows they exist, now that I have their location, the game is finished. Bring them home — or I will file for emergency custody. I will have Swiss authorities remove those children from whatever hole she’s hiding them in. I will have her declared an unfit mother. I will bury her.”

Hilliard looked at his grandfather and saw the ruthlessness that had always run in their blood — the same ruthlessness he recognized in himself.

“If you touch them,” Hilliard said quietly, “I will burn this company to the ground.”

“Try it,” Amerigo said. “You have one hour to obtain a court order grounding that jet and diverting it here. One hour — or my people in Geneva will handle it for me.”

Hilliard turned and ran.

He was dialing Cailin before he reached the car.

“Pick up, pick up,” he muttered.

She answered on the first ring. She sounded out of breath.

“What?”

“He knows,” Hilliard said. “Charla told him. He knows where the kids are, and he’s sending his people there now. He’s filing for custody.”

Silence.

“Cailin?”

“I’m leaving,” she said. Her voice was calm — terrifyingly calm. “I’m at the airstrip. Kegan’s jet is fueling.”

“You can’t run,” Hilliard said, starting the Aston Martin. “You’ll be flying straight into his trap. He has Interpol contacts.”

“Let him try.”

“Cailin, if you run, you lose. Stay and fight.”

“I’m done fighting your monsters,” she said. “Goodbye, Hilliard.”

Click.

Hilliard threw the phone onto the passenger seat.

“Gavin!” he barked into the hands-free system. “Get our legal team on the phone with Teterboro’s management. Remind them that Holloway Group holds the debt on their last expansion. I want Kegan Aguirre’s Gulfstream grounded — cite a security breach, a fuel contamination scare, I don’t care. Just do it now.”

“Sir, that’s highly irregular,” Gavin said. “Kegan’s aircraft has diplomatic clearance.”

“Then find a loophole!” Hilliard roared, flooring the accelerator. “I’ll put this car on the runway myself if I have to. Stop that plane.”

He tore onto the highway, threading through traffic at over a hundred miles an hour.

He wasn’t chasing a fugitive. He was chasing his life.

If that jet left the ground, he knew he would never see them again.

The chase was on.

The tires of the Aston Martin screamed as Hilliard drifted onto the private access road for Teterboro Airport. Through the chain-link fence, he could already see the sleek black Gulfstream, its engines whining, beginning to taxi.

“Block the runway!” he yelled to Gavin over comms. “Do not let them take off!”