Page 68 of Hardline Torque
Around him, the room surged back into motion.
The hunt was on.
But for Victor, the room didn’t surge so much as sharpen.
He stayed where he was, hands braced on the table, letting the noise move around him.Orders layered over each other.Screens split again, new windows opening—air traffic databases, charter registries, satellite overlays.
“Pull private flight plans filed in the last four hours,” Victor said.His voice carried without him raising it.“Anything tagged corporate, charter, medevac, or diplomatic cover.Especially anything that changed tail numbers recently.”
Luca glanced up, eyebrows lifting a fraction.“Already thinking like that?”
“I lived that,” Victor replied.“They don’t reuse clean assets when the clock’s tight.They mask dirty ones.”
Kai leaned closer to his camera.“We’re seeing three possibles already.Two head north.One west, offshore.”
Victor studied the map as routes appeared, thin white lines cutting across blue and green.He felt the faint echo of restraints in his wrists, the remembered pressure of concrete against his spine.The drugs they’d used hadn’t wiped memory—they’d dulled edges.Enough to make doubt creep in.Enough to make time stretch.
Enough to make a man miss a detail.
“They won’t take him somewhere obvious,” Victor said.“Not yet.They’ll stage him.Break pattern.Make us burn hours.”
Tane shifted closer, a solid presence at his side.“Which one would you pick?”
Victor didn’t answer immediately.He tracked one of the routes with his finger—offshore, skirting controlled airspace, dipping low where radar coverage thinned.
“That one,” he said.“Short hop first.Refuel.Then they’ll move him again.”
Torch asked.“Why move him twice?”
Victor’s jaw tightened.“Because he’s not the endgame?”
The word tasted wrong in his mouth.
Images from the drone footage replayed behind his eyes—Niko restrained, head high.Alive.Defiant.The same way Victor had forced himself to be.
“They know we’ll follow,” Victor continued.“So, they’ll keep shifting the board.Make it harder for us to challenge them.”
Silence rippled—not heavy, but attentive.
Victor pushed away from the table and moved closer to the screen showing the frozen image of the jet.He studied the angle of the hangar lights, the shadow under the fuselage.
“They didn’t rush him,” he said.“That tells me that they weren’t afraid of interference at the airport.”
“Meaning?”Luca prompted.
“Meaning this was planned before I was even taken,” Victor said quietly.“Niko was always part of it.”
The truth landed hard.
Victor felt the weight of it press against his ribs, a familiar sensation—responsibility tightening until it bordered on guilt.If he hadn’t been there.If he hadn’t been the priority.If they hadn’t had to move fast.
He forced the spiral down.
That kind of thinking was how men broke.
“Victor.”Tane’s voice was low, pitched only for him.
Victor turned slightly.Tane’s eyes were steady.Not accusing.Not asking him to absolve himself.Just there.
