Page 70 of Hardline Torque
Sedated.
Enough that his body felt distant, heavy, like it belonged to someone else.
Not enough to touch his mind.
That, at least, they had misjudged.
Niko kept his eyes closed, lashes resting against his cheeks, breathing slow and shallow the way they expected.He listened instead.
“Pressure’s holding,” a male voice said somewhere to his left.Calm.Professional.“We’re clear to climb once we hit the corridor.”
“Route’s approved,” another replied.“Refuel’s already arranged.Jakarta won’t ask questions.”
Jakarta.
Niko filed it away without reacting.
A third voice cut in, closer this time.“And the asset?”
“He’s stable,” the first man said.“Drug’s clean and his cognition will be suppressed.”
Niko almost smiled.
They were wrong about that too.
The aircraft shuddered as engines spooled higher.He felt it through the bed, through the straps, through the hollow space just beneath his ribs where adrenaline used to live.Somewhere above him, something clicked into place.
“Once we’re airborne,” the second voice said, “we notify command.They’ll want confirmation we have him.”
Him.
Not this one.Not the prisoner.
Him.
They really did think he was Luca.
The thought slid into place quietly, without panic.It explained everything—the care, the lack of violence, the way none of them had raised a hand to his face.Luca was too valuable to damage.Too important to rush.
Niko let the sedative pull his muscles slacker, sold the illusion completely.
The plane began to move.
As the wheels left the ground, his stomach dipped, the familiar sensation grounding him despite the circumstances.Flight school muscle memory kicked in automatically—the angle of climb, the timing, the feel through the frame.He’d flown enough missions, enough hours in enough cockpits, to recognize the cadence instantly.
So, where are you taking Luca?he wondered.
That was the part he didn’t understand yet.
He didn’t know why the Directorate wanted him.Didn’t know what they thought Luca had that was worth this kind of operation.Control?Access?Or something deeper—something Luca himself might not even realize he carried.
Or maybe, Niko thought bleakly,they just want the man who keeps making them look stupid.
His mind drifted back despite himself, slipping through time as easily as breath.
The van.
The moment they pulled him out, hard and fast, when the world narrowed to noise and motion, he realized—instantly—that this wasn’t about Victor anymore.That this grab had been opportunistic, yes, but also precise.
