The sky was just beginning to lighten when the van pulled into Clearbrook International Airport, the horizon ahead fading from black to a deep, bruised gray. The terminal was quiet at this hour, the main concourse empty except for a handful of ground crew moving in the distance.
Scott's private jet was already on the tarmac, engines idling, the flight medical crew waiting at the foot of the boarding stairs with a stretcher. Soren watched them load Roy on board, efficient and unhurried, and something in the tension of the past twenty-four hours finally began to release.
Scott stood at the edge of the tarmac and watched until Roy disappeared through the cabin door. Then he exhaled slowly. "It's over."
He looked like a man who had aged several years in the span of two days. Scott was not a
