"Zero in and check the situation," I urged, my voice tighter than I intended as I followed Rey toward the command station.
The monitors flickered as the signal locked in, slowly sharpening into unstable footage from the kidnappers' yacht. First came the deck—armed figures moving in coordinated shifts, their posture too disciplined for ordinary criminals. They weren't panicking. They were waiting.
But Jared wasn't there.
The camera angle shifted again, scanning upward through levels of the vessel until it landed on the upper deck.
A woman sat there calmly, sipping tea as if she were on vacation rather than inside a moving trap at sea.
My breath stopped.
Even before the image clarified, something inside me already knew.
"Aliona…" The name left my mouth before I could stop it. "That's Aliona Dora!"
