King looked up from his desk, his eyes narrowing at the interruption. Blaze pushed away from where he was leaning against the wall, instantly alert. Both men looked taken aback, the surprise clear on their faces. It wasn’t often someone saw me on the verge of losing my fucking mind.
“What the fuck happened to you?” King demanded, his voice edged with quiet steel as he assessed my uncharacteristic state. He gestured to the chair in front of his desk, but I ignored the offer, too wound up to sit still. I paced the room instead, unable to contain the furious energy coursing through me.
“I overheard some of the ground crew talking.” I turned sharply to face King. “They’ve got wind of Linden staying here—with me. Apparently, word has gotten around that she’s shacking up with a Hound.”
King raised a brow, leaning back slowly in his chair. “All right. So they’re gossiping. We knew they might figure out where she was staying. Doesn’t mean they’ll get anywhere near her.”
“No shit. No one’s touching her,” I snapped, my jaw clenched tight. “That’s not the problem.”
King’s eyes narrowed even further, and Blaze’s gaze flicked from me to King as he silently weighed the tension in the room.
“Then what the fuck has you worked up like this?” King pressed, leaning forward slightly. “Because there’s no way some petty-ass gossip is making you lose your shit, brother. I know you better than that.”
I dragged a hand through my hair, trying to steady myself but failing miserably. My fingers trembled slightly, and rage coiled in my gut. “You’re right. What they said pissed me off, but it doesn’t mean shit in the grand scheme of things. No, I’m livid because of what happened next.”
King and Blaze went utterly still, waiting for me to explain.
I drew in a long breath, trying to slow my racing pulse enough to get my thoughts clear and coherent. King’s steady gaze never left my face, waiting patiently for me to speak. Blaze stood equally silent, his eyes focused.
“I was inspecting the prototype today, the one I’ve been test-flying.” I forced my voice to stay level, though it was rougher than usual, edged with the frustration I’d barely managed to contain. “Something wasn’t quite right. It was so damn subtle that anyone else probably would’ve missed it completely. But I know that aircraft down to every rivet. There was a tiny glitch in the system, a hesitation in the avionics display that lasted less than a millisecond.”
King leaned back in his chair, his scowl deepening. Blaze’s eyes narrowed, his posture tightening with each word.
“I knew exactly what to look for. After everything we’ve uncovered lately, it raised a red flag, so I contacted Wizardimmediately.” I paced again, the room feeling too small to contain my restlessness. “Had him monitoring the digital communication lines between the jet and the ground-based systems while I went through a more intensive inspection. With him watching from here, I started running detailed diagnostics and testing the systems one at a time, making sure we didn’t miss anything.”
I forced myself to stand still long enough to explain it without tearing something off King’s desk.
“It wasn’t the same signature we saw in Carson’s crash.” I shook my head, my jaw tight. “They’re not stupid enough to copy-paste their own crime scene. Every incident we’ve reviewed was slightly different—variations in injection point, system priority, or failure cascade. Enough to keep pattern recognition from lighting up like a Christmas tree.”
Blaze’s mouth flattened. “Adapt and conceal.”
“Exactly,” I agreed with a nod. “This time, it was buried in the command stack for a system override—coded as a contingency test parameter. On paper, it looks like redundancy logic. Something you’d expect to see during simulation or remote diagnostic runs. But it wasn’t passive.”
King leaned forward slightly. “Active?”
“Dormant,” I corrected. “Waiting for a handshake.”
The memory of seeing it sitting there—like a loaded weapon tucked under the seat—made my vision sharpen to a blade’s edge.
“It was a clean injection,” I explained. “Different architecture than Carson’s bird. Another pathway entirely. This one would’ve nudged the flight control law under very specific parameters—high-G maneuver, high-altitude envelope, maybe during a weapons simulation. Just enough to create a destabilization event that would look like a pilot miscalculation or structuralanomaly. And while I fought it, they’d be logging every damn millisecond.”
Blaze swore under his breath.
“They weren’t just trying to crash it.” My voice went colder. “They were trying to study how much override authority they could exert before I noticed, or anyone else. Before the fail-safes tripped and exposed them.”
King’s stare never wavered. “And you’re sure?”
“I’m positive.” I didn’t raise my voice, but the fury underneath it was unmistakable. “Wizard watched the data stream live while I isolated the subsystem. We ran controlled probes to confirm the trigger logic. It was there. A command branch that had no business existing in that configuration.”
I exhaled once through my nose, trying to bleed off the heat crawling up my spine. It didn’t work.
“They messed with my plane.” My words were coated in something feral. “Mine.”
It wasn’t just metal and composite. The plane was an extension of me. Every switch, response curve, and vibration through the frame—I felt it before most men even registered a change in tone. The idea that someone thought they could slip code into my aircraft and I wouldn’t catch it was more than reckless.
It was insulting.
“Of all fucking pilots,” I continued, shaking my head once. “Me? Seriously?”
