Amelia stopped begging when she heard military boots on the stairs.

Adrian departed before dawn. Two trusted guards drove him to the private airfield thirty miles away. I watched from an upstairs window as the car pulled through the gates and vanished into the mist.

The house felt silent and hollow without him. I spent the morning pacing, unable to rest. At midday, the phone rang. Not a courier. Not the police. A distorted voice speaking through a filter.

“Colonel Hale will not be reaching the capital,” it said. “Leave the house. Sign everything Victoria left. Disappear. Or share his fate.”

I slammed the phone down and rushed to call Adrian’s mobile. Straight to voicemail. I called the lead guard’s number. No answer. My blood turned cold. I grabbed my coat, summoned the remaining household guards, and drove myself toward the airfield.

I arrived to find smoke curling above the perimeter fence. Police cars blocked the entrance. I leaped from the car, showing identification, rushing past the barrier. What I saw turned my legs to water.

Adrian’s vehicle sat overturned and burning at the edge of the tarmac. Bullet holes riddled the chassis. Glass shattered everywhere. The two guards lay motionless nearby.

There was no sign of Adrian.

A uniformed officer stepped forward. “Are you Mrs. Hale?”

“Where is he?” I demanded, my voice cracking. “Where is my husband?”

“Vehicle ambushed,” he said gravely. “Gunfire. Explosion. The driver dead. No sign of the colonel’s body, but—”

“He is alive,” I said, gripping his arm. “He is alive. He is injured. Or hiding. Or taken. You must search!”

The officer hesitated, then signaled his men. As they spread out, I walked slowly around the wreckage. Blood stained the asphalt. A trail of drops led away from the car into the tall grass bordering the airfield.

Adrian had escaped the crash. He had been wounded. And he had run.

Into the trees. Away from the road. Away from whoever had ambushed him.

I followed the trail quietly, slipping past the cordon. The drops grew fainter as I pushed deeper into the woods. My heart hammered. If Sterling’s men had taken him… they would finish the job. If he was alone and bleeding… he needed me.

I found him an hour later, beneath the fallen trunk of an ancient oak. He lay propped against it, one leg soaked in blood, arm bound tightly with a makeshift tourniquet torn from his own shirt. His face was pale, streaked with soot and sweat. He held a weapon loosely in his good hand, eyes half-closed, fighting to stay conscious.

“Adrian,” I whispered, dropping to my knees beside him.

His eyes flew open. Weapon raised. Then lowered instantly when he saw me.

“Amelia,” he breathed, wincing as he tried to sit up. “You should not be here.”

“I saw the wreckage. The blood. I followed the trail.” I pressed my hands to his wounded leg. “Who did this?”

“Sterling’s men,” Adrian said through gritted teeth. “Waited at the gate. Opened fire. Took out the tires. We crashed. They killed the guards. Searched the wreckage. Looked for the case. I hid it in the underbrush before they found me. They dragged me aside… were about to finish it… when a patrol passed. They ran. Left me alive but bleeding.”

He gestured weakly toward the bushes. “Documents are there. Still safe.”

“We need to get you to a hospital,” I said, tearing strips from my skirt to bind his leg tighter.

“No hospital,” Adrian said firmly, gripping my wrist. “Sterling has men in every medical facility within fifty miles. If I show up… I die before surgery begins. We go somewhere else. Somewhere safe.”

“Where?”

Adrian took a breath. “Lady Hale. She gave us the truth. She knows. She has a cottage in the hills above the river. Sterling does not know it exists. She told me once… if I ever needed to hide… go there.”

It took every ounce of strength we possessed to move him. I helped him stand. Supported most of his weight. Walked him slowly through the trees, back toward where I had parked. By the time we reached the car, he was grey and sweating, fighting to stay upright.

I helped him into the passenger seat. Drove fast, keeping to back roads. All the way to the isolated cottage deep in the hills. Adrian barely spoke. He held the case tight against his chest, his breathing rough and uneven.

When we arrived at the cottage—small, stone, secluded among pine trees—I helped him inside and onto a narrow bed. I tended his wound properly. Cleaned it. Bound it. Found antibiotics in the kitchen cabinet—left there years before, still good.

Only then did he rest his head back and close his eyes.

“They know I am alive,” he said quietly. “And they know I still have the evidence. They will hunt me until they find us, Amelia. Every road. Every town. Every house. We are trapped here… until we can find a way to finish what we started.”

I sat beside him, taking his good hand in mine.

“Then we finish it from here,” I said. “You rest. I plan. And when you are strong enough… we strike back. Harder than before. Because they thought to kill you. And they failed. Just as they failed to break me.”

Adrian opened his eyes. He looked at me with a faint, proud gleam through the pain.