The private jet sliced through the heavy, dark clouds at thirty thousand feet, leaving the chaotic skyline of Chicago far behind. Inside the cabin, the atmosphere was thick and suffocating, smelling faintly of copper, burning fuel, and strong antiseptic. It was the unmistakable scent of a narrow escape, a reminder that the boundary between life and death in our world was as thin as a single sheet of paper.
Chloe didn't look like a woman who had just fought for her career in a room full of corrupt directors, nor did she look like someone who had just survived a literal bloodbath on the tarmac. The moment the aircraft reached its cruising altitude and the seatbelt sign clicked off, her trembling hands had steeled into the precise, unyielding hands of a professional surgeon. The panic that had briefly haunted her eyes in the SUV was completely gone, replaced by a cold, clinical focus.
