CHAPTER 63: MICHAEL

Ethan stood a small distance away from Irina as they looked at the ocean, as they had been for the past twenty minutes.

She was going to call in a favor but Ethan was wondering how, there was no phone on her, or any communication device.

She just approached the waves and stood there, as if they were waiting for someone or something. Ethan resisted the urge to ask if she really had a way to get them off this island.

But just to be sure, he whispered to Athena, "is there any other way off here?"

{There’re no conventional routes,} Athena replied instantly in his earpiece. {No docks, no functional boats, no aerial pads. The only entire island is...} She paused briefly.

{It seems something is approaching your location, from the skies} she informed after a short while.

"What is it?" He asked.

{It seems like a—} before Athena could complete her words, the sound of rotors spinning from afar reached him.

Ethan raised his head to the cloudless sky in the direction of the sound and he almost immediately spotted a light.

At first, it looked like a star but it started growing larger by the second. Rather than growing larger, it seemed the thing was getting closer.

Soon enough, Ethan was able to discern what it was by it’s lights and the sound that had gotten louder.

{A helicopter.}

It stopped just a few meters away from them before it slowly started descending. The downdraft blew away the beach sand, causing it to spray into the air and forcing Ethan to squint, meanwhile, Irina stepped forward as if she owned the damn thing.

The helicopter hovered just a bit above the sand and the side doors opened, allowing a man in what seemed like a white suit to jump out.

He was pretty tall, Ethan observed and although the shadows from the helicopter’s light behind him covered his face, Ethan was sure he was frowning right now.

The man straightened his jacket after landing, brushing off a few stray grains of sand with an almost exaggerated annoyance. His voice carried easily over the thumping rotors as he approached.

"Irina," he called out, his tone a mix of disbelief and irritation, "do you have any idea what you’ve pulled me out of this time?"

Irina smiled faintly, completely unfazed by the accusatory glare she was receiving. "Nice to see you too, Michael."

Michael stopped a few steps away, his polished shoes sinking slightly into the soft sand. "This is the third time this year," he said, gesturing toward the helicopter behind him. "The third time I’ve had to leave an important meeting—once with the Japanese trade ministers, mind you—to come drag you off some godforsaken, abandoned island in the middle of nowhere."

"Well this island is technically not abandoned, we just landed on a part far from any city."

Ethan watched with faint amusement as Michael pinched the bridge of his nose, muttering something under his breath that was drowned out by the whirring blades.

"And each time," Michael continued, lowering his hand to point at her, "you don’t even call. You just... stand somewhere, looking smug, and I’m expected to show up like some kind of—" He cut himself off with a frustrated exhale.

"Never mind. Just tell me there aren’t armed men with questionable intentions lurking in the tree line this time."

"Well... That one time was because they had a tracker on me." Irina defended.

Michael groaned, looking skyward like he was begging for divine patience. If he didn’t owe this woman, he’d have strangled her himself.

With a sigh, he turned to Ethan and asked as his grey eyes narrowed in suspicion, "and who are you?"

"Ethan Cross," He responded simply, choosing to add nothing else.

The man before him looked incredibly familiar but he couldn’t place a finger where he had seen him before, well that was until Athena informed.

{Michael Reeves,} she started, {the heir of the Reeves family, the owners of a multi billion dollar shipping empire, with assets in over forty countries. Primarily deals in logistics, freight, and offshore investments. Estimated net worth—}

"That’s enough, Athena," Ethan muttered under his breath.

He now recalled where he had seen him. Michael’s was one of the biggest downfalls in the future and Ethan, just like the rest of the world, had witnessed it all

Michael’s gaze lingered on him for a moment longer, like he was going through his memory for a face or name like his.

"Cross... never heard of you," he said finally, though his tone suggested he was filing the name away just in case it became relevant later.

Ethan smirked faintly. "I’ll try not to take that personally."

Michael just nodded at his comment before turning back to Irina, "one of your brother’s minions who you convinced to switch sides or a new hire?"

Irina frowned—not because Michael thought Ethan was a minion, but because he’d known her long enough to realize she would never work with someone who had once been hired by his brothers, no matter how valuable they might be.

But she chose to say nothing and just sighed before walking past him and into the helicopter and putting on a headset.

Michael immediately realized his mistake but was too late to take it back so he just gazed at Ethan with a small frown before saying, "I have half a mind to just leave you here."

Ethan didn’t even flinch at his words as he knew a but was coming, and it soon did.

"But that’d just make Irina madder than she already is so you’re unfortunately coming with you."

With that, he turned and walked towards the helicopter, Ethan following soon after and it immediately took off.

Twenty minutes after they left, a group of boats sped towards the shore and down came multiple armed men as they looked around, probably for signs of Irina and the man he escaped the yatch with.

The leader stepped towards the previously lit for woods before stepping on a little bit of flame on one of the woods, putting it out.

Today, he had lost up to sixteen men trying to take down that b*tch and he hadn’t even gotten a satisfactory result.

How she had caused the yatch to explode? He had no idea, all he knew was that only his men were on board at that moment as she had found a way to escape.

The leader’s jaw tightened as he surveyed the empty beach, the rhythmic crash of waves against the shore doing nothing to mask the simmering fury in his chest.

His men fanned out, sweeping the tree line and scanning the sand for any trace of Irina’s escape route.

One of them jogged up, shaking his head. "No footprints beyond the tide line. Nothing leading inland either. It’s like they just... vanished."

The leader turned sharply, eyes narrowing. "She didn’t vanish. She had help."

The man flinched slightly under the weight of his glare. "We saw no boats on approach—"

"Then it was from the air," the leader snapped. "Are you stupid enough to not realize that?"

The man looked down. Their leader was normally scary but it was a whole other level when he was mad.

And he had every need to be mad tonight, after all, this was the night he had lost the most men.

With a sigh, the leader said, "call him and tell him that his sister escaped."

The man hesitated for a moment. "And... the one she escaped with? The man from the yacht?"

The leader’s lips curled into a cold smile. "Find out who he is. If he’s a way to get to her, then we must find him . If not..."

"Yes sir," the man nodded but before he could leave to complete his given task, the leader’s phone suddenly rang.

Already knowing who the caller was, he slowly took the phone out, tapped on the answer button and put it on his ear, waiting for the caller to speak as he didn’t dare do it first.

"You failed again?" The person on the other end asked. The tone wasn’t one of question, it was as if the already knew the answer.

"Yes sir," the leader nervously replied.

"And what’s your excuse this time?"

The leader swallowed, his gaze fixed on the sand at his feet. "She had outside help and a helicopter picked her up before we landed. My men are tracking the source."

The voice on the other end gave a soft, humorless chuckle. "A helicopter? So she still has friends willing to risk their lives for her. Interesting."

There was a pause—long enough for the leader to feel sweat prickling at the back of his neck despite the night breeze.

"You lost sixteen men and any element of surprise we had," the man continued, his tone as calm. "Tell me, should I assume you’re working for her now? Because only incompetence or betrayal explains this level of failure."

"I assure you, sir—"

"Spare me your assurances," the man snapped, his patience thinning. "Do you have the name or face of the one that helped her?"

"Not yet, but—"

"Then stop wasting my time and get it. I don’t care what you have to do, who you have to pay, or how many more men you burn through. I want a name, a location, and a method of disposal on my desk by tomorrow night."

"Yes, sir."

"Oh and..." the voice lowered, but it had become even more dangerous than before . "If you fail again, I won’t be sending someone to clean up your mess. I’ll be sending someone for you."

Before a response could form on the leader’s mind, the line went dead.

He now knew that his life was hanging on a thread as the Romanovas never made empty threats.

"That’s why I didn’t want to be the one to inform him," he let out a resigned sigh before turning to his men, and barking orders.

But while he was at it, Ethan and Irina was now far from the island.