“Imagine my surprise when I discovered that this whole time, it was you blackmailing me, Tony. I thought you died in that helicopter crash in Iraq. Instead, you took on a new identity and obviously kept building your trafficking business. You forced me to leave my family to keep them safe. But now I have it in my hands, and I found you. I’m done for good. I just have one question—why me? Why did you send me to deliver this?”

“The artifact that cost me everything? I lost my family because of you,” Marcus said. “Even if I hadn’t survived the crash and disappeared, I would have been court-martialed and lost them anyway. You deserved to pay. I thought the crown was apropos for your last delivery, since that was the very item that was lost to me when you wanted out. I was able to get my hands on it again, diverting it from being returned back to Iraq.” Marcus shrugged. “So you would deliver it for me, completing what you wouldn’t complete years ago, and I would finally get my millions.”

“It doesn’t belong to you. It didn’t then. It doesn’t now.”

Marcus sighed. “We’re all a little older and a little wiser. We all made mistakes. Give me the box, and I’ll let them go. With the money, I can reinvent myself all over again.”

The pilot looked intently at Terra. Emotion welled in his eyes. A pang shot through Terra’s heart. She hadn’t seen beyond the pilot. Behind his scruffy beard, older broken features. Behind the baseball cap and a thicker body . . . she hadn’t seen who he really was.

Her vision blurred. She wasn’t thinking clearly. No . . . “Who are you? You’re not . . . you can’t be—” But she knew in her heart that he was. Recognition slammed into her, knocking the breath from her. She gasped for oxygen, and then words. “Dad?”

“Yes, baby. It’s me.”

“What? Why? I . . . I don’t understand. What are you doing here now? Why did you leave in the first place?” The questions overwhelmed her, and the precarious situation shook her to her core.