He Sent the Helicopter for Her Dog, So I Took Back My Wings novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: The Launch

Gianna's POV

The speakers on the pad roared, and Celia's own voice filled the Burbank hangar.

Topanga is cleared. Go straight to Malibu. Countess is the priority.

Two thousand people went quiet at once.

On the giant screen above the stage, the cockpit camera showed the audio meter jumping with her words.

Then Bruce's voice, young and puzzled.

Then hers again.

Leave number twelve to me. That one is mine. I'll handle her.

The tape ended.

For a second I heard nothing but the hum of the lights.

Celia stood at the lectern in her emerald silk with her hand still on her chest.

Then she laughed.

It was a pretty, silvery sound, and she turned it on the crowd like a spotlight.

"I'm so sorry," she said into the microphone. "This is a sick stunt. That recording is a forgery, made with artificial voices. My security team will escort these people out."

Nobody moved.

I unbuckled my harness and climbed down onto the blue circle.

My legs were steady.

I walked across the pad toward the stage in my flight suit with the gauze on my hands, and the cameras swung to follow me.

Celia's smile slipped half an inch.

"Security," she said.

Two men in dark suits started toward me and stopped, because the front rows had risen.

A hundred and forty people stood shoulder to shoulder with their invitations in their fists and their phones held high.

The old man with the white mustache stepped forward on his cane.

"Six calls," he said, loud enough to carry. "I called Sentinel six times on the night of the fourteenth, for my wife."

"Three," called the woman with two children, and held up her phone. "Three, and they sent me the hold message."

"Four!"

"Eleven!"

"Two!"

One after another, the families called out their numbers, until the whole front of the hangar was a wall of lit screens and shouting voices.

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