A Caged Songbird's Escape: Into the Arms of a Predator novel Chapter 679

"We don't have hard evidence tying Orion Stone to the shipment yet. The police are grinding Finn Thornton down in interrogation right now to see if he'll flip."

Rowan methodically broke down the entire operation.

Essentially, 'Elissa' had shown up to the meeting and was immediately ambushed by Maya's handlers.

Believing they had successfully drawn the full, frantic attention of both the Murphy and Wilkinson families, the cartel grew overconfident and moved to execute their massive drug shipment.

What they didn't know was that both families had already confirmed Orion Stone was the phantom backing Maya, and that Finn Thornton and the DK Group were his public front.

Coordinating a massive sting with the police, they swept the docks and caught the cartel dead to rights in the middle of the transaction.

Meanwhile, Orion had planned to use 'Elissa' as his ultimate bargaining chip, only to discover his hostage was a highly trained operative in a hyper-realistic disguise.

Elissa instantly understood the play.

But Tanya looked completely lost. "Wait, what do you mean by a fake Elissa?"

"Hyper-realistic Masking," Elissa explained softly, then glanced at Rowan for confirmation. "Right?"

Aaron Blaine was actually a master at the technique.

Years ago, Aaron had offered to teach her the art, but she had respectfully declined.

Her absolute obsession was medicine. Until she had mastered everything there was to know about healing, she refused to split her focus. And over the past two years, between running her clinic and developing the specialized medicine, she barely had time to sleep, let alone learn espionage.

Rowan smiled proudly and nodded. "Exactly."

There were only two elite masking experts in the entire country. One was on the government's payroll, and the other operated entirely in the criminal underworld, charging astronomical fees.

Both possessed the terrifying ability to physically alter a person's face using nothing but synthetic skin and their bare hands. As long as the operative perfectly mimicked their target's body language, they were completely indistinguishable from the real person.

To ensure absolute secrecy for this sting, Laurel had pulled rank and brought in Julian Vane, the government's top expert.

Tanya's jaw dropped. "I feel like I'm living in a spy movie."

Elissa's mind drifted back to Orion Stone. "But what if Finn Thornton refuses to crack?"

After all, Orion was Finn's adoptive father. Getting a son to testify against his father was nearly impossible.

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