Chapter 1

Over the course of five years and three missions, Lance Archer emerged from each one worse for wear.

The first time, Elvira Skye personally ordered him to transport a top-secret serum back from overseas. But the only available flight route was caught by a thunderstorm.

Lance gritted his teeth and piloted his fighter jet out of the thunderstorm.

The serum container arrived intact, but the fighter jet sustained damage in multiple places.

The second time, Lance was providing aerial support for a hostage crisis involving 100 abducted civilians.

He had already pinpointed the hostage takers' location and was about to close in on them.

But at that critical moment, a man's voice suddenly rang out over the communications channel. This inadvertently exposed the entire operation.

Elvira issued an uncompromising order.

"Execute Plan B. Crash into the target building now!"

Lance obeyed without hesitation, and all 100 hostages were rescued.

Yet, the man whose voice had exposed the operation was never identified.

The third time, Lance was sent into a war zone to deliver emergency relief supplies. But the very first package dropped from the aircraft turned out to be a bomb.

Lance had no choice but to detonate the bomb by ramming it with his aircraft.

He saved countless lives, but his dangerous maneuver earned him a one-year flight suspension. When the five-year evaluation period ended, he faced the prospect of being transferred out of Elvira's direct command team.

But he still hadn't given up.

Over the past year, he had used every connection he had, and every piece of evidence he uncovered pointed to one name—Andre Mosley, a mere intern at the command center.

Clutching the evidence, Lance headed toward Elvira's office.

His chest burned with a tangled mix of anger and resentment he couldn't put into words.

Inside, a heated argument was underway between Elvira and her deputy, Owen Bond.

"You're going to give Andre the honor of being named an ace pilot? A man who's never even flown a fighter jet?" Owen shouted, his voice thick with suppressed anger. "Do you really think I don't know what happened during Lance's three missions?"

Lance froze outside the door.

Elvira's voice remained perfectly calm and detached. It was the cool, measured tone Lance had listened to for ten years, the voice he had revered as a divine decree.

"I'm the Supreme Commander. My evaluations will always be fair and impartial."

"Fair?" Owen practically roared. "Lance's first mission was to escort a shipment of Andre's underwear? All because Andre said he was allergic to the kind he could get domestically?

"You do know that Lance was struck by lightning in that thunderstorm and bled from all seven orifices, right?"

Outside the door, Lance felt as though an enormous hand had suddenly clamped around his heart. The pain was so intense that he could barely breathe.

Elvira remained utterly unmoved and defended Andre as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"The situation was urgent. Andre would have been miserable if his allergies flared up."

"What about the second mission?" Owen was still furious. "Andre couldn't find you in the middle of the night, so he started shouting over the public channel and exposed Lance's operation!

"After that, the captors retaliated. Lance's parents, Anthony Archer and Jodi Holden, died in a car accident, and what those animals did to his younger siblings, Clint and Maya Archer—"

Owen couldn't bring himself to say another word, and Lance could barely bear to listen.

"Andre's afraid of the dark." For the first time, a trace of weariness crept into Elvira's voice. But she was still making excuses for Andre. "He needed me. As for what happened to Lance's family, I've already compensated him."

Lance trembled from head to toe. He had to brace himself against the wall just to remain standing.

The photos of Clint's and Maya's mangled bodies, the calls to Anthony and Jodi that would never go through again, and the nightmares that jolted Lance awake night after night—all because Andre was afraid of the dark.

"Fine. Then what about the third mission?" Owen could no longer contain his grief and indignation. "Andre replaced the relief supplies with bombs for no apparent reason!

"Was he trying to blow up the refugees on the ground, or was he trying to kill Lance? This is a crime that should land Andre before a military tribunal, so why did you cover it up?"

"Andre just had a momentary lapse of judgment," Elvira replied, her voice lowering. "He couldn't accept that I'm going to marry Lance. There's no need to ruin Andre's entire life over such trivial matters."

Trivial matters?

Lance trembled uncontrollably.

He couldn't believe that, in Elvira's eyes, his ten years of bloodshed and sacrifice, the countless times he'd come close to death, and the lives of all four members of his family amounted to nothing more than trivial matters.

Even Owen couldn't suppress the bitter sarcasm in his voice. "You favor Andre simply because he was the first hostage you ever rescued back then, and he holds a special place in your heart.

"But for his sake, you're even willing to use your own marriage to keep Lance under control. Supreme Commander Skye, what exactly do you take Lance for?"

After a brief silence, Elvira spoke again in her usual matter-of-fact tone.

"Lance is about to become my husband. I've also decided that once we register our marriage, I'll apply to make him my sole flight partner. But Andre is different—he has nothing left."

Owen scoffed and asked, each word deliberate and cutting, "Then what if Lance finds out the truth? Will he still be willing to marry you or become your flight partner?"

"He'll never find out." Elvira's voice turned icy, her tone leaving no room for further discussion. "Besides, he's spent ten years pursuing me. I've fulfilled every dream he's ever had. We're getting our marriage registered in a month. There's no way he'll ever leave."

Elvira had known all along that Lance had loved her for ten years, and that becoming her one and only flight partner had been his dream for just as long.

That was why, when Lance had gone nearly mad trying to track down the traitor responsible for his family's death, she had held him in her arms and repeatedly whispered, "Lance, from now on, I'll give you a home."

What made it even more ironic was that Lance, not Andre, had been the very first hostage Elvira rescued on her first combat mission all those years ago.

That rescue had marked the end of his nightmares, but it had also been the beginning of his obsession with her.

After he was taken to the hospital and recovered from his injuries, he heard that Elvira was recuperating nearby as well.

Clutching the crystal pendant, he secretly slipped out of his hospital room, only to watch Elvira throw herself into another man's arms.

Anthony and Jodi arrived in a hurry and took Lance away. From that day on, he didn't see Elvira again until he entered the flight academy.

A single tear slid silently down Lance's taut cheek.

The faith he had held as his only guiding light, the loyalty carved into his very bones, and the dream he had believed was finally within reach—they had all been nothing more than compensation and pity.

For something so laughable, he had sacrificed his youth, his health, and the lives of his own family.

Lance didn't push open the door. Instead, he turned around and walked back to his workstation.

Once there, he compiled all the evidence and submitted it through the Supreme Military Tribunal's official reporting portal.

A response appeared on the screen.

"Your report has been received and will undergo review. The process is expected to take 30 business days."