Chapter 9 - THE FATHER JACKSON CHOSE
Jackson watched the video three times.
Each viewing made his face harder.
“My father didn't write code.”
Leela sat opposite him inside the federal interview room.
“No.”
“Then Mercer could be lying.”
“Yes.”
“You think he is?”
“No.”
Jackson looked away.
That hurt.
Leela understood why.
Believing a criminal stranger over your own father violated something fundamental.
But evidence did not care about blood.
Agent Chen entered.
“We detained Grant Cole.”
Jackson stood.
“Where?”
“Skycross headquarters.”
“And my father?”
“Still there.”
“Why isn't he detained?”
“We don't have enough yet.”
Leela asked:
“What did Grant say?”
“He wants an attorney.”
Jackson laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
Chen placed a document on the table.
“Mercer gave us financial records showing Grant Cole paid him through consulting shells.”
Jackson frowned.
“So they worked together.”
“For a while.”
Leela read.
Mercer had been hired unofficially to exploit weaknesses in Skycross maintenance systems.
Not to crash aircraft.
To create controlled technical incidents.
Why?
Insurance.
Stock manipulation.
And a planned acquisition.
Leela looked up.
“Grant wanted Skycross valuation lower.”
Chen nodded.
“He was positioning investment partners to buy distressed shares.”
Jackson whispered:
“He was attacking his own company.”
“His own family’s company,” Chen corrected.
Jackson almost laughed.
“Apparently that doesn't mean much around us.”
Leela said nothing.
Chen continued.
“After the first Flight 312 event, Mercer tried to stop.”
“Because passengers were endangered?”
“Yes.”
“He claims Grant altered the payload.”
Jackson asked:
“And Richard?”
Chen hesitated.
“We have emails suggesting Richard knew about fabricated maintenance incidents.”
Jackson went still.
“Knew what?”
“Not the airborne attacks.”
Leela looked at him.
“Then what?”
“Earlier ground incidents.”
Richard had approved falsified maintenance disruptions to delay aircraft, trigger contractual penalties against vendors, and force renegotiation of fleet-support agreements.
Jackson stared.
“My father authorized fake safety events to win business negotiations.”
“Yes.”
“And Uncle Grant expanded it.”
“That's our working theory.”
Jackson stood and walked to the wall.
For years, he had defended his family.
Their methods.
Their secrecy.
Their belief that outsiders would never understand the pressure of protecting Skycross.
Now he saw what that protection had become.
A justification for anything.
Leela knew the moment he made his decision.
“Take me to him,” Jackson said.
Richard Cole stood alone inside his headquarters office when Jackson entered.
Leela remained near the doorway.
Not because she wanted to witness a family collapse.
Because Richard's decisions involved her systems and the passengers she had helped save.
Richard looked exhausted.
“You brought federal investigators into my company.”
Jackson closed the door.
“No.”
He walked closer.
“You did.”
Richard stared.
“I built Skycross.”
“Grandfather built Skycross.”
“I saved it.”
“By falsifying maintenance events?”
Richard's face tightened.
“You don't understand.”
“Then explain.”
“We had vendors holding us hostage.”
“So you manufactured failures.”
“On the ground.”
Jackson laughed.
“That is your defense?”
“No passengers were ever at risk.”
“Until Grant used the same architecture in flight.”
“I didn't authorize that.”
“You built the culture that told him rules were optional if the Cole family benefited.”
Richard looked toward Leela.
“This is what she wants.”
Jackson's expression changed.
Leela did not react.
Richard continued.
“She has hated this family from the beginning.”
Jackson whispered:
“You barely knew she existed.”
“Exactly.”
Richard looked at his son.
“You hid her because you knew.”
Leela watched Jackson absorb the cruelty.
His father was weaponizing Jackson's shame.
Maybe once it would have worked.
Not now.
Jackson said:
“I hid her because I was weak.”
Richard blinked.
“I convinced myself secrecy protected our marriage.”
He looked at Leela.
“It protected me from you.”
Richard scoffed.
“And now you're going to destroy everything for her?”
“No.”
Jackson stepped closer.
“I am going to stop destroying everything for you.”
Silence.
Richard's face changed.
Jackson removed his Skycross captain wings from his uniform.
Set them on the desk.
Then his executive access badge.
“What are you doing?”
“Effective immediately, I'm requesting the board ground every aircraft until an independent safety review is complete.”
Richard stared.
“That will bankrupt us.”
“Then we rebuild smaller.”
“Jackson.”
“No.”
His voice broke.
“Two hundred people on Flight 312 thought they were going to die because our family kept choosing reputation over truth.”
Richard pointed at Leela.
“She is manipulating you.”
Jackson turned.
For three years, he had asked Leela to remain hidden.
Now he crossed the office, opened the door, and called his assistant.
“Get communications.”
The assistant looked startled.
“Now.”
Minutes later, cameras were being assembled in the executive briefing room.
Richard followed.
“You cannot do this.”
Jackson looked at him.
“Yes.”
“What are you planning to say?”
“The truth.”
Richard's face went pale.
The live statement began at 6:00 p.m.
Jackson stood before the Skycross logo.
Leela watched from the side.
He did not ask her to stand with him.
That mattered.
He understood this apology could not use her as decoration.
“My name is Jackson Cole. I am a captain with Skycross Airlines and a member of the Cole family.”
He breathed.
“Today, I am asking our board to voluntarily ground Skycross's affected fleet pending independent review.”
Reporters shouted.
He continued.
“Recent incidents involving Flight 312 were not ordinary technical failures.”
Richard closed his eyes.
Jackson said:
“Evidence suggests criminal manipulation of systems and serious failures of oversight inside our company.”
Then he stopped.
Looked toward Leela.
She said nothing.
He faced the cameras again.
“There is also a personal truth I should have spoken years ago.”
Leela's heartbeat changed.
Jackson continued.
“I have been married for three years.”
The room exploded.
Reporters shouted.
Jenna watched from the rear.
Richard looked furious.
Jackson raised his voice.
“My wife is Dr. Leela Voss.”
Silence hit harder than the shouting.
“The same Leela Voss many employees know as a senior flight attendant.”
More chaos.
“She is also the systems architect who helped save Flight 312.”
Jackson's jaw tightened.
“I kept our marriage secret. I told myself it protected her career and mine.”
He looked directly at the cameras.
“That was cowardice.”
Leela's eyes filled.
“I allowed colleagues to speak about my wife as though she were temporary. I allowed assumptions about another woman to go uncorrected because correcting them would have required me to publicly stand beside the person I privately claimed to love.”
Jenna looked down.
Jackson continued.
“That was my failure. Not hers.”
Richard left the room.
Jackson finished the corporate statement.
Fleet grounding.
Federal cooperation.
Independent safety board.
Temporary suspension of his own executive duties.
When the cameras shut off, he walked toward Leela.
He stopped several feet away.
“I should have done that three years ago.”
“Yes.”
“I know it doesn't fix anything.”
“No.”
He swallowed.
“Do you still love me?”
Leela looked at him.
That was the terrible part.
“Yes.”
Hope moved across his face.
She stopped it.
“But I don't know if love is enough.”
His eyes closed.
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“I’m trying.”
Leela reached into her bag.
She handed him an envelope.
He stared.
“What is this?”
“I prepared it yesterday.”
Jackson opened it.
Petition for legal separation.
His face collapsed.
Leela whispered:
“I won't be your secret anymore.”
“You're not.”
“Not now.”
She stepped back.
“But I need to know whether you can love me when there is nothing left to hide behind.”
She walked away.
Jackson did not stop her.
That was the first sign he had learned something.
Then Agent Chen's phone rang.
Her expression changed.
“Dr. Voss.”
Leela turned.
“What?”
“Grant Cole escaped transport.”
Jackson stared.
“How?”
“Vehicle ambush.”
Richard looked back from the far hallway.
Too quickly.
Leela noticed.
Agent Chen continued.
“And Grant took something from the evidence unit before he disappeared.”
“What?”
Chen looked directly at Leela.
“Your original Sentinel root-key device.”
Leela went cold.
May you like
With that device, Grant Cole could authenticate himself not as an attacker—
but as her.
