Chapter 2 - The Price of Arrogance
Ryan Sterling didn't bother hiding his amusement. He leaned against the handrail of the air stairs, looking down at Allara as if she were an insect inspecting his boot. He had spent thirty years flying the ultra-rich, and he fancied himself a connoisseur of elite society. To Ryan, wealth had a very specific look, smell, and attitude. Allara possessed none of them.
"Look around you, young lady," Ryan said, gesturing broadly at the rain-slicked runway and the massive matte-black jet. "This is a seventy-three-million-dollar machine. The people who step foot on these stairs have names that make Wall Street tremble. They don't show up looking like they just crawled out of a dumpster behind a diner."
Allara stood her ground, the cold rain soaking through her oversized sweatshirt. Her fatigue was rapidly being replaced by a cold, sharp anger. She had spent the last seventy-two hours working miracles in a lab to secure a patent that would change modern medicine, and now she was being lectured on class structure by an overpaid employee who washed his hands in Evian water.
"If you would just look at my identification, Captain Sterling, you would see that my name is on the flight manifest at the very top," Allara said, keeping her tone remarkably steady despite the brewing storm inside her.
"Manifest?" Terra interjected, stepping down to block the second step. "I printed the manifest myself four hours ago. The only passenger scheduled for this leg is Dr. Allara Banks, the founder of Banks BioTech, accompanied by her chief legal counsel who is meeting her at the destination. Dr. Banks is a distinguished corporate pioneer, not a muddy vagrant looking for a warm place to sleep."
"I am Dr. Allara Banks," Allara repeated clearly.
Ryan burst out laughing, a deep, resonant sound that echoed across the wet pavement.
"And I am the King of England," Ryan sneered. "Dr. Banks is currently in Manhattan attending a private philanthropic gala at the Plaza, or so her public schedule says. Even if she weren't, she certainly wouldn't look like a sophomore who missed her dorm curfew. Get off the carpet before I call airport security and have you thrown off the property for trespassing."
Allara looked at Ryan for a long, silent moment. She didn't yell. She didn't threaten. She simply pulled her hand out of her pocket, revealing her phone. The screen was cracked across the corner from a drop in the lab earlier that morning, but it was fully functional.
"You've flown my aircraft for fourteen months, Captain Sterling," Allara said softly, her eyes locking onto his. "You've been paid a quarterly retainer of one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, plus bonuses, all wired directly from my personal holding account. You've never bothered to look up who signs the authorization forms because you assumed a woman in her thirties couldn't possibly own the company that leases this jet to Horizon Global Ventures."
Ryan's smile faltered for a fraction of a second, replaced by a flicker of genuine irritation. Her confidence was unnerving, but his profound arrogance quickly reasserted itself. He assumed she was mentally unstable or simply delusional.
May you like
"Call whoever you want, sweetheart," Ryan said, waving a dismissive hand. "Call your mom, call your therapist, call the local psychiatric ward. But you aren't taking one step onto this aircraft."
Allara tapped the screen twice. She didn't call security. She dialed the direct line of Marcus Vance, the chief executive officer of Obsidian Aviation Management, the firm that handled the day-to-day operations of her private fleet.
