Her Celestial Farm on the Scrapyard Planet (by Kay Lucas) novel Chapter 425

Chapter 425 The Last Chance

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Scapier looked up sharply, his eyes locking onto Maverick with an intensity that sent an inexplicable chill through him.

It wasn’t fury. It wasn’t hatred. It was something far worse than either.

It was the kind of bone–deep contempt and disappointment that only came from finally seeing someone for exactly who they were.

“Get out.” Scapier ground out each word slowly, his voice as rough as sandpaper on stone. “Get out of this house.”

Maverick opened his mouth.

“Get out!” Scapier roared it, and the tears broke free all at once.

Maverick stepped back. Then again.

He looked at Joan.

Joan was kneeling beside her father, one hand wrapped around his cold fingers, the other still holding her device to her ear as she spoke to the emergency dispatcher.

She looked up at him for just a moment. In that look, there were tears, there was despair, and there were emotions too complicated and tangled to name.

Maverick’s lips moved. He tried to find the words, and what finally came out was:

“Joan. Come home with me.”

Joan went still.

“Now,” Maverick said, his voice flat and unyielding. “Let’s go.”

Joan looked at him as if he were a stranger.

“He’s… he’s my dad,” she said, her voice unsteady. “He just collapsed. How can I…”

“I’m asking if you’re coming with me.” Maverick cut her off, and there was something in his tone that suggested the very last of his patience. “Right now.”

Joan’s tears fell faster, one after another.

She looked at her father lying on the floor. She looked at her mother, clutching him, weeping. She looked at her brother, his face streaked with tears, his eyes fixed on Maverick like a blade. Then she looked at the man standing in the doorway, his expression dark and closed.

She opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

“Joan.” Maverick’s voice dropped into something colder. “I’m giving you one last chance. Walk out with me right now, and you’re still the director’s wife. If you don’t…”

He let it sit for a moment.

“Don’t bother coming back.”

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12:34 pm

Chapter 425 The Last Chance

Jean’s tears came harder

She stayed on her knees. She didn’t phove.

Maverick waited three seconds.

Five.

Ten.

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Joan still didn’t move.

Maverick laughed.

It was a strange smile, equal parts mockery and relief.

“Fine,” he said. “Your choice.”

He turned around and walked out into the night without looking back.

The door swung shut behind him with a muffled, final sound.

In the living room, Marge’s cries were heartrending.

Scapier knelt on the floor with his arms around his father’s shoulders, his tears falling one by one onto his father’s pale, ashen face.

Joan held her father’s hand, shaking all over, her vision blurred completely.

The emergency dispatcher’s voice was still coming through the device. “Ma’am? Are you still there? The ambulance is on its way. estimated arrival in eight minutes, please stay on the line…”

Joan didn’t respond.

She just held her father’s hand and said it over and over. “Dad, don’t scare me. Dad, wake up. Dad…”

His device buzzed.

Maverick looked down, and the name on the screen froze him solid.

Deon.

The aide to Gregory Smith of the Fifth Military Command.

The person who had contacted him quietly nudged him into blocking the Planet A001 farm’s lane application.

The same person who had ignored every one of his dozens of attempted calls after everything went sideways.

The lane application had been reversed for less than a day, and now this person was reaching out.

Maverick stared at the name. His fingers tightened around the steering wheel until his knuckles went white.

He wanted to dismiss it.

He wanted to end the call before it started, block the number, and pretend none of this had ever happened.

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12:34 pm

A

Chapter 425 The Last Chance

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But he couldn’t.

This was a Fifth Military–operative.

He wasn’t in a position to refuse.

Maverick closed his eyes and drew in a long, slow breath. Then another.

His heartbeat eased back slightly, but the fire in his chest, furious and humiliated and suffocating, burned hotter.

He spent a long moment steadying himself, then pressed accept.

A face appeared on the device screen.

Late thirties, features composed and regular, a faint smile at the corner of his mouth that sat wrong somehow, like the expression of a cat that had already caught the mouse and was in no particular hurry about it.

“Mr. Jensen. You’re a hard man to reach,” Deon said, his voice slow and easy, with a distinct undercurrent of something pointed. “You finally picked up.”

2

Maverick arranged his face into the smile he’d

reflex now.

spent twenty–three years in the system perfecting, the one that deployed itself like a

“Colonel Barron, I’m so sorry, I completely missed the call. I wasn’t paying attention to my device.” He kept the apology light and smooth. “You’re reaching out this late, sir. What can I do for you?”

“No need to be so formal.” Deon leaned back in his chair with an easy, unhurried posture, his gaze fixed directly on Maverick. “I just wanted to ask how you handled the Planet A001 situation.”

Something clenched inside Maverick’s chest, but his smile didn’t waver.

“Colonel Barron, there was truly nothing I could do.” He let out a sigh, his tone carrying just the right measure of helplessness and grievance. “You wouldn’t believe the pressure that came from all sides. Senator Luke from the upper chamber got personally involved, and then the logistics departments from the Second, Third, and Fourth Military all came asking questions, and then Chief Quimby from the First Military himself…”

He paused there, watching Deon’s face.

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