Redheaded Redemption (Redheads Book 2)

by Rebecca Royce

  He shook his head. “Not nice to drag a partner to dark places with you, emotionally. Sometimes it’s better to just go through your life without inflicting your unhealed wounds on others.”

  “I agree, actually. I wouldn’t want to drag anyone down to my level.” I closed my eyes.

  He touched my hand. “What darkness do you know? I mean other than the Russian problem, which hit Layla. What hurt you, Hope? And a senator’s son?”

  I sighed. “They are overrated. Trust me on that.” Technically, we could trace the ruin of Max’s life to that guy, but I wouldn’t go there right now. “And I guess I don’t have darkness. You know me, just a flippant, snarky, bratty girl with too much time on my hands.”

  Max groaned and nudged my foot with his own. “Knock it off.”

  I grinned at him. “I think we’re landing.”

  We were. I stared out the window at the landscape below. Fifteen hours airborne, but it looked like we were really nowhere at all. The view consisted of bleak, desolate landscape with an occasional broken tree and burned-out building. Michael spoke into his phone, a SAT version I suspected wasn’t quite legal, and said a lot of things I couldn’t understand to the person on the other end.

  Letters and codes.

  “Roger that.” He hung it up. “We may have a problem,” he said to the group. “They moved. They’re actually on the airfield. Not expecting us, but a different group is arriving to take some of the kids and move some drugs. They aren’t going to be happy to see it’s us and not them, although they might not realize why we’re there, initially.”

  “How does he know?” I asked Max.

  His jawline hardened. “Just be glad he does. Probably some sort of satellite surveillance. Maybe someone quietly whispering on the ground. I don’t want to know. I used to be him. It’s too much shit, and of course, this whole thing is fucked up. It’s always fucked up.”

  Mitch yelled out from across the plane. “Bringing back memories, L.T.?”

  Max rolled his eyes. “Fuck off, Mitchell.” There wasn’t any meanness in his tone. Mitchell sounded downright excited, and I wondered if there was some sort of drive for their kind of work. Adrenaline or something else that made it almost addictive—like people got really excited to jump out of planes or attempt Everest. The need for the rush of being a hero the same as any other drug that people did on the street, only their addiction made them a lot of money too.

  Max grabbed his bag and pulled out his guns. Multiple versions. He strapped them to himself and then placed a helmet on my head. “Keep that on.”

  “Isn’t this yours?”

  “Right now, it’s yours, Hope.” He shook his head, like I’d annoyed him again.

  It hadn’t occurred to me that I might need to be armed, but as the wheels hit the ground, I really wished I had reconsidered the situation. Then I remembered Tim. He was out there, maybe on the runway. He knew his parents were dead, leaving him alone in the world with people who did not wish the best for him. Thinking of him—this little boy I barely knew but who needed me—steeled my resolve. He had no choice but to be brave, and certainly I could be brave for him until we were airborne again.

  We weren’t stopped long when Michael threw open the door and they were all out on the makeshift tarmac in the middle of nowhere. I glanced out the window and then ducked as Max pushed my head down.

  “Do not give them a target.”

  None of this had been the plan. We were supposed to land, then encounter the enemy group about twenty miles from the landing point, when the snipers would have the high ground. None of it should happen at the small airport in the middle of nowhere.

  Gunfire rang out, and I jerked automatically. I wished it were the first time I’d ever heard it, but I had been there when they rescued Layla. From a distance, but I’d heard it then too. This was different. I’d been terrified then for Layla but not at risk myself. The ping of the bullets hitting the plane was not something I could have prepared myself for.

  “Can they…can they break into the plane with their shots? Stop us from taking off?” When I looked out the window, I saw a gathering of men. More than I could count, all standing in a circle. They had us hugely outnumbered. It hadn’t occurred to me that any of us were actually going to die. The stealthy nature of the original plan meant no real risk to my team.

  But now? This was really, truly fucked.

  Max was ducked down low with me, his very large gun swung over his shoulder. “I wouldn’t worry about that. If they take us down, there won’t be anyone left to take us off anyway.” He squeezed my shoulder. “But I’ve worked with a lot of them, and the ones I haven’t…well, they seem pretty qualified. My guess is this is going to go just fine.”

  He thought this was going to go just fine? “Max…”

  “Not everyone out there knows how to fire a gun and end a life. They’ve thought about it, but they haven’t done it. They’re a lot of bullies, picking on small children and women. Everyone here knows how to shoot and move onward. That’s what they’re doing right now.”

  Something exploded, and I winced. “I’m sorry about this, Max. Really sorry you’re here when you should be, I don’t know, making a bouillabaisse.”

  He laughed, which surprised me. The situation really wasn’t funny. “You know I used to think a lot about food in moments like this? What I’d like to be eating instead of what I was doing. Then I’d stop and concentrate, but it was almost a pregame ritual for me. What would you like to be eating right now, Hope?”

  I gaped at him. “I might never eat again.”

  Chapter 15

  “Now that would be a shame. Food, you’ve told me, is your favorite thing in life. You can’t give up your favorite thing entirely. If you want to, say, cut one thing out of your diet because of this experience, that is fine. I’ll agree to that and only that. What thing will you be permanently eliminating after today?”

  He was trying to distract me, that much I understood. “Is this a technique you’ve used often? To distract someone from the gunfire and explosions happening outside?” I looked away from him. “Tim’s okay, right?”

  Max took my hand. “One thing. What will you give up to always honor how much this fucking sucks?”

  Was he serious? “Ah…I guess shellfish.”

  “No,” he mock gasped. “Not shellfish.”

  Something exploded again, and I winced. He placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. I managed to say, “Not shellfish?”

  “No, I make great shellfish. Something else.”

  This was making my head hurt. “I guess I would get rid of beets.”

  He nodded. “I like beets, but I can see getting rid of them. Fine. You’ll eliminate beets, and every time you see them on a menu and don’t eat them, you’ll remember this moment and the severity of it. You’ll say to yourself, I’m not doing that shit again.”

  “You’re insane.”

  He winked at me. “Little bit. That’s why I left this behind. I think they’re done.”

  Sure enough, it had gotten quiet outside. I tried to ignore the fact that I was actually shaking. My whole body vibrated like I was a machine that needed some oil. Hell, I was thinking nutty things too. Something pinged on Max’s belt, and he looked down at it. “They need you, and Michael says it’s safe to let you out.”

  It was? How had any of this happened? I hadn’t watched any of it, but it seemed rather unlikely that everything could already be fine. Max walked out in front of me, and I stared past him at the scene. Not everyone was dead. In fact, a quick headcount told me all of our people were fine. Dead bodies lay scattered everywhere, but others were just on their knees, their hands behind their heads. Clayton and the others walked behind them, big guns drawn, ready to fire at any time. Clayton was the one who caught my attention because he was actually whistling.

  As though nothing tremendous had happened at all.

  My vibrating limbs cooperated, and I spotted Michael squatted down, talking to three chil
dren, but his hand sat on Tim’s shoulder. The little boy lit up when he saw me, then he took off in my direction.

  I’d always thought it a ridiculous expression, but my heart really did fill up with gratitude. He was right there, and he was fine. I opened my arms to greet his incoming hug when I saw what was about to happen. It was funny, almost like it was happening in slow motion. Mitch treated the wound on one of the enemies who had been shot, so he didn’t see the guy next to him pulled his gun.

  I saw it, but I was the only one. He wasn’t pointing it at me or at Max. No, he intended to shoot down the beautiful child rushing toward me.

  I’ve heard that people can do tremendous things under stress, that adrenaline could make us sometimes almost superhuman. I didn’t know if that was what made my legs move, but I ran like someone’s life depended on it. I managed to knock Tim to the ground just in time to hear the gunfire. Max called out my name, and it sounded like it was in slow motion too, as though we’d suddenly found ourselves on a movie set where someone had reduced the sound.

  More gunfire, and a screaming child beneath me.

  “Okay. Okay,” I said to Tim. “I’m sorry. But I had to protect you. You’re okay. You’re okay.”

  “Hope.” His little voice called out to me as Max rolled me off the child. His face was pale, his eyes huge. Why does he look like that? What is wrong?

  Had Tim been hit? I stared over at the child we’d come all this way to save. He was covered in blood. No. It couldn’t end like this. He couldn’t be so tiny and shot.

  “Tim, it’s going to be okay. You’ll be okay. We’ll help you.”

  The little boy pointed at me. “You’re bleeding.”

  Me? I looked down at my gut. Sure enough, I was bleeding. Right above my hip and on my arm. Two places. “How did that happen?”

  It was like acknowledging the wounds made them hurt, made them real. They burned, and I cried out from the sheer agony of them. Max pushed me back, his hands coming down on my side above my hip, while Michael, who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, did the same on my arm. Everyone talked at once.

  Mitch asked them to move, so he could see, but Max screamed at him for losing control of his guys while at the same time telling me it was somehow all his fault. Michael said the same. Everyone competed to take responsibility for the fact that I was shot. The world tilted sideways, and despite my pain, I tried to smile at Tim while Max lifted me off the ground.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I told him. “You’re going home to your grandmother.”

  I wished I could have actually blacked out, but I’d never been a fainter. I tended to stay awake through ordeals. Apparently, Mitch poking at my bullet wounds as the airplane took off, leaving behind the disaster we’d left in our wake, was something I was going to have to handle fully conscious. I shook as he touched each one.

  “Stay with me,” Max instructed, his tone different than any I’d ever heard from him. He sounded absolutely in charge. It was different than the kitchen. I could see why people listened to him. He just acted like they should, and I wanted to do just what he said.

  “I’m not going to faint.” My voice shook, but I got the words out. Next to me, Mitch pulled out an IV bag.

  “This will help. But, yes, stay awake as long as you can.”

  I stared at him. “You think staying conscious will become a struggle?”

  “The pain meds will knock you out. That’s okay. Both bullets went straight through. That is very, very good news, Hope. I am so sorry about this. Despite what Max said, it’s my fault not his.”

  I laughed, which was strange considering that absolutely fucking nothing was funny. “This is my fault. But we got Tim. That was the point.”

  Michael paced back and forth. I wasn’t sure where he went when he wasn’t near us, but he kept coming and going.

  My head felt woozy, like gravity wasn’t right. “Am I going to die?” I had to ask. Not finding out wouldn’t make it any less true.

  “No,” Max answered, and I rolled my eyes at him. He was the least likely person there to know. Still, I decided to believe him. Maybe the painkillers were hitting me fast.

  Mitch touched my undamaged shoulder. “Rest. Lie back. Deep breaths. If you pass out, that’s okay. When you wake up, we’ll be in Germany.”

  Why were we going there? I almost asked, then I decided I didn’t care. Germany was lovely this time of year. I’d actually lived there for a while.

  Max was pretty much all I could see then, except for Michael when he would come into view before he disappeared again.

  There were things he had to know if I was going to die. I’d thought to take them to death, but maybe it was better to just get it out. Let him understand how things had been, so that he understood I hadn’t meant it, but why I had to make it better.

  “Max.” I lifted my hand, and he took it. “I want to tell you something.”

  He scooted a chair over to sit with me as the plane hit turbulence. I winced. That hurt, despite the fact that I wasn’t particularly feeling anything much right then. “It’s truth time, is it? That’s the drugs, baby.”

  I didn’t know what any of that meant. “Five years ago, I was dating Shawn Callihan Jr.”

  Max tilted his head. “Oh, that senator’s son. Sure. I know the one. Big on family values.” Yes, funny he was known for that, really, but I had no inclination to laugh. “He was my first boyfriend. I was nineteen. A virgin.” I had been sort of proud of it, not because I placed any judgement on when women decided to have sex for the first time or not. My pride came from valuing myself in some way, from having agency about who would touch me and who wouldn’t. “I guess I wasn’t getting with the program fast enough.”

  His face fell. He’d already looked pale and hard, but somehow, he became more of both. “Hope,” he said as he stroked my hair. “Fuck.”

  “Drugged me. I don’t remember much except the sense of what was happening. The sense that he raped me. The sense that he let his friends touch and play with me in the back of a bar. When I came to, I pulled up my underpants and left.”

  Michael’s face appeared then, angry, hard. Max pushed him back a bit. That was a strange interaction. What was happening?

  “I…I just got on with things. Asked my cousin in the State Department for help. He wasn’t interested in helping. Shawn’s family is untouchable. He can, however, produce oranges and onions.” I laughed at my own joke. “I was pregnant, but I wouldn’t know that for weeks. That night outside your restaurant—”

  He cut me off. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Let me finish. I don’t even remember being there. The doctors used lots of big words about the total blankness that is that time for me. Just a total and complete blank. Pretty sure I was puking because of the baby. Losing the baby, almost bled to death—that is how I got some help. Then they sent me away. To a spa, they told everyone, even my sisters. When I came back, I was expected to be fine again. So I’ve been pretending ever since.”

  Max breathed hard. In and out. I could hear each breath, as though they were audible, as though he struggled to breathe past the weight of my words. “I…”

  Once again, I stopped him. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew the meds were working, that I might not get this out. I had to finish before I couldn’t, before being in my right mind, whatever that meant, told me I had to keep this to myself. “But I can’t remember what I did. Didn’t know until I saw the video. Watched it over and over until I can recite every line. I can feel remorse, even though I can’t remember any of it. I know that I did it. I ruined your life, and I have to try to fix it. Like I had to get Tim. I have to. The things I do, plowing through life, with no regard for the mess I leave everywhere? I can’t allow it to continue. Someday, when I die alone in some Upper East Side apartment eaten by my cats, I have to know that things weren’t worse in this world just because I lived in it.”

  He rose, bending even closer, his hand remaining in my hair. “Hope.
” He said my name and then paused like it was hard to get out the words. “I’ve seen many brave things in my life, most of which I can’t speak about. Twice today, you have stolen my breath by the sheer force of your strength and courage. Saving this boy? Like this? People don’t do this, sweetheart. They don’t. They don’t send fruit to a stranger because they have to make amends. You consistently take my breath away. There isn’t anything else you have to do in this lifetime. You do not owe the world something for allowing you to exist in it. I think at this point, the world owes it to you.”

  That was so nice of him to say and the last thing I heard before the medicine swept me under to a dreamless sleep.

  I woke up to the sound of beeping. That was what registered first. My eyelids were weighted down. It took energy I wasn’t sure I had to wrench them open. I was hot, itchy. What was happening?

  “I think she’s waking up.” Layla’s voice. It was low, soothing. “Hopey? Can you hear me?”

  I nodded, or tried to nod. Finally, I managed to look at my sister. She sat on the edge of a hospital bed. I was in the bed. It was like my brain thought in short sentences. One thought, then the next, nothing adding up together in a sequence that made any sense.

  “There she is.” This time it was Bridget. She wiped my hair off my forehead. “You scared us, sweetheart. Got an infection, and you’ve been battling it. Can you hear me now?”

  My mouth was dry. “Give her this.” Max. I couldn’t see him, but he must have handed Layla the glass of water with the straw that was soon in my mouth.

  I sipped. “Hot.”

  “Well, you’re still running a little fever. A lot lower than yesterday. You’ll be better soon.” Layla kissed my cheek.

  “Just sleep, Hope. No one needs anything from you.” Max told me to, so I did just that.

  The next time I roused, I felt better. Thirsty and achy, but not hot. I forced myself awake, which was less than stellar because I was covered in sweat, and that was gross.

  Layla, who sat to my left, looked up first. Followed immediately by Bridget. Layla held Noah, who she quickly passed behind her to Zeke. Michael was to my right, behind Bridget, and he nodded to me. And Max, like a statue at the end of my bed, stared at me silently.