by Lea Griffith
His face tightened as if he’d argue, but then he brushed by her to his seat and there it was—the holy grail of backside views. She thought she heard angels singing and somebody yelling, “Hallelujah.” Allie shook her head. Her palms itched again, and she rubbed them on her jeans.
She couldn’t sit beside him. Not Mr. LMAO, with his minty, evergreen smell and his Irish eyes a-smilin’. No, no, no…
“Mademoiselle?”
She turned to the attendant vying for her attention. Oh, it was a mighty struggle because while Allie was looking at the attendant’s lovely face, her mind was all over the finger-lickin’ goodness beside her.
“Mademoiselle?” she prompted again.
Earth to Allie. “Yes?”
“Time to buckle up,” she said with a shy smile.
Allie sighed. “Geesh. Pull it together already.”
“Pardon?” the stewardess asked with a raised brow.
“Oh, sorry, not you,” Allie hurriedly assured her.
She took her seat and buckled in, but when her arm brushed against his (which was damn near impossible to avoid because the dude was huge), she burned. Allie jerked her arm away and felt more than saw his chest rising and falling.
The jerkface was laughing at her. Okay, that could totally kick this insane lust in the butt. Please laugh at me some more.
He didn’t, just went stone-cold still. She shivered. The buckle-up sign continued to flash, and the flight attendant began to run through the myriad rules for riding in a plane. Allie drowned it out by thinking of McDonald’s fries.
Yeah, the Golden Arches had some thirty thousand locations worldwide, but not one Mickey D’s had graced the country where she’d devoted the last three years of service. She was lost to the dream of salty goodness, her eyes closed, so the rat-a-tat-tat took her by surprise.
A large hand pushed her head down. “Don’t move!” he bit out.
“Hey,” she objected, but her comment was directed to her knees. She tried lifting her head, but his grip on the back of her neck was solid.
“We’ve got trouble. I need you to keep your head down, ’kay?” he whispered in her ear.
Trouble? Understatement, she thought. Shots fired were a bit more than trouble. Yet still, in the midst of obvious danger, she noticed his warm breath sliding down her neck.
A chill swept through her at another round of rat-a-tat-tat, which was definitely automatic weapon fire. Children and adults were screaming, and over it all, a hard voice demanded that everyone sit down.
Gunshots. Well damn. All her day needed was gunshots. “All I wanted was a mani-pedi and some hot, salty McDonald’s fries,” she muttered.
“What?” the man next to her asked.
Then every thought left her brain as a woman screamed. It was a scream Allie had heard too often—fear. Her instincts kicked in, and she reached for his hand to remove it from her neck.
“I said to stay down,” he urged.
She twisted his hand in a move her father had taught her, and he released her immediately. She’d surprised him with the move. When she lifted her head, her gaze found chaos. At least five men were holding AK-47s and shouting orders to people in heavily accented, broken English interspersed with…Arabic? Oh damn. That was so not good.
“Where is the woman?” one of them yelled as he shoved his gun in the face of a flight attendant.
She screamed, and the man lifted his rifle and shot in the air. The bullet punctured the aircraft, the projectile ripping a hole big enough for rain to begin dripping through. They wouldn’t be traveling in this plane any time soon.
Another man glanced up and down the rows, searching each one.
“The woman with white hair—where is she?” the first man shouted in heavily accented English. “I know she is on this plane!”
Babies cried, women sobbed, and still the men shouted orders in Arabic. Boko Haram, Allie thought. It had to be. Her dad had been worried about that particular terrorist group’s presence in Cameroon. Each of his communications had asked her to watch out for her safety. She had.
The one she’d identified as the leader pulled up a child by her hair. “You have three seconds, white hair, before I shoot this child between the eyes. Three,” he yelled.
“Do not stand up,” the man beside her murmured.
She’d managed to forget about him for a second. Allie turned her head and met his gaze. She heard his warning, felt his intent to protect her. Crazy how in the midst of everything that stood out.
“Two!” the leader yelled.
“I have no choice. They’re looking for ‘white hair.’ Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m the only white hair on this plane,” she whispered a split second before she stood. “I’m here,” she called out.
“Don’t!” Mr. LMAO said and then followed that with a harsh “Fuck me.”
The leader spotted her, and Allie glimpsed evil. His eyes blazed with malevolence. This man was beyond her realm of experience.
“Ah, good. It’s the white hair. What is your name?”
“Why do you need my name?”
The leader’s eyes went flat, and then he calmly turned to the child’s mother and unloaded a single round into the plane beside her head. The child screamed, and the woman grabbed her, pushing past the gunman and Allie as she ran toward the back of the plane. The gunman let her go, then raised his rifle and aimed it directly at Allie. She raised a hand to her mouth to hold back her own scream.
“Allison Redding,” she garbled out. “My name is Allison Redding.”
His brows lowered as confusion tattooed his face. He didn’t like her answer, but as quickly as the confusion appeared, it was gone. “Come to me, Allison Redding,” he demanded.
Allie didn’t hesitate, something telling her that if she did, the man would make sure the next bullet hit someone. The man searching the rows moved back to the leader and stood there, his threat implicit in the way he held his rifle. Hell, there were at least five of them, maybe more in the cabin ahead. Each of them with really big weapons and intent that colored the air black around them.
She came to the leader, stepping very carefully. “What do you want?” she asked the man who’d turned her world upside down.
“Oh, it’s really very simple,” he said. He stared at her with a grin that showed perfectly straight, white teeth. It was macabre how white his teeth were in his dark, gaunt face.
She met his gaze and her stomach rebelled. She was going to lose it. Keep your shit together, Redding. She waited, fear freezing her feet to the spot and her breath in her lungs.
“I want your head.”
Chapter 2
God save him from a stubborn woman! King had no idea what the hell she was thinking. He did however have a pretty good clue who had just hijacked their plane. Boko Haram. And wasn’t that just another surprise in a long list of them today!
He’d been waiting on this plane for a woman with blond hair, blue eyes, and a mole at the side of her mouth to board. The woman was alleged to be Vasily Savidge’s courier. King had been prepared to follow her all the way to France just for the chance of nabbing Savidge.
Apparently, everybody else in Cameroon was looking for the woman too—okay, maybe not everyone, but for sure King and the terrorists now holding AK-47s. What a mess. Just once he wanted a mission to go according to plan. Just fucking once.
Another shot pinged through the top of the plane, and King took a deep breath, pulling air into his lungs as he readied himself. The need to get his hands on Allison Redding pricked his brain, demanding action.
The lead terrorist was still yelling. King peeked around the corner of the seat in front of him and prayed the woman would keep her mouth shut. Yet even as he prayed, he knew it was a useless entreaty. Bravery like she’d just displayed was a commodity in most situations. In this one, not so much.
Most people didn’t venture into deadly situations like they were invincible. Even though he wondered at her insistence to tread where others feared to follow, she’d damn sure taken his breath when she stood up.
Hell, who was he kidding? She’d stolen a lung from him when he met her gaze moments ago. He’d not known blue that color existed. What’d you call that? Cornflower blue? Sky blue? Kick-me-in-the-nuts blue?
Because that’s what she’d done—kicked him straight in the balls with that wide-eyed gaze. Then she’d smiled and junk-punched him again with the curving of her mouth.
He rubbed a hand down his face. The interior of the plane was growing warmer. The pilots had turned the plane completely off. Rain pelted the aircraft outside.
He could feel death stalking. It was everywhere now. Instead of waiting until the plane was in the air to hijack it, they’d done so on the tarmac. What was their goal? Why did they want Savidge’s courier?
For that matter, why did King want her? Was she really his lead to Savidge or would this wind up being another dead end? Too many questions, and he had no clue what information she held. By her demeanor, lack of guile, and that damn bravery, she was an innocent. No way was she mixed up in Endgame Ops shit. But all arrows pointed to her—or at least his intel had. She had to be the courier, and if she wasn’t, well then, he was doing her a service by saving her ass.
If she was working with Vasily Savidge, Horace Dresden’s second-in-command, then King was doing himself and his team a favor.
Another discharge of a weapon, and King peered around the seat again. There was a third hole in the roof of the plane. The woman still faced the leader, legs shaking, shoulders stiff as if prepared for a blow.
Too brave. She’d be the death of him.
Think, King, think. He was weaponless but that in no way made him powerless.
The leader murmured quietly to the woman. The child she’d stepped in front of was weeping softly a few rows up from King.
“Tell me,” the leader demanded as he moved within inches of her.
“I don’t know,” she said with a slight catch in her voice. “My name is Allison Redding.”
The sound of a fist meeting flesh, followed by a sharp inhalation, rang in King’s ears. His hands fisted. Rage swept in a red wave through his body. Control. He couldn’t relinquish control. It’s what made him the best at what he did.
“Who is your father?” the terrorist demanded.
Unease skated down his spine. What the hell did it matter to these men who her father was?
“White-haired bitch,” the leader spat. “Tell me who you really are!”
No more playtime, then, King thought. It was about to go down. He really needed a weapon, and as he glanced around, he decided he’d have to pilfer one. His gaze fell on a small African man huddled against the side of the plane.
King motioned to the man, whose eyes widened. He shook his head furiously.
Time to be a hero, buddy. King peered around the seat again and waited until nobody was looking his way. He slid into the small guy’s row and took a deep breath.
“I need you to yell, okay?” King said a split second before he acted like he was about to punch the man in the jaw.
The man let out a startled yelp, the woman in front of them screamed, and then, thank God, one of the men holding a rifle came to investigate.
“What you do here?” he asked brokenly.
“I didn’t do anything,” King answered in a very low voice. The man leaned down, getting into King’s face just enough…
King struck, punching the terrorist in the throat, incapacitating him—okay, killing him—silently and without the bastard being able to call for help. He situated the terrorist in the seat between him and the small guy and checked the man’s weapon. Empty. Son of a… It was useless. King sat back and waited.
Silence had taken over the back of the plane. He didn’t meet anyone’s gaze, just kept his eyes straight ahead, cataloging sounds.
“You are American?” the small guy whispered. “You save us?”
King swiveled his head, held up a finger to his lips to signal for silence, and then nodded. The man visibly relaxed. And the leader continued to demand an answer to his question.
Another strike, another sob followed by a moan. Oh, that son of a bitch was going to pay. So hard. The woman, Allison, cried out again. That had King peeking down the aisle. She had turned partially in his direction. The leader held the gun to her head now.
King knew the man wouldn’t shoot her. Whatever the bastard wanted couldn’t be obtained from a dead woman.
“Turn around, and get on your knees,” the leader demanded, roughly shoving her until she did as he demanded.
That left her facing King. He met her gaze, and the rage he’d capped seconds ago threatened to overflow. Her cheek was bruising already. But her eyes, those gorgeous blue orbs that had danced with interest earlier, smoldered with defiance.
He stared at her, and in a move so subtle he doubted what it was, she nodded at him. And there was zero fear in her eyes. Okay, that was different. And certainly not the action of a woman innocent to the ways of subterfuge and warfare.
The leader pressed the gun against the back of her head, and there was the fear. Then it was gone as quickly as it’d come, and her eyes cleared as her jaw clenched.
The bastard pushed the barrel into her skull, and she tumbled forward. He pulled her up roughly by her hair. She winced and hissed in pain.
King needed a bit of a distraction to get things going. She licked her lips as he stared at her. His eyes zeroed in on the bruise forming on her cheek. Something tightened in his gut, vicious and undeniable. She’s hurt. He pushed the thought aside. Now was the time for action.
“Who is your father?” the leader demanded for what had to be the fifteenth time.
Even King wanted to roll his eyes. Allie actually did. Goddamn it. She was crazy.
“Abdul?” one of the leader’s men called out and handed him a phone.
“Yes?” the leader, Abdul, said into the phone. “But he said…”
Silence reigned, and Allison’s eyes widened slightly as the leader continued to hold the phone. Her gaze shot up to meet King’s. What was she hearing?
Abdul tossed the phone, and it clattered to the floor. King wanted to know who’d been on the other end. Badly.
There was a galley at the back of the plane, which meant there was a door to the outside. If he could herd her back there, she’d be safe.
Adrenaline flooded his system. Her eyes remained on his, even while Abdul grabbed another handful of her hair and yanked her backward.
“Wait!” King yelled as he stood up.
Every rifle in the place turned on him.
“Sit down! Sit down!” one of the terrorists yelled.
She moved then, reaching up and grabbing Abdul’s head while she smashed her own against his. Bastard never saw it coming. She’d knocked him out cold. Instead of allowing him to fall back, she pulled him forward, slightly over her shoulder, as she straightened and began making her way to the back of the plane, using his body as a shield. Abdul hadn’t been much bigger than she was, but she managed to pull him with ease.
It all went down so quickly that it took the remaining terrorists a moment to figure out what had happened. By that time, King was there, grabbing Abdul’s gun and firing in rapid succession, quickly eliminating all targets. He located the phone the terrorist had discarded, scooped it up, and turned to her.
“Get to the galley. There could be more,” he said in a low voice.
“Who the hell are you?” she asked softly as she stood rooted to the spot for an endless moment.
“Get to the galley at the back and open the door. Do it quickly. Do it now.”
Children screamed, while grown people shouted as they all clamored to get out of the
front of the plane. Panic was in the air, but no more gunshots rang out. If the terrorists had help, they didn’t yet know what was going on.
King reached over, pushed Abdul from her grip, and his gaze narrowed again on her cheek. He brushed over the growing mark with his thumb. “He hurt you.”
Confusion clouded Allie’s face and she cocked her head, staring at him as if she’d never seen anyone quite like him before.
He shook his head, the sight of her big, blue eyes almost undoing him. He motioned her to the back and said simply, “Go.”
He reached for the small guy he’d almost clocked as the man tried to pass and said, “Tell them what happened but stay vague about us. Do you understand? Tell them all”—King motioned over the plane’s fleeing occupants—“to remain vague about us.”
It was unlikely that the two-hundred-odd passengers would keep silent about the blond who’d head-butted the lead terrorist. Or the giant American who dragged her away. Chances were that his and this woman’s faces would be all over the local news. But if even a few of the passengers negated the story, that mixed intel might buy them a bit of time.
The guy nodded and King took off. He rounded the corner of the attendants’ galley and noticed Allie had the door open. Rain sluiced in, wetting everything in its path. She stuck her head out and peered down, then pulled her head back in, spearing him with her gaze.
“It’s a long way down,” she said mournfully.
“Drop and roll, darlin’,” King responded. “Drop and roll.” Then he was out the door, dropping like a stone and rolling once he hit the ground. He pushed to his feet and glanced around. Security was pouring out onto the tarmac, and sirens could be heard in the distance. A luggage transport machine was rounding a corner, and they didn’t have much time.
He looked up at her, held out his arms, and yelled, “Jump!”
She didn’t hesitate. Good thing she was tiny because she fell right into his arms.
“Thanks,” she murmured.
He didn’t respond, just put her on her feet, grabbed her hand, and hailed down the luggage cart. He told the man they needed a ride to the terminal. The airport employee didn’t even blink—like random Americans came up to him every day asking for a ride in the middle of the pouring rain. He dropped them as far as another plane and told them they had to walk.