“Anna, jump,” said my dad.
“All three of us,” I continued to Maxim. “Let all three of us go. You’ll be halfway over the Gulf before the police find us.”
“Who says we’re going over the Gulf?” asked Maxim.
My mind shot through the alternatives. He wouldn’t go stateside; there was nothing for him there. He’d have to go over the Atlantic. Europe maybe? Alec had told me Force did business with big oil companies in the Middle East. Maybe that’s where he was heading.
“I don’t care where you’re going,” I said. “Just let us leave.”
Maxim gave a smug smile. “You seem quite concerned about the welfare of your private investigator.”
“Close that door!” called Jeremiah from the front of the plane.
Stein sighed. “Anna, would you be so kind as to shut the door. It’s the button right there to your left.”
His persistent calm was pissing me off.
“Move that gun and I’ll do whatever you like.”
Maxim snorted. “I’m hours away from losing my company—my entire empire. What makes you think I’m in the mood to negotiate?”
It was a diversion. The last I’d heard, he was winning. After what had happened with Jessica’s testimony, and my humongous failure, I’d doubted anything Alec had said would even be considered by the jury. Bringing down Maxim Stein had turned into the biggest white-collar cluster fuck since the creation of Wall Street.
My dad seemed to have had enough. He turned fast, throwing his shoulder into Maxim Stein. Jessica screamed.
“Go!” Dad shouted, just as the sound of gunfire cracked through the small space.
For a moment, time was suspended. No one moved. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t even hear above the rushing in my own ears. And then my father went still.
“Dad!” I rushed toward them, forgetting that Maxim still held a gun. Forgetting that I did, too. Only seeing my father, the first person who’d ever been straight with me, who’d really loved me, crumpling to the floor.
I rolled him onto his back, hands flying over his chest as the plane rocked to a sudden halt.
“Dad?” He was bleeding from the shoulder. Dark, red blood stained his already dirty shirt. The jacket had fallen off in the scuffle, and I grabbed it now and pressed down on the wound. His green eyes, still open, focused on mine with a hard, angry intensity.
“That was your break,” he muttered.
“I’m not leaving you.” I swiped at the tears dripping down my nose with the back of my hand. “How bad is it?”
He groaned as I tied the arms of the jacket around his shoulder.
“Just clipped me. Where’s the gun?”
I searched our immediate area, and zeroed in on the weapon still in Maxim’s hand. He pointed it in my direction now, and as I stared down the barrel, a dark despair twisted in the pit of my stomach.
“Dad,” Maxim said, still breathing hard as he picked himself up off the floor. “The things we do for kin . . .” His perfect wave of hair was mussed, and his cheeks had gone ashy white.
“What have you done?” Jessica shouted at her boss.
“What have I done?” Maxim countered. “We wouldn’t even be here if you’d stayed in Miami like I told you.”
“I couldn’t. You know that,” Jessica snapped. “He’d followed me all the way down the coast!”
It occurred to me she was referring to my father.
“And had you told Jeremiah he could have handled it then,” shot Maxim. “But because you didn’t, Anna’s father is now bleeding all over my floor.”
“What the hell is going on back here?” At the sound of Jeremiah’s voice I twitched, and turned to see him on the wooden aisle beside Alec. “You can’t fire a gun in here. Surely you of all people know that.”
In his hand was the weapon I’d dropped in my hurry to get to my father. It must have slid down the wooden aisle. Fear gripped me as I contemplated what he’d already shown himself to be capable of. This was not a man I wanted to be holding a firearm.
He assessed me with a chilly smirk.
“Last time I saw you, you had considerably less clothes on.” Jeremiah tucked the gun into the back of his belt and strode quickly toward the open exit. There, he pressed a button to raise the door. As it suctioned close, I felt our last chances of survival slip away.
We had nothing to lose now.
Jeremiah returned to the aisle to kneel beside Jessica. She’d been trying to fasten Alec’s wrists behind his back with a curtain she’d pulled off the window.
“And last time I saw you, you had a shiv in your back,” he said to still unmoving Alec.
“There’s a special place for people like you,” I growled at him.
He looked up at me, and for a split second a memory overlapped with the present. I could see him as he’d been in the bar, just after he’d bought me a drink. Eyes bright and grin dangerous.
“You believe in karma?” he asked. “Think I’m going to get what’s coming?” He stepped on Alec’s back while Jessica hurriedly tied the knot. Now that he had a gun he seemed to find this whole thing amusing.
“I know you will,” I said.
“What does that mean for you?” he asked. “You must have done something really bad to end up passed out in the back of my car.” His voice lowered. “Do you even remember taking off your dress? Oh that’s right, I did it for you.”
A spike of fury had me rising to my feet, but I held tight as Maxim’s weapon pressed against my side.
“Get your kid under control, Stein,” my dad said through his teeth. “Or I’ll do it for you.”
For a flash I wondered if my dad had found proof that Maxim was Jeremiah’s father, or if he was still relying on the information Jessica had told me in St. Augustine. Either way, my father may have been flat on his back, but Maxim wavered when he saw the resolve in his eyes.
“Get this plane up in the air!” Maxim barked.
Jeremiah retreated to the cockpit.
Come on, Alec. Wake up.
The engine switched to a higher gear, roaring outside the closed door. We lurched forward.
Jessica stood, and inhaled through her nostrils. She marched over toward us. “Who did he tell?”
“It doesn’t matter who he told,” said Maxim. “By the time we hit Swiss airspace we’ll have new passports waiting for us.”
Confused, I glanced to my father, who forced a smile.
“Ms. Jessica Barlow,” he said to the secretary. “Looks like your apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”
Her eyes hardened.
“Barlow?” I said, blinking at the woman before me.
Max mentioned she had a kid once, years ago, but there’s nothing on paper. Alec had told me that when I’d first come to stay at the apartment above the restaurant.
“You’re Jeremiah’s mother?” I asked.
I thought of the night I’d met him at the bar, and the pictures, and how Jessica Rowe had taken them from her room at the neighboring hotel. She’d done this for her son. Her son had done this for his father. The rage grew sharp inside of me as I stared at her.
The plane picked up speed.
“The paperwork was buried pretty deep,” my father said. “But I found the name change documentation. And the birth certificate. No father listed, that must make you feel bad, doesn’t it Stein?”
Maxim snorted, and then laughed coldly.
“Should it?” he asked. “Little bastard got more than enough of my money.”
My mind turned to the high salary and cash bonuses Alec had told me Jessica received. Before she’d testified, she’d even told me that Maxim Stein had given Jeremiah money himself.
This family gave dysfunctional a whole new definition.
Behind Jessica, Alec’s head turned slowly to the side.
It took everything I had not to call out to him.
“Sit down!” shouted Jeremiah through the open door.
The force of the jet’s sudden acceleration pushed me back, and I had to release my father to keep from rolling down the center aisle.
“Stop the plane,” I said to Maxim. “I’ve called the cops. They’re probably already here. If you stop now, they won’t come down as hard on you.”
“It’s too late for that,” said Maxim.
The nose of the plane tilted up. I clung to the seat, one hand on my dad’s chest. He bent his knees, trying to keep himself from sliding down the aisle, but it put more of a strain on his shoulders. With his arms bound he could barely move.
“If you’re not going to get rid of her, tie her up and put her in the luggage compartment,” said Jessica. She took a seat and fastened her seat belt. Behind her, Alec’s foot twitched.
I stared up at her as the wheels left the ground.
“You had me back in St. Augustine,” I said. “I honestly thought you were scared.”
Her brow arched. “We all do what we have to in order to survive.”
I forced myself to look at her, even while Alec’s knee bent.
“Does that include sending your own child away to be raised by his aunt?” I asked. “Did Maxim make you do it? Or was that your choice?”
She glared at me, her Taser pointing at Alec’s back. “That’s not your business.”
“Must really piss you off that Maxim didn’t choose him as heir to the Force fortune.”
“He’s taken good care of us.”
“He’s paid you off, you mean,” I said. “So he could keep whatever number wife he was on happily ignorant.”
“Ease up, Anna,” warned my dad quietly.
“He kept Jeremy out of it,” she snapped. “I didn’t want my son falling into this life.”
“And yet here he is,” I said, “Driving your getaway plane.”
While I’d been talking, Stein had watched me closely. He gave a small nod now, as if impressed.
Alec rolled fast, taking Jessica off guard. He’d ripped his hands free from the bindings she’d secured, and slapped the Taser out of her grip before she could fire again. I dove for it, and as my hand closed around the handle I jammed the metal clamps against her calf—the closest part of anyone I could reach—and pressed the button. It shook as the charge ran up her leg, and she let out a short scream before arching back in her seat. Alec was already charging Stein, but stopped suddenly, as if he’d hit an invisible wall. A moment later I released the trigger of the Taser, frozen by the gun pressed to the back of my skull. Jessica slouched, every muscle slack, eyes closed.
“What’s going on?” shouted Jeremiah from the pilot’s seat. “What was that?”
“Nice of you to wake up, Alec,” said Stein.
“Max,” he said warily. “I’m not an expert, but I think you’ve exceeded the tether on your fancy ankle bracelet.”
Stein snorted. “House arrest didn’t really suit me. Fortunately, my probation officer felt the same way.”
“How much did you pay him?” I asked. Stein twisted my hair around his wrist and yanked my head back, pressing the gun to my temple. I siphoned in a tight breath.
“You don’t want to do that,” Alec said, in a voice that even now gave me chills. My dad was trying to push himself into an upright position, using a seat as leverage.
“Believe me,” said Alec’s old boss. “I don’t want to do any of this. But you’ve put me in a position where I don’t have much choice.”
I was hauled onto my feet, and automatically gripped a small stationary table as the plane continued to ascend. Stein forced the Taser from my hand and from the sounds of it, shoved it into his pocket.
“Put the gun down,” said Alec, balancing against the back of a seat. “You can’t fire it in here anyway. You’ll risk blowing out a window, destabilizing the cabin pressure.”
“And then we’ll all lose consciousness and the plane will crash,” finished Stein, and at the mention of crashing, Alec’s jaw clenched. “I taught you that, remember? I taught you everything you know. I paid for your goddamn college degree, Alec. I made you a king in this company.”
“There was only one king,” said Alec harshly, never taking his eyes off Maxim’s. “Everyone else was a pawn.”
Behind me, Stein scoffed. “You didn’t seem to mind until she came into the picture.” I bit my tongue as Stein bumped the barrel of the gun against my head. “Don’t be noble and try to tell me she had nothing to do with it. I know you, Alec. I’ve known you a long time.”
“No, you’re right,” said Alec. “She had everything to do with it.”
He took a step closer, and there was a fire in his eyes I’d only seen traces of before. There was no way Maxim couldn’t feel the power coming off of him. It terrified me, and Alec was on my side.
“If she wasn’t around,” Alec said in a low voice, “I wouldn’t care what you did. I wouldn’t care what I did. But she makes me decent, Max, and that was something you never tried to do.”
He moved closer.
I could hear Max’s clothing rustle as he shifted, feel his movement in the gun pressed to the back of my head. I kept my eyes on Alec’s, not allowing myself to wonder what would happen if he decided we’d done enough talking and pulled the trigger.
The plane hit a patch of turbulence, and Alec’s jaw clenched. My dad tilted again to the floor, and grunted in pain as he fell on his wounded shoulder.
“I tried,” said Maxim, voice raised. “But I failed. You betrayed me, Alec, and you won.” He laughed dryly. “My lawyer called just after you finished testifying. You know what he told me? Get your affairs in order. The jury will finish deliberating tomorrow, but they will find me guilty, and when they do, I’ll be ruined. Done. Because of you.”
“You ruined yourself,” said Alec, now only six feet away. I wanted him closer, so that I could touch him, run my hands over his chest. Feel him, if only for the last time.
Another bump in the plane. And this time Alec gripped the leather seatback with both hands. Sweat dripped down his jaw as he forced a shaky breath.
Maxim leaned forward, so that his chest came flush with my back.
“And now I’ll ruin you,” he said quietly, slipping the barrel of the gun down to the back of my neck. I shivered as I felt a puff of breath against my neck. “Anna knows it’s nothing personal. We’ve had this conversation before. Her skin really is quite soft, Alec.”
His eyes narrowed, but his rage felt like nothing compared to mine. It took over my body in a flash, and before I could think it through, I threw my weight backward and swung my elbow into his ribs.
The next moments happened so fast, they barely had a chance to lodge into my memory.
Maxim fell, though not because of me, but my father. He’d kicked Maxim hard in the back of the leg, and as he tumbled forward onto his knees, I was thrown to the ground.
“Move, Anna!” shouted my dad.
Alec charged just as I rolled to the side. He crashed into Max head-on.
“Mom?”
I looked back, just in time to see Jeremiah shaking his mother’s still form. When she remained limp, he dropped her, and stared at her in shock for one blank second. Then he turned, rage in his eyes, and clambered toward the other men. I saw him reach for the gun in his waistband, despite the fact that he’d been the one to yell at his father for firing earlier.
“No!” I screamed, and pulled myself up to my feet.
Jeremiah swung the gun in my direction, but it was knocked out of his hands by Alec, who’d turned when he heard my voice. Alec shoved me hard to the side, and I landed in a seat just as the plane hit another bump that threw everyone to the right.
In horror, I glanced up at the open, swinging door of the empty cockpit.
&nb
sp; Before I could rise, or speak, or even join the scuffle, there came another shot. I clapped my hands over my ears, hearing nothing but ringing as the plane lurched through another bout of rough air.
Jeremiah fell to the ground, bleeding from a wound on the left side of his rib cage. He threw back his head, gasping, revealing the full outline of the black star on his pale, white neck.
Our pilot had been shot.
Thirty-eight
“Jeremiah?” Maxim’s voice was the first sound that broke through the rush in my eardrums. He still held a gun, and it took a moment to realize he’d been the one to fire, not Alec. My gaze tore around the cabin, searching for a hole in a window, trying to assess what the destabilization of cabin pressure would feel like.
There was no sign we were going down. Not yet anyway.
Maxim dropped the weapon as though it were burning hot. It skittered across the floor in my direction, and I scooped it up fast. Before Stein could rise, Alec grabbed him around the throat and slammed him back against the side of a seat.
“Stop!” I shouted. “Alec, the plane. No one’s flying the plane!” I searched for the other weapon, and found it behind my father on the floor.
Alec didn’t release Maxim Stein.
“Anna, my hands,” said my father. “Untie them. Hurry.”
I rushed around Jeremiah to my father, finding his wrists rubbed raw from the rope that bound them. It took my fumbling fingers too long, but finally I freed him. He flexed his hands, shook them quickly to regain the circulation, and then took the gun.
It took some prompting for Alec to loosen his hold, but when he finally did, I tied Maxim’s wrists together as firmly as I could, and took the Taser for myself.
“Jeremy?” A weak female voice came from a seat down the aisle.
Alec’s expression was torn as he looked over Jeremiah Barlow, now shaking and curled into a ball on the floor. This man had stabbed him in prison, taken the woman he loved—I was sure there was nothing he would have liked to do better than let him die.
But he knelt, and reached beneath the man’s shoulders to pull him up. Jeremiah groaned in pain.
The Confession Page 32