“Whatever happened in the past is the past. Trust me.”
His brows arched upward in disbelief.
She reached across the table and gave his forearm a gentle pat of comfort. “You worry too much.”
He gave a halfhearted shrug. “We lost many years because of my work, and she is like her mother, stubborn.”
The ex-wife, she remembered from his dossier. They’d divorced ten years ago, and the wife had taken their daughter with her and remarried. Felix had fled deeper into his work, spending almost no time with the young woman who’d wanted her father in her life.
“I abandoned her,” he continued, his eyes watering. “I let a bad divorce and animosity between her mother and me keep me away.”
“You’re not the first.” She knew the platitude sounded weak but felt unsure of what else to say. Deserting his daughter had been wrong, but he was making amends, or trying to. Didn’t that count for something?
He continued, “What I hate to admit is that part of me was glad. I wanted to work. I loved work. My research was more important than anything, including family.”
“And now?”
“I am grateful for a second chance at forgiveness.” He smiled, his eyes crinkling at the outer edges. “She didn’t get that generosity from her mother.”
She chuckled, glad he hadn’t lost his sense of humor. “She almost lost you. That changes everything. We always think we’ll have time. We think we’ll have forever, and then it’s gone.” She snapped her fingers for effect.
“You know loss, don’t you?” Now it was Felix who patted her arm. “Is it your papa? Did he pass away?”
Eva flinched at the unexpected shock of hearing the words aloud. It was a truth she kept hidden from anyone and everyone. Including herself. She didn’t think about it. Didn’t mention it. And sure as hell didn’t discuss it.
But how could he know that? She took a long, deep breath. “A long time ago,” she said, keeping her voice calm and detached despite the tightness in her throat.
“Your mother? Where—”
“Gone,” she said before he could finish the question.
He nodded and let silence fall over them. Was he going to ask how her parents died? She hoped not. Not wanting to have that discussion was one of the reasons she didn’t talk about their deaths. People were morbid. They wanted details. When? How? Did she still cry at their loss?
The last question always amazed her. Her parents were dead, and it didn’t matter if it was by car-wreck, a mugging gone wrong, or if they had been gunned down by a Colombian drug lord—the end result was the same.
She missed them every day. Fifteen years later, it still hurt as much as the day she’d lost them. She rubbed the hem of her shirt, the red silk smooth against her skin, then faced the window, not wanting to share her grief with even someone as kind as Felix. “Still nothing but farmland.” She watched the shadow of the plane skim over the geometric fields of brown and green.
“I am sorry for your loss,” he whispered.
“It’s okay.” She kept her gaze on the earth below. “It was a long time ago.”
“Still.”
Words and sadness hung in the air between them. Her pocket vibrated, saving her. Per Quinn’s request, she’d accessed the plane’s Wi-Fi network when they boarded the plane but hoped he’d trust her enough to leave her alone.
She pulled out the phone and swiped opened the screen. A text from Quinn. Of course.
How’s the transfer?
Seriously? She shook her head and typed, We’re in a plane. It’s dull as dirt. Ask me again when we’ve landed.
“Is it bad news?” Felix asked, leaning toward her, trying to read the screen. “Is Pauline still meeting us?”
His daughter was supposed to be on the plane with them but had cancelled at the last minute. She was a bank teller, and her boss had refused to let her off work.
“Relax,” she assured him. “It’s Quinn, making sure you’re okay.”
He waved away the concern. “Tell him that I am in the best of care.”
She smiled. Let Quinn suck on that.
Felix said to tell you I am doing a great job.
I expect no less.
Ass.
Is there anything else, or can I get back to work? she typed.
The plane has moved off course.
Oh. That explained the sudden text.
Another text popped up. Weather?
It had been a smooth flight with blue skies all the way. Weather is fine. I’ll talk to the pilots. She rose, stretching as she did.
“What’s going on?” Felix asked.
“Everything’s fine. I’m going to get an updated ETA for Mr. Cranky-Pants Quinn,” she said.
Two steps down the aisle, and the plane’s floor dropped from beneath her feet. She went airborne, automatically putting her hands over her head to lessen the impact as she hit the ceiling. The quick descent ceased, and she slammed into the floor. The clatter of metal against metal rang out from the galley as unsecured items slid and crashed in the small space.
Air masks dropped from the ceiling as the plane leveled off but then tilted sideways.
Had the hull been breached? Was an engine out? She grabbed the leg of a seat and held on. The plane continued its tilt, taking her stomach with it. She swallowed hard, forcing the rising bile back down. The rolling slowed, then stopped with the plane’s wings nearly perpendicular to the ground.
Somewhere, Felix screamed for help. “Seatbelt!” She shouted. She had, maybe, fifteen seconds before she passed out. Eva crawled up the seats. Grabbing the closest mask, she pressed it to her face and sucked in the oxygen.
Plastered against the window, Felix struggled with her order. Tugging on the mask above the biologist, she placed it over his head, then resecured her own mask.
She managed to buckle the seatbelt around his slight frame. Slowly, the plane began to tilt back the way it had come, then normalized out. She waited, but there was nothing. No scent of fire. No mad rush of wind that signaled a hole.
And no word from the pilots. She waited a few minutes, then took her mask off, pausing to see what would happen. There was no hint of oxygen deprivation.
What was going on up there? She rose and headed toward the cockpit. She heard Felix unbuckle himself. “Stay.” She pointed back at his seat, not breaking stride. The last thing she needed was for him to reopen his wounds or gain new ones.
Grasping the handle on the cockpit door, she tested it. Locked. Of course. She pounded on the metal. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”
No answer.
The hairs on the back of her neck rose, and she beat on the door again. She heard the distinctive click of a lock being opened, and the door swung outward. On the other side, in the left seat, was the pilot. The right was empty with the copilot standing in front of her, a gun in hand.
“Wait—”
He raised the weapon overhead, and she went for the gun tucked in the small of her back. Too late. The butt of his gun hit her temple. There was a sharp pain, then nothing.
…
Eva woke to find herself belted back into her seat, her hands tied behind her back. Next to her, Felix stared out the window, his arms bound as well.
She shifted, trying to relieve the tension in her shoulders. He turned as her movement caught his eyes. “You’re awake. Are you all right?”
She nodded, and lights flashed across her vision with the movement. She bit back a groan. “A little woozy.”
“Don’t move. It will pass.”
She gulped air, exhaled once, and then again. Her stomach settled, and her mind cleared. Time to get back to work. Slowly, she scanned the cabin. They were alone. The traitorous pilots were back in the cockpit. “Lean forward,” she said. “I need to see what they used to tie us up.”
He did as asked. And she recognized the familiar, white plastic of a zip-tie. Dammit. That meant they’d need a knife to cut themselves free. She frowned. “I’m going
to go to the galley and see if I can find a knife. Wait here.”
“You can’t leave. They’re watching us.”
She glanced around the cabin and spotted the camera mounted above the cockpit door.
Patience, Quinn’s voice murmured inside her head.
I know, she thought in reply.
For now, her hands could wait. She shifted in her seat, and her stomach lurched again. She probably had a concussion, but at least she was alive.
“Have they said what they want?” she whispered, trying to remember but coming up with nothing but blackness.
“It seems they plan to kidnap me.”
Kidnap him at forty-thousand feet? “What? Why?”
“They have not said, but I can guess.” His shoulders slumped. “There are things you do not know about me, Eva. Things I have done. Things I am capable of. Terrible things.”
Him? She’d read his dossier before the rescue. A scientist and professor who did occasional fieldwork, which for someone is his early late sixties was a tad surprising but surely not kidnap-worthy. “What are you talking about?”
“My work for the government.”
“Which government?”
“I...I can’t say.” He twisted in the seat. “Suffice it to say that my work didn’t involve peace.”
A biologist in warfare? The reality of his work was suddenly apparent. “Bioweapons?”
He nodded, his face deepening to a dark red. “And suppressives. Chemicals to calm populations to facilitate a peaceful invasion.”
Her stomach flipped for a third time, but she knew it wasn’t because of the large lump on her head. The thought of Felix creating such insidious weapons was almost unbelievable, but she’d seen the worst of humanity in her job. Seen what cruel things even the nicest-seeming people were capable of.
Still, Felix? He wasn’t that man. Couldn’t be. But the shame in his eyes was undeniable. And she’d helped him. She closed her eyes, processing her own actions in freeing a monster of a man. “That’s why you were in Colombia, wasn’t it? And that’s why your company was eager to get you back.”
“To help my government find new ways of hurting people? Yes. But not anymore,” he said with unmistakable urgency. “Not anymore. I meant it when I said I changed. That I planned to take advantage of my second chance. I will not help them. I swear.”
Anger bubbled inside her. Anger at herself for being duped. Anger at Felix for not being the man she wanted him to be.
But the more rational part realized that his confession only made saving him more important. If the kidnappers succeeded, who knew what they would force him to create? And despite Felix’s determination and claim that he wasn’t dangerous, anyone could be coerced with the right motivation.
She might not be sure of her own feelings toward the man she was sworn to protect, but she knew what had to be done. Her job. She leaned her head on his shoulder. “We need to free our hands. If we do, I can stop them.”
“What do you propose?”
“I need you to distract them,” she whispered. “Tell them you have to use the restroom. Fake a heart attack. Anything. I just need a minute.”
“They said they would kill you if I tried to resist.”
“I’m willing to risk it.”
He hesitated. “They said they’d kill Pauline.”
There it was—his greatest weakness. As sure as she’d seen the truth in his eyes about his past, she saw the truth about his daughter. He wasn’t going to risk Pauline’s life, not even for her. But then he couldn’t see past the immediate circumstances, and she couldn’t help but focus on the future repercussions of his actions if whoever the pilots were working for used his genius to create God-knows-what.
“Do you think she’ll be safe?” she pressed. “If they take you and you succeed, anything you develop can be used against her and probably will.”
He hunched down low but still shook his head no.
Stubborn fool. There was only one way out of this mess.
“Where’s my phone?” she asked. It had been on the table when the plane dropped.
“I picked it up when they weren’t watching. It’s in my jacket pocket,” he said.
Finally, she’d caught a break. “Turn a bit, and I’ll get it. We have to call Quinn.
“I can’t,” he said, cringing away from her and against the wall.
All pretense of sympathy vanished. “You don’t get the luxury of fear, Felix. Lives are on the line. They won’t see you. Help me. Now,” she finished, spitting the last words out through a clenched jaw.
Praying the pilots were more concerned with flying the plane than the two restrained prisoners, Eva maneuvered her hands into the jacket pocket, and retrieved her phone. She swiped the screen with her thumb. “Is it on?”
“Yes.”
“Does it show Quinn as the last person dialed?”
“Yes.”
Thank God for smart phones. Tell me when my finger is on the call button.” With one eye on the cockpit door, she traced the edge of the phone.
“There,” Felix whispered.
She tapped her fingertip on the screen. The ringing was low but audible. She found the volume on the side and turned it up until the ringing was clear.
The ringing stopped. “What the hell is going on, Eva?” Quinn’s deep voice sounded annoyed.
“We’re being hijacked,” she said, ducking her head so the pilots couldn’t see her shouting in case they decided to check in on their captives. “I’ll need some help.”
There was nothing but silence for five seconds. “Are you sure?” A hint of panic edged his voice.
“The pilots knocked me out and tied me up. I’m sure.”
A grumble sounded through the receiver. Was that a growl? “What do they want?”
“Felix.”
“Shit.”
“I know.”
She heard him take a deep inhalation. “Give me the details,” he said, his tone all business. All work.
As much as that part of him annoyed her, it reassured her now, telling her that that he had her back, even from thousands of miles away. Then she pushed the thought away. Anything less than total focus on saving herself and Felix would get them both killed. “Two men. Armed.”
“Do you know where they are going?”
“They didn’t say anything,” Felix interjected.
“Not much to go on,” Quinn said. “Don’t attempt to escape or take over the plane. I’ll have people on the ground when you land. We’ll go from there.”
It was bad enough that she was trussed up like a goose, but now he wanted her to wait on the sidelines. Did he want her to get fired? “I can take them,” she said.
“With your hands tied?”
“I’ll get Felix to help.”
“And if you do, can you fly the plane?” he asked.
“I have a pilot’s license,” she countered but knew it didn’t matter. This was a jet, which was a different beast from the Cessna she’d learned on. “But no. I can’t.”
“Then we need the hijackers to land it. Now for once, do as I say.”
Behind her, the click of a lock told her the pilot was coming back. She let the phone drop to the floor. It was doubtful that Quinn would be able to hear anything, but any chance at all might help.
The cockpit door opened, and the man who’d knocked her out earlier emerged. He strode down the short aisle. Over six feet. Blond hair buzzed short. Blue eyes. Almost boyish except there was sternness to his mouth that told her he was a man who had done horrible things and was prepared to do more. He stopped at their seats.
“Hi. Andrew?” she said, glancing at his name tag. “If that’s your real name.”
“Shut up,” he replied.
She clamped her lips tight. She couldn’t place his accent. New York? Whatever it was, it sounded like something from the East Coast. “Who are you? What do you want?”
He grabbed her by the arm, hauled her to her feet, and tossed her into the
aisle in front of him. She stumbled, but maintained her footing.
Reaching over to Felix, he pushed his head toward the table, whipped out a knife, and cut the biologist free. “Put this on.” He tossed a harness on the seat. While to most, the pile of straps might seem like nothing, she recognized it immediately. It was for a tandem parachute jump.
“You have got to be kidding.” Sure, Hollywood made it seem like jumping out of a 747 was a piece of cake, but the reality was that no one jumped from a jet. Not even something as small as a Gulfstream. “You’ll get us killed.”
“There is no us,” the pilot replied.
And there was the rest of the plan. They were going to take Felix and leave her on the plane—tied up and helpless. She hoped Quinn caught some the conversation but knew it was unlikely. Even if he could, what could he do?
It was up to her to save herself and Felix. “This is a jet,” she continued, unable to hide her condemnation for the man. Was he stupid, desperate, or both? “You might be an expert, but Felix isn’t. He’ll get sucked into the engines.”
“No, he won’t,” the man replied.
“How do you plan to get around it?” she asked.
The copilot walked out, wearing a parachute pack. He could have been the first man’s brother. Perhaps he was. The metal wings on his chest said “Michael.”
“Well?” she pressed Andrew.
No answer, at least not to her. “I said, put that on.”
Apparently, they were smart enough to not monologue. Great. Felix took the harness and in seconds, managed to get his legs tangled. “I need help.”
Michael came over, and Felix shook his head. “Her. Not him,” he said, indicating Eva.
“Not happening.”
Felix crossed his arms, and she worked to keep a smile off her face. She’d seen his stubbornness firsthand, but it seems he’d finally grasped the fact that leaving her tied up was a death sentence.
Of course, it was a bit late, but it dampened her earlier disappointment in him.
“Untie her and give her a chance, or I will fight you every step of the way,” Felix said.
Instead, Michael grabbed Eva. He narrowed his eyes, brows drawing inward to form a “V” over the bridge of his nose. Whatever he planned, it had nothing to do with keeping her alive.
Risking It All for Her Boss: A Heroes for Hire novel (Entangled Ignite) Page 4