“I don’t think I could ever hate you,” I told her. “I tried hard not to even like you.” She smiled, and I went on. “You did what you thought you had to do in order to save your child. You gave her to someone that you knew would give her a good life. That had to be harder than anything I could even imagine, but you did it, for her. I’d be a terrible person if I wanted to hold any of that against you. My mother left me because I was an inconvenience to her. Those are two completely different things.”
“I can’t imagine anyone ever wanting to leave you,” she said softly. I gently pulled her up on her toes by her arms and brought my lips down to cover her mouth. I wasn’t in the mood for soft, gentle kisses. I wanted her so badly that it was tearing me up inside. I kissed her hard and with a passion that would leave her lips bruised and swollen. As soon as my tongue came out, she parted her sweet lips. I slipped it into her mouth and probed the darkest crevices and recesses of it. She was pressed into me so hard that I could feel the pounding of her heart in her chest…or maybe that was mine. I wasn’t sure, but I liked the idea of them beating together.
I didn’t stop kissing her until I could no longer breathe. When I pulled back, she actually let out a little whimper that made me want to re-think the need for oxygen. Our breaths were ragged, and it was several moments before either of us could speak.
Alicia spoke first, “Where are we going with this, Ryder?”
“I don’t know, but I know where I want it to go.”
“And where is that?”
“I want us to get to know each other better. I want to take you out on a real date. I want to take you down to Lake Pontchartrain and rent a sailboat and show you what being on a real boat is like. I want to take long rides on my motorcycle and feel your warm body holding onto me while the wind whips through our hair…and someday Alicia, I want to make love to you, all night long.”
I saw her swallow hard and then with a little smile she said, “I want all of those things too, but…”
I put my finger to her lips. “No buts,” I told her. “This mess will be over with soon, I promise you.” I couldn’t really promise that but I had faith in my friends and I had enough determination for all of us. She didn’t deserve a man like Abel and she definitely didn’t deserve to go to jail. I was going to give everything in me to make this right for her. I was going to do whatever I had to do in order to see her smile and know that she was happy.
I took her hand back, and we started walking again. Abrahem’s neighborhood was quiet and well-kept. As we walked I looked at the houses and caught myself imagining Alicia and me living in one someday with her daughter and maybe a child or two of our own. “Alicia, have you spoken to Dante or his wife since you got to the States?”
She shook her head. “No, not at all. I’ve been so tempted, but I had to watch every step and I was terrified Abel would have me followed.”
“Alicia, make me a promise?”
“Okay.”
“I told you once that you’re not a prisoner and I meant it, but please never leave that way without telling me again. I’ve been through hell on my tours in the Middle East and Kuwait and nothing terrified me like I was when I woke up this morning and you were gone. Thank God Blake was back in town. If we hadn’t found you…”
She put her hand on my face. “You did find me. I promise. I’m sorry. I can’t even imagine what your Granny is thinking of me.”
I smiled. Granny was the one that woke me up and told me she was gone. Within minutes of getting home, she had me loaded up into T-Bo’s truck and headed to New Orleans. “She thinks you’re too skinny, and as soon as we get a chance she wants us back out for dinner. She said she’s making Gumbo next time.”
Alicia laughed. Music to my ears. “I can’t wait,” she said. “And I’m ready to go back in there and figure out where to go from here.”
I pulled her in for another hug and brushed my lips across the top of her head. “Let’s do this.” I couldn’t wait for this to be over and for Alicia and I to have a chance at a real relationship.
********
Three hours later, Abrahem and I sat in a small aircraft at Mobile Regional Airport waiting for Abel’s plane to land. “This is what passes for a U.S. Air Force plane?” Abrahem said with a distasteful look on his face.
I shrugged. “I was Navy, so don’t judge me for it. You should see our jets, they’re bad ass.”
He laughed. “Unfortunately, I’ve only seen the underside of them as they dropped bombs on my country.”
“Sorry, bro. Technically, this is a civilian patrol plane. It belongs to Angel Flight.”
“Cool, I guess I’ll stop dissing it then. What time is this fool’s plane supposed to land?”
I looked at my watch. “According to Vlad, the flight plan said he’d touch ground about three, so any minute now.”
“I’m surprised Blake didn’t take you with him to Mississippi.”
I chuckled. “Because you’re afraid I’m going to take this guy’s head off when I see him?”
“Kind of, yeah. I’m not in love with the girl and I’d like to do it.”
“Whoa…in love?”
Abrahem rolled his eyes. “That word scare you, bro?”
“Look who’s talking. I haven’t known you to be in any kind of relationship at all in all of the time I’ve known you.”
“You’re just trying to change the subject,” he said. “We weren’t talking about me.”
“Now that you mention it, we never talk about you. You could be an Iraqi spy in our midst for all I really know about you.”
He laughed. “Man, you’ll go to any lengths to keep from admitting that the mighty Ryder Grant is in love. What is that about? You worried about all of those pretty girls that are gonna have their hearts broken when they realize you’re off the market?”
“Oh look, a plane.” He rolled his eyes again, but we both watched the small tan-colored jet touch the ground.
While we waited, I thought about what he said. Am I in love with Alicia? I’ve never been in love before so I really had no idea what it was supposed to feel like. I knew that I was incredibly attracted to her, more so than I’ve been to anyone before, ever. I knew that I loved talking to her and listening to her talk. I loved the sound of her laughter, and I hated the idea of her suffering in any way. I knew that I want to wrap her up in my arms and protect her from the world. I knew that I’d be willing to take another bullet…or ten, to keep her safe. Damn. Maybe I was in love with her. Who knew? I glanced over at Abrahem, and he was grinning at me.
“You’re thinking about it now, huh?”
“Mind back on the mission, man.”
He turned his head back toward the plane, but he was still laughing. “They’re opening the doors.” The doors on our plane were already open. We were in a direct path from where Abel would step off the plane and make his way to the car we’d already decided was waiting to pick him up.
“Get in position,” I told him. I slid my gun out of its holster and stepped out the open door of the plane. I stayed flat against the side of it just in case they were looking out the window of theirs, and I ducked underneath the wing. I made sure to stay far away from the front propeller, and seconds later, Abrahem started the plane and it spun to life. I couldn’t see the other plane from where I was but my radio crackled softly, and I heard Abrahem say, “Our subject and two men headed in your direction. In five…four…three…two…go!”
I rolled out from underneath the plane and was up on my feet in half a second with my gun trained on the three men. One of them went to reach inside of his jacket. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you and fond of that hand.”
“What’s the meaning of this?” Abel asked. Then, in his grand arrogance he asked me, “Do you know who I am?”
I smiled at him and with my gun trained right between his eyes I said, “Yes, I do. You’re a kidnapper, a drug trafficker, a rapist, and a wife-beater to just name a few. Now, you’re my prisoner. Get on the pla
ne.”
“Screw you.”
I lowered the gun slightly and carefully moved it to the right before pulling the trigger. The bullet hit the bodyguard in the kneecap, and he went down. “Now, are you going to make me waste more bullets?”
“Screw you,” he said again, this time enunciating each word slowly, as if he were talking to an idiot. I shot the other bodyguard in the foot. He screamed, as he hit the ground.
I had the gun back on Abel and I said, “Tell the men approaching me from behind that I have a hair trigger on this thing and unless they have a sniper in position somewhere there is no way they’ll be able to take me down before I put a bullet in your head.”
I could tell that he was considering his chances. He didn’t take long before holding up his palm and stopping the men rapidly approaching. I wasn’t worried either way. I knew that Abrahem was already in position with his own gun trained on them and he was a crack shot. “Good move. Now, get on the plane.” I stepped around so that I was behind him and the two men from the car were in my side vision. As soon as Abrahem appeared in the doorway, I turned my gun on those two and said, “Drop your weapons and get on the ground.”
The first one dropped his. “Kick it away.” He did as I told him. “Now get on your stomach and tell your buddy in about five seconds I’m going to shoot you if he’s not on his.” He grabbed his buddy’s arm as he dropped down to his knees. The other guy gave in and tossed his gun about six feet away before they both lay down on their bellies. I went over and picked up their weapons. Then before I got on the plane, I took the guns off of the two writhing on their backs on the pavement.
“You’re just going to leave us here?” One of them grunted out.
“I’ll call 9-1-1. You boys have a nice day…Oh! Welcome to the U.S. of A.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
RYDER
“You’re a pretty good flyer.” We were about ten thousand feet in the air. The plane we were riding in was an old parachute plane, so it had a hatch on the side that I’d left open. Abrahem was flying, and Abel was sitting across from me staring at me like I was an idiot even though he was the one with the gun pointed at his head.
“Thanks, bro. This is my first solo.” I tried to keep a straight face as I watched Abel’s change slightly.
“Really, man?”
“Yeah, and I haven’t really even had any formal training. When I was a kid in Iraq, we used to go out to the airport on Saturday nights and hotwire the planes…”
“Oh, will you two buffoons just shut up already!” I heard Abrahem snicker, as I glanced back at Abel.
“You’re on a plane with an open door and a gun pointed at your head, you know that, right? I mean, if it were me I’d be nicer.”
“You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into here.”
“Oh, I think I do. Just because you’re a legend in your own mind doesn’t mean the rest of us feel the same. As a matter of fact, I think that pushing you out that door would be doing a public service to my fellow man. The only thing stopping me is that I need you to make sure those bulldogs that follow you around sniffing your butt have their orders to back off of Alicia.”
He rolled his eyes and snorted. “Right, I’ll tell them to leave her alone as soon as she gives me what is mine.”
“What is yours? You talk about your own child like she’s a piece of property.”
“She told you she kidnapped our child?” He ran his eyes over me and said, “I guess you must be…”
“Don’t say it, man. It’s already taking everything inside of me not to throw you out that door. But, if you say anything nasty about Alicia, I just might not be able to control myself any longer. To answer your question though, she told me that she removed her child from an environment that would very likely be detrimental to her. That just sounds like plain old good parenting to me.”
“It sounds like…what is it called here, a felony?”
I laughed. “Only if you’re around to testify. I have a feeling that you won’t be.”
“You won’t kill me.”
“What makes you so sure? I’m sitting here right now just itching to prop you up in front of that open door and put a bullet in you. Then I’d sit there on the edge of the plane and watch you fall until you’re out of sight. See, I’ve put a lot of thought into this.”
I started to move toward him and Abrahem called out over his shoulder, “Ryder! Blake said you can’t kill him yet—unless you have to.”
“You wouldn’t lie and say I had to?”
“Eh, maybe for a price. But won’t it be more fun to wait and kill him in front of Alicia?”
“You have a point.”
That earned us another, “Shut up you buffoons!” Abrahem and I both laughed.
Our flight was just over half an hour. We landed at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi. Being ex-military afforded us a lot of advantages. I warned Abel that he was surrounded by military men, and if he tried anything stupid, he would be shot on site. I herded him out of the plane and into one of the training buildings closest to us. The base was used as a training facility, and Blake was told by his contact that these buildings would be mostly empty today. While I got Abel comfortable, Abrahem turned the borrowed plane back over to the Angel Flight team. When he showed up several minutes later, he had two sodas in one hand and a bag that smelled like bacon in the other.
“You brought lunch?”
“Angel flight guys had some breakfast burritos.” He opened one bag and stuck his nose inside. He wrinkled it and said, “Bacon. It’s yours.”
I took it happily. I hadn’t even realized I was starving until I smelled the pork.
“Ah, this one is mine. It’s beautifully vegan.” It was my turn to wrinkle my nose at him. I started to take a bite of mine when Abrahem said, “What about him?” He tossed his head in the direction of Abel, who was now restrained in a chair with a pair of plastic cuffs on his wrists and ankles.
“He’s fine. I’m sure he just ate before he left Russia twelve hours ago.”
“It was sixteen hours,” he said. “But yes, I did just eat a very nice meal on the plane.”
“So happy to hear it,” I told him sarcastically with my mouth full.
Abrahem sat down, and we ate silently while Abel glared at us both. Blake was supposedly on his way, but it was over an hour after we landed before he finally showed up. He had two men in suits in tow. They looked like FBI or CIA to me. “This is him?” he said, glancing at Abel.
“That’s him.”
“Typical small man that has to beat up women to make himself feel big.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Next to this guy here,” Blake cocked his head at me, “I’m your worst nightmare. My name’s Blake Donovan, and these gentlemen here are Special Agents Hanson and Bright. They have a few things they’d like to discuss with you, starting with an explosion that happened over in New Orleans last week.”
“Kiss my ass.”
“Wrong answer,” Blake said. “Ryder would you mind showing our guests in?”
“Not at all.” I went over and opened the door for Alicia and Aleks. Abel was trying to keep a straight face, but it wasn’t working for him.
“That’s the one you need to be arresting right there,” he said. “She kidnapped my daughter, and I’m sure he helped her. Where is she?”
Alicia looked him in the eye and said, “You’ll never see her again. Me, on the other hand…you’ll be seeing a lot of me as I testify against you in court.”
He snorted. “Right.”
“She’s serious,” Aleks said, “and so am I.”
Abel narrowed his eyes at Aleks and then turned to one of the FBI agents. “Exactly what is it you think you have on me? I haven’t committed any crimes in the United States.”
“Well, like Mr. Donovan said, there are the arson charges and Charles Bonaparte’s murder.” He looked at his watch and back at Abel. “Our witness is in route now from Moscow. I can’t p
romise anything, but I’d be willing to bet that once he gets here he’ll remember a lot of other things. I’m sure he wouldn’t want you getting out of jail any time soon.”
“I’m a Russian citizen.”
“True. We’ll see how many charges we can manage, and then a judge will decide whether or not to hold you over for trial or deport you.” Abel looked like he was about to smile, and the agent went on, “When you return to Russia, you’ll be charged in the murders of Karissa Melua and Bennie Gorev.”
“Who the hell is Bennie Gorev?”
“He’s one of the men who beat up your wife at your behest and then paid for it with his life. Personally, I don’t believe he deserves justice, but if getting you for his murder gets you off the streets, well, then it was all worth it.” Bennie and Karissa’s bodies had both been found thanks to information Aleks gave. Blake relayed that info to Vlad, who took the authorities to the location. Aleks agreed to go back to Russia and testify. He and his sister had both had enough.
“None of it will hold up.”
“We’ll see,” Blake said. “In the meantime, it could take years of shuffling you back and forth between Moscow and the States while it all gets sorted out.”
Abel turned on Alicia then. “You bitch! This was all you. If you had just done as you were told, none of this would have happened. Where is my daughter?”
Spit flew out of his mouth as he screamed at her. I was clenching my fists but still willing to let it pass until he took a step toward her and said, “You’re trash just like your mother.”
I wouldn’t normally hit a guy with his hands cuffed behind his back, but this guy was begging for it. When my fist connected with his face, it actually felt good. Maybe I should be ashamed of that, but I wasn’t. I looked down on him—and even as blood poured out of his nose, the arrogant S.O.B. started to open his mouth again. He was at least smart enough to reconsider. The F.B.I. agents pulled him to his feet, put him in real cuffs, and took him away before somebody else lost it on him again…maybe me.
RYDER: A Standalone Military Romance (Blake Security Book 1) Page 13