Taking Flight (A Devereux Novel)

by Whiskey, D. G.

  He took three steps before something wrapped around his neck and a weight settled on his back, bearing him to the ground.

  Ahh! The grip on his neck let him do no more than gargle, the fierce scream inside his head instead of the challenging roar his body intended to produce.

  His face fell against the hard asphalt, his hands rising to his throat to try to free up his windpipe. He found an arm there digging into his Adam’s apple. A man lay on his back, the weight pinning him and preventing him from moving.

  His attacker was silent, making no sounds, no demands, and not even breathing audibly. Derek’s choked gasps were harsh to his own ears, and his vision grayed from the lack of oxygen.

  Derek wormed his fingers in beside his throat and pulled as hard as he could. It barely made an impact, but it was enough that a trickle of glorious air found its way to his deprived lungs. He breathed shallowly, conserving as much strength as possible and buying himself time to think. This could be the same man from the other night—the driver who had outraced him and almost caused his demise, back to finish the job.

  Oh, hell no.

  Derek struggled to get to his elbows, fighting to lift both his own and his opponent’s weight against gravity. The position gave him the extra leverage he needed, and he squeezed his head further down, getting his chin out of the deadly lock that the other man’s forearm had held against the soft tissue of his throat.

  He bit into the arm, not averse to using whatever tactics necessary to emerge victorious. But instead of sinking into flesh, his teeth encountered something solid and unyielding, and Derek had to let up on his bite before his teeth shattered.

  What the fuck? Is he wearing armor?

  It explained why the forearm had been even harder against his neck than he was used to from sparring and wrestling; it wasn’t just bone that he struggled against.

  Derek used all his muscle to try to lever the arm away from him and get to his feet. It didn’t do as much as he expected, as though he fought against someone with superhuman strength. Derek’s own strength waned, and the arm closed back in.

  In a desperate maneuver, Derek let one of his hands go to launch his elbow backward as hard as he could manage. The pointed bone landed with a solid blow, and thankfully it didn’t feel like there was any unnatural armor covering his adversary’s body. It caught the other man right in between the ribs, and a startled exclamation and wheeze rewarded Derek’s efforts. The grip on his neck loosened, and he broke free.

  Derek leapt to his feet and turned to face his attacker. The man wore a balaclava and a mask that didn’t match the suit and shined leather shoes covering the rest of him. The headwear obscured his face except for dark eyes that darted back and forth, examining Derek’s stance and defenses in the way a trained professional would.

  “Who the hell are you, and what do you want?” Derek asked.

  The man didn’t talk, but instead feinted to the side with such speed that Derek stumbled trying to adjust.

  He cursed internally, but hoped the mistake might make his opponent underestimate him. If he could pretend he had gotten lucky before, then maybe he stood a chance.

  With that in mind, he loosened up a little, dropping his guard to something more appropriate for an amateur. It was impossible to tell if the attacker bought his ploy with the mask covering any hint of expression.

  Just as he hoped, the man came at him in a straightforward manner, dropping all pretense and swooping in with a lightning-quick attack. Derek had the perfect counter lined up to use his adversary’s momentum against him, but just as he was about to execute it, the man wasn’t where he expected him to be.

  Oh, no.

  He hadn’t fooled the attacker at all—he’d been duped the same way he had hoped to lure in an easy attack. Instead of crushing the man with his counter, Derek found himself levered over with a level of grace until he toppled, sprawling onto the ground. He prepared himself for the other man’s follow-up, expecting another chokehold.

  “Derek! Help’s coming, hold on!”

  It was Sara’s voice. He had never been so glad yet terrified to hear another person.

  “Sara, get away from here!” He looked up to see the back of his attacker as the mysterious man sprinted down the alley in the opposite direction of Sara’s voice. As he watched, the man took an incredible leap up to a high window ledge and flung himself upward, grabbing onto the edge of the roof above and swinging over top with a small flip of the body. Just like that, he disappeared.

  “Are you okay?” Sara had run up beside him as he watched the graceful escape of his attacker. She knelt down and put her hands on his back. “Are you hurt?”

  He sat up and winced. His neck felt sore and stiff, like he wouldn’t be able to move it at all tomorrow. “I’m fine. I think. He didn’t use a weapon, I’m just going to have a few bruises. I’m lucky it’s not worse, it’s a good thing you got here when you did. You said help’s coming?”

  He didn’t want to talk to the police about this, but it appeared as though he wouldn’t have a choice. At least now he had two separate incidents to report, although they wouldn’t be pleased there was more to the car crash than he’d let on.

  She looked guilty. “Well, no. I wasn’t sure you were in trouble until I saw you fighting, and then it was too late to go get anyone. So I ran down here screaming, hoping it would throw him off and you could get the upper hand.”

  Derek stared at her in disbelief. “You’ve got serious balls on you, you know that?”

  For a lady, she looked inordinately pleased with herself at his comment. “Thank you. If there was one thing I always wanted, it was a big set of manly balls.”

  They locked eyes for a moment, and then both burst out laughing until she helped him get off the ground.

  “Who was that, anyway? I wasn’t under the impression billionaires were mugged in back alleys often.”

  “We aren’t. And as for who it was…” He looked at the spot where the attacker had disappeared onto the rooftops. “That is a superb question.”

  Sara didn’t want to concern Derek by examining him under a microscope, but she stole sidelong glances as they made their way back to the club. He looked scuffed up, but it took keen observation to notice the few places where the fabric of the suit had snagged and frayed a little under the duress of the fight. Her eyes drew back up to his face, the proud cheekbones and intense eyes lost in thought. She didn’t blame him.

  “I’m not sure if it’s a great idea if you hang around me too much anymore,” Derek said. “It’s dangerous, and I couldn’t forgive myself if I became the reason someone else got hurt.”

  Her eyes felt like they would bug out of her head. She had been having the same thought, but in the opposite direction. Whoever left the threatening note on her front door must have also been after Derek because of her investigation, and it was her fault he’d been attacked.

  “You don’t think it was a random mugging?” she asked. “I mean, this is the city. These things happen sometimes.”

  His look showed how little credence he gave to that idea. “What mugger attacks someone without saying a single thing? He didn’t stop and try to intimidate me out of my wallet or watch. He landed on my back and tried to choke me out straight from the drop. That doesn’t fit the profile of any mugger I’ve ever heard of.”

  Sara kicked at a rock that stood up on its end in front of her. It skipped along the alley a satisfying long distance, the gentle plink, plink, plink fading to nothingness. She didn’t know what to say. This was almost worse than if Derek had been the force behind the threat. That, at least, would have been something she could face head-on, and either stand up to or back away from. That he remained the good guy she had sensed and was under attack himself because of her actions made things more difficult.

  “I guess you’re right. Are you going to do anything about it? I don’t want to stop spending time with you.” It was the truth. And not just for the sake of her story.

  Derek
furrowed his brow, and when they came up to the rock she had kicked, he gave it his own swat and sent it tumbling ahead. “I’m not sure, to be honest. He was a good fighter. Great fighter. And he knew what I would do in response to every move he made. And then the way he got away so easily, climbing up that wall… There’s something more to this, something deeper than anything I can understand at the moment.” He cocked his head to the side and slowed down. “You’re used to investigating these types of things, aren’t you?”

  “Uh, what?” His question caught her by surprise.

  “I have no leads, no information about who might have attacked me. And this isn’t the first time, either. And my brother… Let’s just say that there might be a concerted effort to remove Devereux influence from the world. That’s not something I’m just going to lie down and take, but I need help in figuring out how I can fight back. Have you ever investigated something like that before?”

  Is this for real? The target of her investigation was asking her if she could… investigate him?

  “I… well, I don’t have a ton of experience at cases like this. I rarely get involved in things with a potential for violence, but I’ve gotten close.” She didn’t want to give him reason to stop trusting her, but she had to be honest with him, at least in this much. “Still, I’m confident I can make progress on it. Plus I don’t like seeing you at a loss for what to do. It doesn’t suit you.”

  He rolled his eyes. “You’ve got that right. I’m in unfamiliar territory and need a guide. Does that mean you’re willing to find out what’s going on around me and my family? I can trust you, and that’s more than I could say about any random person I might hire off the street.”

  She stopped walking, and he did the same. She took his hand in hers. It was scraped and a little bloody where it had scrabbled against the asphalt to break the attacker’s grip on his throat. “I promise I will do everything I can to solve this. You are a good guy, Derek, and I don’t like you in jeopardy.”

  I hope you never find out it may be my fault. And I hope you’ll forgive me for the deceit I represent. If this was a different situation, and I was here for a different reason, then maybe things would have a better chance of working out between us. She didn’t see that happening the way things were going. It felt like she roared along at a hundred miles per hour straight into a brick wall.

  “Excellent. Do you want to come to my place tomorrow night, and we can figure out where to begin?”

  She would never turn down a chance to spend time at his amazing house in the hills. “I would like that.”

  They continued walking, but he never let go of her hand. The contact warmed Sara deep down in a way she was almost ashamed to admit to herself. She played a very dangerous game, weaving tangled webs of obligation and emotion, and it became difficult to keep the strands straight.

  It was hard to slide back into the club unnoticed, and more than a few cameras turned their way once people recognized Derek. Hopefully his black suit could hide the harm it suffered, otherwise the tabloids would have all new fodder for their morning stories: the billionaire appeared all scuffed up returning from an alley with a woman he had been seen with multiple times already.

  When they returned to the VIP section, they found Becky surrounded by people. Sara doubted her roommate had even noticed their absence as she chatted with a veritable onslaught of actresses and models.

  Wow. I knew she was outgoing, but I never realized she could run with this crowd so easily. It made Sara happy, seeing her friend come into her own after so many struggles.

  Maybe Evan was right. Distancing ourselves from the company might not have been the wisest move. Not to mention coming out and living large so publicly.

  Derek had spent a long and sleepless night thinking about the danger to his life. During two years of partying, socializing and having a great time in Los Angeles, he hadn’t had cause to be worried about anything. Even his pastimes, dangerous though they seemed to the average person, had never worried him. He’d always felt in complete control while flying or driving; he could always count on his honed reflexes to carry him to safety, even while pushing the machines to their limit.

  This threat could change everything. He felt as though he were on the edge of a precipice, and it wouldn’t take much to shove him over into oblivion. First the incident being run off the road earlier that week, and then the attack that night while at the club.

  He pulled on the collar of his shirt. He could still feel the arm of the man, hard as steel, digging into his windpipe and threatening to choke out his existence. Life had never seemed so fragile and fleeting as it did after being so utterly in another human’s power and coming so close to the end.

  The company might offer answers or a solution. Derek didn’t understand the details of the business, and the executive board had never offered them, but they had a lot to do with military contracts and operations. The way his attacker moved and fought was a sign he had received serious training, and it was possible there were people out there who had been on the wrong side of the battlefield from the company and wanted revenge.

  It was the best theory he had to go on, and so he dug up the last quarterly statement, emblazoned with the strong Onyx Company logo, and he called the number on the front. It didn’t even complete a full ring before someone answered.

  “Good morning, Mr. Devereux. How may I help you?” It was the voice of a lively young woman on the other side.

  He was taken aback. They either had access to his phone number, or else they had given him a specific number no one else had access to. He hoped it was the latter.

  “Good morning. I want to set up a meeting with a director. I have questions, and I would like answers to those.” He didn’t want to go into too much detail on the phone with a secretary.

  “Very well, Mr. Devereux. Our Los Angeles offices are located in the U.S. Bank tower downtown. Would two o’clock this afternoon work for you?”

  “That would be fine.”

  “Excellent. We will have a representative waiting in the lobby for your arrival. Please let us know if we can do anything else for you.”

  ~

  Derek took a more understated car than was his habit. He didn’t drive for pleasure this time, and he was particularly wary of making himself too noticeable after the events of the night before.

  The U.S. Bank building was tall and impressive. It cut an imposing chunk of the sky out as he walked up to it, but Derek drank it in. He had long ago moved beyond the point of being intimidated by the kinds of things that affected most people.

  “Mr. Devereux! Please come this way. My name is Cindy and I will be your liaison with the company.”

  He no sooner walked up to the front doors than they opened for him, and he was ushered into the large lobby by what sounded like the same young woman he had talked to on the phone. She led him to the bank of elevators, maintaining a pleasant level of deferential chatter as they went.

  “It’s a pleasure to have you to our L.A. office, sir. I understand you have not toured many of the company’s facilities, and I believe you will find the offices here, while fairly mundane, to be suitably impressive.”

  They entered an elevator, and he couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow when she pressed the highest button on the panel.

  “Top floor? That can’t be cheap. Surely, the company has better things to spend money on than prime office space in a city I’ve been told isn’t even the headquarters.” It seemed like an absolute waste to him, but then again he wasn’t the aspiring businessman. He’d let Evan figure it out.

  She nodded. “It’s not cheap, but it helps to be impressive when entertaining clients. It’s true we are one of the smaller office locations—the New York offices are even grander.”

  The elevator ride took some time, but that was to be expected considering the heights to which they traveled. It went by quicker than Derek expected.

  The door opened onto a tranquil lobby, complete with a bubbling water feature
. Green ferns and shrubs followed the water, a distinct contrast to the black marble that lay underneath it all. It was an interesting blend of hard and soft, living and inanimate. Over it all was the Onyx logo, a large symbol emblazoned on the wall. Derek caught a bit of a chill at the sight, despite it being his father’s own company he’d built from the ground up.

  And now it’s ours. Remember that.

  He still felt like a petitioner who may not be deemed worthy. It reminded him of the infrequent audiences with his father while growing up after his mother passed away. Those meetings had always filled him with nerves and trepidation, the worry that his progress in his studies since the last meeting hadn’t been enough to impress the stern man.

  “This way, Mr. Devereux.” Cindy gestured him through a pair of double-wide doors, and into an elegantly paneled oaken hallway. It felt like the interior of a luxury resort, not a business office. It was hard to believe it was all necessary.

  A benefit of not being publicly listed. He and his brothers were the only shareholders, and he already had enough money he could never spend it all. Once more he wondered what exactly the company did that it could print and waste money at will.

  They didn’t have far to go before Cindy held open a door into an expansive boardroom for him. His attention drifted to the view outside the windows, the extreme height showing him the city as it looked from the cockpit of his plane or helicopter.

  “Mr. Devereux, your visit is a surprise, but it’s good to have you with us.” A man approaching his sixties stepped forward, one of eight people who stood in a respectful semi-circle around the entrance of the boardroom. Derek shook his hand—it was warm and papery, as though he spent most of his time inside air-conditioned rooms without enough humidity. “I am George Carter, and I’m the director of the Los Angeles branch of the Onyx Company. I’m sorry for your loss. I knew your father well. He was a good man with extraordinary vision.”