Got it!
The helicopter pulled up. Elation filled her, and for the first time since she had woken up with her wrists and ankles bound she had reason to hope. Derek had come for her. He cared about her. Maybe even loved her.
The bar underneath her hands jolted and dropped a foot. Sara swung wildly and fought to maintain her grip. She looked over to see Chad staring intently at her across the underbelly of the helicopter, gripping the other landing skid.
Derek hadn’t flown away fast enough.
Sara screamed. It was a nightmare—it had to be. Chad’s dogged pursuit of her would never end until one or both of them was dead. All the while the same grim, focused expression remained burned into his eyes.
She kicked out at the man, but couldn’t reach across the distance. While she lacked the upper body strength to do more than just hang, Chad pulled himself up with ease and in no time was at the door of the helicopter. With Derek so close, Chad no longer paid her any attention.
He probably thinks I’ll fall by myself.
The thought made Sara look down for the first time since she had grabbed hold of the aircraft, and she immediately wished she hadn’t.
The city swam away beneath her, and it made her nauseous with the intensity and sheer height she hung above, at the mercy of the jostling of the helicopter.
Chad left the railing and entered the cabin, out of Sara’s sight. The jerking and twirling of the vehicle was the only hint of what happened inside, and it didn’t bode well for her. Her fingers were already exhausted and in danger of slipping, and if there were any wild maneuvers then she was a goner, set to fall to the city streets below as she had imagined from the safety of the tower earlier.
I can’t die like this.
It was a silly way to go. Falling from a helicopter.
Come on, Sara. You can do this. Sure, gym class was a long time ago, but you’re in decent shape.
Two years of moping around after Michael’s death had slimmed down her muscles, but she also didn’t have much fat and had little mass to lift. She heaved on the bar, pulling it toward her with the strength of desperation.
The helicopter flailed through the air as though piloted by a drunk, and Sara lost all the ground she had made and almost her grip as well, down to her fingertips as she gritted her teeth and prayed that the spiraling would end soon.
Just when she thought she would have no choice but to let go and plummet to her death, the spin calmed and she reclaimed her grip through an effort of sheer will. This time she pulled her chest all the way up to the bar and rolled her shoulder over it so her weight worked to her advantage.
It became easier to hold on, and then she pulled herself up even further. With trembling hands, she reached for the helicopter door and the relative safety of the cabin.
With her head above the floor of the cabin, Sara could see the epic fight inside. Chad was behind Derek, locking the billionaire’s head into a tight grip and pulling tight. The controls dropped from nerveless fingers, and Derek’s eyelids drooped.
“No!”
Sara planted her knees on the cabin floor and pushed herself at Chad, no longer concerned with keeping herself in the cabin. She only cared about removing Chad’s arms from her lover’s neck.
They collided harder than she expected, and she used her arms to shove the big man’s body as hard as she could. His mouth formed a round “O” and he let go of Derek to windmill and grasp for something solid as he teetered backward.
His hands found no purchase, but grasping mechanical fingers clutched at Sara’s arm and she screamed in pain as Chad dug into her flesh with superhuman strength. Sara’s body jerked toward the open door, and she caught the back of Derek’s chair as she was about to fall out.
“Sara!” Derek had recovered enough from the choke hold to see her plight. He locked his hands onto her forearm just as her grip slipped on the seat. “Don’t you dare let go! I love you!”
His eyes were beautifully dark and blazing with passion as he fought to hold her. If she had to see anything for the last time, she was glad it was him.
“I love you, too,” she said, and the words filled her with deadly purpose.
The flesh and bone of her arm was no match for the cybernetic hand. The pain was incredible as her limb grew more mangled by the second. Only the adrenaline of the situation kept her from passing out. Chad swung below her, dragged backward by the wind and hitting the side of the chopper.
Sara had played a lot of soccer growing up, a skill she never thought would be useful again. However at that moment she grew thankful of the long hours and buckets of sweat poured out onto the field.
With as big of a wind up as she had room for, Sara drew back her right foot and sent it flying into Chad’s groin. The pressure on her arm lessened, and the growl of anguish was loud enough to hear over the howling wind.
One more time she pulled back and then let loose as hard as she could.
Chad looked up as he let go, eyes shining with unshed tears as his hands, both human and mechanical, let go, unable to maintain their grip under the onslaught of pain Sara had unleashed. He hung there for a second, and Sara expected a scream that never came, the intensity fading from his face as he accepted his fate.
The man who had terrorized her over the course of the previous week dropped away, the silent fall anticlimactic after the terror of the day. One second he was there, pulling her out of the aircraft to her doom, and the next he wasn’t, little more than a speck against the backdrop of the city, fading to nothing.
Once he disappeared from view, the enormity of the earth below rushed into Sara’s mind, and she froze. If it weren’t for Derek pulling her back into the cabin, she would have followed Chad from a sheer lack of ability to move her muscles.
Then she was in Derek’s arms, looking up into his face. His rugged, handsome face.
“I love you!” she shouted again, delighting in the ability to say what her heart demanded.
He put his hand against her cheek. It was warm, but the way his eyes softened warmed her even more. “I know.”
He captured her mouth with his—a hard, fierce kiss necessary after nearly dying.
“I love you, too.”
“What is going on here?” Sara asked.
Derek chuckled. He was glad he wasn’t the only one to have that reaction upon seeing the state of his living room. He hadn’t counted on a textile mill springing up in his favorite space.
“Wait, let me guess. This is Becky’s doing, isn’t it?”
He loved her silvery laugh and how it made him feel. It was like a sip of champagne on a sunny morning.
“What else?” he agreed. He reached down for her hand, but found a cast instead. Chad’s final grab for survival had severely damaged her arm, and the doctors had put a cast on to protect it. His hand found her lower back instead and pulled her to him.
“Oh, hello,” she said, smiling up at him. Their bodies fit together like they were made for one another. A soft kiss sealed the perfection of their embrace.
“Now, where are those kids?” Derek asked. “We need to figure out where we go from here.”
“Kids?” A deeper version of Derek’s voice boomed from around the corner. “If I’m a kid, then what does that make the rest of you?”
“Evan, I’m glad to see you’ve joined the party,” Derek said. “I’m afraid you’ve missed most of the fun.”
They clasped hands, and Derek looked deep into his brother’s eyes. He saw only gentle concern there. The look deepened when Evan’s eyes turned to Sara. She looked worse than she was, but that didn’t stop Derek from assuming the same expression every time he saw his beloved.
“And you must be Sara,” Evan said as he took her hand. “Gary’s told me about you. I’m impressed you’ve tamed this wild one the way you have. You must be a special lady, and I’m looking forward to getting to know you and welcoming you into the family.”
If it weren’t for the harrowing life and death situation t
hey’d just overcome together, Evan’s words would have been outrageously serious for a woman he had dated for a week. After their past couple days, however, it made him laugh.
“Come on, Evan, give her space to breathe first, at least. We just got back from the hospital, and I’m starving!”
“No, it’s okay, Derek. I’m glad to meet your brother. We’ll have a lot to talk about.” Sara’s stomach rumbled. “Then again, you may have a point about the food.”
Gary and Becky joined from the patio, and they weren’t alone.
“Stephen! Liberty! It’s so good to see you.” Derek hugged his brother and gave his sister-in-law a kiss on the cheek. “I thought you were in the middle of a tropical ocean somewhere on vacation.”
“We were,” Stephen said, an easy arm around his wife. They made a stunning couple. “It was time for us to come home, though. I didn’t want to keep Liberty away from easy access to doctors.”
The willowy model glowed red. “Stephen! You’re making it sound like I’m diseased.”
Stephen chuckled. “It’s just a little parasite, nothing to be ashamed of.”
Evan choked back a laugh and turned away. Sara watched the two strangers, uncertain smile on her face.
“Stephen Devereux! You did not just call our baby a parasite!”
“Well…”
“Hold on,” Derek interjected. “Liberty’s pregnant?”
“Surprise,” Stephen said with a grin. “Thought we’d tell you in person.”
“We wanted the family to know as soon as possible,” Liberty added.
“I’m so happy for you,” Derek said as he swept them into even bigger embraces than before.
With all four brothers in the same place, serious talk was put off by unspoken agreement while they caught up. As they spoke, they rooted around in Derek’s fridge and pantry for dinner. Enough food remained from Gary’s earlier shopping trips to put together an impressive spread.
After so much time spent in solitude in his massive house and barely using the kitchen on his own, Derek paused in the middle just to watch the bustle and let contentment grow deep in his chest. Sara couldn’t do as much as she wanted because of the cast on her arm, so she compromised by guiding the efforts of the others. She got along famously with the new additions, unafraid to tease them as they deserved while everyone worked together to bring the meal to fruition.
A spinach, bacon, and cream pasta joined a loaf of garlic bread and a vegetable platter on the dining room table. Derek dug around in his wine cellar until he found something appropriate: a chardonnay recommended by Chef Aiken.
It was a family dinner unlike any they had when they were kids. The rare time their father sat with them for a meal it was a stilted affair full of awkward silence and stiff, impeccable table manners. In Derek’s home no one stood on ceremony, as Evan asked for a piece of garlic bread and Gary chucked it at his head, laughing when it struck his brother across the forehead and left a smear of grease.
The girls laughed until tears streamed down their faces as Evan got up and chased Gary around the room, not stopping until he had cornered his little brother and given him a proper noogie.
A veritable mountain of food and several bottles of wine disappeared by the time the sun set. They took longer about the meal than necessary, stretching it out because afterward they would have to discuss the Onyx company and what the events of the week meant for their future and safety.
Everyone pitched in to ferry dishes back to the kitchen and load the dishwasher and scrub the pots by hand. Once everything was spotless the inevitable could be put off no longer.
Evan pulled his brother to the side and spoke in a low voice. “Derek, it’s time we talked. Where is a good place to excuse ourselves from the others while we hash this out?”
Derek didn’t bother to hide his response. “That’s not necessary, Evan. Gary had his own encounter with the danger that faces our family, and Sara was directly involved. Becky, too, has earned a spot in this discussion. I’m sure they’ve told you the story of how Chad destroyed all their belongings in an attack on their apartment. It would be underhanded to talk behind their back as if they don’t have a stake in it.”
“Yeah, Ev. Did you already forget about my broken leg?” Gary asked. “I know I said it was an accident, but after talking with Derek, I’m not sure anymore. It would have been too easy for someone with access to the company’s resources to cause something like that.”
“And I am not going to go away while you two talk things over,” Sara said. “I have more and different information than Derek, thanks to my sources. You would miss a huge chunk of the puzzle if I wasn’t there. Not to mention how I almost lost my life multiple times this week because of this whole mess. It’s not something I’m willing to walk away from with no further explanation.”
Evan heaved a gusty sigh. “I guess not. Let’s get to it, then.”
The Devereux clan and settled into Derek’s spacious living room. Stephen claimed the love seat and his gorgeous wife curled up next to him and lay her head on his shoulder. Evan took a high-backed leather chair reminiscent of a throne. Derek pulled Sara down next to him on a couch and Becky sat with them while Gary took up residence on the recliner that best accommodated his cast.
Derek began the discussions, giving the story of the previous week and all the events so they could all work from the same base of knowledge. It took a long time to get through, and the newcomers, especially Stephen and Liberty, had many questions along the way.
“Why are there so many awful people in the world?” Liberty asked softly. Her face was somber—she still carried the dreadful memories of the kidnapping she’d survived when she and Stephen first got together. Her hand curled around her belly, maternal instincts already engaged. “This is madness.”
Silence met her rhetorical question as they digested the information. Derek only had eyes for Evan. His older brother was their leader, and the one with the most knowledge of the company.
“So, Evan, does this mean the company is our enemy? Has it turned against its owners like some Frankenstein’s monster? What can we do here?”
Evan sat with his chin in his hand as though he were the statue of a long-dead philosopher.
“The executive board hasn’t told me anything useful since the incidents first began,” he said. “The only things I have to go on are rumors whispered around the company. They say there is a rogue director who has been usurping company resources and using them to further his own agenda. It would explain the tightness I’ve sensed at board meetings—if one of their number secretly plotted against the company, they wouldn’t want us to know they’ve lost control of things.”
Sara leaned forward, her eyes bright. Derek loved the way her mind constantly analyzed information and looked for connections—she would not stop working at a problem until she solved it. “This is fascinating. It sounds like a civil war within the company. At a normal corporation that could be disruptive enough, but Onyx is an enormous, shadowy organization that exists outside of the law in a lot of ways. If someone evil gained control of those resources, it could be disastrous for the entire country. You think this Mr. Knight that Chad spoke of is the rogue director?”
He nodded. “It would make sense. I’ve never heard of Knight before—no one on the executive board has that name. If I was recruiting employees and stealing company resources to stage a coup, I wouldn’t use my real name.”
“I’d seen Chad once before, when I went to the offices to get answers about the attacks.” Derek said. “He was in the room with the Los Angeles director. And that’s where Sara was taken captive. Does that mean George Carter is Mr. Knight? Or was he duped as well? We don’t know enough about the company’s operations or who we can trust. Evan, we need more information to figure out what we should be doing. We’re blind right now.”
“I know. I’m doing everything I can through official company avenues and the government. I even met with the president two weeks ago and got
nothing useful out of it.”
“The president?” Liberty asked. “You mean, the President of the United States?”
“Father was a huge campaign donor for him in his last election,” Evan replied. “And he knows about Onyx, but I got the impression he had no specifics. I doubt he even knows how much of the budget comes our way.”
“Evan, what does the company actually do?” Sara asked. “What do they make? Chad had a bionic arm, but that’s the only tangible thing I’ve seen with my own eyes, and everything else I’ve been able to dig up on the company was heavily redacted.”
“Military and defense contracting, space and satellite systems, computer and technological research. Those are the main buckets, but Onyx has its fingers in just about every pot imaginable.”
“Why all the secrecy?” she pressed. “There are other defense contractors—Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman—and they are all publicly listed companies with clearly detailed government contracts. What’s so special about Onyx?”
All the questions that had burned Sara up and Derek couldn’t answer poured out of her now she had access to his brother. After so long in their reality, Derek and his younger brothers hadn’t bothered to examine the things they’d been told. Hearing the passion for truth in his love’s voice ignited his own curiosity and wonder at the situation.
He hadn’t stopped to think about how wrong some things about the company felt. What had Father been up to?
Evan looked shocked at her questions as though he hadn’t considered them before. “The secrecy is for the good of the country. It lets the company develop advanced technologies without being targeted by our enemies.”
“So do the other contractors,” she pointed out. “What keeps Onyx accountable and from getting out of control? And how the hell does nothing ever leak about such a large and powerful corporation?”
“Most of Onyx’s employees don’t even know they work for Onyx and have never heard the name. There are layers of shell companies that work on specific pieces of projects and never see the full picture. Often the CEO’s don’t even know the whole truth. As for accountability, the Pentagon has full responsibility for oversight and ensuring Onyx remains hidden from government scrutiny. The board of directors meets with the top officials regularly.”
Taking Flight (A Devereux Novel) Page 19