by Cherry Adair
“Why the car bomb at the hotel?” he demanded without responding to her jeer.
“To smoke you out. Jesus, Zakary. Follow the bouncing ball here, would you?”
He didn’t give a shit why she’d done the bat-shit crazy things she’d done. Not anymore. And sure as hell not now. He tried for logic. “Gideon needs medical attention.”
“I don’t give a flying fuck,” she shot back, voice cold, the fury in her eyes flickering like a blue flame. “I want him to die. Your precious brother’s death will hurt you more than anything I could do to you. You’ve caused me a lot of trouble, Zak. I invested a fortune to pull off that kidnapping and to hire all those cops … I wasted a fucking fortune buying weapons and C-4, damn it!” The Uzi snapped up to his face, and he stared down the black barrel. “You two were supposed to be waiting when I got here. Gideon was supposed to die a week ago while you watched and begged me to save him. That woman you were fucking was supposed to be blown to hell on the company plane. You’ve never been predictable, Zakary.”
“Then why tell your pal Piñero to keep one of us alive?”
“I didn’t. I instructed that stupid bitch to keep you alive, my darling. I didn’t give a shit about your brother once I discovered you were gone. He’s been nothing but a pain in my ass for years.” She smiled, a travesty full of taunting cruelty. “He served his purpose, I suppose. I knew you’d come and look for him. It was always you and your brother.” She twisted two fingers together, then turned it into a shaking fist that punched her thigh.
Gideon’s breaths came more slowly. Zak’s sped up.
“Gideon this,” she mimicked in falsetto, “Gideon that. I’ve been planning this for years.” She gave him a hostile look. “I was building a nice little settlement back there. I wanted to come and visit you in your small, airless cell. I wanted to see your face when you first saw your dead wife come back to life. You think I want a piss-willy little five mil, when you’re worth a hundred times that? Hell no. I want it all. You cheated me out of hundreds of millions I should have made as partner of your stupid fucking ZAG Search. And now I’m going to collect.”
Bats darted low, directly over their heads. She didn’t seem to notice. He didn’t even try to make sense of what she was babbling. “You had a beautiful service, Jen. All your friends were there to pay tribute,” he told her, keeping his tone moderate, though he felt anything but. “We all loved you. Your life was celebrated and you were mourned by everyone who cared about you.” Zak, Gideon, Buck, and Nikki. Those were the mourners. And Buck and Gideon hadn’t ever liked her, although they’d tolerated her for his sake. Clearly they’d never been blinded by her sex appeal and high IQ.
She gave him a cold look. “I’m not the wife you pretended to love. But I am the woman who’s going to watch you die, by small, small increments. I won’t be cheated out of that. I worked for it. I want it, and you can’t tell me no, Zakary Stark. You will not tell me I can’t have what I want. Ever. Again.”
There was no reasoning with her. “Fine,” he said, his voice flat. Sweat ran down his temples, small gnats swarmed around his face, and Gideon was starting to shift on his shoulder. His brother’s body blocked Zak’s access to the gun tucked in his belt in the small of his back. Could he shoot Jennifer? Hell, yeah, Zak thought savagely as she stood blocking his way to getting Gideon to safety. “Let’s fucking do that. But first, let me get Gideon on board the chopper. Let him get the help he needs before you start hacking me limb from limb.”
“Hell no. That’ll impact what I get as your widow. I want it all, every last damned dime you have.”
“You can have every last damn dime,” Zak told her tightly. “Give me something to write on and I’ll sign off, after we get Gideon to a hospital.”
“When he dies, I’ll have more.”
“Not the way the partnership agreement works,” Zak lied. “If Gideon dies, his shares, all of his money, goes to a distant aunt in Kansas City.” The scrolling numbers, so bright in the chopper, were fading as if the dimmer switch were being lowered. He tightened his arm across the back of Gideon’s knees. Hang in there.
“Fine.” She waved a filthy hand airily. Her nails were chewed to the quick, and he saw part of a tattoo disappearing from her wrist and under her sleeve. “I’ll have yours and Buck’s.”
“Buck will have something to say about that. But mine—”
“Buck had an unfortunate accident this morning soon after chatting with you, I believe. Home invasion. Knives were involved.”
“Jesus! You had Buck killed?”
“I had to delegate, Zakary,” she bitched, as if he’d asked her to take the garbage out and empty the dishwasher at the same time. “I couldn’t be in two places at once!”
Jesus. It hadn’t been Buck at all. It had been Jennifer all along. “Who did you delegate to?”
“Nikki, of course. She’s at a lovely spa outside Los Angeles, having her facial reconstruction done, by Adam. You remember Nik’s brother, don’t you? Someone else you screwed on your way to the top? A great alibi. We got a twofer on that one.” She aimed the Uzi at his heart, holding the barrel five inches from his chest, and smiled slowly, her dirt-smeared cheeks crinkling. “And before I let you die, darling”—she said it like a curse—“I’ll be sure to blow up your fucking new wife once and for all. After I tell her that you already have a wife.”
He had to get on that chopper. But there was no way she was going to miss him if she fired. “Nikki had her own husband killed?”
“We have that in common.” She ran the tail end of her braid across her cheek. “We’ve loved each other for years, you know.”
“You and Buck?”
“You’re an egotistical idiot, Zakary, do you know that? Why does everything have to be about you and your goddamn dick? Drop that lump of patheticness, and get back into your cell where you belong. When the others get back, we’ll take care of your homophobia.”
How the fuck had they gone from murder to homo—“You and Nikki?”
“She’s always been my soul mate.” Zak’s knees almost buckled as he took in the betrayal of his married life, of Buck’s married life, of Buck’s death. Christ. He couldn’t take it personally, not right now. “Then I wish you both well,” he told her calmly. “I’ll set the two of you up forever and we can all live happily ever after.”
“You don’t get to live happily ever after! You”—prodding him with the Uzi so he had to take a step back—“you get to live miserably, painfully, unhappily ever after, and not for long.”
Gideon was slipping off his shoulder. His brother’s entire body shifted as Zak moved backward at every prod from Jennifer’s weapon. Zak tightened his hold around his brother’s knees, but Gideon kept sliding and twisting.
Suddenly Gideon dug his elbows in, grabbing the handgun from the strapped holder in the small of Zak’s back. He twisted just enough to fire a shot that hit Jennifer at close range, square in the face. Her head exploded like a watermelon, spraying Zak and Gideon with gray matter and blood.
“Wel-come,” Gideon slurred, dropping his head down to bounce against Zak’s back. The pistol fell from his nerveless fingers into the grass.
“Christ!” The numbers in Zak’s mind winked out. “No, Gid—Damn it! No!” Zak tried to will them back. Nothing. He tipped Gideon off his shoulder, laid him in the grass, pounded his chest with both hands. His brother’s slack face wavered and blurred. “Breathe, damn you. Breathe!”
The rotors overhead whipped the treetops, and the burst of gunshots muted to background noise as Zak struggled to breathe for his brother. He tried mouth-to-mouth. He pounded on Gideon’s chest, trying not to think about his possibly broken ribs. “Don’t do this, Gid. We’re going home now. Please. Don’t. Die. On. Me.”
He pressed two fingers beneath his brother’s jaw. Nothing. Zak’s head dropped to Gideon’s still chest. “Damn it, Gid!”
“Stark?” It was Reith, out of sight. “Get your ass in gear. We gotta go. Now!”
ACADIA HAD DONE EVERYTHING but turn invisible to keep out of the way. But the helicopter wasn’t very large real estate, and people were shooting at them, and the two men, dressed all in black, were firing some powerful-looking guns at the people on the ground.
The pilot was yelling that they had to get the fuck out of there ASAP, that they were getting hit hard. Yes. She’d noticed. The impact of things hitting the sides of the craft sounded like cannon fire from inside.
Below them, flames were erupting around the small clearing as trees caught fire. In other words, all hell was breaking loose and Zak and Gideon were in the middle of it.
Where were they?
“Down there” was mayhem. “Up here” was a pilot fighting to keep the helicopter steady so that he could beam the men on the ground back to the mother ship. And two men firing and loading some serious weapons. And one woman who was making the smallest footprint she could in order to stay out of their way.
“We have Spincher.”
The helicopter dipped and swayed.
Good. Not the man she wanted to hear about. But good. Acadia held her breath, waiting, praying.
“Here come Reith and Stark. Hold your fire!”
“Thank you, God.” She winced as a barrage of shots came from the ground. “Hurry. Hurry. Hurry.”
Spincher was hauled on board and immediately turned, weapon in hand, to cover the man climbing up the rope. Zak? Oh, God, please …
Reith was yanked onto the floor of the helicopter, lay there for a few seconds catching his breath, then picked up his weapon and braced himself against the open door, firing down into the whipping treetops. By now the fires were reaching into the canopy, and the smoke further obscured the view of the clearing below.
“Find his brother?” one of the men asked through the headset in Acadia’s helmet.
Reith fired another round through the trees. “Didn’t make it. Drop a second line.”
“We don’t—”
Reith cut in tersely, “Drop the line! He wants to bring his brother home.”
Spincher leaned over through the open door as another rope was quickly lowered. “Ordnance coming in hot. Son of a bitch is gonna get us all killed. Hurry the fuck up, Stark!”
A hailstorm of bullets hit the side of the helicopter. Acadia needed to get out of the harness, but Reith grabbed her shoulder as she started to undo the snap. “Nothing you can do, ma’am. Stay put. Speed things up, you two!” he yelled, gesturing at the men pulling what Acadia presumed was the rope tied to Gideon.
Beside her, Reith muttered “Shit” under his breath. Oh, Zak. Acadia’s heart ached. To have come this close and lost his brother must be devastating.
“Here he comes!” Reith shouted, then answered fire, ducking against the inner wall. A bullet went all the way through one open door, and out the other. “Get ready to rock and ro—Oh, hell!”
“What? Acadia strained against the restraints. “Is Zak—What’s happening?”
“No!” Spincher screamed down to Zak. “Keep climbing, you asshole. Keep fucking climbing!” He turned back and addressed Reith, although they could all hear him over the headsets. “The brother’s tether was shot and severed, body’s back on the ground. Help me pull Stark up, fast. “The men scrambled, hauling in the line hand over hand. “Pull. Pull. Pull!”
Between them, they pulled Zak onboard. He was furious.
The helicopter lifted higher in a dizzying climb that had Acadia’s heart in her throat. She was strapped in, couldn’t get to Zak, who stayed where he was, sprawled on the floor, as they climbed. The sound of the gunfire dropped away, leaving the echo in her ears and the heavy percussive sound of the blades spinning overhead.
“Everyone in one piece?” Reith asked over the headset.
Everyone answered in the affirmative. Except Zak, whose eyes were filled with such pain, Acadia felt it to her soul. Her heart swelled too big for her chest as she felt the pain coming off him in waves.
She wanted to crawl over to him and press his head against her breast. Wanted to rock him, or kiss him, or stroke his back. She wanted to take some of that pain and share it with him to lighten his burden.
All she could do was sit there like a statue and watch him struggle to deal with the loss of his brother. Tears blurred her vision, and she had to swipe her face against her shoulder.
The helicopter jerked right, and everything slid until the pilot smoothed the ride. The move brought Zak from his daze and he rolled over, pushing himself upright. He sat there, hands hanging between his bent knees. His skin seemed pulled too tight over his features, and his eyes were dark, sunken pools as he stared at nothing.
After several minutes, his chest rose and fell as he dragged in a ragged breath. “Piñero?” he asked hoarsely.
“Dead,” Spincher replied evenly.
“Fly over the falls,” Zak instructed, voice thick.
The pilot looked back and gave a grim nod.
A few minutes later, the helicopter hovered over Angel Falls. Acadia had to admit, it was beautiful. The water dropped over the edge of flat-topped Auyantepui Mountain to plunge almost three thousand feet to the valley below. By the time the water reached the Kerep River, most of it would’ve evaporated. A cloud of fine mist sprayed the windows, and gathered in rivulets to run like tears down the Plexiglas.
Instead of spending her thirtieth birthday looking up at its majesty and power from the river below, she was looking at it from a dizzying height, hovering above it a lifetime later.
Please, God, Acadia prayed, surreptitiously fumbling with the latch to her harness, do not let Zak jump. What she’d do if he tried, she had no idea. Wind buffeted the helicopter, and Zak held on to the open door, almost suspended over the spray, for several moments of heart-stopping fear for Acadia.
Zak whispered something, then drew his hand back and flung his brother’s watch out into the mist.
He slammed the door shut with a final-sounding thud. “Let’s go.” Clearly not interested in conversation, he took off his headset, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes.
Two hours later, thanks to the mysterious Marc Savin, Acadia sat alone on a Learjet, winging her way home to Junction City.
TWENTY
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Three months later
Zak missed Acadia with an intense longing that had only grown stronger in the months since he’d seen her. During the wild time they’d spent together, she’d inextricably become part of his very soul. Her departure had torn Zak’s tenuous tether to her and made him realize just what an asset she was. As he’d stood on the tarmac watching until the plane was a speck in the sky, something had unraveled inside him.
He was done waking in the night, reaching for her, only to find himself alone.
He’d gone to Venezuela seeking excitement.
He’d found her.
He’d found love.
He’d come to Boston to retrieve her.
Zak had sold ZAG Search, despite the crappy economy. But it had taken months to unravel the clusterfuck of events leading to his brother’s and Buck’s deaths.
He’d earmarked the majority of the money from the sale of ZAG to fund adventure camps all over the country for underprivileged kids in Gideon’s name. The first would be breaking ground in Seattle soon. And he was in talks to construct a BASE-jumping camp near Angel Falls, also in Gid’s name.
Angel Falls and Gideon would forever be indelibly linked in his mind. No one would ever know Gid the way he had, but the camps would keep his brother’s adventurous spirit alive for hundreds of kids for a very long time. Gid would’ve loved what he’d done. But it could never be enough.
God he missed him. The loss was a gnawing ache in Zak’s gut. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get past the guilt that if not for his fucked-up marriage, and Jennifer’s hatred of him, Gid would still be alive. Great, a new guilt to replace the old. He was trying to think of a better, more productive way to deal with it this time around.
> It was almost as though he could hear Gideon’s voice as the weeks stretched into months: Find her. Bring her home. Yeah, Zak thought, with a mental salute to his brother. I’m on it.
Cambridge hadn’t changed. Everything looked the same as it had when he, Gideon, and Buck had attended MIT here. Jesus, they’d been young and idealistic, full of wild ideas and big dreams. An unstoppable trio, they’d buoyed each other along the way as they achieved everything they’d set out to do. And more. They’d parlayed a crazy idea into a groundbreaking company and made millions, not only by building the biggest, most powerful search engine on the Internet, but by keeping cool heads and making shrewd deals. They’d lived their lives to the fullest, and regretted nothing they’d given up to build the company.
The ridiculous amounts of money they’d made had merely been an entertaining way to keep score. But none of it meant anything now, not without Gideon and Buck.
He’d needed time to adjust to the loss of the two men who had meant the most to him. But once he made the decision to live again, he’d moved with determined purpose to achieve his goal. He’d utilized every second of the last ninety days in his haste to tie up all the loose ends before coming to see Acadia. It wasn’t that he was done grieving; the hole in his heart would never completely close. He just assured himself that he was accepting that life would be different from now on. A new normal.
A new challenge. One with blond hair and gray eyes, who was the equivalent, in terms of both difficulty and accessibility, of scaling Mt. Everest. Only a hell of a lot more thrilling.
Zak pulled the rental car to the curb in front of Acadia’s modern high-rise and touched the place beneath his shirt where her St. Christopher medallion rested. She’d slipped it into his pocket, he suspected, when he’d left Savin’s safe house. At first, seeing the familiar scrolling numbers superimposed on the sky as her plane lifted over Caracas, his heart had leaped, and his first thought had been Gideon. But Gideon was well and truly dead. And then he knew—