Juan’s hand comes down on my arm, and I pull my gun, pointing it at him. “Touch me again and you’re dead.”
Ricardo is suddenly beside him, pointing his weapon at me as well. Myla steps to my side. “Michael hired him. He wants him alive. Pilot! Call Michael.”
“Don’t call anyone,” Juan calls out. “Holster your damn weapon, Ricardo.” Juan lifts his chin at me. “Go take your fucking seat.” Ricardo lowers his weapon, moving to sit down.
“Go sit, Myla,” I order softly, lowering my Glock.
“She’s protective of you,” Juan observes. “Michael isn’t going to like that.”
“Is that a threat?”
“I don’t need to threaten you. Not when Myla is this close to you.” He walks to his seat and claims it.
I back away, moving down the aisle with my gun at my side, re-holstering only when I’m sitting next to Myla in the seat at the back of the plane. “Sig Island, right off Long Island,” she says. “That’s where we’re going.”
I hold up a hand, silencing her, certain we are being recorded and maybe even filmed. She inhales and sinks into the leather of her chair. I do the same, hoping like hell our team heard her tell them our destination. That is the question we’ll both be asking for the next four hours in the air.
Chapter Twenty-One
Kyle
Hours of sitting next to Myla, wanting to touch her, wanting to talk to her, pretty much kills me. I manage to randomly touch her, though, trying to send her the message that we’re together. We’re okay. The plane finally starts to descend, and she takes off her seat belt. “Bathroom,” she says, standing and heading toward the back of the plane.
I follow, knowing this is one of the only locations where I can talk to her, and even if it’s bugged, we’re at the end of this trip, and it’s worth the risk. She enters the tiny room, and I catch the door before she closes it.
“Easy, sweetheart,” I say, and noting how pale she is, I add, “We’re okay. This is all going to happen hard and fast but when it’s over, it’s over.”
“You can’t know that. We can’t know our people heard our destination.”
“They did,” I insist, “which means they’re in place, and ready to attack the minute we land.”
“Everyone is in Texas.”
“Luke, and many of our men, are in New York, not to mention plenty of Feds.”
“It’s an island,” she says. “How do they get to us?”
“Water and air,” I say, though it’s a problem I too have been concerned about during our travels, but I’m not about to tell her that. “Find your zone,” I say, “and let’s get ready to end this.” I shut the door, standing guard and giving her time.
It’s not long before she appears again and gives me a nod, the look in her eyes, stronger now. “I’m ready,” she says, and I believe her. She is. We are.
I let her see the admiration in my eyes, and the love, stepping out of her way to allow her to return to her seat, with me closely behind her, both of us reclaiming our seats. It’s not even ten minutes later when we make our landing approach, near midnight if our destination is indeed an island in New York, when we approach a singular runway and tower, that seems to make that a pretty acute assumption. The fact that we hit the pavement, and top pretty damn hard and fast, also indicating an island and water, or that’s my guess.
I unhook my belt, and Myla does the same, clearly as eager as I am to get out of this metal box, that makes us sitting ducks. “Stay behind me,” I order softly, standing and waiting for her to join me, before I start down the aisle, my hand settling under my jacket to rest on my gun.
Juan stands, moving around in the front of the plane, as does Ricardo, and a couple of other men who’ve come along for the ride. Two of them line up to exit, but they’re pushed back when a stocky, short Mexican with a permanent scowl on his face and a machine gun at his hip, enters, pointing for them to sit. Whoever he is, they obey, and when I stop walking, the man motions me forward, as if he knows who I am, or simply wants me under his thumb.
There is a shift in the air then, a prickling at the back of my neck, moments before it happens. The ghost of a man I’ve seen pictures of but have never met enters the plane. He stands in the center of the aisle, his black suit expensive, his salt-and-pepper hair wavy and longish, and when his eyes meet mine, evil radiates from their depths that is like nothing I’ve ever felt, which is saying a lot considering the filth I’ve arrested and killed. His gaze shifts to the gun at my hand, a silent command that I take my hand off my weapon, and it kills me to obey, but that machine gun-wielding man beside him will shoot me, and then Myla will be on her own.