“If you have compromised us, I’ll kill you, Margarita. You know I will.” From the rage on his face, Elena knew he was dead serious. “Let down your guard and allow me into your mind, or your life ends right now.”
Elena had never seen anything as terrifying as Ricardo’s eyes. The red from the iris had spread all the way out into the whites. She shrunk back into her chair, praying Margarita was telling the truth. Stefan gestured her to the front of the plane, and she gladly put distance between herself and the enraged vampire.
“Is he going to kill her?” she whispered, sliding into the copilot chair.
“If she lied, yes.” Stefan seemed eerily calm.
She peered out the tiny windscreen of the plane and gasped. It was dark out. The tarmac was covered in beings with torches and… Holy crap. Torches, weapons, and big tools, including pitchforks. It was like they’d landed in the middle of a Dracula movie shoot. “Oh my God.”
“The situation is less than optimal,” Stefan said, gaze never leaving the brother and sister locked together in the first row in the plane. Both were stone still with their eyes closed. Then, Ricardo broke away and moved to the seat across from her.
“You didn’t betray us.”
“Of course I didn’t.” Margarita didn’t seem angry, which surprised Elena.
“Oh good. No blood on the carpet,” Stefan said, face expressionless.
There were crazy people waiting outside the plane with torches and deadly farm tools, a vampire was ready to kill his own sister mere feet away, Nik was being tortured in a cell somewhere, and this asshole was worried about blood on the carpet? “I can’t believe you!”
He gave no reaction whatsoever to her outburst.
It felt like her head would explode. “How can you be so cold?”
He shifted only his eyes in her direction. “Actually, that was a clearly unsuccessful attempt at humor. Though I truly am relieved to not have to replace the carpet. It would have been messy.”
Elena clasped her fingers together in an effort to consciously not store a charge in her palms, which happened every time she got angry. “I just don’t get you.”
“When you are several centuries old…no. If you live to be several centuries old, you will understand completely. There is nothing I have not seen and very few things I have not done. I try not to get invested or tangled up in other people’s business unless it affects my own.”
“So you don’t really give a shit whether I live or die.”
A smile crossed his lips. “You are absolutely wrong. I care very much about your fate. I will do whatever I can to facilitate your success. Mine depends on it.” He indicated Ricardo and Margarita with a nod of his head. “So does theirs.” Then he gestured with one hand to the crowd that was closing in around the plane. “And ironically, theirs as well. We all need you to succeed.”
“So if Margarita did not tip Fydor off, who did?” Ricardo asked, looking out the tiny, round window next to his seat. “They appear to be primarily shifters.”
Stefan touched Elena’s hand to draw her attention back from Ricardo. “Other than us, who knew Itzov was taken and that you were coming to Romania?”
“Only Aunt Uza.”
“No one overheard your interactions with her? You didn’t tell anyone where you were going?”
“No.”
Stefan ran a hand through his hair. “Odd. Uza would not have sabotaged your success unless it will be better for the outcome. Well, this certainly changes our plans. Angry mobs are historically not my thing, and though they cannot kill me, they can slow me down. We also can’t risk losing Ricardo yet.”
Yet? Like losing him at all was an option.
“I can hear you,” Ricardo called from behind her. “And, yes, I’m expendable.”
She couldn’t believe it. Anger prickled up her spine. “No one. Absolutely no one is expendable.”
Stefan fired the motors, and they roared, causing the few brave…whatevers that had moved closer to the plane to back up. “The frightening part of this is that you really believe that.”
“Damn right I do.”
“I think I’ll move us a bit away. What do you suggest as a new plan, Ricardo?” He made the engines roar again, then turned the plane slightly to the left and drove it forward on the pavement. “Clearly, my flight plan has changed. I need to call it in.” He picked up the intercom mouthpiece and spoke so low Elena could only hear what sounded like the teacher from Peanuts cartoons. Mwa mwa, mwa mwa, mwa mwa.
“How are you feeling, Elena Arcos?” Ricardo asked. “Powerful?”
Scared. She was freaking terrified. “Yes.”
Stefan put the intercom mic back. “Well?”