Strangers in Love, page 20
“I wasn’t taking a walk.” She practically snarled the words. “I wanted to ask my parents to get started on getting those other ransoms paid. Didn’t seem right I was safe and clean and…” her voice broke a little, “everything. Not while the others could be in even more trouble.”
“Yeah, well, I’d planned to go after them once I dropped your ass off, but now my cover’s blown, which means I’ll have to rethink how I’m going to get around the city without getting my ass thrown in prison, if they don’t just kill me outright.” I went to the door and looked both ways down the hall. No one yet, but I could hear shouting from the courtyard. “How fucking stupid are you that you thought that was a good idea?”
“I’m not stupid.” She followed me out into the corridor. “I’m actually a genius.”
I glanced at her but managed to hold back a derisive snort. “Could’ve fooled me.”
The verbal sparring was ridiculous, so I turned my attention to getting us out of the hotel in one piece. After that, we just had to get to the airport, which could prove to be an interesting task. We not only had kidnappers possibly looking for us, but now, we had the fucking authorities onto us as well.
This was turning into a fucking shitshow.
Forty-Two
Aline
Part of the reason I’d been so excited to come on this trip was because I felt like it could finally show everyone that I was capable of taking care of myself. I had a master’s degree in education, and I intended to use it to teach elementary students, but my own family didn’t believe I could handle the real world.
I’d spent my entire twenty-two years of life being protected and watched over, and I’d thought going to Iran with the world-wide aid organization, Neutral Ground, to teach English was the perfect way to demonstrate my true capability.
And then I’d been kidnapped and held for ransom.
It hadn’t been my fault. Nothing I had done had led to my kidnapping.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. The man from Neutral Ground who’d sold my name to the group who’d taken me had been a huge flirt the entire time I’d been in Iran. It’d all come to a head the night before I’d been scheduled to leave.
My older sister, Freedom, had been in the hospital after having her appendix removed, so the jerk had been more forceful than usual when he found me alone. As a result, I’d rejected him a little more harshly than I had previously. He hadn’t taken it well.
Putting the blame on me for how he’d chosen to respond, however, would be almost the same as blaming an assault victim for their attacker’s actions due to the victim having refused the attacker’s initial advances. Sadly, that happened all too often, and I could see even my parents using this incident as a prime example of why I needed someone to ‘take care of me.’ They wouldn’t imply that I didn’t have the mental faculties to care for myself, only that I was naïve to the ways of the world, but it was insulting, nonetheless.
Except now, I was considering that they could have a legitimate point. After all, leaving the protection of the hotel room with the intention to place a call that could possibly be traced wasn’t exactly the most intelligent decision I’d ever made.
I was self-aware enough to know that I’d made a mistake and honest enough to be angry at myself, but I was also angry at the massive soldier in front of me. Eoin had saved my life by rescuing me from my kidnappers, and because of my actions tonight, he’d been forced to rescue me again. This time from a man attempting to drag me out of the hotel.
I’d been in the wrong, but Eoin wouldn’t listen to what I needed, forcing me to take the situation into my own hands. The frustrating man had been obnoxious and rude almost the entire time we’d been together.
Well…almost the entire time.
Heat rushed to my cheeks as other memories from the past twenty-four hours flashed through my head. Memories of the bits of time when he hadn’t been obnoxious or rude. Memories of how I’d lost my virginity only hours ago in the most intense, erotic experience of my life.
As this was neither the time nor the place to delve into that particular hornets’ nest, I pushed those thoughts from my mind and focused on the broad, muscular back in front of me. I knew that, underneath his cotton t-shirt, there were probably scratches left by my nails, but I didn’t let myself dwell on that either. I had to prove to Eoin that I wasn’t a complete imbecile.
That, and get out of here alive.
I followed him from the room and down the hall, one of my hands holding tight to the strap of my bag. I’d filled it with whatever I’d been able to grab, which meant most of the contents weren’t mine, but I hadn’t really had time to pay proper attention.
The only thing I knew for certain was that Eoin had taken the weapons, and there were a lot of them. Normally, I wasn’t a fan of guns and knives and whatever else the team had brought with them, but I certainly had a new appreciation for them now.
I heard people yelling behind us, and my already rapid pulse increased until I could almost hear the thrumming in my ears. I’d slept fairly well for a few hours, but I knew what was keeping me going was adrenaline. I’d become familiar with it over the last few days.
At least now, I’d eaten not too long ago, so I had fuel to back it up, and I hoped that would keep me from crashing too fast or too far. We weren’t in the clear yet.
We turned a corner, went through a set of doorways, and came out in a short, hidden hallway. Full of shadows, it didn’t look like the rest of the hotel, the little I’d seen of it, anyway. A door with writing on it was propped open enough for me to be able to see inside to the stacks of washers and dryers, and I realized that this was where the maid and maintenance rooms were located.
As we approached the outside exit, I saw what I hadn’t when we’d come into this hallway. A keycard in Eoin’s hand. He swiped it through the scanner on the door. It felt like forever passed before the device beeped, and then something clicked. Eoin led the way outside, one hand near what I assumed was a gun. With the other hand, he tossed the keycard into the closest trashcan.
We’d come out behind the hotel, and he took us farther from the front. I didn’t need to ask why. I could hear people shouting now, and unless I was imagining things, I heard sirens in the distance as well.
A bright thread of panic raced through me, and I felt the urge to run, to get away as quickly as possible. It took every ounce of trust I had to continue following Eoin’s lead.
Neither one of us spoke as we made our way through a series of back alleys and the like, but as we reached a place where we would need to step out into a more public place, he stopped.
“Scarf.”
It took me a moment to realize what he was saying. I’d put on a headscarf before I’d left the room to find a phone, but it’d come off during the struggle. I hadn’t taken the time to fix it when Eoin and I had gone back to grab our things.
With shaky fingers, I adjusted the material so that it covered my hair and part of my face. I couldn’t hide the fact that I was white, but I could at least disguise some of my features to make them not so glaringly obvious.
Eoin nodded, apparently satisfied, and then shifted his stance into something more casual. If I hadn’t been the focus of his intensity before, I might’ve missed that it was still there, humming below the surface. Perhaps boiling was a better word. Simmering. I could feel it radiating out as I fell in step next to him.
Well, not exactly next to him. I was a couple steps behind him, just enough so that we didn’t stand out one way or the other. If he hadn’t been so tall or so good-looking, we might not have stood out at all. As it was, we didn’t have much in the way of options to disguise him. We just had to hope that we’d gotten enough of a lead to stay ahead of everyone who was after us.
Maintaining an unhurried walk and bland expression was more stressful than escaping from the hotel, though I wasn’t quite as stressed as I had been last night. Now, I knew who Eoin was, where we were going, and that I could rely on him to keep me safe…even if he could be a jerk at times.
I didn’t realize that we weren’t going to the same part of the airport where I’d arrived until I saw the plane in front of me. It wasn’t even close to as large as the massive airliner I was accustomed to taking, but it wasn’t a small by-plane either. This was a private jet.
I held my question until I saw a lot of the tension drain out of Eoin. I assumed he wouldn’t relax even a bit if we weren’t at least mostly safe.
“Where did Freedom find this?”
He glanced at me as he did a visual sweep behind us. “She didn’t. It belongs to my family.”
I blinked, surprised enough to miss a step. I hadn’t seen that coming.
The whole ‘rich playboy’ cover might not have been quite as much fiction as I’d originally thought. I felt safe in assuming that he’d given his real first name to the desk clerk since he’d used the same one with me, and Eoin wasn’t exactly the sort of name someone used for an inconspicuous alias. I racked my brains, trying to recall what he’d given as his last name so I could determine if it was also real.
Before I could come up with the answer, however, the plane door opened, and Eoin immediately went into soldier-mode, a gun in his hand in the blink of an eye. I moved behind him without him saying a word. No matter how annoying I found him, he was relentless in his task to keep me safe.
“All clear!” a male voice I didn’t know called out, and Eoin relaxed as easily as he’d tensed.
“Everyone else on board?” Eoin asked as he took a half-step to the side.
“Ready to go.”
I could see the speaker this time. Buzzed hair that was too short to indicate whether it was light brown or blond. Not as tall as Eoin, but still tall, and the stranger’s shoulders were a bit broader, his build a little more muscular.
If the rest of the team was as impressive as these two, I could see why they’d needed a lie to get into the country and move about freely. No way would anyone see them and not be intimidated. Including a financial element into their cover would cause most people to focus on that particular detail rather than their physical attributes. Smart.
Well, for the most part, anyway. I didn’t see anyone not giving these men a second look.
I’d gone halfway up the stairs before I realized that they intended to leave as soon as I was on the plane. I froze and used my iciest teacher voice. “I’m not going without the others.”
Eoin made an annoyed sound but directed his statement to the man above. “She’s riled up because we didn’t get other hostages out. I told her I’d go back to get them once she was safe, but she doesn’t seem to trust me to keep my word.”
I hadn’t realized my determination to keep my promise would come across as a slight on his honor. A hint of guilt crept into my aggravation.
“It’s not that.” I turned to face him. “I just don’t like the fact that I’m about to get on a private jet to fly home in comfort while there are others whose lives grow more at risk with each passing moment.”
“Before this goes any further,” the other man interrupted, “you should know that help for them is already on the way.”
The surprise on Eoin’s face told me this was news to him as well, but I wasn’t going to let it go so easily. “What, exactly, does that mean?”
“I have a sat phone, so once we were hunkered down for the night, I made a couple calls to some military contracts,” the man said. “They’re aware that American citizens – and probably people from other countries too – are being held by this group at that site.”
I should have been happy that he’d informed the military, but his statements led me to a question I couldn’t let go unanswered. “You saw there were other people being held against their will, and you didn’t try to get them out?”
“I didn’t see them,” he said. “But two of my guys saw a room full of a bunch of shit like watches and jewelry and electronics, and I didn’t think they’d gotten it from robbing tourists.”
A shiver went down my spine. If the kidnappers had a room like that, then they’d been doing it a lot longer than I’d thought. They weren’t some ragged band of terrorists acting on selfish impulse. They were organized.
“My friends are still in danger.” I lifted my chin, refusing to drop the subject so easily. “Who knows what will happen to them in the time it takes the military to get permission or whatever they need to go after them.”
“We’re burnt.” Eoin’s voice was sharp. “Even if the five of us could go back and take on whatever reinforcements were called in, we wouldn’t make it there and back, not with everyone looking for us now. No way will they think you guys weren’t with me on this.”
I appreciated his tact in not revealing that it was my fault we were being hunted, but it didn’t mean I liked what he was saying.
“Look,” the other man said. “We’ll just be putting everyone at risk if we try to go back now. They’ll be looking for a private outfit, which means the military has a better chance at surprising them than we do.”
I didn’t know if that was true, but I didn’t have any facts on which to base my opinion, so I kept it to myself.
“You can call Freedom from the plane,” Eoin reminded me. “She’ll want to know that you’re okay.”
“The longer we stand here, the more danger we’re all in,” the other man pointed out.
They were right. I couldn’t allow my emotions to influence me into making rash decisions that would hurt people.
I nodded and finished climbing the stairs. It was time to go home.
Forty-Three
Eoin
I didn’t believe for a minute that Aline would just accept that her part in all of this was over. She wouldn’t rest until everyone was home safe, and a long plane ride wasn’t going to do anything to slow her down. Even in the short amount of time I’d known her, I could see that she didn’t give up on anything.
I just hoped getting her out of the country would at least keep her safe while she poked the hornets’ nest. Then again, maybe Freedom had enough influence over Aline to talk some sense into her and get the crazy woman to listen to fucking logic.
I was not going back into that shitstorm because Aline had some sort of savior complex. I’d tie her ass to a chair first.
Once we were on board, Cain pulled up the steps and signaled to Fever, who disappeared into the cockpit, I assumed, to let Dave know we were ready to go. While I began to unload everything I’d carried from the hotel, Cain handed his sat phone over to Aline and explained how to use it. By the time he was done, I had all my weapons strapped down, and my bag stowed. The others had gotten here early enough to already have their stuff in place.
My part in this was essentially done. The plan was to have Freedom waiting at the airport so that we could hand Aline over to her as soon as we landed. While it sounded an awful lot like how we would’ve treated a minor in a similar situation, I wasn’t about to argue with it. If Aline had an issue with what happened once we hit the ground, she could take that up with Cain or her sister. They were in charge, not me.
A part of me pitied them if Aline decided she wanted to make an issue out of how we handled the situation. She had a sharp tongue.
And an eager one. My entire body warmed as that thought turned into memories of what she and I had done not too many hours ago.
Shit.
I picked the seat farthest away from where she sat and busied myself with getting buckled in. I really didn’t need to think of how completely I’d fucked things up last night. It’d been beyond stupid of me, and if I wasn’t careful, it could make a lot of problems. Not just for me, but for Cain’s agency too, and that was the last thing I wanted. Especially since I’d decided to talk to him about possibly joining up.
I had a feeling that fucking a client would be a strike against me. Though, technically, Aline wasn’t the client. Freedom was. But I doubted that distinction would save my ass if the Mercier women came after me. Better to forget about what’d happened and hope that Aline brushed it off as a one-night stand coming from an intense experience. Because that’s what it was.
As soon as Dave came over the intercom to let us know that we could unbuckle, Cain moved from where he’d been sitting on the other side of the cabin and took the chair in front of me. He swiveled it around before holding out a beer. He had one too, and since the boss was okay with it, I wasn’t about to turn it down. Not after everything we’d been through.
After we each took a drink, Cain leaned forward. “What happened?”
I raised an eyebrow. “What happened with you guys?”
Cain leaned back and sighed. He took another swig of his beer and rubbed his hand over his jaw. “When Bruce got to the second floor, I was in the main hallway right under him. Fever and Dez had taken the hall to the right.”
I nodded. I’d been the first to move off from the group, taking what I’d thought had been a short hallway with a dead end. If it had been, I would’ve gone back to join the others, but that hadn’t been the case.
“Dez said a man came out of a room when he and Fever were a few yards down the hall. That’s when the shooting started.” He took a long drink. “They took turns clearing the rooms and covering each other. Fever said they got five men between them, but neither of them saw anything except the room of shit the kidnappers had stashed.”
Behind me, I could hear Aline talking to Freedom but couldn’t make out the words. For all I knew, she was sharing everything that’d happened, including our mutual moment of insanity. I’d deal with that if I needed to, but until then, I wasn’t going to bring it up.
“Of course, the gunshots brought out all the cockroaches. Bruce took two down and continued his sweep. I had three and was near the end of my hall when you radioed to say you had Aline.”
That was right before I’d thrown her over my shoulder and carried her out of the building because she’d been standing in the line of fire, arguing with me. I should’ve been remembering how many shots I fired, how many men I’d killed, but the clearest thing in my mind was how the backs of her thighs had felt under my hand when I’d held her steady. How she’d grabbed my shirt.
