Echo, page 21
“Little hard to do when I don’t know where that is.”
That was the whole fucking point. “Do what you have to, and call me once you have him.”
“You do realize I could just track your cell or the burners you grabbed from November.”
I glared at him.
“Right. I’ll pretend not to know about those. Same as I’ll pretend not to track your cell to keep you untracked by the entire fucking mafia while I bring in their public enemy number one. The shit I do for you. And for the record, if I get shot at for any of this, I’m not going to be held accountable for my actions.” Slamming his laptop shut, Conlon strode back to the cockpit.
I looked at a Principessa.
She looked like an angel of death.
Fuck.
Sancia
Standing on a private airstrip with Erico on one side of me and Mr. Conlon on the other, the jet behind us and a seaplane in front of us, I had no idea where we were.
The airstrip did not even have lights.
All I knew was that the man talking to Erico, who Mr. Conlon had called Romeo, was as big and as frightening and as formidable-looking as Erico—with one exception.
He had a beautiful golden dog.
Sitting proudly and obediently next to her owner, staring up at him with lovestruck puppy eyes, her tail thumped every time Romeo spoke. And when her tail wagged, a key chain attached to her tactical vest made a faint tinkling sound not unlike wind chimes.
Neither Erico nor Vance had pet or addressed the dog, but I wanted to.
I had never had an animal.
“The TKS reservoirs are topped off.” Romeo continued to give Erico instructions, but I understood none of it. “That gives you one to three hours of deicing, depending on usage.” He abruptly stopped talking to Erico and looked directly at me for the first time since we had deplaned. Then he gave his dog a command as he tipped his chin toward me. “Missy, greet.”
The fluffy golden dog trotted over and nudged my hand with her muzzle.
Startled, I looked at her owner. “May I pet her?”
Same as he had tipped his chin before, he did it again, then his focus went back to Erico. “Watch your fuel. Don’t tap her out in low temps. Range?”
I held my fingers out for Missy to sniff, but she merely nudged me again, so I placed my hand on her head. She was the softest thing I had ever touched.
“Already told you,” Erico replied to Romeo. “Supplies?”
Marveling at her silky fur, I scratched behind her ears.
“Cold weather gear’s in the cabin, the rest is in the cargo hold. Ever landed on water before?” Romeo asked.
Landed on water? I looked up.
Erico smirked. “Yeah.”
“When will you have her back?” Romeo asked.
Tired, overwhelmed, angry, hurt—too many emotions in too short of a time, too many people when I was used to none—I had shut down the moment I had gone into the other airplane’s restroom and washed the blood off myself before putting on clothes that did not belong to me.
Then I had taken a seat as far away as possible from a man who hated me, and I had tried to just… not think. I was still trying to not think and only half listening to the conversation. I saw the seaplane. I heard the words of the conversation, but I had not put it all together until this very moment.
“Twenty-four to forty-eight hours,” Erico answered Romeo before glancing at Mr. Conlon. “Keep us off the grid. Call me as soon as you have a sitrep.”
“Copy that,” Mr. Conlon replied.
Turning toward the seaplane, Erico stepped onto one of the floats, opened a door, then looked back at me. “Let’s go.”
Stunned, I stood there. “You are flying this plane?”
“Right.” Mr. Conlon chuckled. “Romeo, I think that’s our cue.” He smiled at me. “Take care, love. See you on the other side.” He walked up the stairs to the jet.
“Missy, plane,” Romeo commanded.
The dog ran up the stairs after Mr. Conlon. Then her owner followed.
I looked back at Erico. “Do you know how to fly?”
Hopping down from the float, he walked right at me. “You’re about to find out.”
Without any more warning than that, he picked me up and took two strides before placing me on the float. “Watch your step. Take the front seat on the right.”
I glanced back at the jet, but its cabin door was already shut. “I do not think this is a good idea.”
“Neither do I. I hate flying. But it’s the only option we’ve got because where we’re going, it’s dumping snow, and the roads will be impassible. Get in.”
Bedda Matri. He hated flying? Dumping snow? No. “No.”
“Yes.” He stepped onto the float behind me. “You can bitch all you want once we’re up in the air, but for now, we need to get off this airstrip before anyone spots us.” Grasping my waist, he bypassed the ladder steps and lifted me into the plane.
With no other choice but to climb into the cabin unless I wanted to fall to the ground, which looked very far away, I got into the seat he had told me to take. “Erico—”
“Doing prechecks. Buckle in.” Tossing a black bag he brought with him from the other plane behind my seat, he closed the door and jumped back down.
While he circled the plane, I did up my seat belt and started to panic.
After checking the wings and the propeller and who knew what else, he jumped back onto the float, stepped up the ladder, and angled his huge height into the pilot’s seat of the low-ceilinged plane.
Then he started flipping switches and pushing buttons and touching so many things on the control panel, or dashboard, or whatever it was called, but it did not look anything like the very modern controls on the private jet, and I suddenly did not think I could do this.
“I do not want to fly.”
“That makes two of us.” The propeller started to spin, but not with the same kind of lulling noise as a jet.
“Then why are we doing this? Why are we running away? Why can we not just stay… somewhere?” Anywhere else besides lifting off the ground in this plane.
His hands paused, and he looked at me. “Just so we’re clear about one thing—I don’t fucking run, Principessa.” His jaw ticked. “I’m getting you off the grid. I’m keeping you safe, and I’m handling this bullshit. Once this is over, you can do whatever the hell you want. For now, this is the plan.”
I could not help it. Tears welled. “You said you hate to fly.”
“Yeah, and I hate piloting too. Doesn’t mean I don’t do both.”
“Why are you doing this?”
He grunted as if he were annoyed. “Because someone has to.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from crying. “Where is it snowing?”
“Montana.”
I choked on the lump in my throat because I remembered the name. It was the name the pilot had said all those years ago. “Why are we going there?”
“Because it’s the only safe house I trust.”
The safe house he had designed. “Have you been there… since?”
The vein on the side of his neck bulged. “No.”
I did not think I could hurt worse. “I am sorry.”
“Be sorry later. We need to get in the air. Any other questions?”
He offered, so I asked. “Who is Erik Markos?” Who was this man next to me who was about to fly a seaplane to Montana, who was deliberately cruel, who was so much harder than the man who had given a young woman a cell phone?
His jaw tightened, his chest rose, his muscles flexed, and he released a harsh breath.
Then he told me exactly who Erik Markos was.
“Erik Markos was a Greek immigrant orphan living in New York who worked in a restaurant and had a side hustle selling weed to kids to fund his own habit. He was two years younger than me, had brown hair, hazel eyes and most importantly, was my height. I killed him, dumped his body, and took his identity because I knew that one day, I wouldn’t be able to be Erico Mantovani anymore.” Grabbing two headsets, he handed me one. “Put those on.”
Focusing back on the controls as I sat there speechless, he turned the plane around and lined it up on the airstrip.
I put the headset on.
We took off.
Echo
Visibility shit, low on fuel, almost out of deicer, I could barely see the fucking lake, let alone the stretch I knew was long enough to land on.
White knuckling her seat, breathing like she was about to hyperventilate, she hadn’t said two fucking words since we’d taken off.
“Almost down,” I muttered, checking my speed and altitude and hoping like fuck the lake wasn’t iced over, because I wanted off this goddamn plane as much as she did.
The entire fucking flight I’d been flying IFR, and it’d been turbulent as hell.
With one last look at my headings, I dropped us down, switched to VFR, and at the last minute, the lake came into view.
Not iced.
Thank fuck.
We hit the water, and the Cessna glided across the surface.
As fast as I could, I turned the plane around and headed back toward my property, hoping like hell the bifold door on my boat hangar wasn’t frozen shut.
Two long minutes later, through the dumping snow, I finally saw the roofline, then the front of the hangar.
Easing back on the throttle, I pulled my cell out and brought up the security system. Hitting the command to open the hangar door, I waited.
A second later, the door went up.
I exhaled.
She finally fucking spoke. “You are a good pilot.”
Her comment throwing me, I glanced at her. “You were worried I wasn’t?”
Still gripping her seat, she shook her head. “I was worried the weather would make us crash.” She looked around. “I have never seen snow.”
Needing to get the plane out of the weather, not having time to waste, I didn’t grab her chin to get her to look at me like I wanted to, but I said what I needed to say. “If I thought the weather was going to take us down, I would’ve put us down. I’d never risk your life like that.”
She turned to look at me, but the hangar door was up, and I was already watching my clearance as I maneuvered the Cessna into the boathouse.
As soon as I got us inside, I cut the engine and used my cell to close the bifold door. Bringing up the security cameras one more time to check them before we headed up to the cabin, I nodded toward the rear cabin. “There’s a coat and boots back there for you.” Before we took off, I saw them buckled into one of the passenger seats. “Put them on while I tie down the plane, then I’ll come back for you.”
“We are not staying here?”
“No. This is the boathouse. We’ve got a short hike up to the cabin.”
She crossed her arms around her thin shirt. “Hike?”
“Yeah.” Grabbing my go bag from behind her seat, I pulled out a long-sleeved thermal T-shirt and handed it to her. “Put this on under the coat.”
She held the shirt up, then glanced at my short sleeves. “What are you going to wear?”
“I have a jacket.” Pulling my ultra-light, waterproof tactical jacket from my bag, I threw it on. Then I zipped my bag shut, shouldered it and my M4 and opened my door. “Two minutes. Be ready.” Hopping down, I shut the door as fast as possible to keep whatever heat there was left inside the cabin for her.
After tying down the plane and throwing some rations into my bag from the cargo hold, I was back at her door.
Jacket on, her dark eyes swimming in her pale face, she looked down at me like a lost dog, and for half a second, I paused as my chest took a hit. I shouldn’t have told her how the fuck I’d gotten the Markos ID. I shouldn’t have said a lot of the shit I’d said to this woman, but what was done was done.
Now I needed to get her up to the cabin so neither of us froze in this damn blizzard.
Opening her door, trying not to be an overbearing prick this time, I held my hand out. “Watch your step.”
She looked down at the ladder steps and shivered.
Fuck this.
I grabbed her around the waist, and she gripped my shoulders. Stepping off the float and onto the dock inside the boathouse, I set her down. Then I secured the door on the plane and took the steps to get off the dock two at a time before striding toward the rear exit of the boathouse. Unlocking the half-frozen door, I yanked it open and cursed.
The snowdrift was almost up to my waist.
I glanced back at a Principessa who was standing exactly where I left her.
Still with the lost look, her gaze met mine.
“Come on.”
Inhaling as she looked down, she grabbed the hem of her coat and held it up like she was about to wade through water.
Then she fucking shuffled forward.
Boots on the dock, not lifting her feet, actually goddamn shuffled.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Pausing, she looked up. “This is a dock, no?”
“Yeah.”
“It is moving.”
It was fucking floating. That’s what docks did. “You’re not going to fall in. Get up here.”
“I am trying.” She looked back down at her pink-booted feet, and her voice dropped. “I have never walked on a dock before, and these boots are too big, and you swear too much.”
Motherfucker.
Without comment, which was a feat in itself, I walked down the dock, picked her up and strode back to the door and the damn snowdrift. Setting her down, I pulled my go bag off my shoulder and lifted it over her head, looping one of her arms through it. Easing the weight of the bag down till it was all on her, I watched her for signs of duress. “That too heavy?”
She held the strap. “No.”
“Good. Put your hood up.” Giving her my back, I squatted. “You’re carrying the bag, I’m carrying you. Arms around my neck, legs around my waist.”
She complied.
Grabbing the back of her knees, I stood.
Then I stepped into a goddamn blizzard, pulled the door shut behind me, and trudged up the hill.
Sancia
He carried me up the hill through the stark and stunningly inhospitable winter landscape.
Barely able to see through the rapidly falling snow that was shockingly silent and eerily luminescent, even at night, I glanced at the trees that were so tall they had no tops and the sheer drop-offs so steep they had no bottoms.
My hands were freezing. My eyelashes had snow on them, and my back felt the weight of his bag, but I said nothing.
I shivered, and I held on to him.
His muscles flexing and moving with his every step, his breathing was more rapid than when we had started, but he did not sound labored.
He did not seem affected at all.
Not by the weather, not by the burden of carrying me, not by the steepness of the mountain. He had not even seemed concerned about the terrifying flying conditions after saying he hated to fly. He had merely exhaled after he had expertly brought the plane down on the water.
Every capable thing about him made me feel more incapable.
So much so that I was no longer sure if I was horrified that he had killed a man who sold drugs to children merely to take his identification.
Would I have done the same if it had meant the choice between a life in the Cosa Nostra or one out of it?
I could not say that I would not have killed.
I could not even say what my breaking point was, nor did I have time to think about it because all of a sudden, we were at a wooden cabin that looked like something out of a movie.
Tucked up against a mountainside with stilts holding it up in the front, it had a steep pitched roof, two stories of glass facing the lake and wraparound balconies. It was both austere and picturesque, but I immediately knew I could not have lived here for nine years, let alone lived here by myself.
The thought itself had me panicking.
Then it somersaulted.
What if Erico was planning on leaving me here by myself?
What if he was going to fly off in his plane and leave me here with no means to leave?
Walking around the side of the cabin, he squeezed the backs of my knees that he had been holding on to the entire hike up. “What’s wrong?”
“Are you leaving me here by myself?”
He paused. It was only for a fraction of a step, and maybe no one else would have noticed, but I did. “Do you want me to?”
“No.”
“Then I won’t.” He strode onto a deck on the rear side of the cabin that had an overhang and stomped the snow off himself before taking another step and dropping to a knee so I could get down.
Letting go of his neck, I quickly rubbed my hands together.
Standing back up to his full height, he turned and took me in with one glance. Then he lifted the bag off my shoulder, pulled out his cell phone and did something on it because I heard the lock on the door in front of us click.
Grasping the handle and giving the door a good shove with both his hand and his boot, he pushed it open, stepped back and tipped his chin.
I quickly rushed inside.
Following me, he shut the door, then flipped a few switches on the wall, and the entire interior lit up. A small kitchen with an island was open to a living room that had sheets on all of the furniture. A staircase led up to the second story, and a short hallway on the opposite side of the large open room led to what looked like a bedroom. The huge windows looked out onto the deck and the storm beyond, and everything was wood. The walls, the floors, the cabinets, the counters—all of it was golden-hued wood.
I felt trapped.
Setting his bag on the kitchen counter, Erico strode past a dining table and into the living area where he pulled the sheets off a sofa and the chairs. Bundling them up, he came back toward me and tossed them onto the floor in front of a washer and dryer that were behind the door we had just come through.
“Take your jacket off and let it dry. I’ll turn the heat up.” Going to a thermostat on the wall, he adjusted it, then walked back to the kitchen and opened his bag on the counter, pulling out two olive green plastic bags and two bottles of water.
