Chapter 35
Where are we going?
Scarlett
Nobody speaks to me on the way to the airport or the plane that doesn’t look like the one we flew on when we arrived. The cabin is sleeker and more modern, with a black and white interior that’s cold and spotless. The leather smells new.
Maybe this plane is chartered.
The flight attendant, Norma, smiles politely and offers me a mimosa while everyone else gets champagne. Someone told her I like mimosas.
Once the plane starts taxiing and preparing for takeoff, I take in as much as I can of this nice waterfront, which I’ll never see again. Now that I’m allowed to leave, I can also appreciate the beauty of the town, sheltered by the green forest on one side and the sea on the other.
I think about the nice people I met here, many of whom were patients. But then I get sad I’m leaving them, and I close the window shade and gulp down the entire mimosa. I ask for another one before Norma has to sit for takeoff.
Endo’s people sit on a couch on my left. There’s a seat right across from me that I assume Endo will take once he’s finished talking with the pilots in the cockpit.
Slada flips a dagger and catches it between her fingers while Declan cleans parts of a weapon that, if put together, might make a sniper rifle. I can’t be sure. I hope I never find out. Connor sips champagne, occasionally catching my gaze in that creepy way he did when I first met him.
His gaze burns a hole in my head. I look away.
From the corner of my eye, I catch him smiling.
Endo’s protection of me is coming to an end, and Con might get nasty again. The nights in the dungeon and the beating he took from his brother were behavioral rehab, but now I’ll be a free woman. I also hope we never cross paths again.
Endo strides in and hangs his suit jacket over the back of the seat in front of mine. He sits down and crosses an ankle over his knee.
“How’s everyone doing?” he asks as he releases the button on his sleeve. He folds up the sleeve, then looks up, eyebrow arched. “Anyone?” He’s looking from me to the three people on the couch. Nobody answers.
“Connor, do you need a barf bag?” Corded forearm muscles flex as Endo rolls up his other sleeve.
Connor stares at me. “Maybe.”
Endo reaches for the bag near him and flings it.
The man catches it with a snort. “If we go down, it’ll be all her fault.” He points at me.
Endo nods. “Agreed.”
“Are you kidding me?” I protest.
“No,” Endo says.
“This time last month, I didn’t even know you existed, and now I’m engaged with a wedding planner on standby, a clinic full of patients who think I’ll be their forever physician, and a dog I had to give up to a man who may die tomorrow from another gunshot wound.
And I’m sitting in an unknown plane bound to I don’t know where to be exchanged for ransom. None of this is my fault.”
“The plane is known,” Endo says. “It’s Cass’s plane.”
“That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”
“Mmhm.” Endo spreads his legs and rests his arms in his lap, the Jolly Roger tattoos drawing my attention. “How’s the mimosa today?”
“Fine.” I guess he’s done arguing. Maybe he knows it’s a losing argument? I doubt it.
“Good.” Endo throws his head back and closes his eyes. The position exposes his thick neck and Adam’s apple, a part of a man I find attractive. Endo’s particularly handsome in a very annoying way. He’s muscular, with thick forearms and a prominent Adam’s apple that bobs when he swallows.
“Rest in the back, and I’ll watch her,” Slada says.
Endo scrubs his face. “I’m fine.”
“You haven’t been sleeping,” she says.
“I said I’m fine.”
Slada rolls her eyes.
“Endo,” I say.
“What?” he barks and looks at me.
“Insomnia reduces alertness. It’s definitely a weakness. Science proved it. The body can handle only so much. If you’re not sleeping, you’re not at your top capacity.”
“Are you looking out for me?”
“I would like to survive the exchange.”
“You will.”
“He thinks you’ll try to flee,” Declan says and blows into the barrel of the weapon he’s cleaning.
“In which case, he’ll have to run after me. If he’s tired, he’ll be slow.”
“For all I know,” Endo says, “when I fall asleep, you’ll sedate my team and the flight crew to pilot this plane.”
“I’m happy to hear you have such high regard for my ability to escape. But in this case, I’m terrible with directions, and I can’t pilot an airplane. Besides, I don’t go around sedating people. Or hurting them, for that matter.” I pause. “Unlike some of us.”
A smile tugs his lips. “The coordinates are set into the autopilot.”
“Where are we landing?” Connor asks.
“Selnoa.”
“Selnoa?!” all three of his people exclaim at once. They appear alarmed.
Endo rests his head back. “That’s where we’re going.”
“Whoa,” Connor says. “We can’t go there.”
“We can,” his brother corrects.
“But we shouldn’t,” Slada fills in. “This is fucked.”
“Mmhm,” Endo says.
“All the more reason you need to sleep,” Slada says, a little more forcefully.
“Is there something wrong with Selnoa?” I ask. I remember that Connor and Declan’s father lives there.
“No,” Endo says while they all say, “Yes.”
“There’s nothing wrong with Selnoa,” Endo says. “It’s a beautiful city with great people who dislike the impact expats have on their home. I’m not an expat. I plan to land, do business, and leave, all in a single day.”
“Tell him to go sleep in the back,” Slada says, her gaze on me.
I point at my chest. “Are you talking to me?”
“Jesus Christ, would you all shut up?” Endo barks. “I’m trying to rest over here.”
“You can do that in the back,” I say just to irritate him.
I succeed because he sits up and orders tea. Norma delivers a dark pouch.
“What will you do when you get back home?” he asks, pouring hot water over the tea sachet.
“Call my therapist.”
Endo covers his tea. “I doubt she can help you.”
“Why?”
“You need dick.”
My jaw almost hits the floor. Connor snickers.
“My therapist could be a man,” I counter.
“It’s a woman.”
“How do you know?”
Endo shrugs. “You don’t trust men.”
I swallow. “That’s not true.”
“I think you should leave for your job overseas right after you arrive home,” Endo says, changing the subject. “I don’t think you should put it off any longer.”
It’s odd that he’s giving me such advice. I frown. “I’ve already made arrangements.”
“You should change them. Don’t tell anyone about them and just disappear one day. You can write me a thank-you letter later.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I said so.”
Dark eyes watch me over his teacup. There’s something eerily genuine about the way Endo is addressing me now. But I hate how he doesn’t feel the need to explain himself. It’s like he’s parenting me.
“When you order me like that,” I say, “my instinct is to do just the opposite.”
“Because you don’t trust my advice. In this case, you should.”
“Do you know something I don’t?”
“Mmhm.”
“What?”
“You’re not as free as you think you are.”