Chapter 28 #2
The interior cabin was broken into several rooms. They were in the front section which had six traditional forward-facing seats. Through a wood panel sliding door was the larger section with divans and club seats grouped around small tables.
Zoran, Nikolett’s digital security expert, was hunched over as if he were deflating, while still furiously typing on one of two laptops set up on a table.
He looked up at her approach, swallowing hard. “Admiral.” His voice was hoarse. “I’m so sorry. I missed it. I don’t know what, but I missed it. I swear I looked. I don’t know how—”
Nikolett put her hand on his shoulder. “You did nothing wrong. Later we’ll figure out how he hid who and what he is.
For now…” Nikolett looked around at the dozen people on the plane with them.
Some were her people, some his Spartan Guard.
Some of the French knights and security officers who’d been involved were also here.
Every one of them looked drawn, their shoulders slumped in defeat.
He saw the moment Nikolett stopped blaming herself, because if she was at fault for missing something, so was everyone in this room.
“For now,” she said again, louder as she addressed the whole room, “the fleet admiral and I are going to find out why.”
Postures relaxed, a few people even flashed grim, cold smiles.
Regina started to rise as they passed where she was seated, but Nikolett leaned down, whispering something to her. Regina’s eyes widened, but she nodded.
They followed Grigoris through the next wooden partition. One side of the aisle was closed, the doors labeled “storage,” while the other was a bathroom and beside it a self-service coffee, tea, and snack station.
Past that was one final door. Unlike the others, it wasn’t elegant, polished wood, but the beige gray plastic and metal common to commercial airline bathroom doors.
Grigoris knocked three times, paused, then knocked once, before opening the door.
The small space at the tail of the plane was industrial and dull compared to the rich gloss of what came before.
There was a single row of four commercial airline seats against the back bulkhead, with two meters of clear floor space between the door and those seats.
This space was probably used for charter passengers’ expensive purchases too delicate to go into storage.
Right now, it was a prison.
The Spaniard was on his knees in the middle of the floor.
His wrists and ankles were both chained together; a shorter chain linking those prevented him from standing up.
His hair fell in his face, and blood had stained his mouth and chin from where Eric had broken his nose, though someone appeared to have made an attempt to clean up some of the blood.
Eric kept his hand on Nikolett’s back as they stepped into the cell, thumb sweeping in a comforting arch across her shoulder blades, though he wasn’t sure which one of them he was trying to soothe.
She said something to Iacob in not-Hungarian. He nodded and slipped out the door, murmuring a question as he did.
It was the Spaniard who replied in the same language.
Nikolett’s muscles tightened under Eric’s fingers. If Eric were a betting man, he’d say that Gus had just spoken fluent Romanian.
Nikolett said, “Yes, close it,” in English to Iacob, who closed the door reluctantly.
Eric knew their security people were probably having kittens, but he supported Nikolett’s desire for privacy for this conversation.
Nikolett glanced at Eric, silently asking if he wanted to go first.
Eric raised a brow. “I’m not going to ask any questions. I’m just here to hit him if you need me to.”
“Brute ignorance?” The Spaniard smirked.
“That sneer might work better if I gave a shit what you thought about me.” Eric shrugged. “But I don’t.”
“You will.”
“Fucking doubtful.”
“Eric.” Nikolett put a hand on his arm, and he shot her an apologetic smile.
“You’ve tamed the savage?” the Spaniard said with a sneer.
But the Spaniard—Gus—hadn’t looked at Nikolett. Almost as if he couldn’t bring himself to.
Eric glanced at Nikolett, studying her objectively, seeing what the Spaniard would see.
They’d cut off her bloody sweater and put her into one of his black button-down shirts.
It was comically large on her, and they’d left the top unbuttoned, revealing part of the large white bandage on her upper chest and the smaller line of bandages on her throat.
In the too-large shirt, she looked small and vulnerable, the bandages reinforcing that impression.
Eric glanced from Nikolett to the Spaniard and back, an odd feeling gripping his gut. The man was avoiding looking at Nikolett because he didn’t want to see what he’d done.
“Why?” Nikolett asked simply.
“Aren’t you going to start by asking my name?”
“No. I just want to know why.”
He smirked, but didn’t answer.
Nikolett waited, silent and steady. She shifted only when the plane dipped and the pilot announced they were beginning their descent. Eric wrapped an arm around her to brace her.
He caught the moment something close to satisfaction flashed in the Spaniard’s eyes as he watched Eric touch her.
Alarm shot through him and he pulled Nikolett back against the wall.
He’d developed a private theory in the hours he’d been sitting on the plane listening to various reports and action plans while holding her. A theory strengthened by everything that had happened since they walked into this makeshift cell.
The Spaniard was in love with Nikolett.
At some point, he’d fallen in love with her. She’d started out as his target—the reason for that still to be determined—but along the way, he fell in love with her. Eric could sympathize as someone who’d tried hard not to love her.
The Spaniard loving Nikolett explained so many things. Why the attacks on her had stopped once she met “Gus.” Why he’d come to the hotel, seemingly abandoning his theft plans, the instant she texted.
Why he hadn’t hurt her when they’d been alone together in her suite.
But if the Spaniard loved her, he shouldn’t look pleased and satisfied that Eric was holding her. He’d been jealous before, even stepped between them.
The plane lurched again, and this time even Eric rocked in place.
There was a screech of metal, and the lights blinked out. There was a split second of pure darkness. And in that visual void, the plane dropped. For a horrifying moment, Eric’s feet lost contact with the plane as it fell faster than he did.
Nikolett screamed, Eric pulling her hard against his side to keep them both on their feet. Other screams echoed her cries from the adjoining room.
The emergency lights clicked on at the same time the intercom crackled. “Seats and seat belts. Head down. Seats and seat belts. Head down.”
The lead flight attendant barked the orders, their voice tight with fear.
The plane was going to crash.
Eric looked at the Spaniard.
He smiled, the expression ghostly in the dim emergency light.
Eric glanced at the door as the plane bounced and jostled around them, rattling his bones. They weren’t going to make it out of this room and into a seat in the main cabin in time.
Nikolett seemed to have reached the same conclusion because she was trying to pull him toward the seats at the back of the room. Together, they stumbled over. He buckled her into one of the center seats then kissed her hard and fast—their teeth clicking together as the plane lurched.
The flight attendant’s continuous repeated commands changed. It was no longer seats and seat belts heads down.
“Brace for impact. Brace for impact.”
Eric turned to the Spaniard.
“Eric!” Nikolett screamed, voice barely audible amid the cacophony of sound as the plane careened toward the earth.
The man was bent forward, almost putting his forehead against the floor as he tried to stay braced against the turbulent movement of the crashing plane.
Eric grabbed him by the arm and dragged him back to the seats.
“What are you doing?” the Spaniard—Gus—yelled.
Eric didn’t have the keys to the cuffs, but the chain connecting the cuffs to the ankle chain was merely clipped in place.
It took four tries, given the jostling, to unlink the man’s arms and legs.
Eric pulled Gus up into a seat and quickly buckled his seat belt before dropping down into the seat on the other side of Nikolett.
They might all die in the next five minutes, but he’d give the asshole a fighting chance not to get ping-ponged around the cabin by strapping him in.
“Brace for impact. Brace for impact.”
The intercom was barely audible over the sound of the air screaming around them and the clank of the rattling plane. It sounded like the aircraft was coming apart piece by piece.
The windows were all closed, and Eric couldn’t decide if it was a blessing or a curse that he couldn’t see how close they were to the ground. Except it wouldn’t be the ground. More than likely, they were about to crash into the ice-cold Irish Sea.
Instead, he looked at Nikolett. Her lips moved, but he couldn’t hear her. The sounds around them were now deafening. They were jostling so much, he could barely see her.
But he didn’t have to hear. He knew what she was saying. The brief clear glimpses he got of her face were enough to see a strange sort of peace in her expression. A quiet, dignified resignation to their fate.
“I love you, too.” He couldn’t hear his own voice, not even the echo of it inside his own head, but that didn’t matter. He’d go to his death believing that she could read his lips or maybe hear with something besides her ears.
“If I could choose a way to die, it would be beside you. You and I have lived a lifetime worth of love in only a few days.” He laced his fingers with hers. “It wasn’t enough. All of time wouldn’t be enough. But whatever comes after this, if I can find you, I will.”
There was a massive jolt and the seat belt dug into his lap so hard, it felt like he was going to be cut in half. A low-pitched thump preceded the scream of metal.
Another jolt and they were flung forward only to snap back. Eric’s head hit the padded back of the seat hard enough that everything went dark.