Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
They were slowing down. Nikolett squeezed Eric’s hand hard.
At first, she didn’t believe it. Thought it was her mind desperately looking for some sliver of survival hope, but now it was undeniable. They were slowing down.
Not only that…they were on the ground.
At some point, one of the window shades had bounced open, and outside, she could see rocky soil painted blue and silver by moonlight.
They hadn’t crashed. They’d crash-landed.
A loud pop, and the plane lurched sideways. They were still going car speeds, far from out of danger, but the calm fatalistic acceptance of her impending death was leaching away.
That was actually worse, because now she had room to be utterly terrified.
The plane spun, forcing her sideways into Eric. His head lolled.
“Eric?” His eyes were closed, his chin on his chest. “Eric!”
She was terrified to untangle their fingers, sure that if she let go of him, this plane would rip in half right down the middle and steal him away, spinning him off somewhere she couldn’t find him.
With her other arm currently uselessly strapped to her body, that meant she couldn’t reach up and check for a pulse.
There was one last massive jolt accompanied by a deafening crunch of metal as the plane struck something, the nose of it rising so that even as physics flung her forward, gravity pulled her back.
Then the plane was still.
Her ears were ringing, her whole body still vibrating either from the constant rattle of the plane, or adrenaline.
With the door between this compartment and the next closed, she had no idea what had happened to the front of the plane. What happened to everyone else.
She and Eric were…
But it wasn’t just her and Eric.
Nikolett whipped her head to the side, staring at Gus.
As she watched, he twisted in his seat, hooked his cuffs around the armrest, and with a yank, broke the chain between them.
Nikolett looked from Gus, to the closed door, to Eric.
She was trapped back here with an unconscious Eric and the man who tried to kill her more times than she cared to count. A man she didn’t understand at all, which meant she had no idea what he was about to do.
Nikolett forced herself to let go of Eric’s hand, though it took more strength of will than she knew she had. She touched Eric’s cheek, his neck. “Eric, Eric, wake up for me, love. Please wake up.”
A large hand gripped her wrist, forcing her trembling fingers away from Eric’s throat where she was scrambling to find his pulse.
The Spaniard dropped to one knee in front of her, still holding her wrist.
Nikolett was shaking so hard, she was worried she’d vibrate apart.
Except this wasn’t the Spaniard. It was Gus. He looked at her now with the same soft concern he had when he’d propped her cast-bound leg on his knee.
Who are you?
“Come with me.”
Nikolett was sure she’d heard him wrong, and that must’ve shown in her expression.
“Come with me,” he said again.
“Wh-where?” She could barely get the word out. Her body was shaking and shivering from fear and adrenaline.
Their plane had just crashed. He looked unbothered except for the messy way his hair fell over his forehead. How was he so calm?
Because he knew it was going to crash.
“Away,” he said simply.
“You…you’re the one who hurt me. You tried to kill me a dozen times.” Her teeth were nearly chattering from shock, but she got the words out.
Real regret pinched his features. “I’m sorry I hurt you. It was never about you.”
“Wh-what?”
“It was never about you.”
She knew that. It was about the Masters’ Admiralty. She was just a stand-in for the society as a whole.
“It was about him.” Gus looked at Eric and his expression twisted.
No. No no no.
Gus looked back at her. “I hurt you because he loved you.” Gus reached up with the hand not currently trapping her free wrist and stroked her cheek. “I see why he loves you.”
“No. No.” She needed him to take the words back.
There were sounds coming from the other side of the door.
Was someone there? Would someone come? Eric was beside her unconscious—she firmly believed that she felt his pulse pump under her fingertips for just a moment—and she was trapped in her seat.
They were defenseless against Gus who seemed entirely unaffected by what had just happened.
“It was never about you, but you changed everything.”
Nikolett strained the arm currently strapped to her chest, trying to reach the buckle of her seat belt.
Gus saw what she was doing and casually reached down and undid it for her, though he didn’t let go of her wrist.
The door latch rattled.
“Nikolett, come with me.”
As a hostage? She almost asked the question, but she knew that wasn’t what he was asking, and she wouldn’t insult either of them by pretending it was.
“Gus wasn’t a l-lie.” She wanted to say more, but each word was hard to get out.
His eyes softened. “No, he wasn’t.” He looked away from her. “Not entirely.”
Nikolett had the strangest urge to comfort him, an urge only increased when he finally looked back to her, the flashing emergency lights, bangs on the door, and shouts fading away as they stared at one another.
“Come with me,” Gus urged, something painfully vulnerable in his expression.
As if he’d never before dared to ask anyone for anything, and now he was asking her to run away with him.
“No.”
He recoiled as if she’d slapped him. Nikolett yanked her wrist out of his hold and forced herself to stand, shifting to put herself between him and Eric.
Gus stayed on one knee, gazing up at her.
Then his expression hardened, and he too rose.
He changed as he stood, shedding whatever soft vulnerability he’d shown.
She didn’t know if the hard, cruel, dangerous man now on his feet was his truest version, the man she knew as Gus a veneer, or if it was Gus who was real, and what she saw now a protective shell.
He towered over her, leaning into her in a way that made it very clear how utterly helpless she was. If he wanted to take her by force, he could. She’d fight him, but even if she wasn’t wounded, she wouldn’t have been able to triumph in a physical confrontation.
Nikolett forced herself to hold perfectly still as he bent his head to hers and his lips slid along her cheek to her ear. “Enjoy what I have in store for you,” he whispered. He took a step back. “And him.”
Gus shot a bitter, rage-filled glance at Eric. He turned, and she started to shout a warning to whoever was trying to open the door.
But Gus dropped to one knee, hooking a finger in a small latch. With a twist, he unlocked and then opened a rectangular hatch in the floor. A second later, he slipped through into the belly of the plane.
The trap door snapped closed. Nikolett let out a sob as she stumbled over, falling to her own knees and twisting the latch to lock it closed.
Only then did she frantically make her way back to Eric.
“Eric, Eric. Please don’t leave me. I love you, please don’t leave me.”
She found his pulse, and when she pressed a frantic kiss to his lips, then his cheek, his eyes fluttered. A sob of relief mixed with one of terrible dread was ripped from her.
That was how the others found her after forcing the warped door open—bent over Eric, sobbing softly.