Chapter 11
SHAWN
Kara’s face was completely white and she trembled so hard, she vibrated in my arms. The man who’d cut her lay in a twitching heap, and when her gaze began to drop to the floor, I forced her to move toward the front door, not wanting her to see.
We couldn’t stay here—it wasn’t safe.
She was probably going into shock and didn’t hear the urgency in my voice, but it was there. “We have to go.” I gently pressed on the towel. “Can you hold this?”
She didn’t nod, but her fingers went to cover mine, taking over so my hands were free.
She said nothing as I urged her out of the red coat she wore and it slid off, landing in a pile at her feet.
There was a simple rain jacket in the entry closet, and I yanked it down so fast I slung the hanger noisily against the wall.
I hastily draped the dark jacket around her shoulders. The red coat was too bright, too noticeable.
I grabbed both handles of the bags we’d left just inside the front door, hurried her out into the hall, and guided her to the stairs.
The constable had said someone would be here soon—but we wouldn’t be.
The only thing I cared about right now was getting Kara away from the man we’d left on the floor.
I was grateful I’d opted to leave the crew on standby until I called. I’d felt confident in getting her invitation to stay the night, but then again, I’d made plenty of mistakes with her.
Like leaving her alone in her destroyed living room. Where the fuck had that man come from?
As soon as we were out of her building, our suitcase wheels clacking over the pavement, she began to return to life.
She slipped her arms into the jacket and zipped it up, hiding her blood-soaked shirt.
She grabbed the handle of her bag from me, making it so we could move faster and allowing me to pull out my phone.
“Register a flight plan to Munich,” I said as soon as the captain answered my call. “We’ll be on board in twenty minutes, and I want to be in the air immediately afterward.”
“I can’t go to Munich.” Kara sounded like a ghost. “I’ve got a meeting at nine.” A nervous laugh trickled out of her, like she only realized the ridiculousness of what she’d said at that moment.
I shoved my phone in my pocket. “Once we get in the air, we’ll figure out what to do.”
Because I wasn’t sure myself. Thoughts of Juric out in the open left my brain sluggish. This had to be him—but why?
“I thought he was going to kill you,” she said. “He had the knife, and you were coming at him so fast.”
The truth was I’d been coming for her. There had been a lot of blood, and my stomach twisted just thinking about it now. Seeing the knife and the man who’d hurt her had filled me with blinding rage. I was going to make sure the man couldn’t use that knife on her again.
“He cut your throat, and you were worried about me?” I said in disbelief.
She didn’t answer. She kept her head down and the dishtowel around her neck like a scarf, and we didn’t draw much attention since it was getting late and a weeknight.
I carried our bags straight into the cabin to save time, and Victoria startled when she noticed the blood-soaked towel held to the other woman’s throat.
“Bloody hell,” she gasped. “What’s happened?”
I ignored her dismay. “Close the cabin door so we can get airborne and bring me the first aid kit.”
She didn’t bristle at me barking out orders. She followed them without question, and her footsteps carried her swiftly away.
Kara sank into the same seat she’d used on the flight here. Her eyes were blank. Empty. It was horribly unsettling, but then she blinked and focused on me as she pulled the towel away.
“Is it still bleeding?” she asked.
My stomach was lined with lead. I took a knee in front of her and set a hand on each of her shoulders. She angled her chin to give me a good view. The cut didn’t look deep or like it was weeping blood anymore. “I don’t think so.”
Behind me, there was a booming thud as the hatch slammed shut with force, and then a bin was unlatched, followed by rustling.
My hand on the shoulder opposite her wound slid up to hold her cheek. “Schei?e,” I swore. “Please tell me you’re all right.”
The icy silver of her eyes was magnetic as she slowly nodded.
Victoria returned with a white medical box in one hand and used her other to brace herself on a seatback when the plane lurched into motion. I took the box from her, popped the lid open, and paused. Blood streaked down Kara’s neck, over her collarbone, and soaked her shirt.
“What is it?” she asked.
I stood. “Let’s get you cleaned up in the lavatory first.” I turned back to Victoria. “Do you need us seated for takeoff?”
“Yes, sir, but I can have the pilots hold for a minute.”
I didn’t want to be on the ground another second, but I also wanted the constant, visible reminder of what had just happened gone, for both Kara and me. “Do it.”
“Shawn.” A cool hand grasped mine and tugged. “It can wait. I don’t want to stay here.”
My gaze snapped to Victoria, and she nodded immediately with understanding.
Her fingers punched in the code to the cockpit as I took the seat beside Kara, her grip still tight on mine.
The engines throttled up and we abandoned our hold only for a moment to do up seatbelts, and then she took my hand again.
“Tell me what happened,” I said.
She explained it in an unemotional voice while we climbed into the clouds.
“Where is Juric?” the man had said. “We know he was here.”
My bones felt like they were made of ice, the cold spreading outward. Juric had been to her place, or at least the man who’d attacked her believed he had. What the fuck was Juric doing anywhere near Kara?
The pilots hadn’t finished the climb to altitude when the sound of metal unbuckling came from Victoria’s station. She materialized instantly, a clean towel in her hands. “May I fetch you a new top from your suitcase?”
Kara nodded. “Yes, thank you.”
I took the offered towel, helped Kara out of her jacket, and led her to the lavatory at the back of the plane.
The small room was difficult to maneuver in even when the door was open, so if I ever needed to change, I didn’t do it inside there.
I’d have the privacy curtain installed, but it was clear she didn’t want to wait.
One glance in the mirror and the sight of the half-dried rivulets of blood streaking down her neck had her reaching for the hem of her shirt. There were no words. She simply lifted the bloody garment over her head and set it on the sink, revealing the simple black bra beneath.
There was nothing sexual about it, and I handed her the towel before pulling my gaze away, letting her get cleaned up. My nerves were jagged, the effects lingering in my system. I took the shirt Victoria had selected.
“Wine, sir?”
I nodded, and she went back to her station.
“Can I have that?”
Kara’s soft voice drew my gaze, and that was a complete mistake. She’d wiped away the blood, and other than the thin, angry line where she’d been cut, she looked fine. Back to normal. Which meant she was standing in front of me with no shirt on.
“You’ve never seen breasts before?” She pulled the shirt from my grasp.
I dropped my guilty gaze to the floor. “Not yours.”
God, I was such a bastard. She’d almost died, and here I was, lusting after her. I went back to my seat and sank into it, resting my elbows on my knees, fingers laced behind my neck. We’d be forever bound by this night, the night she’d killed someone. To save me.
I hadn’t heard her approach. She lifted my head in her hands, and then she kissed me, the first time she’d initiated it. She kissed me so softly it almost tore my heart in two. When I pulled her down into my lap, she didn’t protest.
“Shawn.” Her hollow voice filled me with concern.
“Are you all right?”
“I can’t tell. I feel . . . empty.”
I kissed her again. It wasn’t passionate or dominating.
I tried to make it about comfort, to show her she wasn’t alone.
I was vaguely aware that Victoria stood motionless at the edge of the partition with our wine, not wanting to disturb, so I reluctantly ended the kiss, a hand still buried in the soft hair at the nape of Kara’s neck.
She sipped the wine with a shaky hand while I put the bandage on her neck, and then I called Jason and broke the news. Juric was alive. People were looking for him, and those people believed he’d been at Kara’s apartment.
“Where do we go?” I asked. “We’ll be on the ground in thirty minutes. Should we come to you?”
“No, I can’t risk anyone following you here.
” Jason hesitated. “Shit, you can’t take her to your place, either.
It’s the first place Juric will look when he finds out an Osterh?gen plane landed in Maastricht and then departed for Munich.
” There was a sigh. “Take her to the corporate room at the Palace tonight. They won’t register her passport if you’re there with her, and I’ll send the backup team to meet you. ”
The idea of sharing a room with Kara tonight was appealing, but for an entirely different reason than usual. I didn’t want her to be alone after what had happened. Didn’t want her out of my sight.
“Can you keep her safe until then?” he asked.
“Yes, of course.”
I could picture the dubious expression on his face on the other end of the phone. “And does that include keeping her safe from your dick?”