Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Who knew SEALS were such a handful?
My boring life of digging on archeological sites feels like a lifetime ago.
My heart pounds like crazy as we stride across the tarmac.
Justice looks like a kid in a candy shop. Those dark brown eyes of his radiating excitement. He’s laughing when he jogs backward. “Hell, yeah, great minds and all that.”
Truck, on the other hand… looks scary, determined, and the kind of wild that shows me a whole new side of him.
Me? I’m somewhere between terrified and thrilled, and just plain out of my mind.
This is not the old Allison. Gator, Golddigger, GG, Superwoman. Somebody else is filling my skin right now.
She feels reckless and alive. Purely determined to fulfill our crazy mission.
A surge of pure adrenaline races through me propelling me into a skipping jog.
“I hope one of you is a good pilot.”
“ Fucking hell, ” Truck yells as he stalks behind us, a literal force of destruction with a thundercloud darkening the light around him.
He rounds the chopper, opens the door, and climbs in.
Justice opens the back door for me.
“Don’t they lock these things?” I puzzle as he helps me up. “You didn’t even have to break in.”
“They didn’t expect anyone to take it. Pilot’s probably inside taking a leak or something.”
My eyes go wide as Truck flips switches, expertly reaching here and there, and mechanical things start to hum to life.
The man continues to impress me. In every way.
“You know how to fly?” I can’t keep the awe out of my voice.
He cuts a glance at me, with a small headshake. “We both do. But I’m not trusting your life to bozo over there. He flies like he drives.”
Justice scoffs. “Remember the last time you were flying us, you?—”
Truck shoves a finger into Justice’s jugular. “Enough! Keep your mouth shut, or I’ll tape it.”
Justice snickers as the rotor begins to turn. But he doesn’t finish his story, he’s busy going through some kind of checklist with Truck.
Having flown in a few choppers—including this one once when my father sent it to pick me up for a meeting—I know to put on my headset.
Settling in the back, I fight the nerves in my stomach. There’s a war going on there.
In twenty minutes, we’ll be landing at the estate. And then we’ve got to hurry.
“Guys, how are we just going to land, won’t that call the attention of the guards?”
“It will.”
“What are you thinking?” I ask, not at all good at waiting for Justice’s plan to play out.
Truck’s voice blooms in my headset. “We go in like we own the place.”
My gaping is met with his glance over his shoulder.
“Seriously?”
Justice talks as we begin lifting off the ground. “Sometimes, that’s the easiest thing to do.”
Now my heart is trying to escape my chest. “But what about the guards?”
“Like I said, I’m going to be the distraction.”
I press a hand to my sternum as the beat throbs behind the bone. It’s hard to tell what these two are up to, and they haven’t even talked about it. But they’ve worked together, so maybe this is normal for them.
Truck’s solemn countenance gets even more serious.
The chopper floats up, leans forward, and zooms over the grassy field. Right into an oncoming storm.
I cover my eyes, my nerves pulsing like neon signs. “This seems like a terrible idea right now. I forgot about the weather.”
“We’ve got time.”
Truck seems sure. And lord knows, we’re going fast enough to outrun the devil. I just hope we’re fast enough to outrun my father.
Truck banks us left and pulls up on the thing he’s got in his hands.
My stomach dips, my throat goes dry. No other helicopter pilot I’ve ridden with has ever done the things he’s doing.
“I hate to admit that I find this exciting.”
“Course, you do, Gator. You’re a SEAL at heart,” Justice jokes.
When the helicopter settles into a straight line with the ocean ahead in the distance, the blackening clouds off to our left, things feel a lot more real.
I’m breaking into my father’s house, stealing information. It’s an ugly necessity.
A tightness forms under my lungs.
Who is he? Because the man I thought I knew isn’t the same person anymore.
“Drop me in the field just to the south of the house,” Justice says into the headset, interrupting my spiraling thoughts.
“Copy,” Truck replies, his eyes scanning the horizon, body relaxed, his capable hand easily gripping the controls.
Heat floods through me.
I never thought about men like him before. Now I can’t imagine being with anyone else.
“You ready, hotshot?”
I blink at his question. “Me?”
“Yeah, you, Butterfly ”
“We talked about this.”
“You didn’t give me an alternative, and I refuse to call you Gator. Or Golddigger.” He cuts a glare at Justice.
“Well, I’m fresh out of ideas.”
His gaze meets mine again for a second before he turns his eyes front again. “What about some kind of flower?”
I huff. “Do I look like I’m a flower?”
His voice goes husky. “Do you really want me to answer that?”
“No! Definitely not. I’ll think of something.”
Justice passes me something, it’s small and fits into the palm of my hand like a piece of candy.
“It’s for your tooth. This ring goes on your finger, it’s the activator for the comms gear.”
After clicking it to my tooth, my tongue runs over the device. “Oh, my god this is how you were talking to your team that day, Truck. The day we met.”
“Yep, and you need a call sign, baby.”
Looking out the window, I search for anything, anything at all that might inspire me. Although Gator is amusing, but clearly not so to Truck, which is understandable. He did watch me get taken by a crocodile and had to shoot it to save me.
The center of my heart melts like a piece of caramel candy.
This big badass SEAL has been my hero over and over again.
“How about Goldilocks?”
“Am I the big bad wolf?”
My face tingles with my grin as I shove my arms into the jacket and zip it to my collarbone. “Your mind is in the gutter.”
“You know it, sweetheart.”
Justice shoves the ring on my finger and taps it. Suddenly, there’s sound inside my head. “For the love of god, would you two leave me out of these conversations.”
It’s like magic.
Truck smiles. “Goldilocks, put on your vest. It’s in the bag on the seat. There’s a wind jacket in there too to go over the top.”
“Am I supposed to say, copy?”
“Yep. Hurry. We’re going down.”
A red light flashes above him on a console.
“What?” I squeak. “Are we crashing?”