Chapter 24
MINKA
Just as he warned, Archer turns angry when he’s afraid, and when the boss of all bosses, the friggin’ head hoo-ha of New York City, requests a private dinner with his wife and three of her closest friends—and absolutely no husbands—his rage notches up to an all-time high.
“You don’t have to do this.” He grabs my arm in a too-tight grip and pulls me to a stop twenty feet from Cordoza’s jet in the private section at Copeland airport.
The skin around his lips glows white, his teeth are gritted tight, and his eyes, so bright and pretty, glitter with a feral rage I’ve seen too often in our time together.
“We have a different plane, Minka. We have money and new IDs. We have a whole other life we can step into.”
“Archer—”
“We could go to Jamaica permanently,” he insists desperately. “We could live on a yacht. Travel anywhere you wanna go.” He leans closer, his breath hitting my chin. “We don’t have to jump just because Cordoza orders it.”
“If one is out, we’re all out.” Tim stalks across the blacktop, his hand wrapped around Aubree’s arm much the same way Archer’s is around mine. “We all disappear, or none of us. He’s asked for the four of them, not three and a fuckin’ raincheck. One ditching puts the others in more danger.”
“We’re all going.” I fill my lungs, expanding my chest and broadening my shoulders. Placing my hand over Archer’s, I meet his glittering, terrified stare. “He promised our safety.”
“He proved all week his promises don’t mean a damn thing!
He manipulated you into killing a man, then he split us up.
” He drags me around, as though presenting my back to the sleek, black plane buys us privacy.
“Anyone who wants us apart is not a safe person, and they sure as fuck aren’t trustworthy. ”
“We won’t get hurt.” Aubree peels Tim’s hand off her arm and comes to a stop on my left.
She wears her standard bright colors, light-up shoes, and more pockets than anyone truly needs.
She carries a pin-loaded backpack over one shoulder and tucks soft blonde locks behind her ear.
“I get you don’t trust him. But you trust me.
” Her ocean-blue eyes glitter with confidence. “He’s not going to hurt us.”
“You don’t get to rely on your…” Frustrated, Archer points at his head.
“Powers. You said you only know what’s happening on whatever path people are on now.
But that shit changes the instant he changes his mind.
By then, you’re in New York and we—” He gestures around our audience: Cato, Felix, Micah, Harrison.
Even Stovic and Michaels hover nearby. “—We can’t save you when we’re a whole fucking country apart. ”
“You’re coming to New York, too.” I take Archer’s hand and twine our fingers together. “As if you’ll just stay here in Copeland while we’re doing this.”
“I could be in the same house,” he groans, “And I still wouldn’t be able to save you.
I could be standing right beside you, but if he wants you dead, there isn’t a damn thing I could do to stop it.
” He points toward Felix’s jet instead. “Get on that one, and we’ll fly somewhere else. Anywhere else.”
“Cordoza ordered her to be on his jet,” Felix rumbles. “Now. We’ll be behind them every step of the way, and when they’re at Cordoza’s, we’ll be nearby.”
“It’s all so fucking easy for you to say!” Archer snaps. “But I don’t see Christabelle’s name on the invitation list.”
Felix’s eyes glitter with anger. With rage.
“She’s safe,” Archer presses. “She’s gonna survive today. Since we’ve got that cleared up, why don’t you shut the fuck up and mind your damn business?”
“Archer.” Frowning, I tug on his hand and pull him away.
Away from Tim and Aubree. Away from the Malone guards, whose bodies swell with adrenaline.
Away from the planes and listening ears.
I bring him a full forty feet from them all, then I come around and stop in front of him.
“I don’t think we have any other options here. ”
“We do.” He grips my face tighter than I think he realizes. His palms sit like cinder blocks on my cheekbones. “We have a million options, Minka. And none of them include you attending that dinner.”
“He’s never hurt us before. He’s—”
“Why aren’t you mad?” he snarls. “He kept us apart, Minka! He hurt us. You should be pissed.”
“I am.” I wrap my hands around his wrists, my thumbs pressed to his pulse underneath. “I’m furious, and since I’ll have his undivided attention in a few hours, I intend to ask him why the hell he did that to us.”
“Oh, good! So you’re gonna go to dinner, and you’re gonna question him. I bet he’ll take that on the chin like a champ.”
He thinks I’m not angry? That I’m not enraged over the things Estefan did to us this week? I’m incensed. But only one of us gets to be riled up today. The other one is me. Which makes it my job to calm shit down before things escalate.
“He asked us to come.” I lick my dry lips. “He needs something from us, and for as long as one of us is Ellie and the other is Soph, I don’t see him turning his guns our way. He won’t hurt us, Archer, he just wants an audience with a couple of doctors and the Solomon sisters.”
“I can’t be there with you,” he moans. “I can’t help you if it goes bad.”
“You’ll be nearby. Soph’s crew will be there, too. You know they’ll do whatever it takes to keep us alive.”
“To keep Soph alive,” he counters firmly. “And Ellie. You and Aubree may benefit from their presence, but if a sacrifice must be made…”
I shake my head, though his grip on my face makes movement difficult. “I don’t believe Soph’s people would trade us, nor do I think they’d intentionally place us in harm. Frankly, I don’t think Cordoza would, either.”
“He already did! You’re chewing on a giant chunk of naiveté right now, Chief. You remember those four nights we spent apart, right? You remember the pain?”
Fresh, debilitating agony bounces around my heart. “Of course I—”
“He did that. He’s calling you across the country, banning your supporters from entering the fucking room, and he’s doing it all on less than twenty-four hours’ notice.
That’s not poor planning on his part, Mayet.
It’s a fucking game, and he’s setting it up so you have no time to put a safety net in place. ”
“I just…” I curl into his hand and breathe. For just this minute, I search for calm. For sense. “I don’t see what other choice we have.”
“We have a ton of ch—”
“They all include packing up our lives and disappearing. And not just me and you. I mean Aubree and Tim. Felix and Micah won’t be safe in New York anymore if we ignore Cordoza’s request, which means they’re packing up, too.
That means Christabelle and the baby, and Tiia.
And if Tiia’s going, then her brother will follow.
It’ll mean Cato stays behind, alone, but at risk, or it means he comes, too.
That’s saying goodbye to his NBA dreams. It’s saying goodbye to the George Stanley.
What about Steve? And Raquel and Justin?
” I search his desperate, sparkling eyes.
“You can’t pack all these people up and move them with us, Archer, and we both know you’ll never leave Fletch and Mia behind. ”
“I would,” he rasps. “For you. I’d miss them with my whole fucking heart, but when the alternative is risking you?” He shakes his head. “It’s not even a question.”
“Aubree’s confident we’ll be safe.”
“But—”
“Soph hasn’t lost a single team member yet.”
“You’re not a Checkmate soldier!” he snaps.
“You’re a medical examiner with a bleeding disorder and a big fucking mouth when something trips your trigger, so if Cordoza laughs in your face when you ask why he pulled his stunt this week, you’re gonna get pissed and bite back.
Next thing we know, your body is being sent home in a box, with a little note on the side reminding me to marry meeker next time. ”
“You’re gonna have to trust me to take care of myself.” I twist within his grip and press a kiss to his wrist. “I know it’s hard, and I know how much this week has already hurt us. I was there; I felt it all.”
“But Minka…” he moans. “The risk is too high.”
“I don’t really bond with people, right?
I don’t make friends.” I look past him and stop on Aubree’s gentle, barely-there smile and her belief, deep in her heart, that everything will be okay.
“I don’t trust very many people, but I trust her.
” I bring my eyes back to Archer’s. “And I trust Soph. If I must walk toward danger, of all the women on the planet, I’m glad I’ll be walking with them. ”
Even if Soph’s priority will be completely and totally concentrated on saving her sister before anyone else.
“Time to go,” Tim barks by the plane, turning on his heels and dragging Aubree along with him. He mutters something under his breath that kinda sounds like ‘get this shit done already.’
“Not sure how he’s so comfortable putting his wife on a plane,” Archer grumbles. “He went from absolutely not to yeah, fine, whatever really fucking fast.”
“Because she’s proven repeatedly that she’s smarter than he is.” I peel his hands off my face, his forearms swollen and jacked with adrenaline-filled muscles, then I wrap my arm across his back and lead us toward the plane. “She’s always right. It leaves her smug with victory.”
“Victory implies a game,” he growls. “Or war. I’d rather be on a yacht in the middle of the Caribbean Ocean.”
“We’re flying toward the Caribbean,” I tease. “If Cordoza’s thing is quick, maybe you and I could take a long weekend and go for a swim.”
“I’m gonna hold you to that.” He tugs me to a stop fifteen feet from the plane and swings me around. Slamming his lips to mine, he sucks the oxygen straight out of my lungs, emptying my chest and holding me up when, without his aid, I think I might fall.