54. Easton
Easton
The plane drops hard enough to make it shudder, effectively putting an end to this conversation until we’re on the ground.
“Seat belts. Now,” the captain’s voice barks over the cabin’s speaker. “We’re coming in hot. Fuel margin’s low, and we’ve got rough weather to break through.”
Carter snakes a hand around my arm and leans in. “Get up there with him and help him land.”
This is either payback for my sins or some wild chance at redemption. I don’t know which yet, but when Carter lets me go, I whirl around to look at the woman who gives life meaning one more time. She’s on her feet trying to get to me.
“Sit your arse down,” Wyatt orders, but the stubborn woman ducks under his outstretched arm.
The floor rattles beneath my boots as I meet her halfway, ignoring the danger and everyone on board. If she’s risking her life to reach me, I’m not letting her stand alone.
I hook my arm around her back and draw her close to keep her grounded. Sheer grit and a quick prayer upward will be needed to keep us both on our feet if we stay like this much longer.
“What are you doing?” With my free hand, I smooth the pad of my thumb over the little dimple in her chin.
We’re surrounded by voices and demands, and I ignore every last one of them as Gwen slaps a hand over my shoulder and pushes up on the balls of her feet to get closer.
“I have to tell you something.” Her voice is fragile. Soft and tender and all the things that always do a number on me.
Waiting, I draw in a lungful of air, and with it, I inhale her scent. She always smells like the beach and sunshine.
I asked her why once, and her response was: “When you grow up in a place where it’s always raining, you have to carry the sun with you.”
My fingers curl into her waist as she finally murmurs, “My heart. I don’t need to give it to you.”
What?
“You already have it.
And I can breathe again.
“I need you to know that. I don’t want to die without you knowing the truth.”
Or maybe not. Because what? She’s not dying. No one is dying.
“You’re not dying,” I bite out.
And at this point, fuck it. I kiss her, deep and soulful. Eyes closed. Lips soft but determined. A touch of tongue. In front of her father. Friends. The angels outside this jet, hopefully keeping us in the sky until I can get my ass in that cockpit.
“You gotta get up there,” Carter snaps out as we punch through a storm wall, and the entire cabin rocks.
I break away from her and stand tall, and she’s still staring at me in a daze. “Okay.” She nods. “You can go save us now.”
“Why, thank you.” I smirk. What is wrong with me? Life and death here, and I’m grinning. Only Gwen could do this to me.
I finally twist around, finding her father’s impatient open palm waiting to pull Gwen back to her seat. His eyes dart to mine as he tosses out a quick, “I told you.”
I don’t have time to reflect on his words. Those twenty seconds I stole with Gwen were already too many.
“Anytime now would be great,” Carter mutters, still standing in the aisle, one hand braced on the back of a seat, the other against the ceiling. The man won’t sit until the rest of us are strapped in and safe.
“Yeah, okay.” I wait until Gwen is buckled between her dad and Natasha, then head up front. I swing open the cockpit door, shoot one last look at Gwen, then head inside.
The door seals shut behind me, muting the cabin noise to a dull roar, as the crosswind slams us sideways.
I drop into the right seat and scan the instruments. I don’t normally fly this kind of jet, but thanks to my pops teaching me how to fly pretty much anything with wings before I went to flight school, I’m solid.
I slide fully into position, but as I wrap my hands around the controls, the helicopter crash flashes through my mind—fire, spin, impact—the scream of tearing metal . . .
Not today, Satan. Not again.
“Autopilot’s fighting the wind,” the captain says. “You’ve landed hotter than this, right?”
“I have, yeah.”
“They’re your controls, then,” he offers as I take over.
The cockpit light is harsher than the cabin. All glare and warnings that don’t care how bad the timing is.
“Now would be a shit time for another air traffic cyberattack.” His words have me going still for a heartbeat. “I feel like if I say the worst possible thing, the opposite will happen. Always works for me.”
“How about you keep that shit to yourself?” In the back of my mind, a quiet voice piggybacks off his negativity. A list of possible failures like a checklist from hell. “Tell me the tower’s clean.”
The captain keys comms. “Confirm we’re on a secure line.”
Ground control comes back crisp and immediate.
We’re good. Thank God.
Lightning flickers inside the clouds ahead. Not forks, just sheet glow. That’s worse. Means we’re flying blind through soup. The jet bucks as we push through the layer, and rain detonates across the windshield.
“Autopilot out,” the captain announces.
“I’ve got it.” I hand-fly the descent, and a gust hits like a body check. The nose jerks right, and I correct.
We have one shot to land clean. We don’t have enough fuel for any more go-arounds.
I ease the throttles, feeling the weight of the aircraft instead of chasing numbers. Jets like these lie. You have to fly them by pressure and patience.
Runway lights bloom through the rain like a constellation dragged onto earth.
“There,” the captain breathes. “You’ve got the centerline.”
“For now.”
Another gust slams us. The wing dips. I catch it before it grows teeth.
The next few moments are a blur of training, instinct, and a hella ton of flight time under my belt over the last several decades.
Touchdown hits hard enough to rattle bone but not metal.
The brakes and reversers slam in, engines howling.
We decelerate faster than I’m comfortable with, but we stay straight.
We make it.
Alive.
“Welcome to London,” the tower says, his voice rattled.
“Yeah, well, thanks for rolling out the wet carpet.” Even after I let go, my hands are still humming like I’m gripping the controls.
I exhale for the first time in minutes. Once we’re no longer moving, I wrap my hand around the saint medal and send a prayer up—not a request, since we’re safe, but a thank-you.
The door swings open a few seconds later, and I twist around to see Carter. “You okay?” His brows slant over his dark eyes as he braces the interior doorframe. He’s not asking about the landing but my headspace.
I face the windshield, the rain still hammering it, and lean back in the seat. “Yeah,” I breathe out. “I am.”
We taxi dark—no public routing—guided by a private ground channel Gideon arranged. No terminal or cameras. No uniforms waiting with questions, despite the rest of Heathrow flooded with officers after this morning’s cyberattack and fake crash incident.
No safer place for us to be, I suppose. No one’s pushing through the perimeter without a swarm of flashing lights to greet them.
And this time, when I roll out on the op, Gwen will stay grounded. I’m not about to test fate again with her up in the air with me. I only have so many lives, and while I’ll give them all to her, I won’t risk hers along with mine.
Sebastian’s jet touches down on a parallel strip, and he parks alongside us in a hangar. As I half expected, Nash is at the controls.
I trade a quick look with him.
Outflying physics again. I know, I know.
By the time I step back into the cabin, the emotional storm is louder than the weather.
Gwen’s already on her feet and moving around others to get to me. I catch her and pull her in, pressing my nose into her hair. Warm, familiar, safe.
“You did it,” she murmurs, holding me tight.
“You didn’t doubt me, did ya?” I tease.
She raises her head and cups my cheeks, silk skin against my week-old scruff. “No. I just wanted an excuse to tell you how I feel before you saved us all.”
My pulse kicks up a notch. “A near-death confession?”
“I didn’t want fear to be the reason I spoke my mind,” she says softly, “but I couldn’t keep the truth in.”
I ignore all the stares and voices as we have a conversation not meant to be heard by others, but at this point, I don’t care who hears. I have no plans to move a muscle or do any damn thing except keep her in my orbit.
But . . .
Julian and Zoey are out there.
Shit. “Well,” I huff out, “we should—”
“I know. The world has to keep moving.”
“I’d stop it for you if I could,” I rasp.
“I know you would,” she whispers as I fold her into my arms again.
Looking over her shoulder, I lock eyes with her father. He gives me a quiet nod along with a whispered, “Thank you.”
I finally let go of her so she can get back to tracking down Julian and Zoey. She settles in the same spot, and Natasha hands over her laptop just as Sebastian steps in from the stairwell with a grim expression.
Jack comes up alongside me and slaps my shoulder. “Thanks for not making my wife a widow.”
“Yeah, the last thing I ever plan to be is a widow maker.” I side-eye him, then glance at my brother-in-law standing near the cockpit door talking with Sebastian.
“Well, that was fun.” Sebastian clears his throat while tightening the knot of his black tie. “But let’s not do that again anytime soon.”
“Really?” Jesse snorts. “A rough landing is where you draw the line?”
“Like you weren’t sweating bullets,” Jack jests, and Jesse rolls his eyes.
“We clear to deplane into the hangar?” Constantine asks Sebastian, holding up his phone. “I’d like to call my wife.”
Yeah, let my sister know we didn’t die.
“Hangar is ours,” Sebastian says. “Officially, we’re not here.”
“How soon until Gideon and his team arrive?” I ask.
Carter checks his phone. “About fifteen minutes out.”
“I’ll try and lock down a location for Julian and, um . . .” Gwen lets her voice drift.
And find the woman who may have betrayed us?
Gwen flexes her fingers like I’ve seen her do a million times before she locks in. “Once we have the coordinates, we can spin up and finally put this all behind us.”
She gives us a tentative smile, like we’ll ignore her use of “we.”
“Maybe we can borrow two helos from Gideon for you and Nash to fly?” she suggests. “Without a repeat of an RPG hitting us and taking us down, of course.”
Wyatt and I step forward in unison, but I beat him to the order. “Like hell are you coming with us.” My inability to check my tongue or my possessive need to keep her safe comes through loud and clear when I grit out, “Non-fucking-negotiable.”