3. Mya
TWO WEEKS LATER
3
“Hold on to me.” Oliver flipped down the shield of his helmet, concealing his eyes before facing forward. “And tight,” he added when I’d yet to heed his command to wrap myself around him on the motorbike. Somehow, his gravelly morning voice managed to compete with the busy sounds surrounding us outside our hotel.
I reluctantly circled my arms around his waist, but apparently, he wasn’t satisfied with my grip. As soon as we started to move, he immediately braked, forcing me forward. I slammed into his rock-solid frame. Hugging a tree or a steel pole would’ve probably felt the same. The man was solid, to say the least.
And of course you did that. Knowing him, there was probably a shit-eating grin parked on his lips now that I was snuggled against him like he wanted.
Of course, I wasn’t exactly complaining about being forced to be this close to him.
It was the last day of February, and thirteen and a half days since we’d last touched. Aside from a shoulder brush, and some quick, hot glances while working leads on what would be a feature story for FYVM Media, this was as close as we could get publicly.
And forget privately. We knew being together in one of our hotel rooms was forbidden after what happened last time.
Finally relaxing on the seat, I looked off in the distance as Oliver skillfully weaved in and around other bikes and cars. The morning sun was still working its way higher in the sky as he shifted lanes and started for Chao Phraya river, which cut through the heart of the gorgeous city.
I need caffeine. Oliver and I had pulled an all-nighter last night in the business lounge of our hotel. The public space was not only needed to keep our hands from wandering, but we really had needed to focus. Because finally—freaking finally!—Hugo Soren had made contact.
Well, his assistant did. The work we were doing in Thailand had caught his attention—hopefully that was code for The Collective’s attention—and I was being summoned to a meeting with Hugo that morning. I’d needed all my ducks in a row. The problem was, no one ever explained what to do with those damn ducks after they were lined up.
“This is our chance,” I’d squealed after reading the email the other night.
“There it is. I missed it,” Oliver had said, starting to reach for my cheek. But then he abruptly pulled his hand back with an awkward throat clear. “Your dimple.” He’d scrunched his face up right after those words. “Hate it was the result of another man, though.”
That part of our relationship would probably never change—the teasing—and I was pretty sure neither of us wanted it to.
After a few more minutes of zipping along while I kept a secure hold of Oliver, we were now near Tha Chang Wang Luang, the pier on the river near the Grand Palace and next to the small public park Nagaraphirom.
Oliver pulled onto Maharat Road and parked by a mobile motorbike drink cart. He helped me down and removed his helmet before stepping forward to undo the strap of mine. His hand skirted along the line of my chin and around to my ear, provoking goose bumps to form on my arms.
Eyes on mine, his touch was anything but innocent, but it was his chance to steal a moment with me. A moment I couldn’t help but take and latch on to.
While Oliver set the two helmets on the bike seat, despite the fact these were replacements from being stolen last week, I faced the busy river. It buzzed with activity as river taxis, long-tail boats, and ferries moved up and down the waterway, carting locals to work and tourists to landmarks. Once I overheard Oliver ordering our drinks, a Cha Yen for me and a black coffee for himself, I joined him on the pedestrian-packed sidewalk to wait with him.
I hadn’t brought a purse, or anything else for that matter. Like always, Oliver had his pockets stuffed with my phone and other random things. All of my notes for the meeting were on my phone as well, so why bother carrying a bag?
After tipping the man, Oliver’s mouth stretched open in a yawn as he rubbed circles over his abdomen. The movement stretched his white tee over his biceps. His shirt was already starting to cling to his hard frame from the early morning heat, and I had to stop myself from reaching out to feel those ridges.
Off-limits, I reminded myself. Off-freaking-limits. But only for now. I inwardly grinned, excited for this to all be over for so many reasons.
“Maybe we should get a bite to eat before we meet with Mr. Bloodsport?” Oliver and his nicknames for people. “I’m hungry.”
“You’re always hun—” My words disappeared into Oliver’s chest when someone knocked into me with a little too much force, sending me flying against the man I wasn’t allowed to touch, but desperately wanted to.
“Watch where you’re going,” Oliver yelled as his strong hands flew to my arms to keep me upright, and also help unglue my lips from his chest. “You good?”
“I’m fine, but uh, you’re still touching me.” And I never want you to stop.
His forehead tightened, and he shook his head, a slip of a smile crossing his lips as he unhanded me. He grabbed our drinks from the vendor, gesturing toward a concrete bench along the riverside with his full hands. “Let’s move somewhere less crowded.”
“We have fifteen minutes before we’re meeting Soren,” I said while reaching for my tea. “And don’t forget we have the check-in call soon, too.”
To prevent our covers getting blown, we only called Falcon Falls every few weeks. The team would soon be convening at our headquarters in Pennsylvania to get an update from us. With the time difference, it was technically still yesterday for them.
“My eyes may be bloodshot from the lack of sleep,” he teased, “but I remember the schedule, buttercup.” He closed one eye, regretting his accidental use of my nickname. “This may be our break, so I get you might be nervous. This is what we’ve been hoping for, though.”
I was more worried about Oliver, and what might happen if the man hit on me in front of him, than I was about the meeting itself. He’d so much as admitted he’d lose control if he even saw Hugo look at me sideways.
Glancing left, then right, I ensured no one was nearby and listening to us before continuing the conversation. “And if Soren doesn’t ask me to alter my story, then what?” The story we’d been working on in Thailand, if FYVM approved it, had the potential to out a major pharmaceutical company as being corrupt, not to mention its wealthy owners. With any luck, one of those owners had ties to The Collective, and Hugo would request I rework the story for “their collective” benefit. It was the lead we needed, and it felt a little too good to be true.
“I guess if he doesn’t ask you to change the headline to a more favorable piece for that company, or to totally drop the story altogether, then either . . .”
He left his words hanging so I could finish them myself. Safer that way. But yeah, I knew his point.
If Hugo Soren didn’t try to cover this pharmaceutical company’s ass, then either The Collective had no connection to them, or worse, the Soren family didn’t. We needed Hugo’s family to be assholes, or we were back to square one.
“Hugo wouldn’t have flown here simply to pat you on the back and say good job.” That was a reassuring point.
“I just hope it doesn’t come to me actually having to alter my story for him.” I sipped the black iced tea. “Lois Lane would never write a fake article like that.” I faced him on the bench, my knees knocking against his.
And that little touch was enough to make my heart skip a beat.
He shifted away on the bench a little, placing space between us. Wow, we really had it bad for each other, didn’t we? A little knee action got us both excited.
“We’ll do our best to exit this situation before the article actually gets published. I won’t let you do anything you’d regret. I know you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself if you . . . well, did that.”
Yeah, if I had to compose a bullshit article to sell whatever narrative The Collective wanted the world to buy into and believe for the sake of their secret ulterior motive, I’d lose my integrity. And while I may have given up my life as an investigative reporter years ago, the journalist’s creed was still encoded in my DNA. Cover story or not, I’d never sleep at night again.
“Relax.” He went to reach for my leg and stopped himself.
From the corner of my eye, I saw his shoulders falling. “Maybe we should head out now?” I suggested.
“Good idea. I want to scope out this place he pin-dropped to your phone ahead of time. The fact he waited until the last minute to have his assistant reach out doesn’t make me feel great.”
We stood, and he took my tea before I could finish it and tossed both our drinks in the nearby bin.
“You sure you don’t want to get a quick bite first before we go?” Maybe I was stalling, but knowing the obstacle we would potentially have to face, I wasn’t exactly eager to see how everything played out. Even if this was likely the break we’d been waiting for. “Don’t want you to grumpify without food.”
That earned me an adorable smile from him. “You and your love for making up words. I bet your editor back in the day must’ve really loved that about you.”
“She loved it as much as my current editor does.” Of course, the editor Hugo had hired when his father sent him to take over made Meryl Streep’s character from The Devil Wears Prada look like an angel.
Oliver reached into his pocket for my phone, then gestured toward the direction of the park with it.
I peeked back at our bike. “Sure we should just leave our helmets here? What if they get stolen again?”
Oliver shrugged. “Then someone needs them more than we do.”
And I love that about you. Of course, I then went and killjoyed the moment by pointing out the “obstacle” we may soon face, reminding him, “Hugo only requested to meet with me this morning.”
Oliver rubbed his stubbled jawline. “Yeah, well, if he doesn’t let me join you, then you’re not joining him. Got it?” A dark brow prominently lifted as he motioned for me to get a move on, but how could I budge after that declaration?
“I don’t have a choice, but I’ll do my best to push him to include you. I’ll say I assumed the invite was for the two of us since we always work together. If I make it seem like it’s the normally expected course of things, maybe he won’t push it.” I finally stepped forward, convinced we could make this work, but Oliver reached for my arm and stopped me. “I already went over this plan with you, remember?”
He gently whirled me around to face him, and the eye roll of the year went to him. Although it was only the last day in February, surely he’d outdo himself again at some point in 2025. “Yeah, you shared that plan, then ignored me when I said no to it. Real shocker, but . . .” He released me, grimacing when he realized we were touching again, and in public, no less. “Of course, you were also busy typing on your laptop while we had that conversation. I know you tend to be in another world when writing, and maybe you didn’t hear my protests, so please hear them now. You are not going anywhere with that man without me. Taking these assholes down means nothing if you’re dead.”
I went to snatch my phone from him, but he held it up out of my reach, like we were in kindergarten and he was the playground bully. “Why in the world would he kill me?” I locked my arms across my chest.
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe instead of risking you saying no to changing or killing your story for him, he chooses a quicker, more efficient way to get the story blocked.”
Well, shit, when you put it like that.
He finally lowered his arm and his gaze flew over my white silk blouse tucked into my jeans, then he leaned in and brought his mouth to my ear. “Still waiting for confirmation you understand there’s not a chance in hell you go anywhere with that man without me.” His gritty warning somehow managed to slip right under my shirt, making my nipples harden. Probably not the effect he’d intended to have on me, but it’d happened nevertheless.
I swallowed and waited for him to step away, to give me space to breathe without inhaling the cologne Margiela’s Replica he always wore because he knew I loved it.
When he finally granted me a few inches of space, it was only to make eye contact.
Damn that sexy, determined look to win a fight.
“Mya, dammit, you’re going to give me an ulcer.” His voice was rough and mildly anguished. “I need to hear you promise me you will not, under any circumstances, go anywhere with that man if he does not let me stay with you.”
His tone was as fierce as his expression. Jaw locked tight, eyes narrowed on me, and probably every muscle in his body rigid and ready to throw down with Hugo Soren if he dared take me away from him.
I checked his Apple watch. “We’re being tracked. You’ll know where I am at all times. Even if I do get in a car, boat, or plane with this man.”
Glaring at me, he snapped out, “I was worried you were going to do this to me. So, so stubborn.”
“And you love that about me. Come on, you know it.”
“Can’t love you if you’re dead,” he bit out and turned away toward the river.
I had to curb the impulse to rub his back to try and calm him down. He technically held the power of our next moves in his hand, given he had the location of the meeting on my phone. “I trust you, and I know you won’t let anything happen to me.”
“Which is why I’m not letting you join a meeting with a man possibly in bed with The Collective without me,” he said while shooting a distressed look at me over his shoulder.
“Oliver.” The tone of my voice held a warning, reminding him not to use “their” name in public. Hell, we didn’t even use it on a secure line. Then I cursed under my breath at the fact I’d just used his real name out loud. Oh shit.
“No one is near us.” He grunted and tossed his free hand in the air. “But yeah, you’re right.”
I waited for him to fully face me, prepared to remind him of what should’ve been obvious. We were running on fumes, saying way more in the open than we should have. “These last three months will have been for nothing if I don’t do this. I promise I can be convincing. I’ll make sure he lets you join, too. Okay?”
He brought the phone between us but kept his hand locked around it. “Promise if he says no, you’ll leave with me. I need to hear you say those words, or we’re going back to the hotel.”
Shit. I wasn’t a liar. If I gave him my word, I’d have to mean it.
Before I could open my mouth, my phone dinged with a message and he unfurled his fingers so we could both look.
I read the text from Hugo Soren’s assistant and mumbled in disappointment, “I can’t believe he’s canceling on me. He didn’t even say why or if we’re rescheduling.”
At that news, Oliver pushed the phone into my hand, grumbling, “That works for me,” as I reread the message.
“No, this is bad. In the last three months, the team has had better luck at dismantling this asshole group than we have. And yet, we’re the ones on the ground, embedded deep, and still coming up empty.”
“No, it’s just that the ‘group,’” he began, air quotes implied but no hand gestures, “is taking out its own trash the second their cult realizes one of their card-carrying members is going to be exposed.”
Sacrificing the few for the many. But how many were in that damn group? Ten? A dozen? Twenty? “So, you’re proving why we’re here, then, which makes this meeting getting canceled a dis?—”
“Fuck,” Oliver cut me off, eyes on his watch. “Our trackers just went offline.”
“What do you mean?” I peeked over to check his watch myself. That wasn’t possible. “No, it must be a glitch.”
He immediately secured a tight hold of my arm, forcing me to do a three-sixty with him. We zeroed in on four police cars pulling up behind our motorbike down the street near the drink cart. “They’re here for us. We need to go.”
“How do you know that?” I asked, but he was already urging me to walk in the other direction.
“We’ve been compromised. I don’t know how, but they found us,” he rasped as our speed-walking switched to running when we realized a swarm of uniformed officers were on our ass.
“I bet Soren never planned to meet me, then. He used himself as bait. He’s probably not even in Thailand,” I said, breathless, as Oliver kept hold of me while we cut through the park by the pier.
We ran by the concrete promenade along the river, maneuvering around people and dodging vendors. Others began taking notice of what probably looked like an action scene from a movie, but I ignored them and kept moving, worried they might signal our location to the police.
Oliver snaked his hand around my waist a minute later, forcing me to stop.
“More cops up ahead,” he warned, and yeah, there were several more officers a hundred or so feet away on approach. “We need to go over this ledge and get to the riverside.”
It was about an eight-foot drop to the second narrow sidewalk down by the water.
Oliver let go of me, and I pocketed the phone to climb over the ledge, and he helped lower me down.
“Your turn.” I was anxious for him to join me, wondering why he’d yet to jump over given what was at stake.
“They’re too close. I’m going to distract them so you can get away and call the team.”
I reached up for him, but he was too far away. “Hell no. You’re coming with me.”
“You have to go, Mya. No arguing. We’re out of time. Keep running along the waterway and find a place to hide before you make the call.”
“No!” I clawed at the wall in an attempt to get back up but failed.
“Dammit, go. You have to escape.” He leaned over the edge, staring into my eyes. “Mya, I?—”
“Don’t you dare say goodbye to me.” I blinked back tears. “You promised you’d never leave me,” I cried, starting to lose it, to unravel right there.
“I have to,” he whispered, and one painfully sad nod from him was all I got before he disappeared from sight.
With all the determination I had inside me, I went for the rock wall again, doing my best to scale it. We were in this together.
Finding success, I pushed up on a tiny ledge, anchored my shoes to one barely there spot, and I was able to reach the top. Hanging on to the flat part of the concrete with every fiber of my being, I hoisted myself up just enough to peer over it.
Oliver was about fifty feet off in the distance and police were everywhere. He was outnumbered and not fighting back, hands behind his head but not yet cuffed as police shouted in both English and Thai.
Despite appearing not to be resisting arrest, two officers began striking him with their batons, and he fell onto his knees. I did my best to stifle my screams so I didn’t give up my position.
People had gathered around the scene. Cell phones came out. It was only then that the officers stopped beating him.
I either had to finish the climb over and wind up arrested, or drop down and run for help like he’d asked me to do. You were right. Of course you were. I should have run. One of us had to get away to reach out to Falcon.
As I mentally prepared myself to let go, two officers pointed my way and began yelling at the other officers in Thai.
This got Oliver’s attention and he spotted me as well. My heart filled with dread and anguish as he pushed up to his feet and began attacking the officers.
With his forearm, he blocked another strike mid-air, then immobilized the guy, flipping him to his back. He repeated the move with another officer as if it’d all been choreographed.
You’re distracting them so I can get away. Buying me time. Again. This is my fault.
And oh God, the last horrific thing I witnessed before letting go of the ledge was one of the officers drawing a knife and stabbing Oliver in the side.
At that, I fell to the ground below, my body trembling. With shouts from overhead growing louder, I looked up to see three officers, tossing their legs over the side.
I made eye contact with one as he yelled in English, “Stop. Don’t move!”
Still in shock, I did my best to escape.
You were stabbed because of me.
I left you behind.
Somehow, I kept running, knowing it was what Oliver wanted. Every part of my body hurt and ached with regret. But I was also fueled by the need to save Oliver.
I glanced back to see the space between myself and the officers growing a bit.
No shots fired, which hopefully meant The Collective, if they were behind this—and presumably so—wanted us taken in alive.
I’m coming back for you, Oliver. I promise. Like hell will our story end like this.