Chapter 50 #2
Kyn is nowhere to be found, and Elio makes a beeline for the cockpit.
A moment before he reaches the door, his phone rings.
He hesitates for a moment, as if unsure whether he should answer it, before he finally pulls it from his pocket.
He curses at the sight of the screen, then quickly accepts the call.
Whatever he says, I have no chance of understanding. The amount of Italian I understand is pretty limited, but with how quickly he’s spitting his words, I don’t catch a single thing.
The conversation lasts less than thirty seconds before he slams his finger to the screen, ending the call and stuffing it back into his pocket.
“Fuck!”
I might not be sure what was just said, but I understand that perfectly.
A shot in the dark, but I’m going to assume it wasn’t good.
“Kyn!” Elio shouts, throwing the door open. Even with his back to us, I feel the difference. His body is tense, his words clipped in a way they weren’t just before the call.
He disappears into the cockpit, but we can still hear him as he speaks in rapid Italian once again. Kyn responds just as quickly, letting me know that my lack of understanding is due to a lack of experience, not because it’s impossible.
“Ivan moved some of his men around the city. Elio just got word that there are multiple unknowns, some en route here and some close by,” Dom says from the armchair near the window.
Everything about his posture shows his current stress.
He sits forward, his elbows resting on his knees with his fingers woven together, his mouth pressed against them.
He stares straight ahead, but he doesn’t actually appear to be looking at anything; his brows pinched together.
The others turn to look at him, and while I’m just shocked that he understood that, the others don’t look at him in wonder like I do. Spencer and Kratos look pissed off, and Zander looks like he’s seconds from losing it.
Shit.
Ivan did this on purpose.
Elio can’t leave. This isn’t just his home; these are his people, and this party has so many important members of the mafia world.
I highly doubt Ivan has enough people to make a dent in those who are here, but this is supposed to be a neutral event.
If Ivan stands against Elio here, it will mean war.
“If it comes down to war, it won’t matter if my father falls or not. The Russians will have a target on their back,” Leo seethes, running a hand through his short hair before he pulls at it.
“Fuck!”
He slams his hand down on the armrest with enough force that I’m sure it will leave a mark, but he hardly seems to notice.
“So Elio can stay here, and we’ll go get Doll. I don’t see the problem,” Zander says, and I nod. I get that this is shitty, but they both seem pretty upset about Elio staying behind.
Something isn’t adding up.
Dom shakes his head, making Zander glare at him, clearly unhappy with his answer.
“I wish it were that easy, but it’s not, Zander. I want nothing more than to go after Jade, but this jet has to be flown by two people. Kyn can’t fly it alone and can’t teach anyone while flying. So, unless you know how to fly, we need to think of something else and fast.”
I half expect Zander to attack him, given how angry he looks right now. So when he nods his understanding instead, well, I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone.
We all sit quietly for a moment. Dom and Leo, no doubt, listen to whatever Kyn and Elio say while I run through other options.
A boat is our only other choice, but it will take us forever. They could be so far gone by the time we reach them; it’s not even funny. I run through a few different ideas, dismissing one after the other, before I feel eyes on me.
Looking up, I find Rick staring at me as if he’s attempting to burn a hole in my forehead. For a second, I think he might just be staring off, lost in thought, but I see the wheels turning in his mind as I watch him watch me.
Fuck!
No, absolutely not!
Aware that the others are around us, I give him the tiniest shake of my head. Hoping and praying that he won’t say what I think he’s going to say.
He can’t possibly remember that, right? I hardly do, so there’s no way he should. But I know he does. I see it in his eyes, and when he opens his mouth, I know what he’s going to say even before he says a word.
“Trent has some experience flying.”
The second he says the words, I want to sink into the fucking couch, as every eye in the cabin turns to look at me.
Fuck. I’m going to kill him.
“That’s great!” Zander says with a smile, leaning into my space to clap me on the back, hard. “Why didn’t you say so sooner?”
I glare at Rick. Gee, I wonder why I didn’t say it sooner.
Of course, he doesn’t answer, leaving the explanation up to me.
Asshole.
“I’ve flown maybe five times, but I wasn’t great at it, and it was years ago,” I tell them, trying to make them understand what a bad idea this is without saying just that outright.
It’s not as if I don’t want to get to Jade. Wouldn’t love to be the one to save the day, but I also don’t want to be the reason we literally crash and burn if I can avoid it.
“The second is more of a backup and needed for landing, but if you have a basic understanding of controls, you’ll be fine. I just can’t teach someone who has never done it before and focus.” Kyn says from behind me, and I almost jump out of my damn seat.
She’s as bad as Jade, sneaking around like that. I didn’t even realize she and Elio had stopped speaking, let alone that she’d come out to join us.
The smile on her face when I turn to look at her lets me know just how amused she is by it.
Yes, hilarious.
“You know I would go if I could. I owe so much to Jade, but—” Elio pauses, pacing back and forth in the small area in the cabin.
“If Ivan starts this war, I won’t be able to stop it.
He already has tensions high with the other families.
It won’t matter if Jade kills him. When she takes over, she will do so with a war on her hands.
Some people crave violence and will look for any reason to fight.
I can’t do that to her. She deserves peace. ”
I can see how this is weighing on him. Having two things that are both important and having to choose. I’ve been there, unable to decide, not knowing what to do.
The only difference is that I chose wrong. But if I step up, then Elio doesn’t have to choose, and we still have a shot at this.
His words ring in my ears for a moment. Jade does deserve peace.
There’s no doubt about that, but what keeps rattling around in my skull is the idea of Jade leading the Bratva.
It’s such a simple thing. A comment he made because it’s logical, but until this very moment, I hadn’t even thought about that.
If we succeed in taking Ivan down, the Bratva will be left back to her father. While he never technically stepped down, he left most of everything to Ivan because Jade was no longer an option, but he’d always intended for her to be his heir.
I’m in love with the heir to the Bratva, not just the leader of Vengeance.
Holy shit!
I push the thought away.
It’s something I can freak out about later, after she’s safe and we put all this bullshit to rest.
“Okay.”
Elio’s head snaps up, and a grin splits Kyn’s face. Zander claps me on the back again, hard, and I glare at him. The smile on his face tells me he knows exactly what he’s doing, though. If he wasn’t halfway to deranged, I’d probably punch him for it.
Kyn shoots forward, grabbing my hand and heaving me from the seat with much more strength than should be possible for someone her size. She drags me toward the cockpit and slams me into one of the two seats there.
The second my ass hits the seat, my stomach turns, and I have to force down bile.
This was a mistake. I knew it even before Rick said something, but now, sitting here looking out the window, seeing all the knobs, buttons, and massive screens, I can’t help but wonder what the fuck I was thinking.
A sharp sting on my cheek has my ear ringing and my eyes watering. I blink past it to look up and find Kyn staring down at me with her arms crossed. Her eyes narrow as she watches me, leaning down so that we’re eye-to-eye.
“Jade needs you. I might not know her well, but I’ve heard about her all my life.
Spent years idolizing her, and after just a few encounters, I know enough to know that she doesn’t let herself need others often.
Whatever this,” she waves her hand in front of my face, gesturing to, well, all of me.
“Is it because her life could literally be in your hands right now. Every second counts, so we don’t have time to waste,” she barks, and I pull away from her slightly.
For such a small girl, she sure has some damn good bark. More than that, she’s right.
Jade needs us, which means she needs me to do this. Whether I like it or not. And at the end of the day, I’m not sure if there’s anything I wouldn’t do for her.
After a beat, she moves away, dropping into her own seat.
Taking a deep breath, I turn back to the controls and pull on my headset. I don’t magically know what I’m doing any more than I did before, but at least I’m not on the verge of a panic attack.
I watch as Kyn begins her checks, slowly feeling my memory kick in. My father loved to fly and always said if he hadn’t been a cop, he would have been a pilot. But when he and my mother decided to start a family, he didn’t want to be so far away.
If only he had known being a cop would take him from us forever. I used to hate him for it, but he loved it. It was as much a part of him as Vengeance is a part of Jade’s.
“Clear right, center, and left,” Kyn says, pulling me from my thoughts and back to the moment.
She looks at me as if waiting for something, and somehow, this part I remember.
Looking down, I locate the left engine starter button, press it without hesitation, and put us into idle.
Moving almost entirely from muscle memory, I panic for a moment.
That could have all been wrong, and I just did it.
But when she doesn’t scream at me, and we don’t blow up, I take that as a sign that it was the right thing and sag in relief.
We watch the gauges rise before she engages the right engine and idles. We once again watch the gauges for any complications.
“I knew my idol wouldn’t have allowed herself to be tied to a man who couldn’t rise to a challenge,” Kyn says with a knowing smile.
Throwing my head back, I bark a laugh. Knowing damn well, neither of us was sure I could do this not five minutes ago.
I guess sometimes you don’t know what you’re made of until you’re pushed to your limits, and I have a feeling this isn’t the last time they will be pushed tonight.