Chapter Fifty-Three
Helios
“Come on, Haven.” I gripped her waist to lift her off the counter.
“No.” She jerked back.
Ares stepped forward.
Her arms crossed, her head hung lower. “I… I made a mistake.”
Oh, fuck no, and fuck this. Grabbing her chin, I forced her head up, but she closed her eyes. “Look at me,” I demanded.
“Helios,” Ares warned.
“Back the fuck off, Ares.” Not letting her go, not letting her fucking do this, I gripped her whole damn jaw. “Open those eyes, Haven.”
She did, but she didn’t fucking look at me. Glancing at the breathing motherfuckers in the room judging us, she cowered.
Every ounce of assaulter and dominance in me unleashed, and I fucking warned her. “Don’t look at them. Look at me, woman.”
She looked. For one fucking second.
“You didn’t do a damn thing wrong. You hear me, Haven?”
Her eyes welled. “Y-Yes, I did.”
“No. You didn’t.” Neither did I. I’d never fucking apologize for kissing her.
“Please,” she whispered.
“Let her go,” Ares ordered.
I drew. My Glock aimed at my brother, my glare followed. “I said, back THE FUCK off.”
Ares held up his hands.
I holstered my piece.
She used the two fucking seconds my attention was diverted to pull out of my grasp, turn away from me, and shrink in on herself.
Starting to lose it—hell, already fucking losing it—she shook as she half fell, half slid off the counter.
“I just… I mean—” She shuddered. “I didn’t mean to.
” Still not making eye contact with me, not raising her head at all, she scanned the fucking mess of bodies on the floor.
Then her voice broke. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, everyone. ”
Rage hit. “You don’t have one damn thing to apologize for.” We were fucking out of here. “Moving her. Now,” I barked at every one of these motherfuckers as I grasped the back of her neck.
“I-I-I can’t.”
Possessive, enraged, her pulse hammering under my thumb, my head spun up, her taste on my lips, the stench of death permeating, that fucking word—it hit me.
A goddamn way out of this.
The only way out of this.
It was insane.
Absolutely fucking insane.
And I was gonna do it anyway.
“Can’t isn’t in my fucking vocabulary.” My plan gelled, the details snapped together, and I turned her toward the stairs. “Let’s go.”
She protested. “W-wait.”
“No.” My mind was already set.
“I have to tell—”
“Save it.” Whatever the hell she had to say, I wasn’t letting these motherfuckers hear it.
Glancing at Chaos because Ares was on my motherfucking shit list, and also because there was the slim possibility Ares might catch on to my intent and figure out I was up to some serious shit, I issued orders.
“You and Ares fly the Citation back. I’m taking the Phenom. ”
Ares leveled me with a look. Saint stared. Chaos raised his eyebrows.
I gave Chaos a bullshit excuse. “Flew her in on the Citation. Not taking any chances flying her back out on the same jet.”
“Who the fuck is left to track her?” Chaos jerked his chin toward the carnage. “You’ve got nine dead tangoes, including—”
“Taking the Phenom.” I threw Ares a warning glance.
“Do a full sweep.” I fucking hated him right now, and I always covered my own goddamn tracks.
I wanted to feed every one of those assholes’ bodies to the sharks, especially al-Hashimi’s.
But I wasn’t about to let Haven witness that shit or have her stand here another second.
Ares, the judgmental prick, was still my brother.
I didn’t trust anyone, not after that kiss, not after I saw exactly what these motherfuckers were made of, but Ares would handle cleanup.
My brother stared me down for a beat, but then he tipped his chin. “Preference?”
For fucking disposal? “You’ve got seven hundred acres to figure it out.”
“High water table,” the fucker replied, nodding toward the sliders behind him. “Daybreak’s coming.”
I knew exactly what fucking time it was.
Sun wasn’t up. Yet. “Whole damn ocean out there.” The plan itching at me like a scratch I couldn’t reach, I didn’t give a fuck what he did with the bodies.
I needed to get her in the air. “My skiff and bowrider are at the dock. The Cessna they flew in on is at the boat ramp. Use the boats or fucking load up that seaplane and torch it for all I care. We’re out.
” I nodded at Saint and Chaos, then ushered her to the stairs that led to the garage.
Ares called after us. “See you back at the house, Feralyn.”
Shellshocked, embarrassed, owning bullshit guilt and who the fuck knew what else, she didn’t say a damn word. She didn’t even look back at Ares.
Fucking fine with me.
We headed downstairs, and I made a quick stop in the safe room.
Securing my second Glock, the M4, my SR-25, chest rig, and the extra mags in the weapons cage, I locked everything up and made a mental note to clean the weapons the next time I was here.
Then I quickly reset my passwords for the security systems, wiped all the footage from the past twelve hours, and shut down the monitors before hitting the lights and pulling the fireproof door shut.
Standing outside the safe room the whole damn time, Haven didn’t say a word.
She still didn’t speak when I grabbed two rigs I’d packed myself from a storage shelf in the garage, then led her to the Jeep. Helping her up into the twenty-year-old Wrangler Rubicon that had a four-inch lift kit, I half expected her to fight me on the assist.
She didn’t.
I tossed the rigs in the back and got behind the wheel, but before I headed to the airstrip, I made a call.
Nix answered on the first ring. “Watched on sat feeds, and Saint texted me a sitrep. Eight tangoes and al-Hashimi down. Everyone good?”
“Yeah.”
“You never call without a reason. What’s up?”
“You still on the boat?”
“Mega yacht,” the fucker corrected. “And affirmative.”
I knew the Paragon was a damn mega yacht.
At sixty-five meters, housing a full arsenal, including missiles, loaded with every piece of advanced technology you could imagine, she wasn’t only a floating city, she was a damn destroyer.
She could also do close to sixty knots with her retrofitted engines. “Ares said you were heading this way.”
“I was. Overwatch or backup if needed.”
The Paragon had been the first HQ for Paragon Ops. Hell, Nix had lived off the damn boat for years. Now Paragon Operations was headquartered in a high-rise in Miami Beach, the boat was a floating backup, and Nix split his time between shore and open waters. “You heading back now?”
“Affirmative.”
“ETA?”
“Two hours, but I’m not coming into port.”
He typically didn’t bring the Paragon in. Her best feature, minus the weaponry onboard, was her stealth capabilities. Black, fast, and masked AIS. She was a ghost ship. I fucking hated being on board. I was all about land or air, but I got why the boat was useful.
I glanced at my watch and did a quick calculation. “Roger that. Flying the Phenom back to Opa Locka. See you when I see you.” I started up the old Jeep.
“Helios,” Nix clipped.
“What?” I backed out of the garage.
“Why aren’t you flying your Citation?”
I glanced at Haven. She was staring straight ahead.
Minus that single second when she was sitting on the counter, she hadn’t looked at me since I’d kissed her.
Ignoring Nix’s question, I offered up an excuse for the call.
“Looking for any loose ends. Run down every al-Hashimi in that damn family. I want to make sure we didn’t miss shit this time.
” We hadn’t. The task was redundant and something I would’ve done, but I was about to be too damn busy to do fuck-all on a computer.
“Already done,” Nix came back with the response I expected. “Both Cypher and I ran it. The threat’s eliminated.”
“Copy. Thanks.” Scanning the predawn horizon, the not-yet crested sun, I stepped on the gas.
“You’re thanking me,” Nix stated.
It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t fucking answer it. “Later.” I hung up.
“Is he….” Haven cleared her throat. “Are they all—”
“Dead? Yeah.”
Gripping the grab handle, she nodded.
Pulling off the dirt road, I turned onto the airstrip and drove up next to the Embraer Phenom 300E. “Wait here.” I got out of the Jeep, then opened the airstairs on the smaller jet. When I headed back to grab her, the woman was already out of the Wrangler.
Her gaze everywhere but on mine, she came at me.
Hating the fucking tension radiating off her, wanting to grab her, knowing it would do fuck all to change the bullshit between us right now, especially with her current frame of mind, I followed her sweet ass as she climbed the airstairs. When she hit the cabin, she headed aft for a passenger seat.
I grit my fucking teeth.
Couple minutes later, I had the engines on and cabin cooling. When I stepped out of the cockpit, she was staring out the window.
Fuck this. “Take second chair. I’m stowing the Jeep. Back in a minute.”
“I… I don’t like to fly.”
She wasn’t fucking flying. I was. And I knew all about her fear of being in the air that didn’t have shit to do with actual flying.
The woman was afraid of anything she couldn’t fucking control.
I got it. I fucking got it, deep. But she’d refused every attempt I’d made to teach her to fly, which would’ve given her that control.
Right now, I was almost fucking thankful for it.
But she sure as fuck wasn’t sitting aft cabin today. “You’re keeping me company.”
“No, thank you.”
“Not a request.” I took the airstairs back to the apron before I did something really fucked up, like cuff her to me.
Driving the Jeep into the hangar and parking it, then grabbing the two rigs, I jogged back to the plane and did my exterior prechecks before taking the airstairs two at a time.
When I hit the cabin, she was in the cockpit, second chair.
Thank fuck.
I secured the cabin door, tossed the rigs into an empty seat, grabbed another item I needed, and stowed it next to them.
Then I took first chair and ran through the rest of prechecks. Turning the plane around, I spooled up and glanced at her. “Ready?”
Staring out the side window, she didn’t answer.
We took off.