13. OLIVIA
OLIVIA
“Lucille, can I talk to you for a minute?”
The woman gave me a harried look like I’d asked her to strip naked and dance on the nose of the plane.
“What?” she hissed.
“I, um—”
“Spit it out.”
I squared my shoulders, refusing to let her obvious disdain for me throw me off.
We had a plan.
Was it the best plan I’d ever heard? Definitely not. Did I like it? Not even a little bit. But it was the best one we had.
As I considered my words carefully, I looked over Lucille with fresh eyes. Could she be a secret assassin in disguise? If she was, she was remarkably dedicated to her cover.
The last few hours had not been kind to her.
Managing a dead body, a plane full of angry lawyers, and no way to contact the outside world had deepened her frown lines.
Her once-immaculate white-blond hair now had an electric frizz.
Even her neck scarf was incorrectly positioned, and it took every morsel of my willpower not to point it out.
Rise above, I told myself. Now is not the time to be a petty bitch.
“I found someone who can help with the Wi-Fi,” I said, watching her face carefully. “He’s a tech guy.”
Lucille scowled as she ripped open a pack of plastic spoons. Dinner service was about to begin. I suspected we’d be wearing most of it by the end of the flight, however that panned out. “And just where did you find this ‘tech guy’?” she asked, her brow arching scornfully.
“I asked around.”
“Is that what you call it?”
I flushed hot at her implication. Clearly, rumors of my overfriendly sleuthing had reached her.
“Look,” I said, my tone more snappish than I intended. “You said you wanted to avoid a lawsuit. You said to keep them happy—”
“Oh, yes. A task you apparently took far too literally.”
Don’t slap her. Do not slap her.
“Well, regardless,” I bit out. “He’s an expert. He can have a look in the avionics bay and see if he can fix the issue.”
Lucille flapped her hand at me dismissively. “We can’t just let a passenger walk into the cockpit.”
“I will accompany him.”
“I trust you even less.”
That stung more than I wanted to admit.
It also sent my temper soaring. We didn’t have time for this. Fists clenching at my sides, I took a deep, deep breath.
Thankfully, before I did something I’d (probably) regret, Julie came bursting into the galley. “It’s the fucking Purge out there!” she exclaimed. There was a giant ink stain on the front of her shirt. Her neck scarf was missing.
Lucille seemed temporarily taken aback by her state. I cringed, waiting for the explosion.
But then Marcus came barreling in, face flushed and naked head gleaming with sweat. He was juggling three laptops, the glow of the screens giving his face a haunted, hollow-eyed look.
“What’s the plan here, Lucille?” Marcus demanded. “The lawyers are out for blood.”
“What are you doing with those?” Lucille asked, her voice pitchy. She dropped the spoons onto the trolley.
Marcus dumped the laptops on the nearby bench. “I’m going to try restarting them.”
“You think that will work?” Julie asked, screwing up her nose doubtfully.
“No,” Marcus said, giving her a flat look. “But it’s all I got. Short of this, I’m distracting them with a tap dance and a bloody kiosk voucher.”
Lucille opened her mouth, then shut it. Speechlessness was a good look on her.
I saw my chance.
“I could fix this,” I said pointedly. “I found a guy who can help.”
“Help with what?” Julie asked.
“The Wi-Fi.”
Marcus threw up his hands dramatically. “Hallelujah. What are we waiting for? Lucille?”
Lucille looked at each of us with a pinched expression. Was her resistance simply because she was following protocol? Or did she have another reason to keep us out of the cockpit?
Subtly, I glanced at Marcus and Julie, evaluating them against my new criteria of anyone-could-be-a-ruthless-murdering-psychopath. Marcus was pressing blindly on the laptop keys. Julie was licking a tissue and attempting to remove the ink stain from her shirt, only making it a thousand times worse.
It could very well be another flight attendant I hadn’t met yet. There were seventeen of us, after all.
They could also be anywhere on the plane.
“Oh, fine. Alright,” Lucille snapped, flapping her hands like we were pestering flies. “It’s against protocol, but I suppose this is extenuating circumstances.”
“You think?” Marcus sniped, sarcastically.
Lucille shot him a venomous glare, which she gifted to me a second later. “Go and get him, then.”
I almost skipped out of the galley before reining myself in.
Finally, something was going my way.
Part of me was worried I’d have to resort to violence to get Lucille to agree. Typically, Jax and Madoc were fully on board with that plan.
Maybe it was a little tempting…
Madoc was already watching the doorway when I appeared and gave him a nod. He stood up and shed his jacket, revealing the fitted black shirt beneath. More than a few eyes followed him hungrily as he stalked toward me. His confidence would be irritating if it weren’t annoyingly justified.
"Good job, mouse,” he said, patting my head like a monkey who’d performed a neat trick.
Actually, scratch that. His confidence was completely fucking irritating.
Grinding my teeth, I escorted him to Lucille in the galley.
She gave him a long, skeptical look that he endured with his usual bored expression. Julie was far less subtle, her eyes widening, pupils fully dilating. Marcus choked on his tongue.
“You work in IT?” Lucille asked, pursing her lips.
“Yes,” Madoc said drily.
“I see.” She clearly didn’t believe him. With his tattoos, scars, and overall stabby vibes, she probably assumed he learned to fix computers in prison.
For all I knew, he probably did.
“Well,” Lucille stressed, clearly out of options. “I suppose we have no choice. I’ll escort you. Come along.”
When I made to follow, Lucille spun back around with a hawkish look. “Where do you think you’re going?”
I glanced at Madoc, who gave me nothing. Helpful, as usual. “Um,” I said. “I am going with you?”
“No, you are not,” Lucille said firmly. “We are overrun as it is. You will stay with Marcus.” Quieter, she said: “Make sure the fool doesn’t start tap dancing.”
“But—” I started.
Madoc snapped his fingers. “I’ll need an assistant,” he said with a sardonic smile. “Someone with steady hands.”
I sighed in relief. I was running out of clever ways to get what I wanted.
But, of course, nothing was ever simple with Madoc.
His green eyes flicked over me, a smirk curling his wicked mouth. Then he lifted his finger and pointed. “I want you.”
Julie flushed a bright red.
My mouth dropped in outrage. Was he serious?
Madoc didn’t even spare me a second look as he turned and headed toward the cockpit, a furious Lucille on his heels. I was still stammering like an idiot when Julie brushed up against me. “Do you know him?”
“No,” I bit out, wishing it was true. Life used to be so much simpler without Madoc’s brand of mind fuckery.
“Sooo…you won’t mind if I ask for his number?”
“What?” I whirled on her with an incredulous look. “You want to date that guy?”
“Date him? No.” Julie straightened her uniform, then grimaced at her big blue stain. “I want to jump his bones. He is stupid hot. And intense. Can you imagine a guy like that in bed?”
God, no. I couldn’t.
I wouldn’t.
Oh no. I was.
Madoc leaning over me, whispering his cruel taunts in my ear like he always did. I imagined him peeling away my layers, exposing me like a raw nerve. Then he was driving his hips forward like a punishment, like he knew exactly where to make it hurt…and where to make it euphoric…
Madoc would absolutely talk you through it, if just to remind you exactly what you did to deserve it.
“Okay, wish me luck,” Julie said, thankfully releasing me from whatever fit of insanity had overcome my brain. I had to unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth to respond.
“Yeah, good luck.”
After she was gone, I counted to ten.
When I could speak without blurting out something I’d regret, I stormed out and turned to the row closest to the galley.
“Can you believe he just did that?” I hissed.
Jax looked just as surprised, but nowhere near as murderous. He shrugged. “Madoc knows what he’s doing.”
“Does he?” I sneered.
Jax glanced up at me, then snorted. “Jealousy looks good on you, princess.”
I glared at him. “Don’t you dare.”
“I dare.” He stood and leaned over me, looking suggestive without touching me. “Now,” he said, his voice deliberately loud, so Marcus could hear him where he was still playing Operation with the laptops. “I’m a bit lost, and it’s a big plane. Could you show me back to my seat?”
I gritted my teeth at his deviant expression. He loved that I had no choice but to play along. “Absolutely, sir,” I said with a biting smile. “Right this way.”
At the end of the aisle, I checked on Ryle, only to find his seat empty.
“He’s finding something for me,” Jax said, super casually. That could mean anything. None of it good.
“You mean he’s stealing something?”
Jax just smirked.
With him hovering over me like a bodyguard, I felt infinitely better walking through the plane. You will not leave my sight, he’d warned me in the bathroom. Deep down, I knew it was partly because he still didn’t trust me. A desperate, hopeless part of me hoped it was because he cared.
Jax had made it perfectly clear on numerous occasions that we had no future together. He was a lawless thief. I was a college girl with a paper due on the future of renewable energy. When all was said and done, we were bound together by convenience and nothing more.
Coming up the stairs to the upper deck, I glanced over at the business cabin and shuddered.
The leader of the Vipers had made it clear he was untouchable. He had the advantage of a plane full of unsuspecting targets. The fact that Jax couldn’t just kill him was causing him no end of stress.
Plus, we had no idea who else was working for him.
Our only leverage was the prototype. They couldn’t leave without it. Neither could we. In a weird way, we were at a stalemate.
As we headed toward first class, I asked Jax: “How long until they reach the boat?”
“Just over two hours.”
I cringed.
At least no one else had died.
Yet.