Chapter 6
RIDE YOUR LUCK (HOLDEN)
We move out at the ass crack of dawn to make it to New York by a reasonable hour.
The sun is just a smear of light on the horizon as I carry the precious egg, snug in a locked fireproof briefcase that looks nuclear football grade. I briefed the plane’s crew about our important business meeting.
They usher us onto the jet before it’s truly sunrise and prepare to get us wheels up.
Beside me, Cleo yawns like a kitten.
Her hair looks wilted, like she ran through the shower with no time to dry it this morning. The bags under her eyes say she hasn’t slept much.
When I came back from visiting Kit yesterday, I didn’t see her much. The whole cavernous house was quiet, so different from the way it used to be.
The old man always had the radio or TV going, soft music or news chattering in the background, even while he slept.
This silence felt frozen. The same feeling you get when you step outside in the winter and it’s subzero, where you can hear every footprint crushing snow.
Hell, she didn’t even give me the finger when she went up to bed. Always a nighttime staple during her teenage years.
She really has grown up.
I could tell something happened with her father. With Gordon Blackthorn, it’s no shock.
The selfish failson fuck probably pressured her into giving him the Hera Egg.
If she even told him. I hope like hell she kept her mouth shut.
It’s none of my business, no, but I feel a stab of pity when I see the dreary circles haloing her bright eyes, like she took on the weight of the world overnight.
She yawns again, this time wider.
“I’m not gonna make it,” she mutters under her breath.
I don’t think twice about grabbing her hand, dragging her down to the other end of the plane where there’s less noise.
“You don’t need to stay awake now. Sleep,” I tell her.
She glances at her little hand in mine. It’s so small, her thin fingers all but lost in mine.
Shit. I shouldn’t be touching her.
Her eyes widen as she stares at me, then looks at the suitcase I’m still clasping like it’s full of weapons-grade plutonium.
This thing won’t leave my sight until we get to Fairfax’s office.
Even then, I might not let it go, but I’m sure as hell not leaving it with anyone besides Cleo.
The corner of her mouth pulls up in a smile.
“You look like a mafia dude hauling a million bucks in there,” she whispers.
“Delusional. I’d wager this is worth significantly more.”
“Yeah, but why”—she yawns again—“why so serious?”
“Because someone has to stay alert, Nile Queen. You can’t keep your eyes open. Have a nap.” I show her to her seat, putting my hand on her shoulder to guide her down into it so she doesn’t miss.
For a second, I inhale her. No hangover, and there’s no hint of alcohol or anything else.
Just a tired girl and this hint of fruit. Apple?
My nostrils flare.
If it isn’t perfume, it must be her shampoo, and I should absolutely not be fucking smelling her hair.
For a second, she whips around and looks at me.
I press my lips together and nod.
Too fucking close, you dog. What are you doing?
I don’t know. Looking around every corner for imminent disaster, and sniffing for it, too.
It’s in my DNA after a long career. Today I have one job and it’s to get her and the egg to our destination.
Nothing else matters.
Not her mental state, but it will help if she’s rested.
“What’s your deal?” she asks. She must sense I’m off my game.
“Just need a little coffee. I’ll get some when we’re in the air. You, sleep,” I growl again.
The way she smiles and shakes her head cuts me open.
Just a hint of the old, familiar, nosy Cleo Blackthorn, buried under a grown woman on a mission.
Another thought I need to purge from my frazzled brain.
“You’re bossy today. Careful,” she warns, but she doesn’t fight me as she settles into one of the oversized seats and curls up.
I stop the flight attendant and ask her for blankets and pillows. She brings me out a whole armful, and I tuck the pillow under her head.
A lock of silky cinnamon hair slides past my fingers.
Criminally soft.
Again, dripping with that damn apple scent.
Everything about her is softer and sweeter than a lie. It must be the pressure getting to me, that shot of adrenaline going to my head.
Cleo’s not a tiny waif of a woman. She’s not bony.
Still, I think she could be eating more, especially with the task ahead. Another problem to rectify as soon as we’ve touched down in New York.
She uncurls a little as I drape the blanket over her and sit back across from her.
“Mm, that was nice. Surprising,” she mutters. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
As she drifts off, I flag down the flight attendant again and whisper, “Keep her comfortable. Anything she needs, she gets. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” the woman says. “We’ll look out for her.”
“Good.”
When I buckle up, I notice she forgot to fix her own seat belt. Sighing, I reach over her to strap her in, grazing the curve of her hip as she moans and shifts in her sleep.
As the jet speeds down the tarmac and positions for takeoff, I try to enjoy the view, the gold clawing through the clouds and the morning shadows below.
I try and I fail.
My traitor eyes keep drifting back to the exhausted, troubled girl across from me. Her lips pout, murmuring something soft and indecipherable.
Something I have no business trying to read, but I do.
It’s not a long flight, just under two hours.
It feels like a lifetime.
Cleo Blackthorn sleeps so fucking peacefully, her hands tucked under her chin and her hair falling over her face.
I’m glued to her so closely through the flight it’s embarrassing.
By the time we’re coasting down for a landing, I’ve never wanted to punch myself more.
This is demented.
I know I shouldn’t be watching her.
I absolutely shouldn’t be the creepy older man before I’m even forty. At thirty-eight, I have two years to go.
I can’t figure out what it is.
This is anything but normal.
The dormant caretaker in me, maybe. The man I had to bury with Charli after she came back to us, eaten up with cancer. Terminal.
How many times did I beg her to work with me before the hammer dropped? To find room in her career, her life, for a daughter and a life with us?
She never listened.
She only came home when she had nowhere else to turn.
Of course, I fucking took her in.
I bled my soul in countless black hours, tending her like a nurse, praying to a God I’m not sure I believe in for a miracle.
I tucked in the thinning mother of my child over her last few months of life. The same woman who never gave me a chance after she decided I wasn’t enough.
I gave her what comfort I could, and I watched the spark fade from her eyes, her skin, her bones.
When it got to be too much and I had to get back to work, I went into debt for a home nurse to fill in the gaps.
I buried the hopes and dreams she killed much earlier. I wrapped my hands around my own throat and strangled the life I couldn’t have.
After Charli, there was no room for outsiders.
No goddamned room.
No space in my smaller, darker cave of a world for anyone who wasn’t blood. Kit came first and last.
Kit became my religion.
Nile, she takes me back to an earlier time when I was new to being bitter and broken. Isn’t that the problem?
She’s the same brat I remember, effortlessly skilled at crawling under my skin. But she also isn’t.
In the years since I last saw her, she’s grown up and so much has happened. So much life, and life hurts you.
It leaves bruises, no matter what you do. There are so many sore spots on her I try not to press.
Her grandfather’s secrets.
Her father’s shitty flaws.
What Leonidas’ death means for the family, when he was the fabric that held it together.
Frankly, I don’t envy her.
I always respected the old man, but this is a giga-ton of responsibility to drop on anyone so young. Especially when she hasn’t had a chance to live that much yet.
Twenty-three years old.
So fucking young.
And she’s stuck wrangling destiny, deciding Leonidas Blackthorn’s legacy.
I glance back at the open laptop on my knee before I have to stow it for our arrival.
Cleo might’ve thought she dug deep enough with Jasper Fairfax, but I threw together a profile of him on my own.
I can see her logic. I get why she’s convinced he’s our best starting point.
The man’s practically a Boy Scout in art and antiquities. A sterling reputation.
Even his record with sketchy items thought to be stolen or moving on the black market. He’s helped recover several valuable Egyptian artifacts over the years.
On paper, he’s a class-act professional, the right pick to handle something as delicate as the Hera Egg.
Plus, he has ties to celebrity art collectors and government officials in at least a dozen countries. I have no doubt he meant it when he told her he could find a buyer, if he wasn’t interested himself.
He also has the ideal experience in Eastern Europe. According to his website, he played a key role in securing several rare treasures that could’ve easily vanished in the chaotic years after the Soviet Union collapsed. That’s backed up by articles.
Lots of articles.
So many, I wonder if a few were drafted by Fairfax’s own press team as marketing.
Despite all the evidence suggesting he’s purer than driven snow, there’s a rock in my gut.
He has awards and credentials for days. Achievements, trophies, photo ops with movers and shakers across art, politics, and academia.
There’s no denying his connections. Every big-time antiquities dealer worth his salt has probably heard of Jasper Fairfax.
And yet…
The man behind the facade, the man himself, barely seems to exist. Jasper’s a phantom on social media, though what I found on his education and personal properties checks out.
Still, little else.
No details about his upbringing, his home life, his hobbies. For a man who’s been in the public eye plenty, there’s little to say where he came from.
Unusual.