Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
“It’s all right.”
The low voice pushed through the darkness. Luna tried to open her eyes, but she couldn’t. They were far too heavy. Weighed down. Only she wasn’t weighed down. If anything, Luna felt as if she was flying.
No, not flying, being lifted up.
Worry pulsed through her, but she couldn’t quite make her body respond to the fear that filled her veins.
“We’re going on a little trip.”
She shouldn’t be going on a trip. She was supposed to be staying in the bungalow. Esme and Tyler were guarding her. She couldn’t run out and try to find Ronan. They wouldn’t let her. All she had of him—hell, it was his big watch. He’d left it on the nightstand. At some point, she’d put it on her wrist. A piece of him to keep for her memories. A melancholy act. An overly sentimental move. As she’d sipped the wine and nibbled on the chocolates, she’d felt increasingly melancholy. And increasingly sleepy.
She was still sleepy. Perhaps…too sleepy. And shouldn’t she be more alarmed that someone was carrying her?
This isn’t right. Then, with that realization… I’m not right. Something is very wrong with me. Her lashes finally fluttered. She had a quick flash of the bungalow. Esme was sprawled on the sofa, with her head tipped back. Sound asleep.
Not just asleep. Unconscious?
Tyler curled near her. His head slumped forward. He barely seemed to breathe. Was he breathing?
Fresh, sharp alarm spiked. Finally, real, bracing alarm. Luna hadn’t consumed much wine. Just a little. Had Esme even touched the wine or had she just sampled the cider? Luna couldn’t remember. They’d all nibbled on the food. The cheese. The chocolates. And…
“Too bad we can’t work together. I really did love your voice.”
Her eyes fluttered helplessly closed. By the time she managed to open them again, she was outside. Water was hitting her face. Raindrops? It was the raindrops that helped Luna to keep her eyes open even as she heard a dull whirring.
“But you’re not gonna be singing for anyone ever again. Not when he’s done with you.” After those words, the man who’d been carrying Luna shoved her onto what felt like a cushioned seat.
Her eyes focused for a moment on his wrist as he pulled a belt across her body and secured her in place. On his wrist, she saw a striking snake. “Ronan?” Hope came. Relief. She was safe with Ronan.
Her focus was on the snake. A snake she’d seen plenty of times on Ronan’s left wrist. No way could she forget those curving lines and the sharp fangs poised to strike.
“Nah. Not even close.”
Her head turned. For a moment, she was eye to eye with the man. And his eyes were the wrong color. His face was the wrong face.
He smiled at her. “Told you to run from him when you had the chance, sweetheart. You should have listened to me. Now you’re going to die and so is he, and I’m going to get one big fat payday.”
The words poured onto her, but her mind was just working too slowly. She couldn’t comprehend what he was telling her. She knew him, though. He was the?—
“The fucking piano player!” Ronan snarled into his phone. “Listen to me, Gray, we are screwed, do you understand me? I’m not on the damn island, I can’t get hold of Tyler or Esme, and there’s someone there— the fucking piano player— who has to know who I am! He’s got the same gang tat.”
“Shit,” Gray said. Then, “Shit.”
Kane was securing Harris. Ronan was losing his mind. Lightning flashed overhead and rain pelted down on him. “The island was supposed to be safe!” More than that. Luna should have been safe. It was the reason he’d been able to walk away. Luna was safe. Or so he’d believed. But the acid eating away at his insides told him she was not.
He had to get back there. Immediately.
“Calm down,” Gray made the mistake of saying.
“Fuck yourself,” Ronan told him flatly.
“Look, don’t panic. You know the cell service on the island is sketchy—maybe the calls just aren’t connecting. Maybe?—”
“Marcus wanted me kept in Harris’s club. That means he wanted me out of the way because he’s handling other business. It’s a distraction. He’s going after Luna. The guy sounded way too calm on the phone. Didn’t ask enough questions. Didn’t push enough. Just said he’d be here. Not like he had to arrange things or coordinate or do any shit to fly down. Just that he’d be in the club tonight. That means he’s fucking already here. Don’t you get that? ” Or, worse, he wasn’t right there in Key West. He’s with Luna. Could already be on the little island while I’m stuck here. “He could be out there with her now, killing her. Killing my wife! And you think I’m just sitting my ass here? You think I’m going to calm my ass down? You think?—”
“She’s not your wife,” Gray pointed out.
Wrong thing to point out. “I am going to kick your ass.” He heaved in a breath. “Then I’m marrying her.” The words stunned him as soon as they left his mouth. “I’m marrying her,” he said again, testing them this time. Weird as hell, but they felt right. “I am marrying her.”
“Yeah, okay, I heard you the first time. How the hell is a hitman gonna marry a dead woman?”
“ She’s not dead!” A near roar.
“No, no, she’s not. I meant pretend dead. Jeez. She is definitely not dead right now. Let’s take more breaths. I’ll call the owner of the island directly. He has a phone that never fails, especially when the call is coming from me. Unless the weather is shit, of course, and?—”
Thunder blasted around Ronan. “The weather is shit.”
Gray cleared his throat. “No boats will be running. There’s an amphibious seaplane that ferries back and forth sometimes, but no way will it take off in this weather.”
A amphibious seaplane—a plane that could land on either water or a typical runway. Hell, yes, that would be one hell of a lot faster than a boat. He’d already wasted too much time trying to make contact with Tyler and Esme and getting Gray’s crazy ass in the loop. “I’m flying out.”
“ What? ”
“I’m finding a plane. You’re getting me a pilot.”
“I…do have a pilot fairly close,” Gray’s very careful voice. “There’s an airport in Key West.”
Yeah, he knew about it. He and Luna had passed it when they first came to Key West.
“But the pilot, uh, he’s?—”
“I can fly,” Kane reminded Ronan as he closed in, seemingly coming from nowhere. Typical Kane style.
But his reappearance meant that Harris had been duly secured. One less worry.
Ronan jerked his head in Kane’s direction even as he told Gray, “Forget your guy. I’ve got a fucking pilot. One who won’t be scared by the weather.” Because nothing ever seemed to scare Kane. “Just have me a plane ready. I’ll be at the Key West airport in moments. I’m getting in the air, and I’m getting back to Luna.”
“But—”
“I’m going back to her. I think Marcus is down here already.” How many times had he said that very thing? “I think the prick is hunting. He’s taking her out and then he’ll come for me.” Or at least, that was what Ronan suspected Marcus would do. But he wasn’t going to wait for the attack. And he certainly wasn’t going to stay away from Luna when she was in danger. “I have to get back to Luna. Stop being a damn agent. Be my friend. Get me a plane. Get me a path to her.”
Silence. Then, “A plane will be ready when you get to the airport.”
Damn straight, it would be.
Ronan hung up. He didn’t ask more questions about just how the plane would be ready. He didn’t need those answers. He just needed the damn plane.
Her eyes flew open.
She’d been dead to the world one moment, and in the next, Luna’s eyes shot open. Her body bounced. Jiggled as she moved up and down, but even with those movements, Luna realized she was pinned in…an airplane seat?
Lightning flashed right beside her, and her heart nearly jumped from her chest. She opened her mouth to scream.
A man blasted, “Keep this bitch in the air!” The sharp cry came from a man sitting in the seat that was positioned in front of Luna.
“I’m doing my best,” a snarl back at him—a snarl from the pilot. “We shouldn’t be up here. This weather is too rough. I warned you it was risky!”
“It’s barely a thirty-minute flight! Keep us in the air and then land us, and you will get fifty grand from my new boss. Fifty grand . I think thirty minutes of flight time is a fair trade-off for that much cash, don’t you?”
More lightning. Luna pressed her lips together and didn’t make a sound.
“How is the woman?” The question came from the pilot.
Instinctively, Luna snapped her eyes closed.
She heard rustling. “Still out cold.” A pleased retort. She knew that voice. The pianist. The guy who wanted me to sing with him. “I don’t know how much of the drugs she got. If she had too much wine or too many of those chocolates, hell, she might not wake up at all.”
Luna had barely sipped the wine. And she’d had two chocolates. Two.
But Esme and Tyler…oh, no, Esme and Tyler…
“Boss said he wanted her alive, but I’ll get paid either way.” More rustling. Barely discernible over the whir of the plane’s engine. “He wants her. He can do whatever the hell he likes with her. Whether she wakes up or not, I will still get the payday.” A hard sigh. “Wish that dick husband had been with her. He’s got a bounty on him just as high as hers. Found out about it when I was looking for a little side job. Couldn’t believe my damn luck. What are the odds, right? When I saw his tat, I knew the kind of hell I was facing. And only one guy in the gang had a scar like that on his chin. Everyone always talked about Ronan the Relentless. Especially once he started his kill sprees…”
Ronan didn’t have kill sprees.
He protected innocent people.
He’d protected her.
“The woman won’t give us any trouble,” the pianist added. What had been his name? She could not remember. He’d told her, right before Ronan had appeared and, uh, threatened to break the man’s fingers.
It won’t just be a threat this time. Ronan will fuck him up.
Cameron. That had been his name. He’d said she could call him Cam.
“She doesn’t look like the trouble type.” The pilot’s voice. Maybe a little sad. “Poor woman. What did she do to deserve a hit?”
So the pilot was fine with killing her. A little regretful, but fine. Who were these people?
“She saw the wrong person killing the wrong man.” Impatient. “Can you go faster?”
“Not in this weather. I’m trying to not kill us all.”
Her eyes opened once more when the plane dipped and swerved. Even as her breath stuttered out, Luna began to plan. Because she was most definitely going to be trouble.
He was at the airport. Only he didn’t see a freaking amphibious seaplane waiting to go on the runway. He’d barreled into the small facility with Kane on his heels and the attendant up front had practically run away from them in fear. It had taken too long to arrive at the place. He needed a flight. He still couldn’t get Tyler or Esme on the phone, and he was about to lose his mind worrying about Luna.
Ronan’s phone rang. He snatched it up and put it to his ear even as he glared through the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the runway area.
“We have a problem,” Gray informed him.
“That is not what I need to hear.”
“I’m tracking you right now, and according to my intel, you’re over a large body of water. You’ve moving way too fast.”
What? He wasn’t moving at all.
“Where are you, Ronan?” Gray wanted to know.
“Standing in the damn airport waiting for my plane.” A plane Gray had promised him.
Gray exhaled. “Different question. Where is your watch, Ronan? The watch you always wear. The one I use to track your crazy ass because it has the absolute best tech installed on it. Secret shit that the government hasn’t made available to the outside sector.”
Automatically, Ronan glanced down. No watch. “I left it.” When he’d left Luna.
“Your watch is heading toward the airport,” Gray told him. “And since watches don’t move themselves, I think someone is carrying it. Or wearing it.”
He surged closer to the windows and peered out at the storm. Kane followed him, not saying a word.
“Who has your watch?” Gray asked.
“It…could be Luna. I left it in our bungalow.” Would Luna have grabbed his watch? Or maybe Tyler?
“The watch is coming in, and it’s coming in fast. I want you to stay out of sight until I see what’s happening.”
Until I see what’s… He stiffened. “You’re here, aren’t you, Gray?” Tricky bastard.
“Things are approaching a head faster than I anticipated.”
“Did you fucking set up Luna?” Rage threatened to overwhelm him.
“No. I didn’t. I swear it. But when the hit got placed on you, I knew I needed to move. Figured you might need me. I came on Kane’s heels. I’m—shit, I have a visual on the plane. Do not interfere, understand? I haven’t located Marcus yet. This scene is not secure. I repeat, the scene is not?—”
He could see the flash of approaching lights. Ronan hung up on Gray and rushed toward the corridor that led to the runway. Two security guards tried to stop him. Hilarious.
“You don’t want to do that!” Kane shouted at them. And before Ronan could knock their asses out, Kane flashed some kind of government ID at them. The men backed off. Ronan ran through an additional screening area as Kane yelled orders at everyone. Official sounding orders. Then Ronan was outside. Rain pelted him and lightning flashed around the plane as it descended. He raced forward.
Only to be hauled back. He whirled, ready to drive his fist right into Kane’s face.
But Kane wasn’t there. A soaking wet Gray was.
Ronan let his fist fly. It slammed right into Gray’s face. A rapid hit. Gray swore but didn’t let him go. “ Dammit, don’t compromise this even more. ”
Kane appeared. He grabbed Ronan’s right arm. Kane and Gray dragged his ass to the shelter of a shadowy hangar just as the seaplane rushed toward the airport. It dipped, weaved with the wind, and Ronan almost stopped breathing because he thought the plane might crash right in front of him. But it steadied. Slowed as it eased down the runway.
Stopped.
“Do not move,” Gray gritted in his ear. “You don’t understand the players. I’m trying to keep innocent people alive.”
The plane’s door opened. The pilot stayed in the cockpit, but one guy climbed out. Ronan couldn’t see his face clearly. The prick reached into the rear of the plane and pulled out…
A woman.
A woman’s limp body that he slung over his shoulder and began carrying away from the plane.
A woman who didn’t fight him. Who didn’t struggle at all. A woman—sweet hell, no. A woman who was dead?
A woman…who was his Luna because the sonofafucker carrying her had just walked in front of a runway light. Luna’s dark hair slid away from her face. Her eyes were closed. Her face slack.
A roar built in his throat, and Ronan broke from Kane and Gray as he lunged for his wife.