Page 45 of Mile High Heist

“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.