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“And if I refuse?”
“You won’t.”
* * *
Less than twenty-four hours later, under the cover of night, Smoke carried me out of the hospital, accompanied down a back stairwell by a nurse I hadn’t met previously but was told would be traveling with us.
When we arrived at the tarmac of a private airfield, he carried me up the stairs and to the back of the plane, where he gently rested my body on a bed in a stateroom filled with the same equipment as the hospital room.
He watched as the nurse hooked me up to monitors and reconnected the IV.
“This is highly unacceptable,” I heard a familiar voice say, but I couldn’t place it until I saw the man ushered into the room by two men about the same size as Smoke.
“As I’ve repeatedly informed you, you’ll be generously compensated for your time,” Smoke said to the man I recognized as my surgeon.
“I’m not licensed to practice medicine in the States.”
“Irrelevant.”
“You can’t do this.”
“I already have.” Smoke stepped aside, motioned for the doctor to take a seat, and then leaned down and got in the man’s face. “You make sure not a single hair on her head is further hurt, and you’ll make more money than you do in a year. You don’t protect her life with yours; you won’t enjoy the consequences.”
“I’ll have you arrested for kidnapping.”
“Good luck with that.” Smoke laughed, as did the two men still standing guard outside the door.
5
Smoke
“Who are you?” I heard Siren ask the two men who I knew she’d worked ops with previously. I’d forewarned them when they arrived at the hospital of the possibility she wouldn’t remember them.
“I’m Jagger,” said Mick Reynolds, stepping forward. “This is Vex,” he added, pointing to Bronson Dunning. I watched for any sign of recognition, but saw none.
“Nice to meet you,” she murmured, looking from them to me. I winked and then motioned the two men out of the stateroom.
“What does she remember?” asked Vex.
“Obviously not much about you, since she hasn’t thrown anything in your direction,” muttered Jagger. “Sorry, man,” he added when I shot him a glare.
“Here’s the deal. Are you listening?”
Both men nodded.
“I didn’t have time to brief you on this before we had to leave the hospital, but Siren believes that she and I are in a…relationship.”
Vex opened his mouth and then wisely closed it.
“As far as you’re concerned, we’re a happy couple. Why, is none of your fucking business.”
“Copy that,” they each responded, although I didn’t miss Jagger’s raised brow.
“Right now, your job is to keep an eye on Siren and the doc. That’s it.”
When they returned to the back of the plane, I reached out to Hammer.
“I was just getting ready to call you,” he said.
