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Three loud gunshots rang out in the distance, the laughs and shouts turning into screams as the crowd around her peeled away and a pair of meaty hands wrenched her from the jagged gravel street. What little breath she had left was punched from her lungs as she was thrown over someone’s shoulder, her ribs caving in against each jarring blow as she was hauled away from the crowd. The last thing she saw before her blood rushed to her head and a deep blackness overtook her vision was the soles of the stranger’s worn and tattered boots as they beat against the pavement at a franticpace.
Eighteen
“Sonofabitch!”Grant held back a knowing grin and concentrated on Thalia as Daniel rubbed the ache from his jaw. His girl was a survivor and he was damn proud of it, even if she’d busted herself up pretty badly and unknowingly slugged her own father.Repeatedly.
“She has one hell of a right hook.” His cheek still bore the remains of her last unconscious battle with him. He couldn’t believe less than two weeks had passed since he lifted her lifeless body from his beach. Capturing her wrists in his hands to keep her from striking out at him again when she finally came to, he carefully caressed the raw scuff marks marring her knuckles. “I would have warned you if I knew you were coming.” He turned his head to glare at his friend. “What the hell are you doing here, Daniel? I left clear orders to meet us inChennai.”
He could barely hold back the growl of frustration that clawed at his chest. By not following those simple instructions they had not only nearly gotten Thalia killed, but now the local rag-tag guerilla security forces were chasing them. God only knew what kind of bullshit he’d have to wade through if they didn’t get this damn plane off the ground before they caught up to them. “How the hell did you findus?”
Daniel cupped the back of his neck and paced the length of the otherwise empty cabin. Empty except for his female friend Grant had yet to be introduced to. He’d quickly dismissed the leggy redhead as a non-threat. Considering her conservative business suit and dry no-nonsense attitude, she was definitely another department lackey he’d just as soon not know. Probably a Fed. What the hell had Daniel been thinking bringing someone else into this nightmare? The last thing Thalia needed was a damn audience as her life was ripped to shreds…again.
“I don’t give two shits what your orders were!” Daniel shouted over the jet engines as they fired to life. “That’s my goddamndaughter!”
Grant’s patience was wearing fatally thin. With the determined vipers they were hiding from still out for Thalia’s blood, he couldn’t afford any leaks. He needed to know who compromised their position, and he needed to know right fucking now! “Who the hell told you where to findus?”
“I had your man on the ground redirect the flight through DC instead of Newark to pick up Rebecca. He was rattled enough to give you up. Hell, I had to threaten to tie his ass to his shiny new sports car to keep him from boarding the damn plane. He was more than willing to update the flight plan to intercept you here.” Daniel stopped pacing and came to stand in front of him, a crimson flush firing beneath the aged skin on his face and creeping beneath the collar of his casual button-up. He looked anything but casual. “I’ve fought too damn hard to find her, Grant. I wasn’t about to let her slip through my fingers again, and I don’t give adamnif that pisses youoff.”
Grant’s teeth popped as he ground them together to keep his temper in check. He didn’t blame Daniel. Diver had given up their position after one frantic phone call. Sure, he’d been a little crazed when he’d called him, but everyone is entitled to at least one meltdown in their life.Right?
His gaze drifted back to Thalia as she stirred in his arms. He would deal with Diver and the rest of this bullshit later. Right now his hands were literally full of the woman he loved, and he needed to tend to her injuries in private. The last thing she needed was to wake up inside a plane full of strangers before he could stop her bleeding and clear this clusterfuck up for her. He should have told her everything the minute they found their way back to civilization. He simply couldn’t find thewords.
His attention focused on the unconscious woman in his arms, he waved Daniel and his guest away. “Take a hike to the back while I wake her up and get her injuries taken careof.”
“She’s my daughter, Grant. I’mnot—”
“I told you, she doesn’t remember you!” Grant held tight to the last vestiges of his control, trying to remember that Daniel held more of a claim to her than he did. That fact hadn’t escaped him. Maybe he was making decisions based on emotion like Daniel had been, but his friend would have to kill him before he’d let anyone else get near her. Not now. Not until he knew she wasokay.
Daniel held his stare, his silence speaking volumes as he quietly assessed Grant’s protective posture. He watched as a kaleidoscope of emotions colored his friend’s face. Hurt and confusion sparked to life in his eyes, and Grant could see him fighting to deny it. Finally understanding filtered its way in, and Grant could feel the man’s disbelief as it rolled off him in an electrifying wave.Yeah, I’m in love with your daughter. Shocks the hell out metoo.
Thank fuck they were spared the impending conversational disaster by the pilot’s announcement to secure the cabin and buckle up for departure. Daniel’s friend took him by the arm and dragged him toward the back of the plane while Grant laid Thalia across the front row of leather seats and began the task of tending to her injuries. The sedative he’d raked into the bag along with her antibiotics at Salina’s clinic had come in handy when she’d regained consciousness on the way to Daniel’s vehicle and began kicking the living shit out of everything within reach. The last thing he wanted was to knock her out again, but she’d become lost to her rage and fear, causing a scene and attracting the kind of attention they were runningfrom.
“Wake up, fossa.” He cupped the top of her head in his palm, his thumb rubbing soothing circles on her forehead, waiting for her ghostly gray eyes to appear from behind her twitching eyelids as she fought her way back to consciousness. She was going to be in one hell of a mood waking up in mid-air again. A secret smile pulled at his heart from somewhere deep inside him at that thought. He truly loved this woman, even when she was spitting mad. Especially when she was spittingmad.
As he was beginning to fuss with the buttons on her pants to take a look at her busted stitches, the redheaded woman stepped up and held out what appeared to be a fresh change ofclothes.
“I brought these in case she needed them. I’m Rebecca Danes, International Organized Crime Intel.” A familiar, bitter taste soiled his taste buds as he heard the title roll off her tongue in the usual arrogant tenor of a Fed. It was nice to know his sixth sense about people hadn’t taken a hike with his common sense. Without so much as a nod, he took the clothes from her outstretched arms and went back to work removing Thalia’s blood drenched ones. When the persistent redhead didn’t retreat from her post next to the row of seats she was perched against, he paused and turned his lethal,what-the-fuck-do-you-wantstare her way, a not so subtle warning to either spill what she came to say or move on. To her credit she didn’t seem to scareeasily.
“I’m not a spectator, Mr. Kendal.” She crossed her arms over her chest and Grant noticed how that one confident move seemed to add at least three inches to her five foot six frame. He met her challenge and popped to his feet, enjoying the way her face drained of color as the blood rushed toward her rapidly increasing heartbeat. He wouldn’t hurt the woman, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to let her bully her way into interrogating Thalia before she’d even had a chance to process what had happened toher.
He knew how the game was played. She needed information. Thalia was nothing but a new source, an untapped well of information she needed to access to make her next big move up the departmental bullshit ladder. She and her career could go to hell. One lean closer and he could smell her fear as she tried to swallow itback.
“Mm…” She cleared her throat, and Grant would have been amused if Thalia wasn’t lying unconscious and bleeding on the seat behind him while this woman was wasting his fucking time. Grant watched as she quickly gathered herself back together and was mildly shocked when she opened her mouth to speak instead of turning on her prim three inch heels and running for herlife.
“Mr. Gregory asked me to come along because I’m also a victim’s advocate. I’ve helped many other girls, uh, women like Natalie. I’ve personally worked her case for the last five years, Mr. Kendal. I’ve given my life’s blood to find the evil psychopaths who did this to her and I won’t stop until I see them either castrated and locked away in a sweat box in the middle of a South American jungle or dead. Preferablyboth.”
Grant considered her for a moment as they locked stares in an unspoken challenge. There was more fire in her green eyes than he gave her credit for. Maybe his sixth sense had taken that hike off a cliff after all. When she refused to look away he shrugged and gave her a smirk. “Both is good.” He nodded and turned back to Thalia, resuming his inspection of her wounds as the woman turned and gifted them theirprivacy.
She stopped a few steps down the narrow aisle and looked back over her shoulder at him. “If you need my help explaining this to Natalie...I mean, she might need a woman’s perspective to see this clearly.” He nodded wordlessly and watched her retreat the rest of the way down the aisle before settling in next to hisfriend.
Would he ever get used to calling her Natalie? Would she ever forgive him for not telling her sooner? Damn, this was going to be hard. A part of him, a small, selfish part, didn’t want her to remember. Not for him. He hated the idea of awakening such morbid memories she’d so successfully locked away. To him, she would be better off not remembering, even if that meant forgetting some of the good things too. He would give anything to be able to forget his past. He couldn’t take that choice away from her though. No matter how horrid, they were her memories to command. He only hoped he still had a place in them when this was allover.
Nearly thirty minutes after they had taken off from the small private airstrip outside Mutare, Grant tied off the last of the few stitches Thalia had ruptured in her thigh. The wound had looked far worse than it was, but her ankle was a different story. She moaned when he pushed on the swollen flesh to see if anything was broken, and he quickly moved up to see if he could rouseher.
“Wake up for me, Thalia,” he crooned into her ear as he peppered her face with gentle kisses. Reading her movements, he gathered her wrists back into his hands, anticipating her fight or flight reaction in time to keep her from bolting up from the makeshift bed he’d nestled her into. “Easy, fossa. You’re safe. I’ve gotyou.”
“Grant?” He watched as her brows furrowed in confusion and her sleepy, glazed eyes cleared of the drug inducedfog.
“Yeah, it’s me. You’ve had one hell of a night.” He coaxed her back into a prone position and pulled the blanket further up her nakedbody.
