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My stomach twisted and I swung my eyes to the window to locate the problem. A swarm of flashing red and blue lights lit up the runway like a Christmas village.
A rush of adrenaline burned through my veins, and I looked around at my surprised teammates, landing lastly on Jesse. He had to be having flashbacks from our operation in France. He’d been taken down hard in his attempts to stop the love of his life from being taken from him on the tarmac that day. I remembered the anguished look on his face and how it’d affected his wife, Ella, and I couldn’t let that happen to Charley. I didn’t give a shit if it was crazy or not, this woman was the love of my life, and I’d find a way to—
“They’re here for me,” Charley murmured, her tone more resigned than shocked.
“Oh God,” Lucy cried, fully awake, the alarm evident in her eyes. She hooked her arm with Mason’s, most likely hoping he’d anchor her in place and keep her protected.
Mason met my eyes, a solemn look there I recognized all too well. I shook my head, letting him know we were beyond fucked. We had to be real about what might happen. Prepare ourselves to deal with it. Pretending it might not happen wouldn’t help anyone.
“Focus on the things you can control.”
I blinked and turned my focus to Gray. “Call your dad. Wake him up.”
Gray was already standing, phone in hand. More than likely on the same page before I’d issued the directive as if the one in charge.
“Right, the Secretary of Defense,” Charley whispered, twisting back to look inside the cabin toward the others. “But, um, if the Feds are here with the local police, and they take Lucy and—” She cut herself off, peering hopefully at Camila for an answer to her unasked “does this change anything?” question, but Camila shook her head in apology.
“Make sure your dad lets the President know Gwen’s on board as well,” Carter noted to Gray.
“Why would that matter?” Lucy asked, her tone as fragile as glass.
“My dad’s one of the President’s go-to men. As in, he goes to him for shit no one else can do.” Gwen’s roundabout way of explaining her father’s top-secret job offered a little hope without giving too much away. “He also works with the President’s son.” She winked.
And then there was that.
“We can use all the extra encouragement from the White House we can get to pull off the Feds and the local PD,” Gray shared before heading in the direction of the cockpit to make the call.
“I still don’t see how the Feds knew we were flying here,” Oliver remarked, standing in the aisle, eyes still trained out the window.
I followed his gaze to see six men in the familiar blue FBI raid jackets. Most of the local PD were hanging back in their cruisers, likely only there for support “just in case” we started something. I had to assume air traffic control was barking out orders to our pilot that we couldn’t hear with the cockpit door closed.
“Shannon set us up, didn’t she?” Mason spoke up, and I turned to see him peering at Camila. “The vault in Colombia was a trap.”
Shannon was on board Carter’s second jet with eight of Camila’s other teammates, but they were about three hours behind us, still in the air. And had she set us up? Did Shannon manage to play Camila and her team? With Camila seeing glimpses of the future, how’d she pull that off?
Camila was on her feet now; her body slumped a bit in defeat as she pushed her dark hair away from her shoulders. “She must’ve spoken with Erik Luther before my team grabbed her this morning and came up with a backup plan.”
“You think Erik planted the bait—the video of himself—in the vault for us to find?” Carter asked her, going through the motions of strapping on a chest plate beneath a vest as if preparing for war.
It was fucking madness. We couldn’t shoot at the FBI or the police. Well, we could, but again—madness. Of course, Carter did have a lot at stake there, too.
“My guess is Shannon always had the evidence there. I would’ve detected her lie otherwise.” Looking slightly confused, Camila’s voice lacked the confidence I was used to hearing. Maybe with all the other noise, she misread this. And if she was wrong about this, maybe that meant Charley’s future wasn’t set in stone?
Somehow, this fucked-up situation just gave me hope.
“But maybe Shannon confessed and told him about it. Erik and Brant decided to turn that to their advantage instead of killing her for it,” Mya suggested. “Regardless, I’m sure we would’ve been screwed whether we stayed at the safe house in Ecuador or came here. They would’ve had a team follow Camila back there if we didn’t take the bait and come here when Erik showed his face on camera for us to find him.”
“This is my fault.” Camila’s words were little more than a whisper, but it was enough for Carter to do something slightly shocking. He hooked his arm around her back and pulled her close, holding her tight to his side. He kept her there, his thumb moving up and down her arm in silent support. “If I’d never gone to Colombia, they’d never have found us.”
Carter dipped his chin as Camila peered up at him, locking his eyes on hers. “This is not your fault. Not even you can know everything.” And with the grit and growl I was used to hearing, he added, “Now quit blaming yourself before you really piss me off.”
“So, you’re saying,” Lucy began, still clutching hold of Mason, “Erik Luther had eyes on the bank in case Shannon showed up. And that served as a signal to him to change plans?” When Mya nodded, Lucy followed up with, “But why would Erik tip off the Feds? Why go that route?”
“He can’t openly storm the airport,” Mason told her, “but he can have the Feds take you two and then . . . well, take you from them once you’re Stateside.”
“I haven’t been to the U.S. in so long, I . . .” When Lucy leaned back in her seat, seemingly resigned to whatever was about to happen, Charley reached across the aisle and held her hand. She’d become almost stoic, somehow channeling a sense of calm when I knew she had to be anything but.
“So, what do we do?” Gwen asked just as Gray exited the cockpit to rejoin us.
