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One
How Ned hated walking into a country naked.
And sure, he had clothing on—a pair of 5.11 tactical pants, a job shirt over a long-sleeve pullover, a pair of waterproof tactical boots, and tucked into his pack, a wool hat, and even tac gloves.
But he’d left his Navy-issued Glock-19 at home, along with his side holster, and his KA-BAR, and even his dive knife because, well, that just might get flagged, and if he carried permits it would most definitely slow him down with Helsinki customs.
And Shae’s kidnapper already had a sixteen-day, twelve-hour-and-twenty-minute lead on him.
So, naked he went as he pulled down his backpack and slung it over his shoulder along with the rest of the passengers on the Airbus A220-300 flight out of Charles de Gaulle Airport to Helsinki, Finland. Outside, rain hit the glassless windows, the sky black.
They’d flown over a night-covered but lit Helsinki, the lights of the city doused by the rain, the Gulf of Finland dark and unforgiving, holding the city in its clasp. They’d landed about ten kilometers north, in a city called Vantaa that sounded like some primordial Viking beast.
“Hey, watch out.” Behind him, Fraser had ducked out of the way, then caught Ned’s pack before he beaned a petite blonde woman on the other side of the skinny aisle. “That thing is lethal.”
“Sorry.” Ned glanced at her, and for a second, she reminded him of—well, maybe everyone reminded him of Shae right now. In her late twenties, maybe, the woman wore a fleece and jeans, her hair pulled back, not unlike the attire he’d last seen Shae wearing.
But of course, she didn’t have Shae’s cute nose or beautiful expressive lips, or that sense of challenge and even courage in her sky-blue eyes.
The woman not Shae responded in what Ned thought might be Finnish, holding up her hand. Gave him a brief smile.
He stepped back to let her out in front of him.
Fraser clamped a hand on his shoulder, then pushed him forward. “No harm, no foul, but let’s get you off this plane before you take someone out.” His brother wore a cast on one hand, still in recovery from surgery a few weeks ago. But it hadn’t dampened Fraser’slet’s do thisattitude, and frankly, Ned needed him. Cast and all.
Now, Fraser might be kidding, but Ned heard the warning in his brother’s tone.
Okay, so maybe he’d been a little crabby with the flight attendant when she’d asked him to sit down for landing instead of prowling the cabin like a lion. He’d just been trying to stretch his legs.
Maybe settle the antsy that boiled inside him.
Twenty-three hours of travel, not to mention a five-hour, forty-minute layover in a crowded airport, trying not to fall asleep in a vinyl gate-seat turned his muscles into knots.
A little something to go with the state of his stomach, maybe.
“Any new messages from Ian?” Fraser asked as they moved forward.
“Since the last thirty-three he left in Amsterdam?”
“He’d be here if he didn’t have a newborn,” Fraser said.
“And will hop on a plane if I don’t keep him updated. He’s like her father. He’d move the ends of the earth to find her.” He’d reached the front of the plane.
“Thank you. I hope you enjoyed your flight,” said the KLM flight attendant, the one who’d not-so-politely directed him back to his seat. She gave him a fake smile as he exited onto the jet bridge.
Aw, he wasn’t usually a jerk.
Only when his fiancée—or rather, in-a-blink-of-a-bad-fight-when-things-went-terribly-wrongformerfiancée—was kidnapped.
Yes,kidnapped.Because there was no mistaking the way one tall blond Finnish man with the name Dana Munson—an alias for Hansi Nikula, aka, Scandinavian human trafficker and all-around bad guy—had shoved her into a car off the streets of Lausanne, Switzerland.
Hansi’s list of crimes had turned Ned a little cold. Of course, he’d already been spinning out, ever since Fraser had tracked down the street video from the hotel of Shae being nabbed.
The time stamp couldn’t have been worse—a mere ten minutes after Ned had told Shae that she was too independent. That he couldn’t do his job constantly worried about her.
At the time, it’d felt dramatic. But hello, now never mind not doing his job—he could barelybreathe, the thoughts spiraling out to—
Nope. She had to be alive.
