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“Are you sure?” She undid her seat belt and started to stand.
“Just wait a minute,” he said and put a hand on her shoulder again, trying to be patient. “He was impaled center mass by a tree branch the size of my thigh. So, yes, I’m pretty freaking positive.”
She relaxed under his grip. “You two were fighting.” She suddenly tensed again. Her pupils contracted and her knuckles turned white as she gripped the armrests.
Fear. She was suddenly afraid of him.Of him. He’d just saved her ass. “Simon attacked me. I have no idea why or what the fuck was going on but yeah we were fighting. I tend to do that when someone jumps me. You have any ideas about that ’cause I know it’s not about me.”
She stayed silent. Why was he not surprised? “Simon must have depressurized the airplane on purpose because he was wearing an oxygen mask already. You want to tell me what’s going on?”
She licked her lips but her gaze slid off his face and bounced around the plane. She knew something but she wasn’t about to tell him. Fine. He needed to calm the fuck down anyway. Let her settle a bit.Hell, let me calm down too. His hands were still a bit shaky. He was fighting flashbacks of his previous accident as he scanned the destroyed plane. A few minutes to calm down would help them both out.
“Just…just stay seated for a few minutes and let me assess the situation a bit more. I don’t want either one of us to hit any live wires or sustain any more injuries.”
She looked like she wanted to argue but she kept her mouth shut and gave him a quick nod.
Xavier moved away from her and went toward the back of what was left of the aircraft. He looked out. A long scar gouged the earth where they’d hit and slid. Debris littered the field. Farther back, trees were broken and bent. A few small fires had ignited where debris had caught but with the snow they wouldn’t burn long. The trees weren’t going to catch. They were too wet.
Un-fucking believable.He rested against the seat next to him. One thing at a time he reminded himself.
Think about everything logically. Rely on your training.
As a Ranger, he’d been trained for all kinds of situations. He needed to lean into that. Put all the swirling emotions aside. That was the only way through.
Straightening, he didn’t bother to step outside. He knew they were surrounded by mountains. It might take crews a long time to get to them. Then again, it may not. It was hard to tell in the Alps. There were cabins and old roads all over the place but there were also pockets where no one went. They’d crossed into Switzerland’s airspace, but he wasn’t sure how far in they were.
He turned and almost walked right into Allegra. He hadn’t heard her come up behind him.
She met his gaze. “It’s amazing we survived.”
“Yeah.” He’d been thinking the same thing. He knew the shock of that idea and how it would affect him but she was going to have to come to grips with it on her own. His real worry was they weren’t meant to be alive right now. Someone wanted them dead. Simon wasn’t trying to kill them for fun. He was a hired gun.
The question was, who hired him and who was he supposed to kill?
CHAPTER5
Allegra studied the pilot.He seemed to know what the hell he was doing, but she hated to be left in the dark and fed bullshit. Pissed her right off. She touched the outside of her skirt once more making sure the flash drive was still there.
She turned and started looking through the rubble for the messenger bag that she always carried her laptop in, hoping the device survived the crash. She crouched down and started to pull up a seat.
“Wait!” Xavier barked.
She froze.
He came over and picked up the first aid kit that would’ve been crushed if she’d moved the seat. “What are you looking for?”
“My laptop.”
He stared at her.
“There are important documents on it. Vital information.” She wouldn’t apologize. That report showed the timeline of the whole project, and she was sure the documents she’d gathered yesterday held a clue to the identity of the culprit. She just hadn’t been able to figure it out yet.
“Look around you. We’re stranded in the Alps during a snowstorm and the only shelter we have is the wreckage of this airplane. I’m pretty sure your documents can wait.”
He was right of course but she wasn’t giving up. She’d find her bag and bring it with her assuming it hadn’t been sucked out when the tail broke off.Fuck.If that had happened, she was screwed. She needed that file to prove her findings to Damon. She might be able to get it emailed back to her from her friend, but she might not. It would take her another day or more to pull it together againifthe information was all still there. She’d worried that someone might delete it. She’d been focusing on that when she’d passed out and woke up to Xavier leaning over her adjusting a mask on her face.
In reality, she was focused on the laptop to ignore the fact that someone had just tried to kill her. Someone knew what she knew and wanted her dead. She didn’t even bother trying to lie to herself and suggest maybe they were after the pilot. It was shocking somehow that they hadn’t cared about killing him too. No, whoever doctored the documents knew she was on to them. Her days were numbered. Her knees turned liquid and she almost fell to the floor.
“Whoa there. Take a seat.” Xavier started opening the first aid kit. “I need to clean up your head wound.”
