AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I will.”
Jean Baptiste nodded. “Are you certain you don’t want a brigade of soldiers with you?”
“Not at this time.” The last thing I wanted to do was to allow anyone outside of the family to know where we were going.
At this point, Zoe’s life might depend on complete anonymity.
Especially since my instinct told me we’d been compromised by one of our own.
CHAPTER 11
Zoe
Shivers continued to course through me, even more so than during the horrible gunfight. Maybe because I was in a tiny plane thousands of feet in the air, the on and off turbulence making my skin crawl.
Or maybe because I was being taken from my family. I’d felt as if the attack had been my fault. Why would I be singled out? Nothing made any sense at this point and the man sitting in the pilot’s seat wasn’t saying anything.
“How come I never knew you were a pilot?” I asked out of the blue, still marveling at the fact. I’d slipped into the small cockpit, refusing to remain alone in the back. While the small jet was well equipped, I’d felt every wind shear, which had exacerbated my fear of heights tenfold. My stomach churned, my mind still stuck in a horrific fog.
“Because you never asked.” He threw me a look over his shoulder.
We’d flown into Cuba to refuel, my protector not allowing me to get off the plane.
“That’s because it’s not something normal people bring up in conversation. Hey, what other crazy hobbies do you have other than hacking into people’s secure computers? Wine? Women? Flying airplanes?”
He laughed, which was the first time since seeing him again. We’d been through too much trauma in the last twenty-four hours, the horrible images of the shooting and the masked intruders trying to abduct me never far from my mind.
Alongside my father’s condition, the tubes stuck in his arms horrifying.
“Well, we aren’t normal people. Are we? I’ve wanted to learn to fly since I can remember. I woke up one day and decided I wasn’t getting any younger. So I signed up for lessons. Then I bought my first plane.”
“This is yours?”
“My pride and joy, a Cirrus vision jet.”
“Which means?”
His grin was boyish, more so than I was used to. “Which means I don’t need a copilot.”
“Hmmm…” I wasn’t certain what else to say. The plane was small but there were drinks and snacks on board and I’d gotten a chance to try out my flight attendant skills, which I’d been forced to admit I sucked at given the amount of turbulence we’d had.
Sighing, I shook my head as he concentrated on flying, my thoughts drifting back to my mother’s photograph I’d looked atjust before Maddox had escorted me out of my father’s house to his Charger, insisting I lie down in the back seat until we’d left the city. It was all so cloak and dagger.
I wasn’t certain why I’d been thinking about my mother during the flight. Maybe because this was one of those times I wished for comfort. It was silly given my age, but I wanted to be able to ask for advice. Raven would have been happy to sit and talk with me, but the fact she wasn’t that much older than I was somehow changed things.
I’d only been four years old when my birth mother had died, what few memories I had more like flashes of light versus the kind of images and thoughts I could wrap my mind around. While I adored my father, the man doing everything in his power to become both mother and father until he’d met Raven, he’d been embroiled in grief for many years. So much so that he’d kept pictures hidden away, the pain of losing her too intense. I’d had one by my bed, which I’d left there when I’d moved to New York for college. Maybe I’d believed that I was too old to be pining away for my dead mother.
Maybe my melancholy thoughts were because she’d been my age when she’d passed. Or maybe because I’d been taken from my injured father at his insistence, landing on a goddamn tropical island as if two lovers were going on a paradise vacation.
I rolled my eyes, doing everything I could to keep from glancing over at the powerful, gorgeous man as he drove. He was dressed more casually than I could remember ever seeing him do, the light-colored linen trousers and tight polo accentuating his insanely good looks. His hair had been tousled in the warm breeze, the hints of gray at his temples drawing my attention more than before. There I went again, lusting after someone I couldn’t have.
Everything about being forced to leave my home irritated me, but especially since Daddy had insisted that Maddox be the one to take me to safety. Of course I hadn’t been able to express my concerns when he’d ask why, insisting I tell him.
I’d never been able to get away with anything my entire life. He had the uncanny ability of knowing when anyone was lying. As Maddox rolled around the curves of the two-lane road in the middle of the tropics, I wondered whether that also applied to my father’s best friend.
Okay, so engaging in carnal sin with the man hadn’t been my best decision for about a dozen reasons; the fact Maddox was doing everything to ignore me like I was with him was clear indication of the horrific tension. It was so palpable it could easily be cut with a knife. Hell, maybe a spoon. Even the crackle of electricity we’d shared before was entirely different.
Sadly, the desire for the man remained, even though I refused to acknowledge it on the surface. I stole a quick glance, forced to admit I hated the silence. He’d said maybe ten words since we’d left the hospital, quickly putting together suitcases before the powerful man had whisked me to a private airport located at least thirty miles outside of the city. I understood the reason for being cautious, why he’d ensured no one had followed us and few people were told where he was taking me. I’d been brought up a mafia princess whether I wanted to believe it or not.
