Page 36 of Five Fingers of Death

Asher stormed to the front of the plane, getting in the front with Scottie.

“Does he know how to fly this thing?” Noelle asked.

“How should I know? Up until six months ago, he was just a mechanic. A normal, slightly secretive mechanic who gave excellent orgasms.”

My mother came running up behind us, lording over me from the row behind. “Honey, your father wants to know if there are any wind farms where we’re going.”

“How should I know?”

“What should I tell him?”

I gripped the armrests as I felt us pick up speed. “Mom, we’re trying to outrun men who want to kill us. I hardly think wind farms are important right now.”

She nodded. “I’ll just tell him there aren’t. If there are any when we get there, I’ll tell him the government lied to us. He’ll believe that.”

I rolled my eyes as she ran back to her seat. I closed my eyes and breathed through the panic and nausea as we started to lift off. It would all be okay. We were going to make it. Everything would be fine.

“Holly bear, you don’t look so good,” Asher said, hurrying over to me with a barf bag.

“I’m breathing through it.”

He slid his hand around my back and rubbed soothingly. “We’ll be there in no time. It’ll be okay.”

I nodded. “Tell me something.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Distract me. Tell me a story. Something about your life before.”

That cute grin appeared on his face as he took the seat beside me. “Well, the first time I met Scottie, it was a lot like this, only I was wearing a suit.”

I let out a shaky breath. “A suit? I can’t picture it.”

“Yeah. We were on a job and it went FUBAR. Anyway, we were taking off when these guys showed up. They had a plane too, unfortunately.”

“What happened?”

“It wasn’t pretty. They fired at us, and since we were in a plane like this, we got shot down. We had to jump.”

The nausea almost turned to vomit. “Jump?”

“Oh, we had parachutes. We landed on this mountain, but they knew we didn’t die in the crash, so we had to outrun them. But that wasn’t the easiest thing to do in dress shoes. I was sliding all over the place and if it wasn’t for Scottie, I would be at the bottom of a mountain right now. I slipped and was barely hanging on when Scottie slid down and caught me. It was pretty close, but—” He caught me staring at him in disbelief and winced. “You don’t want to hear this, do you?”

I tried to swallow, but the moment I did that, I gagged and vomit came rushing up through my throat. I just barely turned in time to puke in the bag.

“Maybe you shouldn’t talk about nearly dying right now when her shop was shot up, her house exploded, and men just tried to kill us,” Noelle said. “Just a thought.”

I was going to need so much therapy when this was over.

7

JASON

You would think there’d be absolute chaos. Maybe people running around, lots of screaming and yelling, a few people crying. But none of that happened. People were busy, but that was about the extent of the chaos. It was just another day at OPS. Lark got in a few hours ago with Dash. She was back at Red’s house, probably drinking a bottle of wine by now.

Scottie had checked in when he landed in Colorado. He was picking up Asher and his wife Holly. I had no idea about his life now. That left Claire, Jade, and Quinn. I couldn’t think of anyone else who’d been left out. Then again, I hadn’t exactly paid attention to every person linked to OPS.

“Scottie’s just pulling in with Asher and his family,” Lock said, walking up beside me. “Thanks for the heads up.”

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