Odin (Billionaire Titans Book 2) (9 page)

C
lara
. Clara, Clara, Clara.

I was happy to see Nathaniel; he’d worked for me for several years and become a good friend. But all I wanted was Clara, by my bedside, holding my hand, and pushing the occasional stray hair out of her face and behind her ear. There was something so sexy about that.

Nathaniel gave me details about my shooting, about suspects, both the triggerman and who might have been footing the bill. I didn’t typically run in the same circles as my older brother, but it seemed that I was being targeted by the same man, or group, who’d nearly killed Atlas and Piper.

After Atlas was relocated to Alaska, my father assembled my brothers and I and told us that he didn’t believe we were in any clear danger. QB was a problem that would have to be dealt with, but he thought he could handle things diplomatically. It was becoming all too clear that the current situation was untenable and not something my father was going to be able to negotiate his, or our, way out of.

Nathaniel’s phone rang as he visited with me, and I watched all the color drain from his face as I listened to his side of the conversation.

“Nathaniel Murray speaking.”

“Say that again.”

“Oh, no.”

“How far is that?”

“I’ll tell him. We’ll make arrangements at this end.”

He disconnected the call and gave me a hard stare.

“Achilles has been missing. He still is. But his bodyguard was just found. His remains were discovered, I should say. Washed up in Thunder Bay a few days ago, actually. Your brother was supposed to be in Toronto. That’s over eight hundred miles from where Mitch was found. I’ve got to tell Atlas. I’ll send Clara or Raven back down to you.”

I blinked once.

Off in another part of the house, I could hear raised voices, and then Raven was at my bedside.

“Shit’s getting deep, Odin. I can’t find Achilles either. He hasn’t left any sort of electronic footprint; he doesn’t show up on any facial recognition stuff I have running, either.”

If Raven couldn’t find you, it was because you were extremely good at covering your tracks, and I’m talking QB-level good, you were off the grid entirely, living off the land in remote rural Mongolia in a tent, or you were no longer alive.

Clara joined us.

“Odin, I’m going to move into this room with you while Raven is here, if that’s ok with you?”

I blinked once, hard and long, hopefully unmistakable.

“She needs space to set up her equipment, she said you’d understand. And the house is starting to get crowded, and that’s before your niece arrives.”

I knew Raven was most comfortable at her “battle station,” an ever-evolving network of desktops, laptops, gizmos and gadgets. I gave another affirmative blink, then felt an urge to do something I hadn’t done in what felt like years; I cleared my throat.

My semi-cough drew surprised stares from both Raven and Clara, who looked at me, then at each other, then back at me.

Clara went into action, getting ice chips and swab and checking my feeding tube and various wires and tubes attached to, and protruding from, my body.

Raven dug into the backpack she carried. “Odin, earlier your hand moved. Can you wiggle any of your fingers or point or anything like that?”

I didn’t have much control, but I found that with supreme effort, I could move the fingers on my right hand. Not much, but they were stubbornly beginning to return to my command.

“Cool. I brought you two gifts.”

Clara looked over as Raven produced two items from her bag. The first was a child’s toy, with the entire alphabet laid out in colorful buttons. Raven pushed them one at a time to demonstrate.

R. A. V. E. N. R. U. L. E. S.

Clara laughed while Raven explained. “Once you master this one, you can graduate to the adult version.”

The second unit was small and sleek; professional looking.

It likewise had the entire alphabet, but laid out in sets of letters like on an old-style telephone keypad. At the bottom were buttons that said “word” and “sentence.”

“This one works like so,” said Raven, looking like an infomercial model.

She typed in words, hitting the “word” button after each word as they appeared on a small screen at the top. Once she was satisfied with her series of words, she hit “sentence” and the device spoke in sort of a choppy, robotic voice, with some concession for a human flow as it recognized words.

“
Raven is brilliant and beautiful and I owe everything to her
.”

“See? Just like that, although it struggles with proper nouns like names. If I tried Verna, I’m sure it wouldn’t know what the make of it. It has a decent spellcheck, a pretty primitive autocorrect. It’s state of the art, but the art in this case doesn’t get nearly enough attention or money thrown at it,” Raven opined.

“Thank you, Raven,” Clara offered. “Those should be a tremendous help until he finds his voice.”

Just then, Atlas entered the room, Nathaniel in tow. “Clara, can you check on Piper? She’s in our bedroom, she said she’s feeling something new. Contractions, maybe? Raven, stick around.”

Once Clara was gone, Atlas pulled a chair from the corner of the room, turning it so he could lean forward against the back of it.

“So, Odin, you heard about Mitch? Achilles’ bodyguard?”

I blinked once.

“He was tough, an Army Ranger. He could definitely handle himself. He had family near Detroit, but we checked in with them and they hadn’t seen him, although he had planned to visit. We were hoping they might be able to give us a lead on Achilles. I think we’re going to have to reach out to QB, and that’s where you come in,” Atlas said, nodding toward Raven. “Do you have an email address or some other way to contact him, without giving away our location?”

“Sure, I actually have several. He isn’t that difficult to reach electronically. He has a ‘Raven’ of his own, or a whole team of them, actually, but my tracks are covered, don’t worry about that. I wouldn’t risk any sort of chat or messenger, but email I can do, and as long as it goes through my laptop, I can make sure it’s safe, that it doesn’t contain anything nasty to infect every linked piece of hardware on site,” she replied.

“We have to get aggressive. Canaan is in the air now, he’s going to join Dad, even I don’t know where,” Atlas said. Sitting back and playing defense nearly got Odin killed, not to mention the mess in Alaska. Achilles is missing. I have some intel about a mess in Iceland possibly involving Richard Hunt’s
daughter
of all people.”

“He has a daughter?” Raven asked.

“Apparently,” Atlas answered. “She was with Nolan Weston. They left a body behind in a hotel room. Remember Nicholas?”

Nathaniel nodded grimly.

“He was found in a hotel room. KIA. Weston and Hunt’s daughter apparently one step ahead of local law enforcement. They’ve disappeared now, as well. Hopefully somewhere safe. Somebody tried to blow up Annalise Rubidoux in Athens.”

Raven interjected. “Annalise Rubi-whoa.”

Atlas and Nathaniel glared at her.

“What? We spent a few days together in London last year. Are you telling me she’s
not
gorgeous?”

Annalise had been part of Joint Task Force 2, Canada’s most elite special ops team. She was from a remote corner of Quebec, a covert operative who I’d met only once; Atlas had worked with her several times. Together they’d trained in Sytsema in Russia, a brutal martial art that teaches practitioners to ignore pain and inflict maximum damage. She was a chameleon, a master of disguise. Atlas in a dress, if Atlas was 5’10 and could double as a model. If she’d been gotten to, nobody was safe.

Atlas continued. “Settle down, Raven. She’s in a hospital bed in Athens. They’ve been pulling shrapnel out of her for a few days now. Expected to survive, but who knows? The point is, there’s a hunt happening and its time we, and I mean collectively, our family, our extended family,” nods to Raven and Nathaniel, “and our team went on the offensive.”

I blinked and left my eyes closed a few seconds so my agreement wouldn’t go unnoticed.

Nathaniel spoke up. “I have a good contact in Ottawa, a Mountie. I have him looking into Achilles. If anything emerges, we’ll know about it.”

Atlas nodded. “You work that angle. And double check everything we have here. It’s been too quiet. Raven, see if you can locate Tony Perrino, he’s the guy who shot Odin. Coordinate with Nathaniel. Reach out,
safely
, to QB. We need intel. I’m tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Or our next friend to be killed.”

P
iper was fine
, although the baby she was carrying was just about ready to make her debut.

Raven told me Odin seemed eager to try his new toys, so I went back down to his room, to find it once again quiet and empty. His warm eyes immediately met mine when I stepped in front of him, and I feared I might be blushing. I had no idea so much could be communicated with eyes alone.

I picked up the devices Raven had brought and I held them up. Odin blinked once.

I sat down in the chair next to him and took his hand in both of mine, gently massaging it from the center out to the fingertips. When I finished, I instructed him to squeeze as hard as he could.

He surprised me with his strength.

“Wow, I think you’re definitely ready to try this,” I propped his arm up on pillows so he’d be able to see the keypad as he typed. I held the iPad-sized gizmo up for him and he began to tap the keys slowly.

After several minutes, the robotic voice rang out and I nearly fell out of my chair.

“
I have been awake the whole time
.”

The look I gave him must have hidden none of my bewilderment.

“You have? What do you mean?” I asked.

After a few more agonizing minutes, he pressed the “sentence” button and the broadcast commenced.

“
My mind only slept when I slept I could hear everything I was awake just could not move
.”

I was stunned. Coma patients were nowhere near my area of expertise, but I had done some light reading on the subject.

I recalled a story about a man who’d been beaten while a college student and that during his time in a coma how his mind had gone on as if nothing had happened. In his brain, he graduated school, started a career, met the girl of his dreams, got married, and had kids. That life was as real as anything that had happened to him in the physical world. Over a decade of that life transpired while he was in his coma. Then one day he woke up.

I wrestled with that story for several sleepless nights. His entire life, the only life he knew, was a fiction. Gone in the literal blink of an eye. A wife and children who never existed, who he could never ever visit again, hear, touch, or see. He was suicidal. He’d have given anything to be back in that coma. He’d never been happier. But it was all just a puff of smoke.

I lay awake at night wondering if maybe the happiness I had was just someone’s catatonic dream. Medical school, Abner, Callum, all of it. And then, when Callum was murdered, I wished it had been.

But to be awake and alert, although unable to move or communicate in any way, even for a few weeks? I was blown away. I couldn’t conceive of being trapped in such a prison. I flipped through my time with Odin, hoping I hadn’t said or done anything too embarrassing. I’d read to him.
Sung
to him. Told him about Callum… suddenly his tears made sense. They were no accident; no coincidence.

“Oh my God, Odin, I don’t know what to say, I can’t imagine… “

He began typing furiously.

“
I am so sorry about your husband I know about Mallory I can never say I thank you enough
.”

He had so much to say that he didn’t want to bother with individual sentences. It was gushing out of him.

I wiped a tear from my cheek. “I should go get your brother, Odin. This is amazing.”

“
No.
” He quickly typed. “
I want to spend time with just you.
”

I laughed. “Okay. You have my undivided attention.” This was one of the strangest conversations I’d ever had, but I never wanted it to end. “Let me ask you a question, though. Generally speaking how do you feel?”

“
Sore throat
,” he typed, not surprising due to his feeding tube. “
I feel pretty good very stiff all over.
”

I nodded. “We’ll start physical therapy as soon as you’re ready. Mostly massages at first to stimulate blood flow and get your muscles moving a bit. And hopefully your facial muscles and jaw will start working again and I can remove the feeding tube.”

Just after giving Odin a shave every few days, giving him sponge baths was something I looked forward to. He was a lean, rippling specimen of a man, and giving him body massages sounded quite pleasant.

“
You saved my life
.” The metallic voice spoke for Odin. “
Not just at the hospital every day since too.
”

I put the back of my hand on his cheek and smiled. “I’ve just been doing my job. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see you pull through.”

“
You are an angel
,” Odin typed. I was definitely blushing.

“I’m no angel. Just a doctor. Your brother, your family, Raven, they all deserve at least as much credit as I do,” I said.

Odin rolled his eyes. And for the first time, the faintest hint of a smile turned the corners of his mouth.

“
I am so tired is it ok if I sleep?”
he asked.

“Yes, of course, you must be exhausted. I’ll dim the lights and tuck you in.”

I stayed until he was softly snoring to leave and search out Odin and Raven and tell them what Odin had told me.

“Shit. I probably said some pretty sappy stuff to him. Can’t wait to see how he holds it over me later,” Atlas answered.

“Oh no,” Raven faux-gasped and clutched at her imaginary pearly. “You might have even told him you loved him! How will you ever live it down?”

“He tells me that all the time,” Piper called out from the next room. “The baby, too.”

Raven laughed. “My, my, my. Atlas Titan, the family man. What’s this world coming to? Next thing you know, Odin will settle down with one girl.”

While they laughed, I smirked, hopeful. Odin Titan settling down with one girl sounded damn good to me.