Untouchable (The Blankenships Book 8) (2 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

Zoey slept until the plane was circling Moscow. At that point, the flight attendants slipped back into the cabin, gently urging everyone to move their seat backs to the upright position and fasten their seatbelts. Alex gave Zoey’s hand a long, tight squeeze and then went back to Leo, gently waking him. She wondered why the flight attendants didn’t do it until she saw the way the big man went from peaceful stillness to rapid movement before his eyes were even open. His hand darted down towards the small of his back before he seemed to realize it was Alex leaning over him. She shivered. How many times did you have to be woken with violence before you were reaching for weapons in your sleep?

Maybe a lot. Maybe just once. It would probably come down to what happened next.

Alex, for his part, didn’t flinch at all. The look they shared as awareness filtered into Leo’s eyes was something special. He’d never looked at her like that; she’d never even seen him look at Claire with that level of awareness and dedication. It wasn’t a sexual exchange; it was two men who knew each other inside and out and who had shared so much that they were closer than brothers.

For the first time in days, she felt something close to rested.

The plane landed without incident, and as they waited on the tarmac for refueling, the flight attendants brought them breakfast and coffee. It was nothing like Sophia’s delicious brew, but it was better than what she’d expected to get on a plane, without question.

The daylight was dying here, but they’d been flying away from the sun, and she was completely confused about what time it was. “Is it safe to make a phone call,” she asked, interrupting Leo and Alex who had been deep in conversation. About what, she hadn’t been paying any attention. The men exchanged a glance, and she was strongly tempted to roll her eyes. “I’m not an idiot. But Helen needs to know I’m safe. Honestly, if she comes looking for me, and I’m gone, she’ll go to the police herself.”

“You’re putting her in danger by calling,” Leo said.

“I’m putting her in danger by not calling,” she replied. “At least if I call, she’ll know what she’s up against.” Leo and Alex exchanged another glance, and she bit back her temper. Kicking them in the shins would do nothing to make them stop thinking of her as a hysterical woman. “I’m not an idiot,” she said. “I’ve survived this long, mostly on my own wits, and the only reason you—” she jabbed a finger at Alex, “know half of what you know is because of me. Don’t you dare sideline me right now. I’m here because I can help, not just because I’m a liability.” An expression crossed Leo’s face that made her want to scream. “Or I can just get off the plane here and find my own way home.”

Alex was looking at Leo now, his expression gently entertained. “Your move. I trust her, obviously.”

Kicking him was even more tempting. “My actions speak for themselves, you. I don’t need you to vouch for me.”

Leo smiled then, a real smile that made her rage step back just a little bit. “I’m sorry, Zoey. I am an old fashioned man sometimes, and forget that Alex only surrounds himself with those that are as competent as him.”

“More competent,” Alex said, but his eyes weighted deliciously on Zoey. “She’s right, Leo. She turned up with information that I’d searched for for weeks and found nothing. She’s good. She’s capable of taking care of herself.”

She knew it, but it still felt good to hear him say it. She blew him a little kiss on the air and watched him giggle.

Leo reached into one of the pouches on the seat and pulled out a phone. “It’s a burner. Don’t take long. It’s better if you don’t call a land line.”

Zoey nodded, and after a moment, she took the phone and stepped away from the two of them, towards the back of the passenger cabin. They would still be able to hear her, she imagined, but it felt more private all the same.

She dialed Helen’s number, and then waited as the call went through whatever routing it needed to contact New York. Once it started ringing, Helen picked up the phone almost instantly. “Hello?” She sounded almost frantic.

“It’s me,” Zoey said. For the first time in her life, she wished she wore a watch. In the movies, the bad guys always got off the phone just a few moments before the trace was completed. Some sort of timer would have been handy.

“Are you safe?”

“Yes.”

“You probably can’t tell me where you are.”

“No.”

“But you’re safe.” This time, it was a statement, something Helen was using to reassure herself. Zoey could hear some of the initial tension flowing out of her voice. “I don’t imagine you’re on holiday.”

Zoey had to chuckle. “You imagine correctly. Or don’t. Whatever.”

“Do you have a plan?”

That was rather the sticking point. “I don’t personally. Others do.”

She could hear Helen flipping into that mode where she wanted to help, to do everything possible to make a difference. “What do you need?”

It hurt more than it should have had to in order to say, “I need you to stay out of it, Helen. I love you too much to get you involved.”

Helen’s silence said more about how angry she was than any words could have done.

“Okay, more involved than you already are,” Zoey tried, though she found she didn’t really think it was going to make all that much difference.

The silence went on long enough that Zoey wondered if they’d lost the connection. “Helen,” she said, as gently as she could. “I can’t stay on the phone. I don’t need anything, we’re going to be fine, and we’re going to figure something out. I just didn’t want you to worry.”

Helen scoffed, and Zoey could imagine her shaking her head. “As if,” she said after a moment. “Is there any safe way to contact you?”

“Not right now. As soon as there is, I’ll let you know.”

“Take care of yourself.”

“I will.”

“Tell your playboy boyfriend I’ll get him banned for life if he doesn’t bring you back to me whole.”

It was an empty threat—how could Alex be banned from the club if they never went back to New York City?—but Helen clearly meant it with all the vehemence she could muster. It was absolutely wonderful to be cared about that much. “I love you, sha.”

“Yeah, I love you too.” Helen’s tone was teasing, but there was a lot more underneath the humor. Quite a lot more. Zoey’s hand shook as she flipped the phone shut. She went back to Alex and Leo, handed Leo back the phone, and then retreated back to her seat. She buckled her safety belt, so no one would have to remind her, but she felt incredibly exposed just sitting there. After a moment, she pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her forehead on them. Yes. That was a little bit better.

It was several minutes later when Alex moved over next to her again. The plane’s engines had roared back to life, and she felt her ears pop as the cabin re-pressurized. She didn’t look up from her knees.

“Are you afraid?” He asked. His voice wasn’t teasing or mocking, but it also wasn’t a question that she wanted to answer. She shook her head vehemently, and only looked at him when there was a poke of something hard into the flesh of her arm. It wasn’t a hard poke, but it was determined, and she looked back at him just to glare.

Only he was holding out a slim, rectangular bit of plastic and glass that she recognized in theory, if not in practice. It wasn’t her ereader—in fact she was pretty sure it was a more recent model—but it was an ereader. “What is that? You told me not to bring one.”

“I told you not to bring yours, and I meant it,” he said. “But this one is clean, not tied to either of us. Paid for in cash. Someone got it for me in New York and dropped it on the plane before we took off. I would have given it to you sooner, but you fell asleep.”

She looked from the ereader to his face, his expression earnest and sincere. “My books?” She sounded a little bit foolish to her own ears, but it seemed a valid enough question. Giving her a new ereader was great, but with none of her books on it, what was she going to read?

He caught the corner of his lower lip between his teeth for a moment, and she resisted the urge to lick its fullness. “We honestly have had so much going on that we haven’t really done favorite books or movies or music. So I had the guy who bought it for me just load it up with the top ten.”

“The top ten what?”

“Books.”

“What do you mean, the top ten books?”

She was not sure that a person could look any more sheepish and remain a person. “The top ten books on all the lists. All the major ones, anyway.
New York Times
,
USA Today
, a couple of the digital retailers. We thought—I thought—that would give you a broad enough selection to at least have something to read. Until this whole mess gets ironed out.”

He said it so simply, and she was sure it was, at least partially, for her benefit. She needed to believe in it, at least for now. She needed to believe in the world where they could turn this situation around, and eventually return home in safety. She wanted to travel, she’d always wanted to travel, but there was a difference between traveling and a life on the run. One of those sounded delicious. One of them sounded like a nightmare.

“Thank you,” she said.

“It was my pleasure.”

“You can’t buy me, though. I just want to be clear of that, for reference in the future. You can’t make me not sad with presents.”

“No. But I can give you presents which take your mind off what’s bothering you and give you something fresh to consider.”

That was… rather more thought out than she’d anticipated. “Thank you,” she said. She did lean over and press her lips against his again, meshing their mouths together as her body sighed in happy delicious enjoyment of his warmth against her side.

“We have almost another eight hours in the air,” he said, when they came up for air. “Is there anything you need?”

“Not right now. I think I’m fine.”

Alex nodded. “I need to talk to Leo some more about what happens when we get to his safe house. What sort of resources he has and what we can reasonably expect them to find out for us or do for us.” There was a long pause, and she felt his discomfort on the air. “There’s some of it, Zoey, that really won’t be stuff that you should be involved in. Not because you’re a woman, or you’re inexperienced, but this is a different world. Leo runs with dark, dark people sometimes, and we’re drawing on the dark part of his background to keep us safe right now. That’s… not something he would do for just anyone.”

“I get it,” she said, but Alex was already shaking his head no.

“You don’t, and I didn’t either, the first time. But that’s okay. We’ll get through this. Together.” He squeezed her hand one last time, pressed a kiss against her cheek, and stepped back to sit with Leo. She watched him go. She could go over and sit down with them, demand that they make her part of the war council, but she realized with a little bit of laughter that she actually did not want them to. Not at all. Her knees were still curled up against her chest; she let them drop down, her ankles crossed, and as soon as the plane taxied down the runaway and lifted off again, she pushed the back of her seat down until she was stretched out, semi reclining. She flipped through the ereader until she found a romance novel, a sweet contemporary story with a secret baby and an older brother’s best friend. She dove in, head first, and let the book absorb her throughout the rest of the trip.

CHAPTER FIVE

“How is she?” Leo didn’t look over at Zoey as he asked the question. Alex didn’t either, though he wasn’t sure Zoey would have noticed even if they’d both stared. Even if they’d pulled out a neon sign and hung it over her head. Her eyes had lit up when he’d pulled out the ereader. It made sense; it was some small piece of normalcy in a day that probably felt like it was the most extreme and strange situation she’d ever been in.

Not that he was accustomed to a world where he had to run for his life and freedom in the middle of the night, taking advantage of connections he always swore that he’d never utilize. He knew that Leo, through his father, was connected to the underworld in Russia and the states that bordered it. His family was old, very old, and had survived the transitions both into and out of communism, making them beyond a statistical anomaly. They’d done it by exercising power and garnering favors. And now, well, it had just always been a part of their friendship that they didn’t discuss the disgusting things either of their fathers did. It was part of what had bonded them together. Both of them had reprehensible parents. Both of them wanted to do better. Of course, they’d taken somewhat different paths to get there.

“She’s all right,” Alex said. “She’s more scared than she’s admitting, of course, but she’s holding it together well.”

Leo grunted quietly. “It’s a shame you like her so much. I could use a woman who doesn’t spook easily.”

Alex gave a one shouldered shrug. “Then find one. They’re around.”

Leo was quiet for a long time. “You see only the corners of my life, Alex. You are the man who tells me I am not a monster.” He swirled the coffee in his cup the way other people would swirl whiskey, looking for answers in the alcohol.

“I appreciate what you’re doing for us,” Alex said. It was insufficient, but it was the best he could think to say right now.

“I am doing it for myself as well. Not just because of last night, but because I need to believe I am still a good man.”

“What’s going on, Leo?”

Leo shook his head and stared out the window. Alex turned his attention to the itinerary Leo had written out. He wanted to press his friend for answers, but it wasn’t the right moment.

They’d land at a small, private airfield outside of Tashkent. Leo’s people would meet them there, and the way Leo’s face had twisted when he’d said that they would be safe told him that they would be armed. There was a safe house a short distance from the airfield where they could hole up. From there—he hated to admit—he didn’t have much of a plan beyond waiting for Leo to find a lead. He knew so little. That his father was involved. That his mother probably was as well. That potential stakeholders of AEGIS were being targeted. But that didn’t give him any information about how to stop it.

“I know that look,” Leo said, after a while. “You are trying to solve all the world’s problems while standing on your head.”

“I’m—what?”

“You’re trying to fix it all. But you can’t. So much has happened and cannot be undone.” There was a brooding look on his friends face, and Alex found himself wishing that he could wipe it away and replace it with the laugh and smile that had been there when they were kids. Though even at twelve, Leo had seen things that Alex could never have imagined. He’d befriended a young mixed kid without question, no matter what the other kids said about him, because they’d seen in each other a similar hollowness, and worked together to become whole men. Better men than their fathers.

It was turning out that neither of them had particularly succeeded.

“She loves you, though,” Leo continued, either oblivious to or inured to Alex’s contemplation. “She loves you very much, so you two will come through it all right.”

There was something in his voice. “All three of us will.”

Leo nodded, but he didn’t say anything. He turned back towards the window, and he didn’t say anything else.

Alex spent some time in quiet focus, trying to push away the unhelpful worries about things he couldn’t control and find some peace to get him through the next set of decisions and changes. It helped some, but not as much as he’d hoped. After a time, the monotony of the plane and the silence got to him, and his eyes drifted closed as he fell into an unrestful sleep.