Inside the cabin, the shot goes off loud enough to nearly shred my eardrums, especially when it goes whizzing past my jaw.
He’s testing me to see if I’ll flinch.
I don’t.
I don’t even move.
In situations like this, I’m at my best.
An absolute wall of ice.
And this angry old dumbass just made sure his plane can’t even take off.
There’s a smoking hole in its hull, meaning it won’t even pressurize anymore. Not unless he’s had some very crafty military-level upgrades, which I sorely doubt.
“Smooth,” I say flatly. “Next time, aim a little more to the left. My eyes are up here, asshole.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says. “I’m merely making sure you keep your distance.”
“Probably smart—considering I’m very interested in hurting you, Durham.”
His expression saddens. It’s so artificial, so controlled, and I want to rip this sociopath’s face to shreds with my bare hands.
“Fuchsia…after everything I’ve given you—”
“After everything you took from me!” I snarl back, and I’m not smiling anymore.
Not by a long shot.
“You took my daughter!” I hiss. “I know she didn’t die in that fucking hospital. I know you lied to me about her being stillborn. And I’ve got her file, courtesy of little fuckboy Timmy Rook. You’re going to unlock it now and show me where you’ve been hiding her.”
A long, sympathetic sigh courses out of him.
Yeah, right.
If he was so sympathetic, he wouldn’t still be pointing that Colt at me.
“Your daughter was stillborn,” he says with absolute assurance. “I’m sorry. It’s clear we didn’t do enough to get you the appropriate postpartum grief counseling, and I regret we failed you so thoroughly in that regard. Had I known the trauma had taken such deep root and been spiraling for all these years…surely I could’ve done something to intervene. But I’m not God. I can’t bring back a child who’s dead, Miss Delaney.”
“Stop saying my name that way!” I roar.
Like he owns it.
It’s my name.
One no one gave me but myself.
Not the dead parents who left me wandering and lost until these vultures picked me up.
Not even Galentron specialists with all their code words and aliases and an endless fuckity-fuck of secret phrases.
I can’t stand hearing it on his patronizing tongue, talking to me like I’m a mental patient. “And stop lying to me. Even if lying is all you’re good fo—”
The door to the cabin bursts open.
We both whirl, tensing.
I’m expecting more Nighthawks.
He’s clearly expecting backup, too, judging by the hopeful glint in his eye.
Only one of us is right, but even if the odds just swung in my favor…
I think I just lost the upper hand.
Truly, I can’t move.
Can’t think.
Can’t do anything but stare at the man in the eyepatch.
His identity doesn’t click. It slams into me headfirst like a screaming train.
Oliver Major.
Holy, holy hell.
I didn’t see him closely enough before, but now, unless I’m already dead…
There’s no mistaking him.
He’s older, more weathered, his skin like fine leather and his jet-black hair now half silver mixed with threads of white.
He’s a bit broader, most of it muscle, a little of it that heavyset barrel build military men get as they grow into themselves with age. It just made him even more of a tank—though there’s a looseness in his left leg, from the calf down.
It doesn’t quite fill out the leg of his jeans, and a slight shift in his height and the odd shape of his shoe tells me he’s got a prosthetic.
He’s lost an eye behind that eyepatch, probably in the attack meant to kill him, but that only makes his lone, wild whiskey-dark eye stand out so much more fiercely, crackling bright with golden brown fire and sharp intelligence.
Yep, he’s very much alive.
A fact I’m probably going to kill him for, if we get out of here.
I make a choked sound in the back of my throat.
“Oliver?” I gasp.
Just as Durham strangles out, “Major?!”
It’s Durham’s voice that spurs me back to action.
Even if something in my heart leaps wildly to see Oliver again, alive, it’ll have to wait.
That’s a story for later.
For now, I remember why I’m here.
And while Durham’s distracted, I see my chance.
Snapping around, I fling myself low and go right for his legs, diving under the reach of his Colt.
He belts out a strangled sound and starts to swing it toward me anyway—and when a gunshot goes off, I’m half expecting to feel a piercing jolt of pain ripping me open.
Self-preservation kicks in. I fling myself to one side, but there’s no gunshot wound, no bright burst of agony thrusting a hole in my body.
Because Durham wasn’t the one who fired.
There’s a smoking Glock in Oliver’s hand, and the Colt goes spinning across the floor in a haze of gold while Durham yanks his hand back, shaking it, hissing from the impact.
My roll takes me to the floor, shoulder taking the brunt of it, before I coil back around quickly and catch Durham’s ankles with mine, tangling to rip him off his feet.