Elixir tingled. It burned a hole through my tongue. It promised to poison me even if I didn’t swallow.
He groaned as he rubbed himself against me.
I choked.
His fingers pinched my nose.
I thrashed.
His cock pulsed against my belly.
I fought.
My lungs screamed for air.
His fingers granted no sip of oxygen.
I burned through valuable energy as I battled and squirmed and tried to push away his kiss.
But in the end…I lost.
I always fucking lost.
Natural instinct overrode my stubbornness.
Reflex made me gulp.
Elixir tumbled down my throat.
Drake slipped his tongue into my mouth, ensuring every drop had been ingested.
Only then did he pull away, smile as if I was his every erotic wish, then bent to the side and grabbed Sully’s cell phone.
“See you soon, Jinx.”
He pressed the button…and everything went white.
Chapter Six
I WAS SICK TO fucking death of helicopters.
At least this one had its doors firmly shut and flew over a wintry city instead of a tropical sea. Larger than my own, it sat thirteen mercenaries plus me.
My one-hour handicap behind Drake had now been reduced to thirteen minutes. I’d bribed the tanker who refuelled us in Dubai and learned Drake had taken twenty-two minutes to fill his gas quota while I only took twelve.
Couple that with him driving to our parents’ estate instead of flying, I was shaving time every minute, stealing it back, hoarding the seconds and getting closer to the end.
“The other team will meet us there. They’re six minutes away.”
“Did Jon-Paul secure what I requested?” I tore my attention from the rooftops beneath me and focused on the eager killer for hire. I had no opinion over his or his colleagues’ career choice. No moral requirement not to use their services.
People were about to die, and I didn’t give a shit.
It was convenient I could rent such a team.
“Yes.” The blond guy nodded, his hands clenching between his legs. “Your phone call cleared the handover. All they had to do was land on the emergency helipad and a nurse was there with the package.”
“Good.” I turned back to the window, my mind still razor-sharp and shrewd. I hadn’t slept a wink the entire eternal journey from Indonesia. I didn’t need sleep. All fatigue, fury, and emotions had been stripped away.
I was clinical in all things, which allowed rationality to plot ahead.
If there was some chance of me surviving the inevitable death in my future, I owed it to Eleanor to at least attempt to reverse it.
It was Cal who dangled potential hope.
I wasn’t afraid of dying. I never had been. But I was afraid to leave the one person who’d made my life infinitely better.
Therefore, I’d activated a resuscitation plan. One chance to kill the old Sully and let a new one be reborn. Thanks to my connections within big Pharma, and my regular donations and breakthroughs to modern medicine, I had acquaintances in Geneva only too happy to give me the two items on my list.
A travel defib and a strong sedative.
A simple phone call, a rendezvous on the top of the hospital’s roof where mortally ill patients arrived by air, and a quick handover to the leader of the mercenaries following us, and it was done.
Whether or not it would work…I guess, we’ll find out.
Either way, Eleanor couldn’t be mad at me if I did die because at least I’d tried to stay with her. I did my best, and if I failed…that was fate’s choice.
“Three minutes, Sinclair,” an older mercenary muttered, touching his ear where an earpiece relayed information.
I nodded and pulled my cell phone free. Scrolling the copy of my contacts, I brought up the number for the head housekeeper of the Geneva estate. I hadn’t visited this place in years, but our staff were loyal because we paid well.
If Mrs. Betha Bixel still ran the household, she might give me loyalty over Drake who visited more often. He’d never been her favourite person after she’d been the one to clean up swan feathers after he’d snared one and plucked it, alive, in his bedroom.
I wished there was some explanation for Drake’s maliciousness—some excuse or cure for whatever psychosis he embraced. But the fact was, he was just born wrong. Rotten to his core and noxious in every way.
The phone rang as I pressed it to my ear and waited.
My heart didn’t skip.
My palms didn’t sweat.
I was so close to Eleanor, so near to finishing this, but my adrenaline didn’t spike. Every ounce had already been employed into drowning out my injuries and operated entirely under Tritec’s command.
“Hallo, we ist das?”
“Mrs. Bixel, it’s Sullivan Sinclair. Rose and James’ son.”
“Of course! You do not need to remind me, Sullivan. I know who you are. My favourite son.” Her Swiss-German accent filled my ear, half with comfort from our trips here and half with dread from what’d happened in that estate. “Your brother arrived ten minutes or so ago. He brought…friends.”