Page 94 of Locked and Loaded

The thought came without warning, surfacing from the place she'd been trying to keep it locked away. She closed her eyes and saw it anyway. The witness statement, the words she'd read so many times she could recite them from memory. A black helicopter landing on the beach in Ibiza. The rotors churning up sand. Chloe walking toward it, not running, not fighting, because she didn't know. She didn't know what waited at the other end. Didn't know it was the last time anyone who loved her would see her face.

Lennox knew. Or at least, she knew more than Chloe had known. She knew who had taken her. She knew where she was being held. Knew who was going to help her get her sister back. She wasn't walking blind into the dark the way Chloe had. She was walking in with her eyes open and her fists up and a fury in her chest that had been burning for so long it had calcified into something she could use.

She opened her eyes and looked across the cabin at Dragan.

Brow furrowed in concentration, he continued to study the tablet. The morning light caught the planes of his face, the sharp line of his jaw, the faint shadow of stubble that he hadn't bothered to shave. His hands were steady on the screen. Everything about him was steady. Controlled. Deliberate.

She was still furious. Anger still simmered, burning low and hot in her stomach. And she doubted it was going anywhere anytime soon. But she wasn't stupid.

Whatever last night had been, whatever he was or wasn't willing to give her, he was still her best shot at finding Chloe. He had the resources. He had the connections. He had a seat on a helicopter heading toward the people who had taken her sister, and no matter how angry she was, she wasn't going to walk away from that.

So she'd take his help. She'd take his information and his helicopter and his network of shadowy contacts. She'd take every resource he had, and she'd use them without apology. Come hell or high water, she'd make damn sure he stopped managing her, stopped sheltering her, stopped treating her like someone who needed to be protected instead of a strong, capable woman who could stand beside him and fight.

She turned back to the window.

The desert was gone now. Below them, the Mediterranean glittered in the morning sun, blue and endless, stretching toward a shoreline she couldn't see. Somewhere on the other side of that water was Malta. Somewhere on the other side of Malta was a gala full of dangerous people doing dangerous things. And somewhere in the middle of all of it was Chloe. Lennox refused to give up. Refused to believe her sister was dead, no matter what Dragan said. She needed to believe that Chloe was out there somewhere.

Lennox pressed her palm flat against the cold glass and didn't look away from the sea.

I'm coming, Chloe. Hold on. I'm coming to get you.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

After a quick up and down to refuel in Tunisia, the remainder of the flight was brief. The helicopter banked hard over the Mediterranean, and Malta rose up to meet them, a sprawl of limestone structures with terracotta roofs that looked golden in the afternoon light. Dragan watched it through the window, his tablet forgotten on his knee, and tried to focus on what came next instead of what had happened.

He couldn't.

The fight with Lennox was still in his head, her words lodged under his skin like splinters he couldn't dig out. You're managing me. Her finger against his chest, the heat of it even through his shirt. If that's all you can offer, then I'm not interested. She'd meant it. He'd seen it in her eyes, the flat certainty of someone who had drawn a line and was waiting to see if he'd cross it or erase it.

He didn't know which one he'd done. After a brief struggle with his conscience, he’d walked out instead of answering. An act that was its own kind of answer.

The helicopter descended toward a private airfield on the southern edge of the island. Not the main airport. A smaller strip tucked between scrubland and sea, the kind of place that didn't appear on civilian flight logs and didn't ask questions about who was arriving or why. Two black SUVs waited, engines running, at the edge of the tarmac. Windows tinted dark enough to block the Mediterranean sun.

The skids touched down with a jolt that traveled up through the frame and into his bones. The rotors began to slow, their rhythmic thunder fading to a low whump-whump-whump that made the air vibrate.

Dragan unclipped his harness and stood, bending low under the cabin ceiling. Across from him, Lennox was already on her feet. She didn't look at him. She'd spent the entire flight with her forehead pressed against the window, her back to him, the line of her shoulders rigid with everything she wasn't saying. She'd fallen asleep at some point, her breath evening out, her body going slack against the harness. But she'd woken the moment the helicopter changed pitch over the Maltese coast and immediately turned back to the window. As if she'd decided somewhere over the Mediterranean that the view was more interesting than he was.

He couldn't blame her for that either.

He opened the cabin door, and the heat struck him with an arid slap after the cooled interior of the helicopter. The curious aroma of jet fuel and salt and something floral he couldn't name perfumed the light breeze. Two men in dark suits were already moving toward them from the SUVs, their postures alert but unhurried, professionals who'd done this kind of pickup before.

"Mister Kozlov." The first man's accent was Maltese, his English precise. "I'm Angelo. Mister Fontaine sends his regards. Please, this way." He swept out a hand, indicating the SUVs

Dragan nodded and stepped down onto the tarmac. He appreciated that Fontaine had given a fake name to the security he hired. He’d found over the last few weeks working with Armand that the man was not only intelligent but trustworthy. It made a huge difference when going into battle if you trusted your boss to have your back.

He turned, automatically, to offer Lennox his hand.

She ignored it. She climbed down on her own, one hand on the door frame, her sneakers hitting the pavement with a solid thump. She didn't so much as glance in his direction as she walked past him toward the SUV.

Angelo's expression didn't change, but Dragan caught the flicker of something in the other man's eyes. Assessment. Recalibration. These were men who noticed everything, and what they'd just noticed was that the woman wasn't with him. Not the way they'd assumed.

Fine. Let them notice. They were not wrong. She’d made that abundantly clear. Or maybe he had when he’d walked out. Either way, he needed to focus on the task at hand. What happened in Morocco stayed in Morocco.

He followed Lennox to the SUV and climbed into the back seat beside her. She had already positioned herself against the far door, as far from him as the leather seat would allow, and she was staring out the window at the airfield with the same intensity she'd aimed at the Mediterranean. The door closed with a heavy thunk, sealing them into air-conditioned silence.

The convoy pulled out. Two SUVs moved fast through narrow streets that wound between limestone buildings the color of honey. Dragan watched the route, cataloging turns and landmarks out of habit. They were heading north, away from the coast, climbing into the hills where the buildings grew larger, and the spaces between them grew wider. Walled villas with terracotta roofs and gardens hidden behind high stone fences. Palm and cypress trees and the occasional flash of swimming pool blue through a gate left slightly ajar.

The villa, when they reached it, was set back from the road behind a twelve-foot wall topped with wrought iron spikes that were more decorative than functional. The gate was already opening as they approached, swinging inward on silent hinges. Gravel crunched under the tires as they pulled into a courtyard shaded by olive trees. The villa itself was old stone, two stories, with shuttered windows and a heavy wooden door that looked like it had been holding back the Mediterranean sun for a few hundred years.