“Yeah,” I said with a nod. “Paris.”
Carlos had a safe house that I’d used before in the Latin Quarter. He wouldn’t mind me staying there for a few days, and I could probably pick the locks if he’d moved the key.
“Understood, ma’am,” Rene responded, then disappeared back into the cockpit to leave me alone.
I looked back down at my phone, waking the screen up with a swipe of my thumb.
“Now or never, DeLuna,” I muttered. “Don’t be a fucking coward.”
Clenching my jaw tight against the rising anxiety, I tapped the call button on my last resort. The line rang enough times that I almost hung up. Then it connected, and a ripple of guilt ran through me.
“Hey,” I said on a heavy exhale, “Mo… it’s me. Danny.”
She inhaled sharply, then the line went dead.
“What?” I frowned at my screen. Oh, lovely. She’d hung up on me. Not totally unexpected, I supposed. “Well… that could have gone better.”
With a defeated groan, I sat back in my seat and clipped my safety belt. We were already taxiing and would be in the air in no time. But now I was second-guessing my choice of Paris.
“Dammit,” I grunted. Leaning over to the wall, I pressed the intercom button that would connect me to Rene. “I changed my mind. Take me to Seattle.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Rene replied, not even hesitating a moment. He was great like that. Fuck the paperwork on flight plans, we paid people to handle that crap.
My phone sat there on my lap as we took off, mocking me with its blank screen. For the first time in my entire life, I felt lost. The Guild had raised me; it was the only figure of authority I’d ever known. They weren’t simply my employers, they were my family. And now they wanted me dead.
Why?
What had I done to make a member of the Circle turn on me, after all my years of loyalty? My birth mother had surrendered me to the church only hours after birth, and the Guild orphanage had taken me in. I’d been given my first contract when I was eight. For twenty years, I had done everything the Guild ever asked of me, never questioning my loyalty to the mercenary way of life.
Now I had no one to trust, nowhere to go, and no solid plan for how I could get my life back to normal.
I was so screwed.
It was that gut-twisting sense of regret for all my life’s choices that weighed me down as I reclined my seat to sleep. Suddenly, everything I thought I knew, everything I lived for… it was gone. I was alone.
My phone vibrating in my lap woke me up sometime later, ripping me from my anxiety-fueled dreams about being chased down by faceless, cloaked killers.
“Hello?” I croaked, my eyes too blurry to read the name and desperately hoping it was Carlos calling me back.
“You’ve got a whole lot of fucking nerve calling me, Danny DeLuna,” Mo hissed down the phone, instantly wiping the sleep fog from my head.
My mouth was as dry as a desert, but I swallowed hard and breathed a small sigh. “I know,” I replied. “Trust me, Mo. I’m well aware. But… I need your help.”
Fuck. Admitting that out loud was like falling on my own blade. I could only cross my fingers and hope that this was the right move. Kai had a Guild necklace in his bedroom for a reason. I’d been contracted to kill him for a reason. I couldn’t help but think that they were more tangled up in the mercenary world than they’d let on.
Of course, getting Mo to help was going to be the first hurdle.
“I would rather help myself to a battery acid enema than help a lying, sneaky, traitorous fraud like you,” she spat down the line.
Good. We were off to a good start.
10
Mo was furious at me and made sure I knew all about it. About how I’d betrayed her trust, how she’d genuinely thought we were friends, and how she had no idea who I even was now. But she never once mentioned Kai. That had to be a bad thing, right? Surely if he had felt anything for me, she’d have mentioned how I broke her little brother’s heart. Wouldn’t she?
Shit, maybe that was a good thing. Fuck, what was I saying, it was definitely a good thing. The last thing I needed was Kai and Leon entering into some sort of dick-measuring competition. Actually, now that I thought about it—
“Danny!” Mo barked in my ear, making me jolt. “Are you even listening to me?”
Nope, I was daydreaming about two of the most impressive dicks I’d ever encountered—and I had plenty of reference points—and wondering which would actually be bigger. It was too hard to guess; I’d have to compare in person.
“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” Mo demanded.
I was the first one to admit I was somewhat out of touch with social etiquette when it came to girlfriends. Jude and Sabine had known me so long they just rolled with my rudeness. But I was fairly sure she didn’t want me talking about the jaw-aching size of her brother’s cock.
“Well…” I paused, rubbing at the bridge of my nose. “I mean, I would have been inclined to say that I’m sorry and I feel awful for having deceived you so thoroughly. But then I consider the fact that you were perfectly happy to have me abducted, drugged, imprisoned, beaten, tortured, and sexually assaulted. So really, when you put things in perspective, Moana, who should be apologizing to whom in this scenario, hmm?”
The silence was deafening.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” I muttered, irritated. I did feel bad for tricking her, and that annoyed me more than anything. She was the one in the wrong between us, not me. “So are you going to help me or not?”
Mo didn’t respond immediately. Then she made a small huff. “I really don’t know you at all, do I? You’re a totally different person to the woman I made friends with.”
I snorted a laugh. “Cry me a river, Moana. It’s my job. Now answer my question, are you going to help or am I wasting my fucking time on this call? I know you’re not tracing my location, I’m not that fucking green.” Only newbies and idiots let themselves be GPS-tracked on mobile signal. Besides, I was still at thirty thousand feet.
“Fine,” she muttered, right when I thought the answer would be no. “You provided a valid point about who owes who an apology.” It sounded like she was gritting her teeth, but a small wave of relief washed over me.
“Good,” I snapped. “I’m about an hour from landing in Seattle. I’ll send you a location we can meet at, just let me know how soon you can get to this side of the world.”
“I’m already in the States,” she admitted. “Depending how remote we’re talking, I could be there this evening, I guess.”
Curious. Why was she in America? Then again, there were a lot of criminals hiding out or seeking asylum in the neutral gang territories ruled by Hades. It was like gangster Fiji. Bars, clubs, and hotels where they could let their hair down, safe in the knowledge that inter-gang violence was strictly prohibited and rule breakers swiftly punished. It stood to reason Ares, the infamous arms dealer, would have a lot of clients in this area.
“I’ll text the address,” I told her. “But Mo? Do not, under any circumstances, bring your team with you. This is you and me, no one else. Am I clear?”
She didn’t respond, and my jaw tightened.
“Do you understand me?” I growled out, my voice hard-edged and angry. “My forgiveness ran out the moment I escaped your fucking island. I lay eyes on any of your team, they’re dead. Are we clear?”
“Even Kai?” she asked, her voice cold. “Will you kill him this time?”
Would I? I wanted to say yes, but I wasn’t so sure. He’d gotten under my skin too deeply.
“Try it and find out, Mo. Don’t fucking say you weren’t warned.” I ended the call before I could give her any reason to doubt my resolve. Because despite how it might seem, I wasn’t calling him for help. I called Mo because she was just as capable, just as connected, and that necklace wasn’t masculine. For all I knew, it was Moana’s and she was the one connected to the Guild.
Also, I still wasn’t strong enough to face him. I’d have to kill him, otherwise I risked letting him rip out another chunk of my heart. And how many more pieces could I survive without?
With impeccable timing, my phone vibrated an incoming message.
6279: I can’t stop thinking about you, DeLuna. Every time I shoot someone, I think about how sexy my gun looked in your hand while I fucked you. How hot it was when you shot that idiot. Where are you now?
My breath caught in my throat, and I bit my lip. Shit, Leon knew exactly how to get my mind off Kai.
3982: I wish I could tell you, but someone said not to trust the Guild
I grinned as I waited for his reply. There wasn’t enough time now, we were about to land, but maybe later when I was secure, I could video call Leon. I bet he’d secretly love that, even if he had told me not to use my Purple Pussy Eater without permission.