Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68598 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68598 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
I just hoped that, if he was okay, he would know to turn his life around, learning from this experience.
We all arrived at the helicopter at the same time. After dawdling slightly around with the vehicles, she pulled a magic marker out of her backpack, then wrote on a piece of paper before slipping it under the hood of the truck. Then, pulling out a couple of crisp hundred-dollar bills, she placed those under it, too.
I was just about to get out and offer her some of my own money—because this had been my op, after all—when she started running toward me.
I finished my checklist, made sure everything was safe to fly, then had us in the air moments later.
Sam was offering her money about two minutes into our flight, handing it to her expectantly.
She waved him off. “I stole it out of his wallet,” she waved her hand at me. “Give it back to him.”
Sam raised his brows at me, a grin on his face.
I rolled my eyes and waved him off, my hands already busy getting us back home.
We stopped at the same place we’d stopped at last time to fuel up at the halfway point.
Long moments later, we were back in the sky and heading toward Texas.
We arrived and had barely touched down when a shaken McKenzie girl started running toward us.
Sam hissed in a breath, almost as if he was worried that I’d hit her, but before she could make it even a few steps, James, her uncle, one of the other men of Free, caught her around the waist.
He waited until the blades stopped spinning to let her go.
She wasted no time tearing across the field heading toward us.
Bayou caught her and wrapped her up in his arms, just like he’d done to the baby for the entire flight.
Phoebe was sobbing, and two other women stood on the sidelines with Sam’s wife, their mother, watching on. They were all crying silent tears.
Then there were the angry men standing off in the distance, watching the scene with enraged expressions.
Bayou relinquished his child to the mother, and then the three of them walked toward a ragtag group of kids that were peeking through the window behind all of the adults. Every last kid that was in the compound was in that room.
“You staying for dinner, Kobe?” I heard Sam ask.
I was already shaking my head. “No. I have to get this one home to her kid, and I have a shit ton of sleep to catch up on.”
Sam offered me his hand and shook it twice.
We made our way back to the copter, and after my fourth check of the day, we took off.
I was in the air when the distraught mother ran out into the field as if she wanted to say thank you but hadn’t realized I was leaving.
She waved, a radiant smile on her face.
I gave her a flick of the fingers back, then turned the helo around and headed back home.
“I just checked your mail,” she said as if snooping through my emails was a normal thing for her. “Do you think you want to respond to this one about a family meeting?”
I felt my anger rise, but surprisingly, not at my seatmate, at my father.
He’d sent me yet another email—he didn’t have my number or my location anymore—to try to get me to come home for my sister’s wedding.
I’d sent him a one-word reply the first time that he’d asked—no.
“Not really, no,” I said. “Anything else good in there?”
She hummed as she skipped through my private emails.
“The only one that might be of importance is one about your 401K. That’s a pitiful amount to have in there, though,” she pointed out.
I rolled my eyes. “That’s because becoming a billionaire isn’t made by padding your 401K. It’s all about investments.”
She snorted. “Is that it?”
“That’s it,” I confirmed.
“What about real estate?” she asked.
I sighed. “You know that I bought the block.”
“I know you bought the block,” she confirmed.
Not only did she stalk me day to day in the cyber world, but she also stalked me at work. She never came in or anything, but I would see her passing by my office two and three times a day.
At this point, I was convinced that she did it just because she knew it would annoy me.
I landed the helicopter and listened to the quiet ticking of the heated engine for a long moment before I said, “Thank you for coming and helping. That wouldn’t have been easy to do without you.”
I could’ve done it, but I wouldn’t have wanted to leave that child that long, unsecured in a car.
Though, I wouldn’t have had that insider information about him being unsecured in a car. I would’ve just known he was in that car. However, who knew how long it would take to get that information. The people could’ve been in Canada by the time I’d figured out where exactly they were.