Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 98561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
“You get the charges dropped and I want the money you would have given Gantz,” I told him. “And I’m only giving this one shot. You aren’t there, I’m not waiting.”
“Fair,” said Gabriel. He gave me some coordinates, which I scrawled on my hand. “We’ll be there at ten tomorrow morning. See you soon.”
I hung up the phone and lay there for a while, staring up at the slowly turning ceiling fan. One way or another, my life was about to change.
With a sigh of resignation, I leaned down and kissed Jean on the cheek. “Time to go,” I told him. “I’ve got to work.”
“Oh…” He reached for me and kissed down my neck. “Non, non, non, ma cherie,” he mumbled into my shoulder. But we both knew it was only a one-time thing, and eventually I hustled him into his clothes and out the door.
Then I walked into the bathroom, turned the shower on ice cold, and stood under the spray, cursing and shivering, until my head cleared. I toweled off, dug a khaki flight suit out of my closet and pulled it on. I dug around in my kitchen cupboard, found some energy bars and slid them into the flight suit’s pockets: when you spend a lot of time hanging around airfields at 3am, waiting for a fuel truck to show up, you learn the benefit of always having food with you. Then I put on a pair of sunglasses and headed out into the day.
I needed to find a helicopter, some painkillers, and some coffee…not necessarily in that order. It was time to sober up.
26
GABRIEL
We moved at a punishing pace for the rest of the afternoon, jogging for long stretches and only slowing down when the jungle got too thick. Everyone was exhausted but we had to stay ahead of the soldiers. We could hear vehicles in the distance, probably trucks using logging roads to drive deep into the jungle and drop off their soldiers close to us. We were being boxed in, just as JD had predicted, and if we didn’t keep moving, they’d be right on top of us.
The thirst was becoming a problem, too. All of us were sweating hard and there was nothing replacing the lost fluid. My mouth was desert-dry. Danny had passed around a pack of hard-boiled sweets and sucking on one of those had brought a little relief, but now I was starting to get lightheaded. We’d all stripped off to the waist to try to cool down. I’d given Olivia one of my tank tops so that she didn’t have to walk around in just her bra, and I was trying not to stare at her lush curves and the way her breasts bounced as she walked. I was goddamn crazy about this woman. How the hell was I going to leave her behind?
As we reached a clearing, JD called a break and we all dumped our packs for a moment and leaned against trees, panting. Colton wiped sweat from his forehead. “I’d give a month’s paycheck for an ice-cold beer, right now,” he muttered. “Or a swim in the lake. Hell, both at the same time.”
I cracked a smile. I was getting to like Colton. I was getting to like all of them, despite my best efforts. They were a good bunch of guys. I was even warming to JD.
When I’d handed the sat phone back and told him Gina would be coming to pick us up at ten the next morning, he’d given me a look of genuine respect. I’d felt a stab of guilt because he didn’t know about another call I’d made while I’d had the sat phone, to my friend back in Quito. I’d managed to rearrange my escape. The guy wasn’t happy: he’d waited an hour for me at the airfield, only to see Gantz arrive home alone. I’d had to double his fee to $200,000 and he’d made it clear that this was my last chance: if I wasn’t back at the airfield at noon tomorrow, tough, he’d be gone for good. And without him, I’d have to hand over the gold and stay with Kian’s team for ten long years. No. No way. I’d worked too hard. I deserved that gold. I’d do anything to get it.
I glanced at Olivia and forced myself to harden my heart. Anything. Even give up the one woman I cared about. She was using the break to check Marcos’s wound, her hands quick and efficient as she worked. Marcos saw me looking and stared coldly back at me. No doubt he’d heard Olivia’s cries of pleasure the night before and he’d picked up on how we seemed a little more distant with each other, since. He thought I’d used her and dumped her. Well, maybe after all this, he could get together with her. He was good-hearted, decent, respectable…he was the sort of guy she should be with.