a private airfield, he carried me up the stairs and to the back of the plane, where he gently rested my body on a bed in a stateroom filled with the same equipment as the hospital room.
He watched as the nurse hooked me up to monitors and reconnected the IV.
“This is highly unacceptable,” I heard a familiar voice say, but I couldn’t place it until I saw the man ushered into the room by two men about the same size as Smoke.
“As I’ve repeatedly informed you, you’ll be generously compensated for your time,” Smoke said to the man I recognized as my surgeon.
“I’m not licensed to practice medicine in the States.”
“Irrelevant.”
“You can’t do this.”
“I already have.” Smoke stepped aside, motioned for the doctor to take a seat, and then leaned down and got in the man’s face. “You make sure not a single hair on her head is further hurt, and you’ll make more money than you do in a year. You don’t protect her life with yours; you won’t enjoy the consequences.”
“I’ll have you arrested for kidnapping.”
“Good luck with that.” Smoke laughed, as did the two men still standing guard outside the door.
5
Smoke
“Who are you?” I heard Siren ask the two men who I knew she’d worked ops with previously. I’d forewarned them when they arrived at the hospital of the possibility she wouldn’t remember them.
“I’m Jagger,” said Mick Reynolds, stepping forward. “This is Vex,” he added, pointing to Bronson Dunning. I watched for any sign of recognition, but saw none.
“Nice to meet you,” she murmured, looking from them to me. I winked and then motioned the two men out of the stateroom.
“What does she remember?” asked Vex.
“Obviously not much about you, since she hasn’t thrown anything in your direction,” muttered Jagger. “Sorry, man,” he added when I shot him a glare.
“Here’s the deal. Are you listening?”
Both men nodded.
“I didn’t have time to brief you on this before we had to leave the hospital, but Siren believes that she and I are in a…relationship.”
Vex opened his mouth and then wisely closed it.
“As far as you’re concerned, we’re a happy couple. Why, is none of your fucking business.”
“Copy that,” they each responded, although I didn’t miss Jagger’s raised brow.
“Right now, your job is to keep an eye on Siren and the doc. That’s it.”
When they returned to the back of the plane, I reached out to Hammer.
“I was just getting ready to call you,” he said.
“What’ve you got?”
“How far is your place from Asheville?”
“Depends on where.” My place, as Hammer put it, consisted of a little over a thousand acres that sat between Gatlinburg and Clingmans Dome on the Tennessee-North Carolina border.
“Biltmore area.”
“Two hours tops,” I told him.
“There’s a fancy new medical complex with a world-renowned stroke-rehab center. Want me to set something up?”
“I’d appreciate it.”
“I’ll get your final flight leg rerouted too.”
“Thanks, Hammer.”
“I’d say you’re welcome, but I’m doing this for Siren.”
“Copy that.” I ended the call, knowing he wasn’t.
* * *
Once in the air, it took nine hours to fly from London to Chicago. From there, it would take another two hours to get to the airport in Asheville. After consulting with the nurse, I agreed to let the doctor fly back directly from Chicago since, so far, all he’d done was tell her to do things she already did without his prompting. I sent Jagger and Vex along with him to ensure he got his money and understood what would happen if he spoke a word about his trip to the States and back.
Every time I checked, Siren was asleep, which was the best thing for her. “You can take a break,” I told the nurse, who looked up from the book she was reading. “There are seats in the main cabin or the other stateroom. Whichever you prefer.”
She stood, checked the monitors, and walked out, closing the door behind her. I sat in the chair previously occupied by the doctor, whose presence did nothing more than assuage my fear that if something happened to Siren while we were in flight, I would be to blame.
I studied her frail form, wishing I could go back and put myself between her and the bullet I’d been sure killed her.
Had I done so, had it struck me instead, and had I lived, I never would’ve heard the end of it from her. She would’ve lambasted me for thinking she needed my protection rather than going after Konstantine von Habsburg.
She didn’t remember, and maybe never would, but I had let