“Is this everything?” I heard Lucian say to him. “IDs, passports, plane tickets?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Everything, including a bonus extra. Some fake glasses that look nothing whatsoever like Terence Kingsley’s.”
My heart froze. Oh my God. Everyone in the world must know about Terence Kingsley by now.
Lucian opened the briefcase and flicked through the contents. He nodded.
“Good. Looks fair.”
The guy leaned against the car and folded his arms across his chest. “Yeah, fucking good and fucking harder than you said it would be. You know you’re the most wanted guy on the planet right now, by both your family and the world chasing down that damn journalist? I’m chancing fucking carnage just by being here.”
“Yes,” Lucian said. “I’m well aware of that. Just as well, a business deal is a business deal, isn’t it?”
That’s when the guy reached out and closed the briefcase in front of him. I could hear his voice loud and clear when he spoke next.
“See that car over there?” He gestured to one a few bays down. “They are here with me. Any move towards me and they’re set to take action. They’ll shoot you and turn you in.”
I could see the rage in Lucian’s eyes.
“Right,” he said. “So let’s get down to it. What the fuck do you want?”
“I want two hundred and fifty K extra,” the guy announced. “Or I’ll turn you in myself right now.”
Lucian’s voice was as angry as his face.
“You want two hundred and fifty fucking K extra for two sets of fucking IDs, some plane tickets and a pair of fucking glasses?”
The guy shrugged. “Your call, what’s it gonna be? You know everyone is after you, just as well as I do. You pay up, or you’re dead. Both of you.”
Lucian’s voice was evil. “You’re lucky I can’t break your neck.”
“Yeah, I am,” the guy said, and he laughed. “So, do we have a deal?”
Lucian paced over to me and took the cases of cash from the floor.
“Yeah, we have a deal.”
They swapped cases and the guy smirked.
“Nice doing business with you.” He gestured to the airport building. “You’d better make a run for it, you ain’t gonna survive long around here. Whole fucking city is looking for you.”
“Just as well we won’t be around here for long, then, isn’t it? Flight’s at eight fifteen?”
“Yeah.” The guy nodded. “Three hours. You’d better get over there and get checked in.”
I was so scared I was shuddering as his car pulled away from us and the other one followed behind him. Lucian was straight back over to my side once they were out of view. He tipped my face up to his and kissed my forehead, then wrapped me up tight in his arms.
“Here we go, sweetheart,” he said. “We have a shot at it. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll truly make it across the Atlantic. Just as well we had enough cash in those cases for that asshole, isn’t it? The guy’s a fucking moron. He could have billed my father ten times that, just for my whereabouts.”
It was only when I heard the tone of relief in his voice that I realized just how unsure he’d been that this deal would happen at all.
Yep. He’d been as terrified as I had, he’d just been better at hiding it.
“Let’s do this, then, baby,” I said to him with a smile. “Let’s go see the London Eye.”
12
Lucian
There was a new flame of life inside me as I realized how I was feeling as I prepared Elaine with her fake ID ready to head into the airport. I was far more concerned that she would make it out of the country alive than I would. Far more concerned that she could stay alive than I was about staying alive myself.
She looked at her new passport.
“Okay, so I’m Penelope Anne Jackson from here on out?”
“Yes,” I told her. “And you’re sitting in seat twenty-nine C of Flight 181. NYC to London Heathrow.”
“Great,” she said. “And who are you?”
I opened up my new ID.
“I’m Jason Ryan Reynolds, sitting in seat thirty-seven A of Flight 181. NYC to London Heathrow.”
She looked sad.
“It’s so shit we can’t sit together at least.”
“Yes, it is,” I said. “But not nearly so shit as it would be to attract attention. They are way more likely to question our identity if they see us next to each other. If anyone finds us before we are off on our own in London, then we’re done for.”
“Yeah, I know,” she replied, and gave a cute little shrug.
I unzipped her friend’s battered old suitcase and put a few of our remaining bundles of cash in there amongst her clothes. I’d already ditched my weaponry in the trash and wrapped my own bundles of cash up in my own suitcase. Now that we were truly ready to go, I felt uncomfortably vulnerable.
I fucking hated feeling vulnerable.
“If I don’t make it through,” I told her. “You get to London and you carry on as long as you can, with or without me.”
Her perfect blue eyes were so fucking scared.
“But I don’t want to make it through without you,” she said. “I’d rather die alongside you than exist apart.”
“That’s a beautiful thing to say, Elaine, but regardless. You get to London and you carry on, regardless.”
I knew from her expression that she had no intention of doing that.
“Elaine,” I pushed. “You get to London and you keep going, do you understand me? I want you to swear it.”
She let out a sigh. “But I don’t want to swear it. I don’t want to keep going without you. There is no me without you. Not anymore!”
Having someone feel that way about me was a strange sensation and always would be. Her mouth was so pretty, lips pursed in defiance.
“I mean it, Lucian,” she said. “I don’t want to swear it. We make it together, or not at all.”
I stared at her, hard. I soaked in every little detail of her in that moment and fell in love with her all over again. She did it. She won the battle.
“Fine,” I told her with a hiss. “Don’t swear it, but please do think about running with or without me if you make it to London.”
She looked as surprised as I felt that I was backing down for once in my life. I never gave in. Not ever. But with her I had. With her I’d backed the fuck down.
She was smiling as we began to walk along with the suitcases, and I knew that she was thinking just the same as I was. She was thinking about how I’d let her win the battle.
“Don’t expect this to become a habit,” I told her. “When I say something, I always mean it. If I say I want you to swear something, I’ll damn well want you to swear it.”
She shrugged, shooting me a mischievous glance, even though we were both fucked with the stress and her bandaged chest.
“We’ll see about that when the time comes, I guess.”
“We’ll see about that when the time comes, I hope,” I said. “We might not even make it out of the country yet.”