By the time I ditched the bike in the airport’s short-term parking lot, I had all but convinced myself that I had made the wrong move and put Blaire’s life in peril.
Please be safe inside the airport. Please be safe.
I found her standing outside the front doors of the airport, pacing. She wasn’t near any security, and anyone with a vehicle could have easily grabbed her.
My fear of what could have happened, compounded with my own stupidity in letting her out of my sight, made my voice cut coldly. “I thought I told you to stand by security.”
She spun around when she saw me. “Oh, thank god.”
I tried not to limp as I moved toward her.
She rushed toward me and then her sweet arms were clinging to my neck. “Viktor.”
God, she felt so fucking good.
And this was exactly the kind of shit that had gotten us in trouble in the first place. I gently disentangled myself from her arms. “I need a place to change, and I need your help to clean up.”
We found an unused staff bathroom in a back hallway of the airport, and together we squeezed into the small room. I pulled out my medical kit and then dropped my pants.
She covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh my god, is that a bullet wound?”
“It’s just a scratch.” What really hurt like a son of a bitch was my other leg. The leg that had taken the full weight of the bike as I slid across the floor of the market. I needed half a bottle of vodka, an ice bath and several shots of cortisone.
Instead, I had a distraught Blaire, about three decent Band-Aids and a couple of T3s. I pocketed them. I would be taking those on the flight, preferably with vodka.
“Can you wrap it up for me?” I asked her. It hurt to bend over. Everything hurt so goddamn much.
She knelt in front of me and, with a concentrated expression, cleaned and bandaged the wound. Then she stood by while I gingerly pulled on a clean pair of pants. I dumped all my weapons in the garbage can. I could declare them, but I didn’t want to risk it on a fake passport.
“What happened?” Her face was pinched and her expression white as she watched me.
It hurt to speak. “I caught up to him. He said someone hired him to mess with us.”
“Who?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Is he dead?”
“I let him walk away after he gave me your backpack.”
She dug through her bag. “Lucy is still here.”
“Glad to hear it,” I said in a dry voice. It was almost impossible to push her away when I constantly had an overwhelming urge to pull her close.
She gave me a watery smile. “Every time I think we’re in the clear, something shit happens.”
She had that right. “Let’s get past security. I’ll feel a lot better.”
But I didn’t feel better. I just felt progressively worse. The flight was my version of hell. While Blaire slept beside me, using the little neck rest I had bought her, I was in serious pain. The Tylenol wore off about six hours into the flight, and the flight steward cut me off after my eighth vodka.
The vodka and the antibiotics combined didn’t do any favors for my stomach, so I felt really rough for the last eight hours of the flight. I hurt too much to sleep, so my body was struggling physically to reset.
I lay there, counting the minutes until we landed on Canadian soil. I was shocked that we had made it onto a flight back to Canada. If I had been the sniper, this job would be done already. It didn’t make sense that the only person who had tried to interfere was the guy on the motorcycle.
I leaned back in my seat and thought about the sniper. What is your end game? I was missing a big piece of the puzzle and it nagged at me, but the pain was making everything fuzzy. That and the vodka.
By the time they turned on the cabin lights and started serving breakfast, Blaire looked slightly rumpled but fresh after her epic sleep.
“I’m starving.” She looked over at me. “Wow, you look like shit.”
“Don’t hold back.”
She touched my arm in concern. “Did you sleep at all?”
“Nope.”
She looked at me closer. “You’re in pain.”
The truth was, my entire body felt like it had been through a meat grinder. I felt worse than bad. “I need that vacation.”
She looked so worried. “What can I do?”
“Let’s just focus on getting back to Vancouver.”
We landed and made it through customs, but my ass was dragging hard as I took special measures to lose whoever might be following us. I felt like a paranoid asshole, but every time I let my guard down, something dangerous happened, and eventually our luck would run out. When a person was fatigued, they took shortcuts. And those kinds of shortcuts got a person killed.
I was hurting so badly, and I was so tired; I knew it was only a matter of time before I missed something or made a mistake that could cost us both.
I got the cab driver to drop us off near a garage that had one of our ghost cars available in the back. Once we were in the car, I drove around for another thirty minutes, making sure we didn’t have a tail.
It was close to 2 p.m. Vancouver time when I pulled up to one of our infrequently used safe houses. It had a high-tech security system, excess weapons, telecoms and food.
I pulled into the garage, and it was only when the doors locked behind us that I breathed a low sigh of relief.
I led Blaire into the main room of the house. The first thing I did was head to the medical closet. I gave myself three injections.
“What is that?” Blaire stood behind me, in the middle of the kitchen, clutching her bag. She watched me with big eyes.
“It’s a mixture of cortisone and a numbing agent.”
I allowed myself to dry-swallow one T3. Then I walked into the kitchen and poured myself two healthy shots of vodka.
“Is this your home?”
I looked around the sparsely decorated place. It was completely devoid of anything personal and was only here to keep people alive. I guess I deserved that question. “This is a safe house.”
“Oh.” She sounded disappointed.
I moved to the weapons cabinet, pulled out four weapons and put them on the high table. I checked and loaded them all.
I pulled off my shirt.
“Viktor, your back,” Blaire gasped from behind me.
I had a bad case of road rash, but nothing that wouldn’t heal. It was my leg that was my biggest concern. It would definitely slow me down.
“It’s nothing,” I told her as I pulled on a long-sleeved black shirt from my pack.
I caught her look of dismay and concern. “What?”
“It’s just that your entire body seems so beat up.”
I leaned over the table and kissed her hard on the mouth. “Your flattery will get you everywhere.”
She sounded scared. “What happens now?”
I put on a plated armor vest over the shirt. Her worried eyes watched me.
“It’s almost over. This is the end.”
“Like the end of the bad guys and the start of better things, right?”
I could feel her anxiety. “We’re done the hard part. Now I just need to finish the job.”