This was it. There was no turning back now.
We’re going to Mexico.
Chapter Eleven
Brody
My patience was running low.
Bouncing my knees up and down, I watched. Tapping my fingers against my chin, I waited. Finally, seconds after the plane leveled out, the pilot’s voice crackled over the onboard PA system.
“We’ve reached our cruising altitude, Mr. Harcourt. You’re free to move about the cabin.”
Thank God.
I didn’t waste another minute. Unbuckling my seat belt, I pressed a hidden button on the inside of the arm rest, causing the back to recline and a footrest to pop out. The groan that followed bordered on obscene. Whether out of embarrassment or courtesy, I tilted my chin to the left and offered an unenthusiastic apology. “Don’t worry. Everything’s still tucked in and zipped.”
Silence.
“Adriana?”
Silence.
I popped an eye open to find the bane of my existence sitting across from me with her head bowed, waves of long onyx hair covering her face like a curtain. Her entire body was rigid, and all hunched over so that she looked like one of those weeping angel statues. In fact, with the soft sounds coming from the other side of the plane, she could even be…
No way.
I glanced at her again. “Are you praying?”
Adriana slowly lifted her head, her thick hair falling back to reveal a clenched jaw, thinned lips, and a glare so sharp it could cut glass. “What? Like I can’t pray?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You think I’m going to burst into flames or something?”
“Damn, forget I asked.” I rolled back over, perfectly content to doze off and dream of a world where Adriana Carrera skipped her ass back to wherever the fuck she came from.
The hell of the last few days had just started melting away when disturbing noises assaulted my ears. Gagging would be too tame of a word. It was more like an overweight cat coughing up another cat. I opened my eyes to find Adriana, crouched forward with one hand clamped over her mouth while the other frantically patted down every inch of the recliner. She wore the look of a woman about to defile a multi-million-dollar jet.
“You’re not gonna puke, are you?”
Giving up on her quest, she scowled before closing her eyes and sinking back into the chair. “No. I’ll be fine once this death box levels out.”
“Well, then you might have a problem since that happened five minutes ago.”
Her eyes popped open, and she gripped the arms of the chair with such force, I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of those red nails slashed through the leather. “Tell me you’re joking.”
“Sorry, princesa. Maybe you missed the announcement from the cockpit while you were wheeling and dealing with the man upstairs.” I jabbed my finger in the air a few times for emphasis.
She opened her mouth and took a deep breath. But instead of insulting me, she rubbed her temples, releasing her breath with a slight frown. “I hate flying.”
“I’m shocked. You hide it so well.”
She rolled her chin toward me, eyes blazing. I had her riled up, and it was about time. The woman was a pain in my ass who blackmailed her way onto a kingpin’s private jet, but at least she was a distraction.
The brief moment of peace ended as the curtain at the front of the jet parted. Immediately, Adriana’s walls shot back up, and she glared at the flight attendant as she made her way toward me.
“Mr. Harcourt…” Turning, she smiled brilliantly at Adriana, who scanned the woman’s navy-blue pantsuit like it was loaded with contraband. “Miss Carrera, would you like anything to drink?”
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. “I’ll have a scotch on the rocks, thanks, Tia.” I motioned toward Adriana. “She’ll have water and a barf bag.”
Giving a small tight smile, she nodded, disappearing as quietly as she’d appeared.
“You drink too much,” Adriana grumbled.
“You talk too much.” It was on the tip of my tongue to ask if Tia had anything to dislodge the stick from someone’s ass when the plane dropped, leaving my stomach hovering about two feet above the rest of me.
I grasped the chair just as Adriana let out a high-pitched scream.
“It’s just a little turbulence,” I assured her. “We hit an air pocket. It’s fine.”
“Couldn’t you have just rented a car?”
I rolled my eyes. “Because a nineteen-hour road trip with you would have been so enjoyable.” That was when I noticed she had her arms wrapped around her body, and she was shaking. The woman who led an entire cartel actually had a horrific fear of flying. Everything about me was designed to seek out weakness and exploit it. Adriana’s shield was up most of the time, but no one could run from demons at forty-one thousand feet. This was my chance. I should go in for the kill.
“Look, if it makes you feel any better, you’re two-thousand times more likely to be in a car crash than a plane crash.”
Or I could toss out random statistics to help the enemy.
Whatever.
“Yes, but if I’m in a car crash, I have a chance of surviving. If this abomination of gravity goes down, they’ll have to piece us back together like a damn puzzle.” As if the mental image wasn’t enough, she put her fists together then opened her palms and threw her arms out wide in a physical reenactment of our deaths.
I dismissed her dramatics with a wave of my hand. “Don’t be ridiculous. If that happened, the engine would explode, and we’d fry to a crisp before even hitting the ground.”
Just a little dig to remind her who called the shots once we hit Mexican soil.
Crossing her arms, she turned her back to me. “Don’t talk to me until we’re on solid ground.”
Well, shit. If I knew describing our hypothetical deaths in graphic detail would shut her up, I would’ve done it a long time ago.
“With pleasure.” After Tia returned with our drinks, I took a much-needed sip and placed it in the chair’s drink holder. Folding my arms behind my head, I stretched out and enjoyed the first moment of peace I’d had all week.
As if pulled by some unknown force, my gaze wandered back to Adriana. She still sat as rigid as before, except the cup of water in her hand shook so hard, droplets spilled over the edge and scattered across the leather. I assumed air sickness had struck again. I had no idea how to comfort an ally, much less an enemy. Normal emotion wasn’t something I felt anymore.
The only thing that felt natural was sarcasm, but just as I opened my mouth to insult her, I noticed her face. It was no longer green but pale. So pale, if she wasn’t almost panting, I’d wonder if she was breathing at all.
“Adriana…”
She cut a sharp stare at me, immediately setting down her cup and clasping her hands together. “So, what kind of shit show am I walking into?”
I motioned toward her tight grip. “Are you sure you’re—”
“I assume when you convinced Val to let you bring me to Mexico City, you conveniently left out the reason you’d suddenly joined Team Adriana.” Her face tightened, either in pain or in anger. Whatever the cause, the message written across it clearly said back off.