The first thing Bee noticed when the light came back was how dry her mouth was.
The second was that her arms were bound behind her back.
‘What fresh hell is this?’ she slurred. She tried to pull her arms apart, tried to stretch to see if maybe this was sleep-paralysis related, but frayed rope dug into her wrists.
Malika grunted to her right. ‘I’d say we were drugged.’
Bee rested her head on something soft and stared at the recessed lighting on the ceiling. She needed to focus. What was happening?
They were on a plane.
And the plane was in motion.
Why were they on a plane?
Oh right. The money.
The money. Where was the money?
She shook her head and willed her thoughts to form an orderly line.
Her hands were tied, but nothing was holding her down except for the pounding exhaustion in her head. She slid her eyes off the lighting and towards Malika; found her to be bound in the same way. Mr White was nowhere to be seen. Adam was stuck at the end, awake, staring straight ahead. Bee followed his line of sight.
Across the plane, Banks was reclining on the second couch, Hogarth, her fat dog, curled in his lap. He held a brushed silver Desert Eagle .50 loose on the armrest. His other arm was wrapped tight around the shoulders of a dozing Oliver.
Her son was curled into Banks’s side, his dark head tucked under the man’s chin.
‘Hello, Bee,’ he said. ‘How’s that Cardello ketamine treating you?’
She heaved a throaty exhale. ‘You drugged my son? Seriously, Banks? You gave Oliver ketamine?’
‘Not a lot.’ Banks raked his fingers through Oliver’s curls. ‘He’ll be fine. It’s a good nap at least.’
Bee squeezed her eyes shut and prayed this was a dream. She was going to open her eyes and wake up on a plane out of the country with the only drug in her system a doctor-prescribed Xanax that Linda had so thoughtfully given her.
But when she opened them this time, she saw a dozen men sitting in the tan leather seats behind the glass partition.
Hogarth jumped to the ground with a sneeze and a wag of his tail.
Banks pressed a kiss to Oliver’s temple then eased her drugged son off his arm to lie on the couch cushions with a gentle shushing.
Bile bit at the back of her throat.
‘You see,’ he said and trailed his knuckle over Oliver’s cheekbone, ‘I can plan too, Bee.’
Banks approached and all traces of the false, easy smile she’d grown accustomed to were gone. In its place was something wild, wicked, the mask peeled away. He kicked the coffee table away from them; the muffled scratch of the legs sliding across the carpet tickled her ears.
He hunkered down in front of her, eye to eye, nose to nose. ‘I planned all this. It was my idea for Charlie to steal that money. But he’s such an idiot, it’s easy to make him think it was his idea. Of course, you know that, don’t you, babe?’
His orange Tic Tac breath wrinkled her nose.
‘So, he steals the money, and I go’ – he walked his index and middle fingers over her knee – ‘and run off to Alvarez, like, “Can you believe this guy? This guy we both trusted? Taking your money and your niece like that? I’ll tell you how to get him back. You go after his family, and he’ll give you the money. He’ll even surrender himself. And I’ll handle it from there.” Of course, I had to cover my tracks. Couldn’t let Charlie figure out it was me. Couldn’t let you figure out it was me. But Artie was easy enough to twist. Too easy actually. I did us all a favor turning him.’
The cogs in her brain ticked into motion. ‘You did this? You – you’re the reason all this happened?’
He set his cold palm on her knee, his thumb tracing a circle inside her thigh. ‘Yeah. I did this.’
Confusion contorted her face. ‘You said you think about me all the time. That no other woman you’ve met compares to me.’
‘And you said, “Thank you.”’
Well. That was true. That she remembered.
‘But you’d set in motion for me to die ahead of telling me how much you thought about me so why – why lie? I don’t get it.’
‘I didn’t lie.’ Banks squeezed her leg and stood up. ‘Alvarez was never gonna kill you. We’d agreed to that. Charlie, sure, but not you. And then I’d have the money and the business and you, all wrapped up in a cute little bow. Like it was always supposed to be.’
Her stomach flipped upside down. ‘Where’s Charlie? What did you do to Charlie?’
‘Don’t worry about that. I took care of him. He’s not gonna mess up your life ever again.’ He used the barrel of the gun to lift her chin up. ‘Don’t you see, Bee? It was always supposed to be me. I could’ve given you everything he did. I could’ve given you even more.’
She jerked her head away, pinched her lips tight and willed herself not to cry.
He chuckled. ‘But then, you surprised me. Like you always do. And you went to Alvarez with what he thought was his ace in the hole at your side.’ He pointed his elbow in the vicinity of Adam. ‘He thought he could use Gage and cut me out. He thought he could cut me out of our deal, out of the business that’s rightfully mine. Charlie was an idiot. I made that business what it is.’ He tapped his heart with the Desert Eagle barrel. ‘I moved us into legitimacy. And Alvarez decided he could take it from me?
‘But then you surprised him too, didn’t you? And so I had to make a new plan.’ He paced before his captive audience. ‘I go along with your charade until I have all the money in one place. Then I get rid of all the obstacles on my own time, in my own way.’
‘Well,’ Malika said. ‘Shit.’
Banks smiled at her. ‘Yeah, you got that right, girl whose purpose I don’t understand.’
‘Harsh.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Adam. ‘Seems like a lot of serpentine shit for the fuckhead who cries on scenic helicopter rides.’
‘Oh please!’ Banks glowered. ‘That was an act!’
‘Whatever you gotta say to yourself, jerkoff.’
Banks held his gun up in the air, finger on the trigger, and Bee ripped out her own arm hair.
Tears filled her eyes and she shouted, ‘I don’t understand!’
This man had put her son in danger. This man had put her life in danger. This man had done something unthinkable, unspeakable to Charlie.
He lowered his gun and glanced back at her.
She blinked to let her cheeks get wet. ‘Why are you doing this to me if you care about me?’
‘Hey, hey.’ He eased down to his knees in front of her. ‘It doesn’t have to be like this. Don’t you see? You made me do this to you.’ Again he touched the silver barrel against his heart. ‘I didn’t want to. I love you.’
Her lashes fluttered but never touched. ‘Really?’ She puckered her trembling lips. ‘You love me?’
‘Are you kidding me?’ He scratched his temple with the gun. ‘I spent ten years not thinking of anybody else but you. Ten years of screwing around with blonde bimbos, trying to pretend they were as good as the real thing. But they weren’t. None of ’em could even come close. But now … now I got the money, Bee. I schemed and I planned. I lied. Aren’t you impressed?’
She swallowed down the bile rising in her throat. ‘I definitely didn’t see it coming.’
‘Me neither,’ Malika agreed.
Adam said, ‘Nope.’
Oliver whimpered on the couch but didn’t wake.
Banks smiled. His eyes were wide, but there was no light in them. ‘So of course I love you. Don’t you see? I did all this for you. We can be together now, like I always pictured it. Me and you. And Charlie’s money. And Oliver too of course.’ Banks cupped her chin. ‘What do you say?’
Bee closed her eyes like his touch was too much to bear. ‘Are you really proposing to me while you have me tied up?’
‘Yeah, not cool, dude.’ Malika tsked. ‘Not a good look.’
‘You’re right, you’re right.’ Banks put his gun down next to his knee and reached around Bee to untie her, covering her face with his chest, nuzzling his cheek against the top of her hair.
She side-eyed Malika, who did her best to muffle her snicker.
Banks grabbed his gun and helped her to her feet. ‘I love you, Bee. I always have.’
She touched the hollow of her throat with her fingertips, bent one knee in front of the other and twirled her hair with her free hand. ‘All of this?’ She gazed at him in full timidity. ‘You did it all for me?’
‘Of course. Of course I did.’
She moved to fill the space between them; traced his jaw with her knuckles. ‘How wonderful,’ she whispered against his lips before pressing her own on them.
His tongue, flat and cold, made her shiver for all the wrong reasons.
But he held on tight, his left hand clutching her waist, his right holding the gun. She moved her right hand from his face to his left shoulder, down his left bicep, tickling his left forearm, running her fingers over the ones that touched her side. He didn’t notice her free hand until the gun was already in her grasp.
Banks pulled away with a slobbery pop. ‘Whatcha gonna do with that?’
Bee pulled the trigger.
The Desert Eagle clicked in her hand.
She drew back the hammer, pulled again.
And again, nothing.
Bee stepped away from Banks, the gun between them like a shield, her breath hitching in her chest. She drew back the slide to discharge the misfire, but there was no bullet.
She dropped open the magazine only to find it empty.
‘Yeah,’ Banks said. ‘I’m not an idiot. I’m not gonna wave a loaded gun around on a plane, and I’m certainly not going to kill you. I love you, remember?’
He tilted his head. ‘Wait, did you just try to kill me?’
Bee picked up speed to the cockpit. ‘You’re out of your mind!’
‘I am not out of my mind, Bee,’ Banks said. ‘And I’m not a monster. I was never gonna hurt you. You’re a mother! I love you! What? I would murder a woman I’ve known for years and her innocent son just because she rejected me! I was planning on leaving the lot of you in the middle of the Mexican desert!’
‘Oh, that’s so much better, thank you so much! You are a saint!’
The suits in the back of the plane roused at her shouting. She flung open the cockpit door only to catch sight of Mr White.
Her mouth fell all the way open. ‘You! How? Why?’ He hadn’t been drugged with the rest of them, which could only mean one thing: collusion with the enemy.
‘Hey,’ he said with a grimace. ‘Sorry about this. But I’m gonna have to ask you to sit down and buckle up.’
‘Oh are you now, you worthless traitor?’
‘Worthless?’ Mr White huffed. ‘Rude.’
Adam swore. He pulled his arms, and the rope behind him came loose. ‘Where’s Howard?’
Malika blinked at him.
‘Howard!’
‘Right, right.’ She shook her head to clear it. ‘In my bag.’
Her duffle bag lay not far from her, under a nearby end table.
The first suit came in from between the partitions.
Adam swept his leg out and knocked him off his feet. Then he sprang up and jabbed a pencil-sized razor into the suit’s neck.
The man choked on his own spurting blood.
‘This is Martin’s jacket,’ he said by way of explanation as to why he’d had a hidden razor up his sleeve.
Malika shrugged and kicked her bag to him.
The suits could only fit through the partition one at a Joey Triggerman, a true genius, decided to pull out his oversized gun, a massive Smith & Wesson 460 XVR Magnum.
‘Are you nuts?’ another suit demanded. ‘We’re in a plane! Not hunting wooly mammoths!’
Bee stumbled away from the cockpit and the turncoat, straight into Banks’s chest. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked, the back of her head hitting his shoulder.
She reached for his hands; tried to pry his fingers off her head.
‘You can end all this right now,’ he whispered, his lips gliding across the shell of her ear. ‘Come with me and we’ll be happy. I can make you happy, Bee.’
‘You bastard!’ she screamed, scratching her thumbnails over his eyelids. ‘My hair!’
Hogarth growled and lunged, biting Banks on his thigh.
He cried out and let go of her long enough to kick her dog in his round tummy. Hogarth yipped in pain, skidding across the aisle.
‘Fucking bitch!’ Banks wrapped his arms around her from behind and lifted her in the air, and she realized it felt vaguely familiar.
She grabbed hold of his forearms and dug her heels into his shins. He cried out in surprise, in pain, and let go of her.
But she didn’t let go of him. She tucked her chin to her chest and fell forward.
Banks fell over her and landed flat on his face.
She rolled away and sprang to her feet. Adam was digging around in Malika’s duffle bag as a suit with an average-sized pistol stormed through the partition.
‘Adam!’
He yanked the taser free and engaged it directly against the suit’s face, holding it above him like Arthur freeing Excalibur from the stone. The suit went down hard. Adam tossed the taser in her direction. It slid across the floor, and she raced to stop it before it got lost under a seat. He snatched Oliver off the couch and plopped him down by Malika then pulled out Bee’s Colt 1911 and his own Beretta M9. And then he was on his feet, firing with both hands, driving bullets into the suits’ guts. He didn’t miss.
One after another they went down. The gunshots were deafening as they launched the bullets that tore into the bodies of the men closest to the divider.
Joey Triggerman pulled his Magnum back out.
Adam grabbed a dead man and tossed him on top of Malika and Oliver.
‘Oh. My. God!’ Malika cried from underneath the corpse. ‘Oh my God, it smells so bad. Oh my God. Oh my God.’
Joey shot his massive bullet. The crack of the gun was earsplitting. And the aim off – high and to the left.
The suction created by the bullet hole pulled in the nearest decorative pillow.
He fired again. His bullet sailed over Bee and tore into Mr White’s arm, blood splatter covering the windshield. The traitor screamed in pain.
The plane nose-dived. Alarms screeched in warning. Everyone, dead or alive, floated, weightless.
‘Oh, this would be so much cooler if a dead guy’s tongue wasn’t in my face!’ Malika cried.
Mr White struggled to get the plane righted, whimpering with every movement.
Bee’s shoulders pushed into the roof of the plane.
Adam grabbed on to floating dead guys to propel himself towards Joey. The Colt was empty, but it was heavy, and it cracked Joey’s skull with ease.
The plane leveled out.
Everyone, dead or alive, fell hard to the floor.
‘Adam!’ She launched the taser across the plane.
He caught it with one hand and loomed over the remaining three goons. ‘Who’s next?’
Goon #1 launched himself at Adam’s knees, bringing the bodyguard down. But the taser quickly freed him.
Banks came to. He righted himself, cracking his neck, a broken doll forcing the pieces back together. He wiped the blood off his smiling lips. ‘This isn’t over yet.’
Bee squared her shoulders. ‘We’ll see about that.’
He closed the distance between them in a hurry. But not fast enough.
She ducked in time for his arms to close in above her.
Then Bee sprang up, the top of her head banging into his jaw with a furious snap.
Banks stumbled backward, holding on to his face. Bee kicked him in the kneecap and watched him go down.
Adam and the last goon were facing off in the back of the plane.
She scrambled for the discarded Desert Eagle. Jumped on Banks’s waist. One hand clutched his neck; the other brought the heavy pistol down on his head. Once, twice. Over and over, as hard as she could, numbers and time and death and life losing all meaning.
This man had put her son in danger. Had put her in danger. Had done something unspeakable, unthinkable to her son’s father. And she’d be damned if she let anyone ever love her like that again.
‘Fuck.’ Tears filled her eyes until she couldn’t see the dead man between her thighs. She fell off him, clutched a hand over her mouth, and swallowed down the screams and the vomit that were trying to force their way out.
But Adam was there. Hauling her up to her feet, enveloping her in his arms. He was cut up and bleeding, his red hands staining her ruined clothes. ‘It’s OK.’ He kissed her hair. ‘Oh God, Bee.’ He wiped his damp cheek against hers and sniffled the manliest of sniffles. ‘It’s OK. I’ve got you. Shit, Bee. I’ve got you.’
Her knees buckled, but he held tight.
‘Bee!’ Malika pushed the corpse off her and Oliver, the boy still sleeping soundly on the carpet, Hogarth, uninjured, sitting by his feet. ‘Holy guacamole, you killed the big bad!’
She laughed through her tears because there was nothing else she could do.
‘At least Oliver’s still asleep,’ Malika said. ‘I doubt he’ll remember any of this.’
Adam helped Bee to the floor. ‘I just gotta wrap one thing up, OK?’ He kissed her brow and strode to the cockpit.
Adam cocked the Beretta and pressed the barrel against Mr White’s temple. ‘You gonna explain yourself?’
Mr White sniffed. ‘It hurts, man. Just let me land this thing, or we all die.’
‘Why did you do this?’ Bee asked. ‘Why did you betray us?’
‘Adam and I have worked together for years. I know him, and I knew – I knew he wouldn’t be able to double-cross you. I knew I’d get the short end of the stick. So yeah, I called an old friend from Alvarez’s crew and had him pick up the kid from the church. They were never gonna hurt him, and I thought at least I’d get the finder’s fee. But then you went and screwed that up too, so I talked to your boy Banks. We came to an agreement. And now I’m the one bleeding out, and you’ve got all the money and a sea of corpses, so just let me land this stupid plane and we can call it even and I can get to a freaking Mexican hospital.’ White groaned. ‘Man, maybe you should just kill me and get it over with.’
‘Don’t be so dramatic,’ said Malika. ‘Mexico has universal healthcare.’
Adam glanced at her, the gun still aimed to kill. ‘What do you say, Bee?’
Her heart twisted. Was he really offering to kill his longtime partner for her? Why did that make her want to coo out loud? Wow was she gonna have to light a lot more candles at a lot more churches to atone for all this. ‘We’ll take his share, split it three ways. He can live if he lands us safely.’
Adam tucked the gun away. ‘You heard the boss.’
Malika stood on shaking legs. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘there are a lot of dead guys in this plane. Like, too many dead guys. What are we supposed to do with all these dead guys?’
Adam said, ‘Let’s worry about that when we’ve landed,’ and sat next to Bee.
‘Good.’ Bee pulled Adam into an embrace and pressed her forehead to his. ‘Thank you for being on my team.’
He kissed her, soft and open, and Bee forgot where they were until Mr White told them to buckle up for the landing.