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My heart drops into my stomach. Will’s voice is icy and tightly controlled, without a hint of the emotion one would expect from a father under these circumstances. Although I have no doubt his pulse is hammering as hard as mine.
“Have you identified the impostor?”
“We’re on it.”
“We’re on it”? That’s all you’re going to give me? I don’t think so.
“What have you heard from that plane, Will, and when did you last have contact with Lexie?”
“My daughter is on her way to London, where she belongs, and is no longer your concern.”
“Bullshit!” I bark, because we don’t have time for games. “We tracked her plane headed for northern France.”
“The satellite monitoring the flight—that was you?” he growls, every word a poisonous dart.
If you didn’t want me tracking the plane, you should have answered your damn phone. “After I learned about the Russo girl. But we lost both the plane and Lexie about ten minutes ago.” We’re wasting precious minutes. I’m done answering questions. “For the third time, when was your last communication with that flight?”
“Not that it’s any of your fucking business, but the plane’s on course to northern France, as planned. I had the signal scrambled so that it’s impossible for fuckers like you to track my daughter.”
He scrambled the signal. Every muscle in my body unfurls, including the one in my chest. But it’s a brief respite, because Francesca Russo’s killer is still out there, and Lexie’s life is still in danger.
“Where is she going?”
“You were tracking my daughter’s every movement, without her consent, like a lowlife predator.”
Just answer the question, you insufferable bastard.
“I’m going to put a bullet in you before the day is over.”
“You do that. In the meantime, tell me exactly where Lexie’s going so I can get some men on the ground before she deplanes.” When I couldn’t reach Will, we pulled together a couple of teams. Kept one on standby and sent the other to northern France. They’re not on the ground yet, but they’re close.
“Everything’s under control. Stay in your lane, boy,” he warns. “The one that’s far away from my daughter.”
Ricocheting from crime boss mode to daddy mode is a dangerous way to operate. Too dangerous.
I won’t allow him to sideline me.
“Like hell it’s under control.” Now I’m the one with ice water running through my veins, tempering the boiling blood so that my words emerge steely, with none of the bluster of a hothead.
“The plane with your daughter is over the Atlantic, skirting the European coast, with at least one insurgent on board, maybe more. You have no idea who the perpetrator is or who sent her. And I’d bet my last euro that you still don’t have a damn clue how deep you’ve been infiltrated. Your daughter’s life is on the line, and like it or not, I’m the best friend you have right now. So swallow your fucking pride and let’s make a plan.”
More silence.
I just crossed every line with him, and I’m one step closer to that bullet he promised. But I don’t give a shit. Those animals are not getting to her on my watch. Cost be damned. A bullet is a relatively quick death compared to what those monsters will force Lexie to endure until they’re done with her.
“Quimper,” he replies gruffly. “The flight is headed to Quimper.”
I scribble a note and hand it to Tamar. Have Zé alert the teams and tell our pilot to file a new flight plan. She nods, swiveling toward the keyboard.
“Is there anyone on the plane you trust without reservation—the pilot, the guards?” Please tell me there are guards on that plane. “Getting a message to someone could change the outcome. Just giving Lexie a heads-up is better than nothing. Otherwise, they’ll be blindsided.”
Trained guards should never be blindsided. They should anticipate trouble at every turn. Although it doesn’t always work out that way. If the guards are taken by surprise, the likelihood of her falling into the hands of the monsters is high. Too damn high.
“The pilot is loyal, and a capable soldier,” Will replies confidently. “We’ve been vetting him and the dead flight attendant for the past eighteen months before transitioning them to Lexie and Samantha’s flight crew. They were on separate crews before today, and their paths never crossed.”
“This was to be their maiden voyage together?”
“Yes. They were going to begin to work as a team next month, but Lexie wanted to come home as soon as possible, and the usual crew assigned to personal flights was on a mission. We brought the new team in early and without much notice.”
