Deep Under

Chapter Twenty-One

Kyle

Hours of sitting next to Myla, wanting to touch her, wanting to talk to her, pretty much kills me. I manage to randomly touch her, though, trying to send her the message that we're together. We're okay. The plane finally starts to descend, and she takes off her seat belt. "Bathroom," she says, standing and heading toward the back of the plane.

I follow, knowing this is one of the only locations where I can talk to her, and even if it's bugged, we're at the end of this trip, and it's worth the risk. She enters the tiny room, and I catch the door before she closes it.

"Easy, sweetheart," I say, and noting how pale she is, I add, "We're okay. This is all going to happen hard and fast but when it's over, it's over."

"You can't know that. We can't know our people heard our destination."

"They did," I insist, "which means they're in place, and ready to attack the minute we land."

"Everyone is in Texas."

"Luke, and many of our men, are in New York, not to mention plenty of Feds."

"It's an island," she says. "How do they get to us?"

"Water and air," I say, though it's a problem I too have been concerned about during our travels, but I'm not about to tell her that. "Find your zone," I say, "and let's get ready to end this." I shut the door, standing guard and giving her time.

It's not long before she appears again and gives me a nod, the look in her eyes, stronger now. "I'm ready," she says, and I believe her. She is. We are.

I let her see the admiration in my eyes, and the love, stepping out of her way to allow her to return to her seat, with me closely behind her, both of us reclaiming our seats. It's not even ten minutes later when we make our landing approach, near midnight if our destination is indeed an island in New York, when we approach a singular runway and tower, that seems to make that a pretty acute assumption. The fact that we hit the pavement, and top pretty damn hard and fast, also indicating an island and water, or that's my guess.

I unhook my belt, and Myla does the same, clearly as eager as I am to get out of this metal box, that makes us sitting ducks. "Stay behind me," I order softly, standing and waiting for her to join me, before I start down the aisle, my hand settling under my jacket to rest on my gun.

Juan stands, moving around in the front of the plane, as does Ricardo, and a couple of other men who've come along for the ride. Two of them line up to exit, but they're pushed back when a stocky, short Mexican with a permanent scowl on his face and a machine gun at his hip, enters, pointing for them to sit. Whoever he is, they obey, and when I stop walking, the man motions me forward, as if he knows who I am, or simply wants me under his thumb.

There is a shift in the air then, a prickling at the back of my neck, moments before it happens. The ghost of a man I've seen pictures of but have never met enters the plane. He stands in the center of the aisle, his black suit expensive, his salt-and-pepper hair wavy and longish, and when his eyes meet mine, evil radiates from their depths that is like nothing I've ever felt, which is saying a lot considering the filth I've arrested and killed. His gaze shifts to the gun at my hand, a silent command that I take my hand off my weapon, and it kills me to obey, but that machine gun-wielding man beside him will shoot me, and then Myla will be on her own.

I continue forward, my body sheltering Myla's, dread in me for the moment I will have to let her go to him, and I will. I may even have to let her walk off this plane with him, and I hope like hell my team is waiting when they do. I stop several feet in front of him, Juan, Ricardo and the other men in the seats dividing me from Alvarez.