King’s (The King Trilogy #1)(12)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

I crossed my arms over my chest and looked away. “No. Not really. They just threatened to.”

King hiked up his sleeve and looked at his watch again. My eyes gravitated toward that tattoo, but he was too quick to let me see it. “Anything else I should know?”

He already knew about Justin’s phone call and the calls from the embassy. Aside from that, there wasn’t much to tell. “No.”

“Very well.” He dipped his head. “Have a pleasant evening.”

Pleasant? That’s all he had to say? King and I had made a deal. He would find Justin, and I would work for him. Indefinitely. It was a deal that I didn’t fully understand or know what would happen if I didn’t keep it, other than something bad, but I’d made it anyway, dammit, and it had cost me my job and apartment. I’d given up everything just in the hopes that King could help me find my brother. Instead, I’d lost three entire weeks of precious time! Waiting! I’d been left to stew inside my head, playing Pong with my imagination. Justin’s not dead. Yes, he is. Just wait, King will help you. No, he won’t. If you push, King won’t lift a finger. But if I do nothing, Justin will die.

“Goddammit, King!” I screamed, no longer able to contain the toxic emotions. “What the hell is going on? Who were those people? How did you find me?”

The clean air inside the cabin seemed to vaporize into a sour, poisonous gas. I could barely breathe.

“Answering your questions, Miss Turner, isn’t part of our deal,” he growled.

He turned away, and I grabbed his arm. It was as hard as a block of cement.

He effortlessly slid from my grip and glared down at me. Though he was about six-three, which made him seven or eight inches taller, he felt like a menacing giant five stories tall.

Still, I didn’t care. “I’m changing our deal!” I screamed.

“You think you can?” he responded calmly. “You think you’re in a position to challenge me? I own you, Mia. I control what happens to you. I can arrange to have you thrown right back in that interrogation room.”

He had spoken to me as if I were his dog. No. Even lower than that. He’d spoken to me as if I would be the luckiest person in the world if he bothered to let me lick his perfectly polished, black shoes. And it seriously set me off. I wasn’t worthless. I wasn’t his…his…

“Fuck you, King. I’m not one of those whores you bring to your office. I’m not going to bend over and take it from you.”

He laughed coolly into the air. His broad shoulders shook beneath his fine black suit.

“What’s so funny?” I fumed.

“You. You’re funny. I just saved you, and you accuse me of treating you poorly.” His deep smile lines faded back into his cheeks as he smoothed his hand over his raven black hair, not that anything was out of place. Everything about the man, on his exterior anyway, was spotless perfection, right down to the evenly groomed growth of black stubble on his perfect jaw.

His hard gaze landed on my tearing eyes, then drifted down to my chest again. “Besides, if you were my whore,” he said with the crisp pronunciation of a well-bred gentleman, “right now you’d be sucking my cock, not telling me to f**k myself.”

He turned away, clearly knowing his sharp words had shocked the fight right out of me. “I’ll see you at Palenque.”

“Where are you going?” I blurted, knowing he wouldn’t answer and wondering why I cared.

To my utter shock, he stilled and looked over his shoulder at me. I noticed the muscles of his square jaw ticking. “I have some unfinished business with Agent Guzman. I take offence when people touch what’s mine.” He disappeared down the stairs.

Touch what’s his? Did he mean me? Was he going to do something to that Guzman guy?

“You should be careful,” said a strange male voice.

I jumped in my skin.

A man with short, messy, blonde hair, in his mid-thirties, wearing a short-sleeved pilot’s shirt and black slacks, hovered in the doorway of the cockpit. His thick, heavily tattooed arms—banners with names and dates—were on full display as he gripped the frame of the doorway overhead.

“Sorry?” I said.

He flashed a boyish grin. “Questions piss King off almost as much as when people f**k with his stuff.”

“Who are you?” I asked.

The man looked at his watch. “It’s time to go.” He smiled again. “I’m Mack. And you’d better buckle your seatbelt; it’s going to get bumpy.”

Going to?

~ ~ ~

Shortly after takeoff, the pilot, who flew alone, made a quick visit to the cabin and checked on me. That meant ensuring me he’d switched over to autopilot—yeah, I may have freaked out a little—before pointing me to the snacks, blankets, and safety equipment. It felt surreal flying in a fully loaded private plane—six rows of reclining black leather seats, a large flat-screen TV, and full bar.

Of course, I immediately went for reinforcements: whiskey. I drank two shots and poured a triple. My head hurt, my heart hurt, and my body ached from overexposure to violence-provoked adrenaline. However, closing my eyes was the last thing I wanted; I might see images of those men in the airport threatening to do the unthinkable. Or I might see Justin crying out for me as someone brutally ended his life. No. I mustn’t close my eyes, even though they burned like hell.

I went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. The whites of my eyes were red, making my normally pale blues appear electric. My wavy, blonde hair had certainly seen better days, too.

I laughed at myself. How inane to be worrying about my looks after that horribly f**ked-up situation. But you’re intact, Mia. Nothing bad happened. Thanks to King. And what had I done? Yelled at the guy. Okay, he was a cold-hearted, controlling man, but that didn’t mean I should become him.

Just let it go. You can thank him later.

I returned to the cabin and hovered in the doorway of the cockpit. “So. How long is the flight to Villahermosa?”

Mack called back from his seat, “We’re not going to Villahermosa. We’re heading straight to Palenque. There’s a small private airport there.”

“Oh.” My original flight had me going to Villahermosa, where King’s email said I’d be “collected and transported to Palenque,” like an object.

“King asked me to apologize about making you fly commercial, but he and I needed to be in Mexico City to take care of some business. We weren’t sure what time things would wrap up,” Mack yelled. “By the way, talking over my shoulder isn’t my specialty. Why don’t you come up front?”