Chad's Chase (Loving All Wrong Book 2) (41 page)

W
ithin a week, Sambo and I were heading to the airport to get on Org’s—
my father’s
—private jet and soar off to Barbados. I had a new passport with a new name: Cindy Vrez. Not exactly sure why I needed a name change, but I got the feeling Org was trying to hide me, bury me deep where no one would find me, or find
out
about me.

I didn’t ask questions, though. Because my life, it wasn’t mine anymore. Hadn’t been mine since the night Chad wiped out my parents. Just been bouncing from one form of imprisonment to the next, always owned, never free.

Although, with Chad, I
wanted
him to own me, I
begged
him to master me, I
loved
being beneath him. Unfortunately, despite my craving to be ruled by him, he set me free. Something I never asked for. He never closed the birdcage and melted the key.

Now Sambo was my new owner. Or maybe it was Org. Whatever, I couldn’t give a shit about semantics. I was in someone’s prison, and no matter whose it was, prison was prison.

Sambo slipped his big, thick fingers through mine as we sat in the back of a town car, like we were a contented couple. “You okay, babe?”

I didn’t pull my fingers free of his, but I didn’t reply or gave him my attention either.

He was sick. Seriously sick.

How could he just steal me and expect me to ease into a
relationship
with him? It’s not even like I was faking shit with him. I’d been pretty straight-up with him about the whole situation, that I wasn’t attracted to him, period, and might never be. Let him know I thought this was imprisonment. And he’d never given any reaction whatsoever. The man was like a bucket of dirt.

What he was expecting out of all this, I had no idea. Didn’t he have an ego or something? Or did my revulsion turn him on? Did he get off on women cringing from his touch? Or did he like the pomp feeling of knowing he had complete ownership of me. Not control, but ownership, granted by my so-called father and my reluctance to beat him senseless and run. Did he not know that if I so desired, I could turn this all around in a snap? That
he
wasn’t the one in control, but me?

Men. Such fucking idiots.

Soon we were on the tarmac, rolling up to a jet. Usually, whenever I boarded one of these impressive white jets with that familiar gray and red stripe on the side, it’s because I had someone somewhere in the world to go “take care of”, or when I was returning from “taking care of” someone, somewhere in the world.

I idly wondered how many of those babies The Organization owned, seeing as sometimes there were as much as five assignments being carried out at the same time in different parts of the world.

When the car stopped, I removed my fingers from Sambo’s, opened the passenger door, and clambered out. No need waiting on him to get out and open it for me, pretending to be something we weren’t.

The driver got out at the same time and busied himself with our luggage.

Bringing my hand above my eyebrows to shield my eyes from the sun, I looked up at the jet, at its length, its height. Then all of a sudden, I didn’t feel like moving to Barbados anymore. I was a confused wreck. Unstable, with suppressed grief. Grief I needed to let out before it fucked my head to smithereens. No matter where I ran off to, I would never be content. My life was a shitfest. Pointless. And what I
really
needed right then, more than anything, was death.

A pretty blonde hostess appeared atop the steps leading up to the jet, a trained smile plastered on her face. By now I knew the hostesses on these jets weren’t just hostesses, and the pilots weren’t just pilots. They weren’t assassins, but because they worked within the realm of The Organization, they were all trained in defense, to kill without hesitation if necessary, or to off themselves should it ever appear they’d be compromising The Organization.

At the time when I’d learned all this from an air hostess while heading out on an assignment, I hadn’t known about The Organization. Just The Voice. Now I had a full understanding of it all.

Rounding the vehicle, I headed toward the jet, then up the steps. The hostess’s eyes on me were sharp, assessing. She had curly, honey-blonde hair cropped just above her shoulders, a gold hairpin scooping up one side. The shade of her lipstick, a pinkish-red, was fucking hot, nothing short of a turn-on. I wanted to kiss that lipstick right off her lips then transfer the residue to her pinker lips down below.

She stuck her hand out when I finally got to the top of the steps, and I studied it before I took it, noting that she had long, slim fingers—which I preferred—with square nail beds painted a similar pinkish-red as her lipstick. “Nice to finally meet you, Jhay Byrd. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Her hands were a little too soft, though. Made me wonder how often she’d ever had to grip a gun. “It’s undeniably a pleasure to meet
you
…”—I dropped my gaze from her distractingly luscious lips to her name tag—”Ayra.”

I slackened the clasping of our hands but didn’t let go, and instead swept my palm up the erogenous soft skin on her inner wrist. When the expected sound of her breath catching hit my ears, I whispered, “And I look forward to
learning
a lot about you during this flight.”

She tried to utter something, but only a soft sigh came out as I cruised my thumb-pad from her wrist down to the center of her soft palm and drew a few circles.

I felt Sambo come up behind me on the steps but I didn’t stop.

Ayra glanced over my shoulder and cleared her throat. “I’m not sure what you—”

Gripping her wrist, I yanked her in closer to me and whispered against her blushed cheek, closer to her ear, “If you’ve heard all about me as you formerly stated, then you know
exactly
what I mean.”

Ayra swallowed, and I let her go, allowing my hand to fall to her hip then drift teasingly across her waist before I walked off into the jet.

Tan interior, big, comfy chairs, monitors, fruit salads and champagne, red and gray striped carpeting down the aisle—it was the same as the others.

I opted for a seat closer to the front, hoping Sambo would take a seat far from me to give me some space, instead of the empty seat facing me across the table.

Hearing him lumber down the aisle toward me, I sighed and dipped into my satchel for my e-reader and powered it on.

Sambo sat down in the seat across the table. A minute of nothing, then, “This how you’re always gonna be? Acting like you got no respect for me?”

Tapping on the J.R. Ward e-book I’d started reading the night before, I replied, “Sambo, I’m not
acting
like I have no respect for you.”

I could practically hear his teeth grinding. “I’ve been extremely patient with you, Jhay. Reasonably tolerable. But if you don’t want to see the bad side of me, the side that’ll fist you in the face then jerk off on the bruise, I suggest you—”

Ayra materialized, her trained smile still in effect.

Setting my e-reader face-down on the table, I gave her my undivided attention.

“Now that you are both settled, we will be taking off in fifteen minutes,” she said flowingly, her eyes avoiding me, looking only at Sambo. “Please know that I am here at your disposal. So if there is anything I can help you with…”—she looked at me here— “anything at all, don’t hesitate to—”

“I need to have a word with the fucking pilot,” Sambo snapped, voice gruff. Flat-out inimical to Ayra because I flirted with her. “
Now,
bitch.”

Ayra met his stare, and there was a glint of something menacing there in those hazel eyes. Yeah, she was picturing herself beating the shit out of Sambo. Did he not know she wasn’t just a hostess and could probably snap his neck faster than he could stand? Maybe he wasn’t one hundred percent knowledgeable on how The Organization operated. Quite possibly so. Because I’d been assassinating for these people for six years, and knew absolutely nothing about who they were until Chad educated me. So maybe Sambo was partially in the dark, knowing only what they wanted him to know.

Ayra delivered a sly smile, her gaze sliding to me and then back to Sambo. “Sure, sir.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked in an utterly dull tone when Ayra left us, picking up my e-reader once more. “Kick her off the plane?”

“I know you want to fuck her, but it’s not happening,” he gritted out. “Piss me off any further and you’re not gonna like it.”

I rolled my eyes, only half-lending him my attention. “Easy with the threats, Sammy boy. Last I remember, I was the one who had
your
life in my hands. You should be thanking my deceased lover you’re alive, you worthless shit. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.” Taking my eyes off the e-reader, I set the thing down again, then rested my hand atop the table and locked my gaze with his. “And don’t forget who my father is, or the fact that he owns you now because you’re a lazy shit who wants to keep me so you can mooch off him.” I pushed forth a little victory grin at the tightening of his jaw. “You. Can’t. Touch. Me.”

Sambo’s hands fisted on the table, his jaw working, but he had nothing to say, because he knew I was right. Like I said earlier, I might be forced to stay with him, but he wasn’t the one in control. I was.

A throat cleared above us. “You wanted to see me, sir?”

What the…?

I froze.

Sambo froze, the anger sliding off his features as fear took over.

That voice.

That smooth, suave, serene voice.

Holy. Fuck
.

How was this even possible?

Sambo watched me as I watched him, neither of us looking up. I didn’t want to look, because I was afraid if I looked up, I would wake up and find this was all a teasing dream. That I didn’t just hear him speak. That he wasn’t really alive. That he really did die. That everyone hadn’t been fucking lying to me.

I didn’t want to look up because I wanted this so much to be
real
.

Sambo was stronger than I was in that instance, because he broke our frozen gazes and slowly tipped his head up. I watched his Adam’s apple bob weightily in his throat. “The hell’s this, Niiveux?”

A suppressed gun appeared next to Sambo’s temple, and my breathing hitched when I saw the hand holding it.

That hand that was so gentle in its touch. That long index finger on the trigger, how hot and slippery it used to look with my arousal all over it. That thumb, the skilled manner in which it would circle my clitoris…
ohmygod
I missed that hand.

“You insult me by asking this, Sambo,” my undead lover replied in that beguilingly easy voice of his. “You stole my favorite toy. And now, playtime is over.”

His favorite
toy
? This made me look up, about to tell him just who was a toy and who wasn’t, but not a word could leave me at the sight of him. He was dressed impeccably like a pilot, full get-up, hat and all. And oh what a hot ass pilot he was. He was fresher than early morning breeze, everything about him exuding sex, power, and control. I wanted to fuck him. Right there. I really wanted to pause this moment with him and Sambo and fuck him standing up.

Time freeze. Please. I needed a goddamn time-freeze remote.

Chad kept his eyes on Sambo, not giving me the courtesy of an acknowledgment.

“B-But Org—” Sambo started to stutter.

“Org has been playing a game,” Chad said, “And I’m playing right back.”

“What?” Sambo looked confused.

“You didn’t know he’s made me his right-hand man? That I now have control of his team, access to some of his power, the ability to find anyone, anywhere in the world?” A humorless laugh left him. “Why do you suppose he did that, Sambo, unless he wanted me to find you, and kill you?”

What the actual fuck?

Sambo looked from Chad to me, me to Chad, as if hoping I’d save him. “But Rafail…Jhay. He’ll kill—”

“My father is subdued and you’re a fucking fool,” Chad said. “A fool to think Rafail would’ve kept his promise and keep Jhay alive. And an even bigger fool to think Org would let you live after you double-crossed him. Org was only giving me the brunt end to make shit difficult for me because I killed the love of his life, Isabel. He’s making me earn the love of
my
life through pain.”

Fucking Org.

Shoulders slumping forward, Sambo sighed, resigned.

“Now how you die, slowly or quickly, depends entirely upon Ayra,” Chad went on as Ayra emerged from the front. “She literally just begged me for this. And with what she had to put up with from my maddening, bisexual girlfriend over there, I feel I owe your death to her.”

Chad lowered his gun. “But I also wouldn’t feel good if I didn’t do this…” Swifter than any of us could register, Chad seized Sambo’s right arm, twisted it back and up, and—
crackkk—
a pointy, jagged bone jutted out from the back of Sambo’s elbow. Arm broken.

Ow!

The big sonuvabitch shouted his pain, his face contorted into a venous, ugly mask. “MOTHERFUCKER!!”

“That’s for touching what’s mine,” Chad told him.

“Fuck you!” Sambo cried, trying to gain control of his broken arm and failing completely. It was a gruesome sight.

Ayra pressed her gun to the back of Sambo’s head and ordered, “Up, up, big boy.”

Sambo grunted with an expression on his face that read “
bitch, I can take you out with one finger”
. But Chad warned, “She has a team of half a dozen armed men waiting outside, Sambo. It’s over.”

At that, Sambo stood up and did as Ayra commanded, escorting him off the jet.

Then it was just us. Me and Chad. Quietness and air.

Removing his pilot’s hat, he tossed it on the seat across the aisle, then sat down where Sambo had just been, resting his gun between us on the table, the muzzle pointing to me.

Minutes passed and all we did was stare at each other. For weeks I thought this man was dead, and here he was, live and in the flesh, sitting right in front of me, hot and sexy and murderous as ever.

“You’re alive,” I whispered, breaking the silence.

His returning tone was cold and unfriendly. “Did you fuck him?”