Golden Burn (Songs of Crime #1)

3. Etta

3

Etta

‘Come Fly with Me’ - Ruelle

T he iPad in my hands is dead.

I’ve watched four movies consecutively. Toy Story. Tangled. Finding Nemo, and lastly, Up. Bad decision on my part. I cried during every single one.

I don’t know who owns it, but I can’t imagine the three men that surround me having a thing for Disney/Pixar. Maybe they have kids. For the sake of the children, I really hope not.

I’ve been confined to the same chair on this luxury jet for several long hours. I slept for some of it, and used the iPad for the rest. Every time I’ve needed to use the bathroom, I’ve been escorted by either of the two henchmen. Bolt has had his back to me since the moment we got on the plane. He hasn’t gotten up to pee once. I presume he has a special bottle handy for these sorts of occasions.

“I need a charger,” I say to the guy sitting in the chair opposite me. He’s the slimmer of the three, but his height makes up for the lack of muscle mass. He’s dressed in a suit, all business, no time for pleasantries. His glasses are tipped forward on his nose, his black hair cropped short against his scalp, his skin a warm russet brown. He’s been on his laptop the entire flight—type, type, typing away. Intent to ignore me, it seems.

The other man is the shortest out of the three—though not by much—and has to be some kind of hired muscle judging from the way his sun stained skin is stretched beneath his clothes. He’s been reading a book with at least a thousand pages and he’s hardly put it down. His hands are so big they’d easily fit around my throat, strong enough to snap my neck with one well-placed twist.

“Hello?” I try again. I cling to the blanket around my body, pulling it up to my chin as I stick my arm out and shove the iPad in laptop guy’s face. “ Hello? I need a charger.”

Finally, he lifts his gaze. His attention lands on me, thick brows rising high on his forehead.

“I said I need—”

“I heard you.”

“Then why—”

“We’ll be landing in less than an hour. Not enough time to watch a full movie.”

I bristle, the headache that has been steadily pounding against my skull increasing its tempo. “Can I please just…” I sigh, too tired and too overwhelmed to argue. “Can I go to the bathroom again?”

He matches my sigh. “Fine.”

Placing his laptop by his feet, he re-adjusts his suit jacket and reaches to undo his seatbelt.

A semi-familiar voice speaks across the aisle. “I’ll take her.” The man opposite us has put his book down and marked his chapter with a dog ear on the page. I’m not much of a reader, but surely that constitutes a place in hell.

As he bends his arms, I notice a flash of black ink along veiny skin. A skull. A hammer. A lion. A rifle.

Great. Bodes well for me.

I fling the two sections of the seatbelt away, but keep the blanket wrapped around my shoulders. I’m just rising to my feet when another harsh voice cuts through the cramped cabin.

“I’ll do it.”

Bolt is standing next to my tan-leather chair. His posture is slightly hunched since his size doesn’t cooperate well with the low ceilings. It’s both humbling and incredibly intimidating.

Now that he’s closer, I can study him in more detail. His remaining eye is a crisp gray. Almost unnatural. Like they had once been blue, but slowly over many years, the brightness was leached from them. It contrasts starkly against his brown hair streaked through with bits of blonde, the color more obvious in the stubble across his chin.

Even without an eyepatch, he has a kind of terrifying beauty. The kind where you want to stare at it from behind bulletproof glass. There’s no softness, no vulnerability. Just a cold-blooded murderer with a killer jawline and a permanently fixed expression of disdain.

He’s currently staring at me like I’m nothing more than a cockroach that found the entrance to this stunning private jet, crawled in and decided to make myself at home.

It rattles me enough that my despair turns to annoyance.

“Want to take a picture?” I snap as he continues to belittle me with his unflinching stare.

His jaw twitches. “Careful.”

Jesus.

If his voice could not be so fucking sexy, that would be great.

He continues to assess me without words, and it’s as unsettling to receive his full attention as it is to listen to him talk. And that uncomfortable feeling makes me lash out when I normally might be a bit more subdued. I’m quite good under pressure. I have to be. But this is a type of pressure I never could have trained for.

My question remains unanswered. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on? I think I deserve a fucking explanation.”

He leans forward. I lean back. But there’s nowhere for me to go when I’m already pressed against the plane seat. Bolt bends over me, bringing his mouth so he can caress my ear as he says, “Move, Ms Lewis. We don’t have all day.”

My body betrays me by shivering.

I’m ashamed to admit that, back in the clinic, I thought he had a bit more charm. A dark sort of charisma that was enticing before he decided to kill someone in front of me. Now, he’s just being rude.

I do as he asks, shuffling around his imposing frame. As I put one foot in front of the other, I can’t help but mutter. “Fucking prick.”

Large fingers grip onto my bicep and yank me around. I yelp, stumbling forward a step. My kidnapper’s face is so close to mine, I can’t take my next gulp of air. “Swear all you want. You’re not getting any answers.”

“Odin.” Over his shoulder, I see laptop guy has risen out of his seat, his expression firm. “Let her go to the bathroom.”

Despite my rapidly beating heart, I can’t keep my mouth closed. “The one-eyed god, huh? Did you come up with that?”

Odin’s grip on my arm tightens just a fraction. “It’s a warning.”

“Sure.” I swallow a scoff .

His hard body brushes against mine as he grunts. “I’d adhere to it if I were you.”

“Or what?”

His lips twitch as I stare into his gaze. A slate mountain capped with ice stares back. A force of nature with no emotion. But in the depths, deep where no one would dare linger, I think I see a spark of color. Of rage. I’m pretty skilled at reading eyes. My mother taught me how to do it better than my professors. Words aren’t a solid language between myself and my patients. I have to be able to read them, their fears, their joys, their pains. I have to know what they are experiencing without ever hearing it come from their own mouths. Homing in on that talent is second nature the longer I’m held against this dangerous stranger.

“Go on,” he taunts, tilting his chin in the direction of the bathroom and lets me go.

I back away, spinning at the last second and practically race toward the safety of the bathroom. Once inside, I triple check the lock is in place and collapse onto the toilet.

Instantly, I’m bawling. Tears are coming hot and fast down my cheeks, clogging up my throat and pressing on my chest.

The last few hours have been so fucked up, I still can’t process it all.

I’ve been kidnapped. They somehow know I’ve been selling drugs to a gang that I’ve never been in contact with. And I’m fucking terrified I’m going to die.

He killed my father.

It’s still not settling. The bomb that was dropped at my feet. In my mind, it hasn’t gone off yet. The shrapnel is safely contained and waiting.

My father died before I was born. Or so I was told. My mother rarely mentioned him, if at all. Only showed me one of two photos she owned—so blurry and yellow it was impossible to make out the details. It wasn’t enough to build any sort of relationship, so I never gave him much thought, especially when she remarried and my stepfather moved in with us. Why would she lie to me about something like that? What is there to hide?

I don’t understand it at all.

But I can see some things through the haze of my hysteria. For one; his startling eyes and their uncanny resemblance to my own. His dark eyebrows indicated he might have had hair like me when he was in his prime.

My mother’s face was round and peachy, where mine is angular and pale. Her hair was a rich chocolate brown, the strands thin and easily affected by the heat, where mine is black as a raven’s. It always frustrated me how different we looked as mother and daughter. Maybe whenever my mother flinched, it wasn’t because it hurt her to think of my father… It was because she lied to me about him.

I’m not one hundred percent certain my conclusions are accurate. I’m beyond exhausted and so deeply terrified that I think I might be losing my mind.

But I know one thing for sure. I need to get the fuck away from Odin Bolt as fast as I can.

“What did you do with Juniper?” I whisper across to laptop guy once I’m settled back into my seat. I can barely open my eyes, they’re so puffy and raw.

He finds my attention immediately. I’m glad he didn’t decide to ignore me. I’m too fragile right now and hungry for answers .

“She’s safe.” It’s not enough, but it will have to do. “Put your seatbelt on. We’re descending.”

“Where are we landing?”

“Will you promise not to scream when we exit the plane?”

“Yes.”

No.

He smirks, as if he read my mind. “London. We are landing in London.”