A Dangerous Tryst (The Inheritance Book 3) Page 17

  It was only a matter of time. Cole felt it in his bones.

  “Yes, yes, get in,” the officer said with a gesture to the vehicle.

  Cole guided Madalina to the back door and helped her inside. He put a finger to his lips when it looked like she might launch into a flurry of questions. If the officer got wind of a problem, he wouldn’t drive them anywhere, which would force Cole to “borrow” a car. The brief glance he shared with Damon and Brandon as they embarked proved that his brothers were of the same mind as he. They, too, were expecting something more from Lance and were anxious to put distance between them and the building.

  Moments later, the vehicle rumbled out of the parking lot onto the street.

  Jammed in the seat between Cole and Damon, Madalina tried to make heads or tails of what had just happened. One moment she was alone in a room—the next she’d been bustled out of the building and put into Cole’s care. The Lance sighting had unnerved her, even if she’d finally realized that Lance had been in the custody of Nepalese officials. Now Cole was acting un-Cole-like—or like he usually acted right before a confrontation. Tension bled off his body in palpable waves, and the way he kept glancing behind them made her think that they weren’t free of Lance or the authorities at all. She couldn’t ask questions, which left her to make educated guesses as to what the problem might be.

  We’ve got only a little time. Cole’s warning didn’t seem to be in relation to turning the dragons over to the Chinese agents, so she thought it had to do with Lance and his team. Maybe he expected Lance to break out, or fight his way out, or somehow get released. What else could it be? Nothing else she could think of would make Cole act this way. Perhaps he thought the Vietnamese group in charge of obtaining the dragons would spring Lance and his men to continue pursuing the artifacts.

  It could be any or all of those things.

  “Thad cleared the flight,” Damon said under his breath.

  Madalina glanced from Damon to Cole to see his reaction. Cole leaned forward to get the driver’s attention.

  “Can you drop us near the private airstrip instead?” Cole asked.

  The driver hesitated, then nodded curtly and swerved into another lane, taking the first hard left he came to. Madalina clapped a hand down on Cole’s thigh to brace herself. It was all she could do not to blurt out question after question.

  “Take whatever shortcut will get us there faster,” Cole added. He settled his hand over Madalina’s.

  Tilting her head toward Cole, she whispered near his ear. He couldn’t expect her not to ask something. “You think Lance will somehow get free of custody and come after us?”

  A brief, contemplative expression crossed his features. “I think he and his men will fight their way free. I’m guessing they knew they couldn’t get past the roadblocks, so they didn’t take extreme measures to evade the authorities. Maybe Lance thought he could talk his way out of it or something, or rely on someone to spring him from custody. The point is—now that he’s seen us, he doesn’t plan on waiting to get out.”

  The vehicle turned onto a dirt road, bouncing over ruts and puddles left over from the rain.

  Madalina said, “He won’t know where we’re going—”

  “Won’t he?” Cole slanted a look sideways. “Lance won’t be content to just let us go. Of course not. Because he loses his one and only lead to the dragons. You. He’s got to know we’re on the run, and what’s the fastest way to get out of the country? By plane. He knows we’ve got access to a jet and that it’ll take off from the private airstrip. It’s not difficult to deduce if you think about it. And he’s trained to make educated deductions about where his prey will go and what they will do.”

  “Why don’t we take a train or hire a car or something, then, to drive to another city and fly from there?” she whispered.

  “That takes time. What if we’re waiting on a train platform and he shows up? I don’t know if they have trains going where we need to go, which will take time to figure out. A driver might drive us around town, but he isn’t going to go hundreds of miles into China. Our best bet is to try and beat Lance to the airport and get off the ground before he gets there,” Cole said.

  As if fate decided to take matters into her own hands, the truck lurched hard to the right and came to a sudden stop. Madalina bumped into Damon from the impact, murmured an apology, and watched as the driver put the vehicle into different gears. He stomped the gas pedal, shifted again.

  Nothing. The wheels spun and the truck didn’t budge. Finally, the driver opened the door and hopped to the ground.

  “Dammit.” Cole, one hand braced against the seat for stability, got out as well. Damon followed suit. Sucking sounds came from their boots as they traversed the mud pit.

  “You’re kidding me. We’re stuck?” Madalina asked Brandon, who stared intently out the window from the backseat.

  “We’re in a rut. The ground’s too muddy, and the truck weighs too much,” Brandon said, opening his door. “Not good.”

  Foliage and trees crowded each side of the road, not as thick as she’d seen in some places but thick enough to make it appear that there wasn’t a city or another human for miles. She couldn’t tell how far they’d gone from town or how much farther it was to the airstrip. Brandon was right: this wasn’t good.

  Gathered near the front tire, the men stared down in contemplation. Cole glanced back along the road every few seconds, Madalina noticed, which told her how concerned he really was about Lance’s group. Then he came to the window and ducked his head in.

  “We’re going to find a piece of wood and try to lever the wheel out of the hole. I’m willing to spend only five minutes to free the truck, then we’re going ahead on foot,” he said.

  “How much farther to the airport?” she asked. In periphery, she saw Damon and Brandon hunt for a suitable log.

  “Maybe twenty minutes on foot. I want you to keep watch out the back window—”

  “Should I get out, too? Less weight in the truck?” she asked before he could finish.

  “No. Stay in here. Keep watch, and if you see—” Cole paused when the distant echo of gunshots reached their ears. He opened the door and reached for her hand. “Out. Now.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Cole didn’t need anyone to tell him what had just happened: Lance had made a proverbial jailbreak. Not willing to wait around a second longer, Cole helped Madalina to the ground, swinging her feet over the mud pit to firmer terrain. He met up with Brandon and Damon, who were wedging a thick piece of gnarled wood beneath the tire. The officer, on alert, pulled his weapon from its sheath and handed Cole the keys.

  In essence, they were on their own. The officer obviously felt his presence was better served at the shooting, and took off at a run back the way they’d come.

  Cole wasn’t about to argue. Instead, he circled around the back of the vehicle, opened the rear gate, and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw a cache of weapons in black crates. This wasn’t your everyday police vehicle, but part of a unit built for riots and unrest. While Damon and Brandon grunted with the effort to free the tire, Cole snatched up several guns and spare magazines.

  “Madalina. Take these. Give two guns to Brandon, two to Damon. Along with these clips.” He handed her the weapons and ammo so that he could continue to stock up and load his vest. Once done, he circled the vehicle and got into the driver’s seat.

  Revving the engine, he put the truck into low gear and, slowly, attempted to get free of the pit. The truck rocked forward on the log, then back, and forward again. With a surge, the truck broke free of the pit just as Cole was about to abandon it altogether and take cover in the woods.

  “Get in, get in!” he said. Damon and Brandon were already yanking open doors and helping Madalina inside.

  “Lance must not have wasted any time making a move back there at the station,” Damon said as he fell into a seat.

  “Probably because he knew that if he waited too long, we might get the jum
p on him and disappear,” Brandon added.

  As the vehicle surged forward, Cole took to the edge of the winding road, where the ground was harder, more compact. It made for a treacherous ride and much jostling. Speeding toward an upcoming juncture, Cole clenched his teeth and hoped that Lance’s team got caught in a time-consuming firefight with the officers.

  A pop and whoosh preceded the slowing of the truck. Even when Cole jammed the pedal down, the truck labored along, tilting to one side.

  Brandon glanced back along the road. “Tire has been shot out! They’re behind us. Commandeered some sort of smaller police vehicle. They must have seen we were stuck, then abandoned the car to start on foot,” Brandon shouted. He eased up to perch half out of the window, gun in hand, and fired off five or six shots.

  Cole stomped the gas, refusing to pull over. He needed to find a better place to stop so his brothers and Madalina could get into the brush to take cover.

  Brandon fired off another few rounds, then slid into the vehicle and plopped into the seat to reload. Damon had one hand over Madalina’s head, encouraging her to stay down. Cole took note of these details as he aimed for the next curve in the road.

  “We’re going to have to bail out around the bend. The truck’s getting really hard to control,” Cole said, fighting the wheel. “How many of them are there?”

  “I counted two, but there could be more,” Brandon said. He eased back out the window, perching on the sill to fire off more rounds behind them.

  “Don’t fall out,” Cole said to Brandon as the vehicle dipped sharply into and out of a small ditch.

  “I’m good.” A moment later, Brandon shouted, “I winged one. Might be only one left.”

  Cole sped forward, taking the tight curve as fast as the truck would go. Spotting a thicket to the right, he aimed straight for it. This was their best chance to flee the vehicle and get into the bush. He could tell by the way the trees thinned and the terrain leveled out ahead that the airstrip wasn’t far away at all.

  At some point, no matter what else happened, they would have to eventually break cover and run for the plane.

  Out in the open, lacking trees, brush, or anything else to hide behind.

  “Get ready; I’m about to pull over and stop!” he warned the others. Driving straight up to the thicket, he jammed the brakes and put the truck into park. Killing the engine, he launched himself across the front seat rather than expose himself by exiting the driver’s door. That would put him on the road, in plain sight of their pursuers.

  Brandon fired off another two rounds, providing cover as he hopped from the window to the ground.

  Cole reached for Madalina as Damon ushered her quickly from the truck, intending to shield her with his body. She had only mere feet to go to get into the thicket, where Brandon had taken up a position to continue firing. In the moments when Brandon paused again to reload, Cole felt something punch in and out of his shoulder, strong as a sledgehammer. He staggered several steps forward before a knee buckled and he went down.

  Madalina’s sharp cry of alarm and the small spatter of blood across his vest confirmed the worst: he’d been shot.

  Madalina knew instantly when Cole slipped to one knee what had happened. There were few things in this world, in her mind at least, that could fell such a fearless fighter. Instinct took over; she turned back, disregarding her own safety, to grab Cole under his other arm and help stabilize him until he was behind the prickly thicket.

  “Damon!” she whispered, afraid to shout. She didn’t want anyone else to hear that Cole had been hit.

  “I got him,” Damon said, coming up on her other side. He aided her effort to get Cole behind the brush, then stepped back into the open and fired at some distant point on the road.

  Hearing Brandon curse, then mention something about the men being pinned down, Madalina tried to get Cole to lie flat on the ground. “Be still. Let me see,” she said, leaning across his body to get a look at the wound.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” Cole said, resisting her attempts to lay him flat.

  Madalina gauged the flow of blood from the gunshot, a difficult task due to the long-sleeve black shirt he wore beneath the vest. “You’re not fine; you’re shot. Now hold still.”

  He liberated a gun from his vest with his good arm, thumbing off the safety.

  She said, “I don’t think so. Cole, you can’t engage. You’ll make yourself bleed more. Damon and Brandon have it under control.”

  Madalina wasn’t sure that was the truth, but the brothers were positioned on either side of the thicket, taking shots with more care than before. It seemed to Madalina that they were just waiting for the right opportunity to strike. To catch the enemy in an unguarded moment.

  “Madalina, we’ve got only so much ammunition here,” Damon said during a lull in the shooting. He kept his voice low, glancing her way with a direct look that conveyed the seriousness of his words. “You need to get Cole away from here; help him get to the plane. Follow the line of brush and cross only when you hear a barrage of bullets. That’ll be when Brandon and I are providing the most cover. Get him across the tarmac and head straight for that big open area. You’ll see the small terminal and the runway.”

  “Quit talking about me like I’m passed out cold,” Cole muttered. Kneeling next to Madalina, he ignored the wound and shifted closer to Damon, like he intended to join them in the hunt for the adversary. His features pinched into an expression of a man fighting off pain. Frowning, lips pressed tight, he seemed to struggle to retain focus. “It’s not a mortal wound. It’s just annoying.”

  “It could become a mortal wound if it’s allowed to continue bleeding,” Madalina said. She curled her arm through his good one and tugged him deeper into a crouch. “Come on. You heard Damon. We don’t have enough ammunition to stay pinned down forever. Let’s move down to the next thicket and get across the road.”

  “I said I’m fine—”

  “Cole West, don’t argue with me right now.” Madalina wasn’t taking no for an answer. He was tough as nails, she knew, but a bullet wound was a bullet wound, and she refused to allow him to bleed out because he was stubborn.

  “Hurry up. I’ve got only two full magazines left,” Brandon said.

  Cole paused as if in consideration, then handed Brandon and Damon each two extra clips of ammo.

  Madalina held her hand out for Cole’s gun.

  “I can still shoot,” Cole said, nudging her toward the edge of the thicket.

  “You’re going to aggravate the wound—” Madalina let her protests fade as Cole guided her along the side of the road, using the brush as cover. Looking for the best place to cross.

  “Right here,” Cole said, coming up to a stand of trees at the edge of the lane. “We’ll cross when the boys open fire again.”

  Madalina stood beside him, close enough for their shoulders to touch. She didn’t miss the slight sheen of sweat on his forehead or how his usually bronzed skin appeared a shade more pasty than usual. The striking blue-green of his eyes gleamed with determination despite the pain she knew he must be in. His strength gave her strength. “I love you, you know.”

  He paused, then leaned down to press a hard kiss to her mouth. “And I love you, too. You’re holding up really well.”

  “I learned from the best,” she said, cheekily daring to throw out a compliment regardless of their situation. She found it easier to cope with the stress if she went with events rather than fought against them. Nothing good would come of shutting down or giving in to fear.

  He smiled more with his eyes than his mouth, letting her see his affection and a flicker of amusement that faded when a sudden barrage of bullets heralded Damon and Brandon’s attempt to cover their retreat.

  It was almost as if she could sense Cole’s intent as his muscles tightened and he broke free of the trees. She darted from cover with him, swiping a thin limb away from her face. In those moments, when she felt most exposed, her concern was all for Cole and none f
or herself. Instinct caused her to try and use her smaller body to block his from bullets.

  She shouldn’t have been surprised to see him switch positions to try and do the same for her. Ducking behind, he stepped to her left, a broad target for any incoming fire.

  So much for attempting to spare him more grievous wounds.

  Navigating around the muddiest sections of the road, she nevertheless wound up with the stuff caked to the soles of her shoes. It slowed her, but didn’t stop her. Cole forged forward as if he wasn’t wounded at all, charging into the brush on the other side to open a swath through the leaves. Heart thundering in her chest, she swiped at branches, glad to have firmer footing beneath her.

  They’d made it without suffering further injury.

  “Are we going to stop and wait for Brandon and Damon?” she asked, ducking a heavier bough.

  “No. If we stop, we give Lance’s men a shot to catch up. Brandon and Damon will pick the best time—hopefully if Lance’s team runs out of ammunition or the men get wounded—to retreat and follow. We’ve left a wide enough trail; they won’t have any trouble finding us,” Cole said. “Besides that, Damon and Brandon know the way to the airport.”

  Regardless of Cole’s reassurances and belief that his brothers would get out of the predicament just fine, Madalina secretly worried. She’d become close to both men with everything that had happened and all that they’d been through together. The thought of losing Cole was devastating; the thought of losing Brandon or Damon hurt just as much, but in a different way.

  They had become family. The brothers she’d never had.

  “Don’t worry,” Cole said as if he could read her mind. He crashed through the underbrush, aiming for a thinning section of trees, where glimpses of the flat land at the airstrip could be seen.