Page 275 of Wild Mustang Security Firm

A small rock island to her right provided the perfect loading spot and she towed the inflatable to it. Now she just had to drop low enough for everyone to clamber on board, either cut the inflatable loose or load it, launch a rousing debate with the rest of the guys on why she thought they ought to pull an about face and finish this job once and for all…

…And that would all take so much time that Fariq would have every chance he’d need to bail.

Shit.

The solution that popped into her head was the wrong one and she knew it, but it was the best… no, not just the best, but the only one.

“Avery!” Thom shouted over the radio when she set the autopilot and jumped out of her chair, abandoning the controls long enough to sever the tow line. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“My job!” she rejoined. “I’m going to neutralize Fariq’s pursuit and send the sonofabitch to the bottom of the Med. Last time I checked, coming after this team earned retaliation in kind. It’s past time someone taught Fariq that some consequences are deadly. You know I’m right. As long as he breathes, none of us will ever be truly safe.”

Shutting off her headset, she banked steeply back toward their pursuers. The first two targets were straightforward. She had both the cover of darkness and the Sikorsky’s stealth capability to aid her, and she sank them both with a barrage of bullets designed to shred their hulls without accidentally hitting the men now bailing into the ocean. When the second boat exploded, that was when Avery noticed Fariq’s helicopter bearing down on her from the upper clouds. She was a bit surprised to see Fariq himself in the cockpit at the controls.

“Bring it, bitch,” she smirked, and flew straight at him. She hadn’t been in the helicopter version of a dog fight in years. And although the Sikorsky wasn’t as agile as the prototype she’d been flying earlier, it was far nimbler than Fariq’s and she was a hell of a better pilot than the arms dealer. If he wanted to play chicken, he’d just picked the wrong girl.

She could see the moment Fariq realized his mistake. Coming straight at him, she saw the expression change on his face right before he veered left at the last second. Rolling in behind him, Avery opened fire.

Bringing Christian in from the cold might be the firm’s wedding gift to Finn, but Avery planned to give her the gift of Fariq’s death, no more fear of retaliation, no more fear of death squads coming for them the instant they let their guardsdown. She could hear Thom shouting over the headphones, but she merely eyed her headset as it swung from the ceiling and checked her munitions gauge.

Fariq rolled up, a steep curve meant to get behind her.

“I see you,” she muttered, whipping left to keep him ahead of her. She opened fire, and he promptly dropped. Suddenly seeing the guys on their island beneath him, she yanked her hand from the trigger. “You son of a bitch!”

But Fariq had changed his mind and abandoned the fight, making a run for it. Boosting his engines as fast as they would go, Fariq shot for the protection of what he must have thought was a friendly government’s territorial waters and air space. Whoever remained on his yacht must have had the same idea. They were already speeding there as fast as their ship engines could push them.

“Not on my watch.” Avery chased after Fariq. If she could stop his escape before he reached safe air space, then she would be in the clear—international air space. Fariq’s people had, after all, fired on them first. Initially. At some point in the recent past. According to the report she intended to file.

Once he was down, his yacht would be easy pickings.

“I’ve got you.” Locking onto his aircraft, she fired her rockets and immediately wheeled out of the way. Even so, the heat and force of the explosion as Fariq and his smaller chopper burst into flames rocked the Sikorsky. Fariq’s craft fell like a burning stone, hitting the water not far from the fleeing yacht. “Don’t worry,” she smirked, redirecting her attention onto the much slower vessel. “I haven’t forgotten about you.”

She had one rocket left and one target, and she had no problem making sure the two of them met. She crippled the yacht and watched as the last of Fariq’s crew scrambled into lifeboats and put distance between themselves and Avery’s final target. She fired mid-ship and watched as the yacht and thelast of Fariq’s organization was destroyed. Circling the wreckage, Avery made sure both the yacht and chopper were sinking to the bottom of the sea.

Knowing the team was safe and waiting, she picked up her headset. “Rubber Ducky! Mustang Sally. Meow.”

“Don’t you meow me! Get your ass back to this rock and pick us up,” growled Thom.

“Coming, Daddy!” she said teasingly.

Thom lowered his voice. “Not yet, but you will be.”

“I love you too.” She grinned, hardly able to contain her glee. She doubted if she was the only one, although—apart from Finn—it was hard to find one smiling face among the Wild Mustang men who stood waiting for her to touch down on the rock she’d stranded them on.

Finn bounced into the chopper as soon as she could clamber aboard. “Thanks for coming after me.”

“I think Mandy’s going to have to give you a new bandana,” Avery responded. Turning to the rest of the guys who were climbing in around Finn, she tried to study their faces and, in particular, Thom’s as he made his way to the copilot’s seat. He definitely wasn’t smiling, not even when she said, “Buckle up. Next stop, Cadiz. We can rent a jet and arrange for our chopper’s transport back to the United States. Y’all may as well get some rest, I’ll get you home.”

“You always do,” John said, taking his seat.

Thom remained silent.

Double-checking her gauges and setting her course while everyone got situated, she eyed him. He just opened his laptop. He seemed neutral. Painstakingly so. Well, shehadleft him stranded on an island. He would probably have a thing or two—or twenty; she squirmed where she sat—to say to her when they got home, but hopefully once she explained that there simplywasn’t time to do anything except the course of action she’d chosen, then he might go easy on her.

Right?

As if he’d read her mind, the look Thom shot her then said clearly,don’t count on it.

Fifteen hours later, Avery taxied down the landing strip at the headquarters of the Wild Mustang Security Firm to a round of applause and cheers from everyone else with the company. Avery was the last one off; Thom had been somewhere around the third or fourth, but at least he’d waited for her just outside at the bottom of the stairway.

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