Page 30 of Play With Me

Chapter 7

Brook

Cameron mumbled something underneath his breath about Kate’s mother, Anna, hiding millions of dollars and the mafia using Anna’s thought-to-be-dead son as revenge. They’d kidnapped him when he was a toddler and raised him to become their killing machine, hunting Kate and Anna.

“It was a perfect plan. Kate wouldn’t have suspected her boss at all.” My brother sat down in the seat by the window while I took mine next to Lola. She buckled up as soon as her ass hit the cushion. Her hands shook and knees bopped up and down.

“All plans have holes. There’s no exception. There’s no perfect plan,” I replied, keeping my attention on Lola, who looked like she was about to go on a trip to hell. She hadn’t looked at me once since we rushed from the condo to the airport. She hadn’t said a word, either, which was very unlike Lola. It made sense that I’d be worried.

While my brother continued to talk about Kate and Anna and how Kate’s thought-to-be-dead brother was the one who had kidnapped her, I leaned over to the side, asking, “What’s the matter with you?”

Lola ignored me, sealed her lips into a straight line, and shut her eyes. She was probably praying that her kidnapped client was still alive.

“I’m the one who should be upset, Lola.”

Still no reaction.

“She was under your nose the whole time and you didn’t say anything.”

One of her eyes opened, threw me a deadly look, and shut again. My gut twisted with worry. It warned me that this could be one of those times when arguing with a woman was not worth it, and so I leaned back in my seat.

As my brother explained something more about Anna burning houses, and dropped the name Cortez every few seconds, I tuned him out. He was obsessed with Kate, and I was better off accepting the fact that I’d need to get along with her whether I liked it or not.

If she was alive.

She’d better be alive; otherwise there was a possibility that Lola could go off even more — this time less like a grenade and more like an atomic bomb.

The engines revved up on the runway. Lola grasped her armrests. Her knuckles whitened underneath the grip, and she shut her eyes.

“Are you afraid of flying?” I asked.

“Not so much flying as plummeting to death in an airplane.”

“I should have known. It’s because you have no control, isn’t it?”

“Fuck, do you even know who’s flying this thing?”

I laughed. She deserved to be played with after the hell she’d put me through. “Of course I do. Lola, you’re fine. We’ll be fine. If you want, though, we can switch our seats to one of the back ones. Statistically speaking, your chances of survival are much higher if you sit in the back.”

“Fuck you!” she screamed, as the plane’s engines roared.

My brows rose. She wasn’t just scared. She was petrified, and now she was mad at me as well.

“Why are you upset with me?”

“Because I’m freaking out here and you’re making this flight impossibly more frightening by talking about crashes and chances of survival.”

“I’m sorry, Lola, that’s not what I meant.” Concerned, I unfastened my seat belt.

“Don’t get up. Don’t you dare get up. Just leave that fucking seat belt on or I swear to God I will never fly with you again.”

I buckled it up again.

“Well, well. I never thought I’d see the day when Lola Lowes was afraid of something other than kids.”

“Don’t get me started on monsters. I don’t need that right now.” She gritted her teeth.

If it were anyone else, I’d tell them that it was karma biting them in their ass because here we were, searching for the woman who’d fucked my family over, and at the snap of Cameron’s fingers, we were now trying to save her life. To be fair, Kate hadn’t known she was screwing us over, and I’d come to accept the fact that she and her mother were both Cortez’s victims.

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