Page 16 of Operation Wolf: Eli
CHAPTER 9
Olivia
WHEN I WOKE, Iwas stretched out on a leather sofa in what appeared to be the passenger deck of a lavishly appointed aircraft, the drone of the engines mixing with the pounding of my headache to create a hellish cacophony of noise. I tried to sit up and then gasped in pain as my ribs protested, and I quickly fell back down onto the couch.
“Ah, you’re awake.” Eli got up from the recliner where he’d been reading a magazine and walked over, a glass of water in his hand. “Drink this,” he said, handing me the glass and two white pills. “It’ll help with the pain.”
I wanted to throw the pills in his face, but the pain was bad, and I needed those pills like a crack addict needed a fix, so instead, I allowed him to help me get them down. “Where are we?” I croaked. I gulped down some more water to try to ease my sore throat.
“I imagine we’re flying over Tennessee by now,” Eli said easily as he resumed his seat. “We’ll be landing in Alabama soon.”
“Alabama?” I echoed. “You’re taking me into the deep South?”
Eli chuckled. “Don’t sound so concerned. You might actually like it there.”
“I doubt it,” I said crossly. “I doubt that I’ll like anywhere you take me. I don’t want to be here. I need to be home. My first class is tomorrow—”
“You’re not going to your first class or going home anytime soon, Olivia,” Eli interrupted me, his voice clipped. He turned the page of his magazine. “And we’re not actually going to the deep South, so calm down. We’re going to take a train from there to our actual destination.”
“Which is where, exactly?”
“You’ll find out eventually.”
I let out an infuriated huff and then winced in pain. I made a conscious effort to relax my muscles. Broken ribs were not a picnic. I’d tended to Dad’s ribs on more than one occasion, and he had not been a happy camper.
I never thought I’d ever end up being the one with the broken ribs, though.
Life has been getting pretty dangerous for me these days.
“How many ribs did I break?” I asked tentatively, reaching beneath my shirt and running my fingers across the binding. It was tight and seemed to be wrapped extraordinarily well, though I didn’t know how he’d managed to find a doctor in such a short amount of time. “And who fixed me up?”
“Three, I think,” Eli said slowly, not looking at me. “And I fixed you up. So anytime you want to thank me, I’m all ears.”
“Thank you?” I blurted. “Thank you?” Fury grabbed ahold of me, whipping around inside me like a fierce gale, and if I’d been able to move, I would have launched myself across the cabin and Superman-punched him in the throat. “If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have been injured in the first damn place.”
“Don’t blame me for this shit,” Eli snapped, finally putting his magazine down so he could glare back at me. “I’m not the Mafia daddy who didn’t make sure his daughter was well protected enough before he decided to thumb his nose at the guys upstairs.”
Fury tightened his voice, a growl vibrating in each syllable, and it sent an uncharacteristic fear racing through my veins. I’d never been afraid of Eli in my life, but seeing him here now—looking as feral, on edge, and short on sleep as he seemed to be—I couldn’t help but be a little scared.
“Not to mention that, in saving your ass, I’ve also condemned myself by defying direct orders. So, a little damn gratitude would be fucking appreciated.”
I clenched my jaw at the reminder he was once again working for the mob. The realization that he’d chosen to come back to this life stung me on levels I didn’t want to admit. It meant if he were willing to go back to being a mobster after making a clean getaway, he would never truly leave it, and that meant we would never be together. I’d hoped, one day, during my travels around the world, we might run across each other again and rekindle our old spark. Then we would maybe even run away together, so we could both live free of the mob’s shadow. I might not have had a choice about my Mafia connections, but Eli had, and I couldn’t understand why he’d willingly come back.
What if he didn’t willingly come back? What if he was telling the truth? After all, if he truly belonged to the mob again, he wouldn’t have defied them just to save me . . . would he?
I didn’t know the answer to those questions, but damn if I wasn’t going to find out.
“If you really don’t have any . . . ulterior motives, then I am thankful for what you’ve done,” I said slowly. “But, so help me, if I find out you’re trying to screw me over, I’ll fucking kill you myself.”
Eli smiled faintly and picked up his magazine again. “That’s my girl.”
I opened my mouth to say something and then closed it. Eli didn’t seem like he wanted to talk to me anymore, and I could feel exhaustion creeping up on me, so I let my questions go for now. Instead, I lay on the couch, studying my rescuer.
He’d changed a bit in the years we were apart. When I’d last seen him, he’d been a fresh-faced youth, albeit one who committed more crimes than his innocent, freckled face seemed capable of hiding. Those freckles were gone now, replaced by tawny skin, and what little baby fat he’d carried was completely stripped from his body, leaving behind a raw, muscled physique and finely chiseled facial features.
His aquiline nose, once so straight and perfect, now had a bend in the middle, and I wondered how he’d broken it. His brown hair, which he used to wear long and in a ponytail, was cut short, and it curled no farther than his angular jawline. His blue eyes, once so quick to sparkle with mischief, were hard now, like the finest steel, ready to cut through anyone and anything in his path.
My vision started to blur as I became sleepier, and then suddenly, there was a flash of another image, a more monstrous version of Eli’s face with thick fur all along the edges of his jaw and bloody fangs sprouting from an impossibly wide maw. A shudder racked my body. Then the image was gone, and it was Eli’s regular face I saw again.
A vague memory rose up in my mind, one in which I was lying in a car that had been turned upside down, and the monster I’d just conjured in my mind crawled inside to save me.
Was that Eli?
That’s impossible.
Eli didn’t look anything like that. And monsters like that didn’t exist. They didn’t need to when we had perfectly good monsters running around in everyday life.
I am probably just hallucinating from the medication or something and need to get some sleep.
Yawning, I finally allowed my eyes to close, and I succumbed to the dark abyss of deep slumber.
