Page 6 of Brutal Loyalty

“What next?” she asked.

He guided her through the procedure, his own hands busy with the yoke. She continued to press a careful series of buttons and toggles, and Roman was pleasantly surprised at how quickly she acted on each of his commands.

The plane bounced again as engine three sputtered. A tiny cry escaped Elena’s lips, but she continued to follow his instructions while Roman guided the plane and double-checked their coordinates.

“Now, slowly—carefully—pull back on the lever that says three.” He nodded toward four large levers that sat in the middle, between the two of them. “Make sure it says three, and only three, or else one of our functional engines will become nonfunctional.”

“Three. Got it. No pressure, right?” Elena huffed. She pulled back on the lever and the plane bounced wildly, to the point where she froze where she was and stared at him, unsure whether to go forward with the instruction or not. Roman’s knuckles turned white as he held the yoke with all his strength to guide them back on course.

“Slowly! I saidslowly.” This time he hadn’t been able to keep the agitation and fear out of his voice.

“That was slow!” she snapped back.

“Slower!”

“Jesus fucking Christ, I’m doing the best I can! You’re the pilot, not me. Why isn’t this plane safe to begin with? Don’t you know how to do your fucking job!” she screamed at him.

“Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” Roman shot back at her. Of all the people in the world to have to rely on now, why was it her?

“My mother is dead, idiot, but that’s not the point. Why don’t you just pull the lever since I’m not slow enough?”

“Because I have a plane to fly! You can do this, Elena. Just ease it back.” Roman gritted his teeth and continued to hang on to the yoke. He heard her growl in exasperation, but he had to keep his eyes on what he was doing; he had to trust she’d figure it out.

Just when Roman began to doubt her, she put her hand back on the lever and lowered it—slowly. As soon as it was all the way down, he quickly coached her through another series of buttons to press.

The monitor started beeping in a rapid, earsplitting tone.

“Oh shit! What now?” Elena sounded panicked again.

“Same as before, lever three, nice and slow, but this time, you’re going to push it forward,” Roman instructed her.

“Forward. Right. Sure.” She carefully pushed the lever upward, back into its original position.

As soon as lever three clicked into place, the beeping stopped, and the monitor quit flashing. The plane made a gentle whirring noise.

And then, all was still. Roman exhaled and glanced from the front window to the monitor, and then to Elena. She still wore a residual look of panic, but he watched as it faded to uncertainty, and then hesitant relief.

“We did it,” he said gently. “We’re going to get home safe.”

CHAPTER4

Elena

The rest of the flight was tense. Elena attempted to go back to Dostoyevsky, but the words simply blurred on the page, and she found herself staring at the same page for several long minutes unable to take anything in.

They had almostdied! She wouldn’t have even been on this damn plane if it weren’t for her father and his demand that she prove her loyalty to him. The Svodnik expected obedience from the only one of his remaining offspring who would have anything to do with him. Not like Elena had much choice. She wasn’t strong like her sister, Maya, who had walked away from her family and never looked back. Nor was she as callous as Maya, who had left her teenage sister, still grieving the death of their mother, alone with their father.

Without any means to support herself and not wanting to give her father an excuse to carry out his threats, she had fallen into line. But that was before her plane almost crashed.

Sighing, she turned the page despite not having read a single word. It wasn’t like this was her first read of it—she could skip ahead without missing anything. And it seemed important to keep up appearances. But even as she pretended to read, the engine incident continued to replay over and over in her head. Every time the plane hit a bump of turbulence, she paled and glanced to the engine temperature monitors to make sure everything was okay. Roman, however, seemed as cool and reserved as ever, even when speaking into his headset to air traffic control. On occasion, Elena would look over and scrutinize his face, but every time she did, he seemed focused. Almost relaxed.

When they’d first met at the Rose Street Café with Alexandra, she had flirted with him not only as a distraction, but because he was genuinely attractive. His thick hair brushed back from his forehead, his close-clipped beard. His eyes were the same color as a stormy sky, a captivating deep gray that kept sucking her in at odd moments. And even though he’d worn a nondescript black suit each time Elena had seen him, she could tell from the cut of the suit and the way it moved against his skin that he had a hard, fit body.

Attractiveness aside, however, she also remembered the way he had burst into her apartment and bossed her around when Alexandra had stopped by to ask for her help. Who did that? Who just walked into someone else’s home and told them what to do?

Then, just when she’d thought he couldn’t get any ruder, tonight he’d had the nerve to question her. Not only question her, she realized, but also talk to her with the same even, almost condescending tone that a parent used on a surly teenager.

Still, he had remained so unshakably calm during the emergency. He’d known just what to say, and how to say it, to give Elena the courage she needed. Maybe chaufferone wasn’t so bad after all.

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