Page 14 of Collapsed

“She loves you guys. In all honesty, I doubt she will even blame any of you,” Marcela tries to reassure us, not fully understanding our shame or pain since they are just friends, not lovers. Plus, she executed her part of the plan that day perfectly. Silence envelopes the car for a few minutes, all of us sulking.

I let out a deep breath. “I probably feel the worst out of all of us, you guys. I shouldn’t have waited so long to come inside. I should have entered as soon as you stopped responding to me or as soon as I stopped hearing your voices speaking to each other. Now, I am left with the ‘what ifs’ forever.” I rub my neck muscles that are so strained from the stress as I think. “What if I came in, would he still have been able to take her?” I toss my hands into the air. “What if we would have been able to kill him? What if one more man would have been the magic number? We could have taken him down, and Alexie could have been the one to kill his father, I don’t know, man.” Running my hand back and forth across the top of my head, I know I look like a hot mess of worry and self-loathing.

“I regret not getting to kill my papa, but we will never know, my friend. As much as I hate to say it, Umbra is an evil, resilient son-of-a-bitch. He may have accomplished his goal no matter what we threw at him,” Alexie says, making me feel just a little bit better.

King and Stryker both let out grunts like irritated teenage boys, and the car falls silent again for the last ten minutes or so until we pull up to the small airport. Stryker lets the guard know who we are, and he opens the gate, pointing in the direction of a hangar with our plane waiting right outside of it.

With the five of us all crammed into our SUV, it has to look ridiculous when we park and all pile out, looking like a clown car. Gathering each of our bags from the trunk and handing them off to King and Alexie to carry, we start making our way across the tarmac to the private jet we have been using lately.

As we approach the jet, we hear the roaring of an engine in the distance getting closer and louder. A familiar car rolls up, stopping in front of the jet, screeching tires and all, and causes us to stop in our tracks. Turning to investigate, Katia storms out of the back seat, leaving the door wide open. She runs towards us, yelling in Russian. I can only assume this is all directed at Alexie since she is speaking in their native tongue, and he is the only one who can understand what the hell she is saying. Then we realize why the car looks familiar. It is Lane’s black Audi A4 with BJ in the front seat and Lane driving. BJ pops up out of the sunroof, talking over the engine and the Russian who's yelling at the bottom of the steps.

“Listen, fellas!” she shouts, looking directly at Stryker and me, “I told you that keeping her back was going to go over like a turd in a punch bowl. I couldn't hold her back, and she threatened to steal Lane’s car. You all know he loves this thing, so we offered to drive her here.” She shrugs about it unapologetically.

My hand comes up to smack myself in the forehead.I knew this was going to happen.

“You bunch of assholes are sadly mistaken if you think you are going anywhere to find our girl without me. She just got me back, and you better be sure I will be there with you to retrieve her now!” She reaches up, hitting Alexie right in the chest. “And you, how dare you agree to this!”

Alexie looks up at Stryker, begging for him to answer her. “Shit! I swear to god, these women around here are crazy. Sorry, Marcela,” he growls when she hits his shoulder with her travel neck pillow and gives him a dirty-ass look.

She runs back to grab her bag from the open back door of the Audi and sprints back, pushing past all of us and making her way up the steps to Stryker.

Lane slowly starts to pull away as BJ waves from the sunroof, yelling, “Bye… Have fun, guys!” She blows a kiss our way before disappearing back down into the car.

Katia

Lanewastakinghissweet time driving to the airport. I kept yelling at him to go faster, but it felt like he wasn’t listening to me. It might not have helped that I was shouting in Russian, but I can’t believe those assholes really thought they could leave to rescue Nat without me. So much for all of us being together and one big happy family. The first chance they get to leave me behind, they do. I can understand there might be some difficult feelings because Nat and I hooked up without her talking to all of the guys first, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to just accept being cast aside.

When we pulled up to the hangar, all those pricks were standing there getting ready to board the plane. Lane got me here just in the nick of time. I’ll have to make sure to apologize for yelling so much, but it’ll have to wait until we return with Nat. Right now, I’m fuming at the assholes standing in front of us. I bolt out of the backseat as soon as the car stops and storm toward them, shouting, “Nat rescued me, and there is no way in hell I won’t be doing the same for her! There isn’t a chance in hell that I’m going to let you four bastards in front of me stand in my way!”

I beeline for Alexie because his betrayal stings the most. With a closed fist, I punch him square in the chest.Fuck, that hurt.How dare he leave me behind? He’s supposed to be my closest confidant in the group. We’ve known each other since we were kids, and now he’s siding with these three men that he has only known for a short time. This really has me questioning if he now sees me as a threat to him and Nat being together.Do they all see me that way?

Suddenly, I realized in my fury I forgot my bag in Lane’s car. I run back and grab it, only to turn around as Stryker ascends the steps to the plane. Running as fast as my legs will carry me, I run past all the guys and Marcela and make my way up to Stryker. “If you have a problem with me, say it now so we can move on because you don’t get to pick and choose when it's convenient for me to be around Nat.” I push past him on the narrow steps and make my way inside the plane.

Entering the plane, I’d almost forgotten how nice it was. Last time I was here, it was returning from that hell Ivan and Andrei put me through in Vegas. I close my eyes, taking a few deep breaths, trying to keep my mind away from what happened there.

“You good?” Stryker asks. I take another breath to collect myself before opening my eyes and turning towards him.

“No, Stryker, I’m not good. The woman I love is being held captive by a soulless lunatic. Knowing that he might be putting her through the same hell that he put me through is enough to make me sick.” I have to pause because I’ve tried really hard tonotthink of what she might be going through. Nat is strong, but no matter how strong someone is, they shouldn’t have to experience hell to prove it. “Do you know what makes this even worse?” I ask him, but he stays silent. “The fact that none of you thought I deserve to be here. As if you are the only ones worthy of being there for her. I wasn’t even given an option,” my voice starts to get louder because how dare he do this. Yes, I’m blaming him now because he’s supposed to be the leader, so I know he made this choice. “You tried to fool me,” I continue raising my voice at him, “You used BJ to try to keep me in the dark!” Abruptly, I turn from him and move towards a group of four seats at the back of the plane with a table in between them.

Sitting down in one of the seats next to the window, I unpack a bottle of water and book from my bag. I look up to see Stryker move past all the other seats and continue toward me. To my surprise, he shuffles over and sits in the seat directly across from me. He sits down and leans back in his chair, looking at me. We continue to sit there for a moment, eyes locked on each other, with tension continuing to build between us. Fortunately, the others boarding the plane interrupt our staring contest. If the tension kept building too much, I might have reached across the table to try to choke him.

Everyone must feel the same tension because none of them sit in the other two chairs by us. Entering the plane last is Alexie. I follow him with my eyes as he sits at a pair of seats with Conrad. After he sits, he glances up, catching my stare. He gives me a sympathetic look and a small smile before blowing a kiss in my direction. I look down without responding to him.

The pilot announces that we’re clear for takeoff and to put on our seatbelts. Flying is not something I’ve done often, and there always seems to be an anxiety that comes with it.

The takeoff is very bumpy, and the pilot lets us know it's due to incoming storms in the area.Please, don’t be a bad omen.We’re still in quite a bit of turbulence after the plane has leveled out. A large bump makes my hand shoot out, gripping onto one of Stryker’s hands. As he squeezes my hand back, I try to rip it out of his grasp. He doesn’t let go, and I look up, meeting his eyes.

“Katia, I’m here for you,” he tells me. “There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to keep the people I care about safe. We all feel that way,” he says these things in a calm tone. I want to believe him, but his actions today make me question everything.

“How can I trust that, Stryker?” I ask him, keeping my voice low so the others don’t overhear. The last thing I want is for one of the others to jump into this conversation and take his side.

“I didn’t leave you behind because you aren’t worthy of being here,” he retorts.

“But you did try to leave me behind. After everything Nat went through to get me back, I owe her the same, if not more.” I can feel my voice getting harsh. “You don’t get to decide–”

“I did decide,” he cuts me off. “It was my decision and mine alone.”

“Don’t turn yourself into a martyr to spare everyone else,” I tell him. Stryker is a great leader. He definitely made the final decision, but none of the others thought it important enough to fight for me.

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