Ruben remained masterfully oblivious to her stubborn glare.
********************
The plane was within minutes of landing.
Suzy and Louise sat either side of Nadia, holding her hands in support. Candy sat opposite them and watched the trio impassively, totally unaffected by the charged emotional atmosphere.
In the cockpit Ruben spotted something out of place on the runway below.
"What the hell is that?"
"Excuse me Mr. Mayweather?" The pilot said.
"That aircraft shouldn't be there."
There were three to five aircraft on the island at any one time and Ruben knew each of them intimately.
This wasn't one of them.
"Take her up again."
"Mr. Mayweather, we're cleared for landing--"
"Just do it."
Ruben was wearing headphones and was in communication with his ground staff. The converted Boeing 787 Dreamliner groaned as it began to pull upwards from its descent. They were so low that the maneuver was potentially very dangerous and the crackle of communication from the ground was almost immediate.
"Take her down Mayweather. Don't mess around or I have an innocent bystander here who I will feed to fuckin' sharks. Do you hear me?"
"Who is this?" Ruben demanded, his demeanor focusing immediately into that part of himself that relished a crisis the way a barracuda relishes biting a chunk out of its fleeing prey.
"Bring the fuckin' bird down Mayweather. I've got a child here too. You wanna hear her scream. Come on honey."
The heart rending scream of a child raked into the earphones making the flight crew wince collectively, but Ruben's face never changed.
"My mistake." He said to the pilot with a smile. "Take us down."
The pilot was highly experienced but he had never been involved in a hijack situation. His adrenaline was pumping already and he had begun to sweat profusely. Looking at Ruben he was mystified. He had heard about how cool the boss could be under pressure but now he was seeing it for himself and it was incredibly impressive, almost scary.
"Yes Sir." He said and took a deep breath to steady his nerves. He sent a reassuring glance to his co-pilot who wore a look of sheet-white terror on her young face.
Ruben saw the glance and immediately put a hand to each of their shoulders.
He shook them attention.
"Don’t worry." He said with absolute confidence. "Stay calm, you're doing an excellent job. This situation is under control."
It was clearly untrue but the conviction with which their boss assured them made the blood return to the co-pilots fresh young face. She was just two years younger than Ruben, but a thousand years away in confidence and experience.
No wonder half the women at Mayweather Services dreamed about getting the man into the sack, even if only for one perverted night.
Chapter Four
The ground crew that welcomed the passengers to the runway was rattled, scared and silently ashamed at the sight of their revered boss and friend Ruben Mayweather descending the airstairs with his hands held behind the back of his head in surrender.
It sent a shockwave through them.
This was the worst of all possible outcomes. They were absolutely cut off from the rest of the world and their one hope of rescue had been their bullet proof, invincible employer.
Not anymore.
"Well, well, well. Ruben fuckin' Mayweather."
A woman with a terrified eight year old girl stood next to Mitch Albstrom, Mikhail Boyevik's erstwhile right hand man from New Jersey.
The mobster was positively gloating.
"Do you know Mayweather, just how fuckin' easy it was for me to find your rich prick island and then turn it into mine?"
Ruben stood directly in front of him, but nodded first to the scared woman with a look that said 'don’t worry, everything is going to be fine' on his handsome face. Then he looked down at the grinning, triumphant Mafioso.
"What do you want?" He said.
Mitch looked up at him and grinned. "Someone cuff this rich prick." He said.
Two men jumped to the task, twisted his strong arms behind him and clicked on the cuffs. Ruben looked down at the little girl while they worked and gave her a wink with one of his trademark smiles. For just a moment the little girl stopped whimpering, mesmerized by the huge bear of a man who had focused his attention on her. He made a ridiculous cartoon face of being in pain and she couldn't help but laugh.
The slim woman accompanying her stroked her little girls hair and wordlessly thanked Ruben with her eyes.
"Good." Mitch said. Ruben was still smiling at the little girl when the blow to his stomach nearly doubled him over.
"Whoo! God that feels good! Mayweather, is that a salami in my pocket or am I just that fuckin' happy to see you again?"
Ruben looked up to try and wink at the little girl one more time but the woman had put a hand over her eyes and pressed her head against her waist to block out the ugly sights and sounds, the hideous language.
Still in situ on the airstairs, Nadia was dumbstruck, heartbroken to the core. Never in her life had she been so deeply wrong about anything. She clung to her mother, shaking, and held on to Suzy who was now screaming at Mitch.
"Don't you touch him again you. Don’t you dare."
"Shut up Suzy." Nadia counseled her. "You have no idea who that guy is."
"I don’t care who he is. He's hurting Ruben."
"Don’t worry about him honey, he's not who you think he is anyway."
Nadia and Suzy looked in shock at Louise.
"Come with me." She gave each of the girls a little shove and then began leading them, dumbstruck, down the stairs. "I've got this under control." Ruben looked up and watched them impassively, as though he were calmly checking the weather.
The flight crew of his jet were shaking, some of them in tears.
"Hey Mitch." Louise said. "You been gettin' my messages then?"
"Sure have Louise." He looked at Suzy and licked his lips. "Who's this you brought with you? Me likey, likey."
He put out a hand to pull her to him but Louise pushed him back.
"She's not yours you fuckin' asshole."
Mitch's hand sliced across the old woman's face and she looked up at him in stunned horror.
"You little prick. Mike will slice you open for that."
"For a little slap on old Louise?" He sneered. "I don't think so. Now come here cupcake." He grabbed Suzy's arm again and began pulling her to him. Nadia held on to her and pulled her back.
"That girl is Boyevik's." Ruben said in a distinct, loud, very calm voice. His poker face betrayed nothing of his desperate bluff.
Mitch hesitated for just a second before bouncing back.
"Fuck off rich prick." He said.
"Do you remember the last victim Boyevik dispatched with his bare hands Mitch?" Ruben was as calm as the grave.
Mitch stopped pulling on Suzy and looked up at his tall prisoner.
"Do you want me to remind you?" Ruben continued. "It was a disagreement over one of his prostitutes. He found out that someone else had--"
Ruben doubled over with another punch to the stomach.
"I know what he did because of that whore. He won’t mind me beating the crap out of you though."
He aimed another blow down onto Ruben's shoulders that bent the big man down on one knee and then he raised his arm again to finish the job.
"Do that again," Suzy said stepping forward, "and when I'm finished sucking Boyevik's dick I'll ask him for yours next - in a ziplock bag." She had picked up instantly on Ruben's tactic.
Mitch took in a sharp deep breath and froze his hand in the air briefly before lowering it back down again.
"Fuckin' hostages. Come on you assholes, let's get going. Boyevik is waiting for his daughter." He put out his hand out like a perfect gentleman. "Nadia?"
"Screw you." She said. "Just take me to my father."
He retracted his h
and.
"Whatever you say mamacita. Great ass by the way." He said to Nadia and then winked at Louise to wind the old woman up.
His men set to rounding up the crew.
"Someone check the plane as well." He said. "Make sure we don’t have any Mayweather heroes hiding in there. You come with me Nadia but remember, you bad mouth me with your old man and I will fuckin' kill you and him. I'm here because that scumbag owes me big time and when I get my cut and back pay I don’t give a fuck what you do with him."
"Sure." She said, following him. If Ruben and Suzy were messing with his head with their bluffing, she wasn't going to be outdone. They had nothing left to lose. "It'll all end right here with a couple of bullets to the head because mom and I never did let any of our friends in Moscow know where my father was being held." Her voice oozed sarcasm. "I'm sure they won’t care if you shoot him and his daughter and leave them without any way of collecting their own cuts and back pay. I'm sure they won’t come looking for Mitch Albstrom, his right hand man in Brighton Beach."
Mitch looked like he wanted to shoot her there and then.
"You mouthy egghead bitch." He said. "Come on get movin'. You better keep praying I don’t change my mind and end this shit here and now on that island."
"She comes with us." Nadia grabbed Suzy's hand. If they were together she would be able to protect her. Suzy was in this mess because of her, she couldn't leave her friend there alone with this pack of violent animals.
"Whatever." Mitch said.
"Hurt Mayweather again, any member of his flight crew or any of these people," she indicated the woman and child, "and my father's friends will bury you and everyone you share blood with in frozen wasteland a thousand miles East of Moscow."
"Jesus Christ Nadia," Mitch feigned hurt, "it was enough with just the death threat already. Frozen wastelands? For cryin' out loud. Come on. Mayweather stays here. He won't be hurt if your old man pays up."
Ruben watched as the woman to whom he had guaranteed protection was led away by a man who clearly intended to kill her on the most remote island in the world, currently inhabited only by one of the 21st century's most cruel and heartless criminal bosses.
This was the very definition the term 'mission out of control'. Normally he would had relished the challenge but this time was different. Suzy glanced back at him and the love in her eyes, the fear of losing each other cut him badly, deeply, irreparably. He stared back at her, his normally strong mouth hanging open but his eyes impenetrably hidden. He was struggling to mask the deepest, realest emotion he had ever felt in his whole life…
Was this what they called love?
*******************
The chopper ride to the small island was short, scarcely five minutes in length, but it was long enough for Suzy to feel as though an ice cold hand had wrapped itself around her throat. She was shaking uncontrollably and the oily perspiration of raw fear on her hands had a nauseating quality.
That this could be it….
She was just beginning to fall in love, for the first time, with the first man who had ever touched her deeply enough to connect with her true self, and now it was all going to be torn away from them.
She looked outside to the sea below. From the moment she had tried to help her friend things had only gotten worse.
Quicksand. All of it inescapable, terrible, suffocating quicksand. The harder you try, the worse it gets.
All of her experiences with Ruben, all of her cleverness, all her vain fencing with him to gain the upper hand and the bargaining of herself to get him to take them all her…all of it had just dragged them deeper and deeper down this accused rabbit hole.
Candy had been right all along. Run. Just cut and run from the get go.
Mayweather's world was a quagmire of thrilling sex and high risk adventure that only people like him could survive.
They were bad news.
Or was it the other way round? Candy in her inimitable way, had referred to her, Nadia and her mother as walking, human shit-storms ruining the otherwise perfect lives of three of the most successful men to ever inhabit the United States of America.
Maybe it was her and Nadia who were the curse in all of this. Maybe Nadia was right just to run away from Clayton without a word. Maybe it was the kindest thing she could do for that beautiful man who had tried to fix her broken world.
She turned her head to look at her friend and hardly recognized her. Nadia was staring down at the sea with a look of broken, terrified defeat on her beautiful pale features.
Maybe there was more to figuring out this world after all than just IQ, because between them they hadn't done anything but screw things up royally despite all of their education, brains and cocksure attitude to life.
Her friend looked back at her and instantly she saw it there in her eyes; they were feeling the same thing, thinking the same thoughts.
End it now. Take this helicopter down in a ball of flame on that accursed rock of an island up ahead and drag all of these vile mafia scum to hell with them. Nobody would ever know it happened, nobody would even bother to look for them. The tragedy of their story would end right there and the those back on Big Island could return to their normal lives.
Or would they?
She watched as Nadia darted a look at the pilot. Her breath froze, her heart skipped several beats.
Fuck, she's going to do it.
The life that she would never have with Ruben Mayweather by her side, blowing her mind and rocking her world, flashed violently before her eyes.
She had to stop this, but how?
What would Candy do?
Candy… where had she gone to? She had never left the plane.
"We're almost there Nadia." She shouted desperately above the roar of the chopper blades. "This will all make sense so soon." There were tears in her eyes. Nadia looked back at her friend, frozen. She had been ready to make the leap, drag them all to their death, but the raw look of pleading in her oldest, dearest friend's eyes made her stop. She could sacrifice her own life, kill these Mafia low-lives, but not her friend. Not without her clear consent.
No. Not yet. If there was a chance of making it out of there alive then she had to take it. Fight to live, struggle to survive until the last bitter moment even if it all failed in the end.
She dropped her head and began to sob, loudly, uncontrollably. Would this pain never end?
"Shut the fuck up bitch." The guard next to her shouted. His head rocked as Mitch raked a slap across his face.
"You shut the fuck up." He said.
Despite his bravado Mitch couldn't shake the idea that even if he buried Boyevik in the sand on this remote island that somehow, someway, the ghosts of Mafia dead would find a way to track him down. Boyevik was a man who terrified those who inhabited the nightmares of others.
He couldn't take the risk.
Nothing would happen to Nadia unless her father ordered it to be so.
********************
Candy lay perfectly still in the overhead compartment that had been shaped specifically for the purpose of hiding one lone operative. It was near the head of the plane with access to both the cockpit and the galley. From a glowing but grainy CCTV feed she watched the two men come into the plane. They were cautious, but still sloppy by her professional standards.
A bitter grin spread across her thin lips.
Probably they had had military training if they were Russian mafia, but years go by, good habits are worn away through lack of use, standards slip.
This was her element. She felt fear but not in the way that ordinary people do, not in the way she used to when she was a vulnerable little girl. Now she was able to channel her emotions and she was in no doubt about the outcome of this minor, temporary obstacle.
It was all she could do to hold back and let them complete their search without sending them both to Mafia hell. What she didn’t need was a siege of the plane or hostages being threatened in order to force her surrender. She let the
men signal the all clear and leave the cabin before she slid back the well camouflaged hatch and dropped lightly to the floor.
She looked out a cabin window and saw no-one in the vicinity, but one of Ruben's choppers was heading to Small Island. She checked her phone to see who was where and hissed a curse under her breath. Ruben was still on Big Island but Suzy and Nadia were on the chopper. It was a setback but not insurmountable. She was one of the very few people who knew this massive luxury compound like the back of her hand. Every gap in CCTV coverage was clear in her mind, every stairwell, doorway that could provide access without being seen. She would gain access, gain control and once Ruben was freed they would squeeze whoever was on that chopper with the two girls.
Within minutes she was in the main building, undetected, and arrived at the main security area where house cameras would give her visuals on intruders and hostages. There was one single guard inside who she dealt with swiftly, locking him into an unbreakable choke hold from behind. She had him gagged and secured within minutes and then went to the bank of screens. A quick scan reveal that all the action was taking place in the main living area. Guards were posted outside every entrance, four in total.
She needed a plan.
Checking her phone again she saw that Suzy and Nadia were nearly on Small Island, Louise was in the main dining area and Ruben was in another location, lower down in the building, probably in the basement.
Her course of action was clear.
Ruben was top priority. If she could free him then the odds would be tipped massively in their favor. With her police SWAT Team background and his Special Forces training they were a deadly combination. It had been a while since they had fought together and in part she was relishing the thought. She longed for that closeness and camaraderie with her boss again that only high stress, shoulder to shoulder combat could provide. In the early days they had often fought side by side, but since the company had exploded into a multinational juggernaut those days were long gone.
Without another thought she headed to the location in which she believed he was being held. In the basement under the main living area there Ruben had installed a high tech development lab where he worked on new ideas in his down time. It included an office area with satellite connections to the rest of the world to guarantee full telecommunications access between the island and the rest of the world.
Her Sweet Surrender: Billionaire Secrets - Book Four Page 6
