by Anne Conley
Jason picked her up and sank her back on his cock one last time, and that’s all it took. He roared his release on a harsh whisper in her ear as she felt him twitch in her over-sensitized pussy. The rippling effect had her spiraling out of control. Mae clutched his broad back and shoulders as her climax ripped through her, leaving her trembling in his arms.
Chapter Nine
“I’m going to the Gulf tomorrow,” Mae said simply as she finished clearing off her desk for Donna to move into it tomorrow. Today was her last day on the floor, and she’d spent most of it moving her stuff to a new office upstairs.
“What?” Jason straightened from the desk he was leaning on. Thoughts about the USB drive came screaming into his head at a riotous pace. He still hadn’t figured out what the bad guys wanted with a clone of their servers—most likely documents—but he couldn’t help but think about the digital calendars and travel itineraries on it.
“Mrs. French said to do it. I’m going with the law team and Karen, the account rep who’s in charge of Chase Oil, one of the major players in this fracking stuff. I’m to help take depositions and visit with the CEO, who’s being uncooperative, hence meeting with him on the oil rig and not any of our offices. Basically, I’m following Karen around and learning some of the ropes.” She shrugged, even though he could see nerves lying under the nonchalant surface. He didn’t like how it was sprung on her, and he knew with a new promotion and her people-pleasing attitude, she wouldn’t want to say no.
“Why so last-minute?” Jason’s eyes were edged with alarm, his hands fisted at his sides.
Mae shrugged again. “Karen is the account rep I’m training under, and she is of the opinion I should do this. I’m worried it will be a wasted trip, though, because the man we’re supposed to be meeting is being very specific and it seems like a blow-off of some sort. He keeps talking about his busy schedule, and the only time we can do this is when he’s on his rig filming some sort of propaganda thing about how safe and happy everybody is, how amazing the off-shore oil industry is, stuff like that.”
“So you’re doing this because the boss said so.” Jason knew he was being overprotective, but he couldn’t help it. The douchebag inside of him spoke up. “I don’t like it. I’ll talk to him. There should be safety measures in place.”
Mae laughed at his seriousness. “Like what? The law department and account execs aren’t heads of state, Jason. Are you going to go as our bodyguard?”
Between clenched teeth, he answered, “I might.” It would make him feel better, at any rate.
**
The helicopter ride to the oil rig had been uneventful yet nerve-wracking. Mae had never flown in anything before, and after a plane ride to Houston, a short drive to Galveston, and a helicopter ride from there, she was frazzled. In her mind, humans weren’t meant to fly, and probably just … shouldn’t. But watching the aqua-blue of the water as it stretched around her for miles was soothing, as long as she kept her thoughts away from plunging to a fiery death only to be extinguished by the expanse of salty water filling her lungs.
The PR lady for the oil company, Noël, prattled on throughout most of the ride about the helicopter, the rig specifications, and all the safety features, until Mae finally just tuned her out. She didn’t really feel any safer knowing she flew in a Dolphin, a refurbished Coast Guard helicopter made by Eurocopter, with the guns taken out to make room for more people. It was still a noisy tin can. Her nerves were shot from the loud noises and lack of anything in the empty air between her and miles and miles of water.
The only thing making her feel the least bit calm was Jason’s reassuring presence next to her, as he held her hand in his. Mae had no idea how he had wrangled a ride with them but was thankful for it nonetheless.
When the helicopter dropped them off, the other one with the rest of the team landing next to them, she was no less surprised and a bit overwhelmed by the sheer foreignness of the industrial rig. It was like an alien spacecraft or something, with all the pipes leading to nowhere all over the place.
Noël seemed to sense her discomfort and promptly led them on a tour of the facilities, taking them inside, where things seemed more like a dormitory than anything else. With a massive kitchen featuring hotel-quality dining, a theater room for the rig workers to relax in, and a gym, the entire facility smelled like a locker room. Mae couldn’t have expected anything different with a hundred or more men living in such close quarters.
But the fact there were no windows where she was lent a measure of comfort, and she found herself calmed somewhat, especially when Jason slipped his hand in hers.
The deposition team had already disappeared to go do their thing, and Mae, Jason, and Karen were stuck following Noël around. Finally, Karen interrupted.
“We came to speak with Mr. Michaels. Is he available?”
“He’s on the top deck filming right now.” She smiled at them, a forced grin that made her face look weird. “Mr. Michaels told me to keep you guys entertained until he’s finished.” She looked at her watch. “Which should be about thirty minutes or so. You want to see what the cook has lying around?”
Helplessly, they followed her back to the dining hall, where there was a variety of snacks laid out: fruit, muffins wrapped in cellophane, and bags of chips, among other assorted items.
Mae sank into a chair to wait. She was feeling out of sorts. This whole trip had been sprung on her at the last minute, and here she was, waiting.
She was trying to be upbeat since it was a new experience for her. The idea of traveling for her new job had been exciting, but the shine on the experience was dulled by the undoubtable brush-off by the CEO who was too busy with his promo video to meet with them.
He was the one being sued. They were working for his lawyers to try to collect the documentation necessary to get him off the hotplate. Their office had already been targeted, presumably because of him. Shouldn’t he be more accommodating?
Meanwhile, Jason sat next to her, drumming his hand on his thigh while his foot bounced. He seemed on edge, too.
When a low, thumping noise like a helicopter landing sounded, Mae’s skin prickled. When it was followed by what could be mistaken for gunshots, goose bumps erupted. When the yelling began, she gripped Jason’s arm.
“What’s going on?” she asked the PR lady, who looked confused.
“I’m not sure.”
They listened to the chaos outside for a few minutes, when Noël said, “You wait here, I’ll go see what’s happening.” Her voice didn’t sound nearly as confident as her words, but Jason, Mae, and the senior account rep, Karen, nodded.
Noël had gotten halfway to the doorway when she froze before her body dropped to the floor. Mae was coated in a fine spray of red before she registered what had happened. That was about the time Karen screamed as a masked man entered the room
“Are any of you Jason Everly and Mae Torma?” His voice was heavily accented, but Mae had no idea where he was from.
Jason froze next to her, tugging her behind him, but she must have made some sign or gesture of affirmation because the next thing she knew, Karen’s head disappeared in a blur of red and Mae buried her face in Jason’s back.
“Follow me. The boss wants to meet you.” His gun looked more than menacing as it was trained on them, and Mae knew it was loaded and lethal. She had a mist of warm blood across her arm, but she couldn’t look at it. Choking back horror, she clutched Jason’s shirt as she followed him.
Down a narrow corridor and up some stairs, Jason reached back and clutched Mae’s hand in his reassuring grip. She tried to find comfort in it, but it was hard with the noises of gunshots and yelling everywhere. She passed a room with about twenty men in it, hands raised, eyes on five gunmen with their weapons trained on them.
No one spoke as they passed evidence of a serious hostage situation, in which they were totally embroiled. Men were everywhere, subdued on their knees, while gunmen kept wicked-looking firearms aimed at them. Mae was tryin
g to wrap her head around it, but it insisted on going back to that night under her desk, where she’d been alone watching the orange tennis shoe guy.
Her heart in her throat, she clenched her eyes shut, swallowing hard as she blindly followed Jason to a plush room with a sofa, flat screen TV, and a full bar.
The CEO was there, spluttering something about all this nonsense, with a camera man, makeup artist, and another dead lady in the corner. More men in black had guns pointed in his direction.
When Jason and Mae entered the room, one of the men smiled at them.
It was such a juxtaposition in the situation.
While everyone else wore grim expressions, or held faces of fear, this silver-headed man with a neat goatee actually smiled at them like they were old friends.
“Ah … Jason, son, and your lady friend … Come in. Come in.” It was like he’d invited them for tea or something. So fucking weird.
He motioned for them to sit, and they did, awkwardly, since neither of them were letting go of the other.
“We were just about to make a video.” The man turned back to the CEO, who was a barrel-chested man with blond and silver streaked hair and too much pancake makeup. “Go ahead. Read into the camera what I gave you.”
The CEO swallowed, then began, staring into the camera with wide eyes.
“Hello, I’m Jim Chase, CEO of Chase Oil, on Trinity rig in the Gulf of Mexico. I, along with one hundred and twenty people, am being held hostage by an unknown terrorist. There is a bomb on board the rig, and one man has the chance to disarm it. If he succeeds, I will come back with demands. If he fails, we all blow up.”
He gave one last meaningful look to the camera, and the cameraman switched it off, swinging the piece from his shoulder before they all turned to the silver-headed maniac.
“You put a bomb on this rig?” Mae could feel the tension radiating off Jason, even as she looked over his shoulder at the man. “Who are you?”
A bright smile totally incongruous to the situation flashed at Jason, and Mae’s stomach dropped.
“My dear boy … I’m your father.”
Chapter Ten
Jason’s stomach plummeted as he examined the man claiming to be the dad he never knew. He did resemble an old picture his mom had, but it was a passing resemblance, nothing more.
He made the conscious decision to ignore that declaration and focus on more pressing concerns. Like their lives.
“Who has to disarm the bomb?”
A devilish smile cracked the man’s face. “You. I hear you’re the expert here. Consider it a parting gift from me. One last challenge.”
“Well, that’s fucked up, Dad.”
A nod was the only response, and the man moved to the side, revealing a much more sophisticated looking bomb than the one the bubbas had set at the document company. This one was C-4 and had wires to fuses all over it, and there was no telling what sort of fuses they were.
They could be temperature-sensing fuses or motion-sensor fuses or resistance-sensing fuses, or anything, really. There were multiple circuits, where breaking one circuit could blow the entire thing.
Jason could probably disarm it if he were in a different environment, with some protective gear, but right now, he had Mae clinging to his back like a turtle shell, and he couldn’t think beyond her safety.
In short, they were fucked.
A soft chuckle sounded from the man, who watched him with an eager glint in his eyes. “I gotta say, I’ve been watching you for a while now, and I’m proud, son. Real proud.” He leaned on a cabinet behind him, leisurely crossing his arms. “I’ve got the big C. About six months left to live. I figured I could go out this way and spend my last minutes with you.” He smiled, sending a shiver down Jason’s spine. His heart thudded in his ears, but it was Mae’s voice that had him looking at her.
“Why do things this way? Why not just call him and say you want to catch up?” Her voice was tiny in the room yet still overwhelmed with the absurdity of the situation. Jason turned and took her in his arms, enjoying the comfort of her softness.
It was probably the last time he’d get to feel her like this.
“Why? Because I’m on every most wanted list on the planet. And this way, I get one final paycheck. The Saudis are very invested in this fracking business, you see. They want the oil companies to pay big time. When they started putting out word they wanted the defense for these lawsuits to go under, I did a little research and found my boy here actually had a job working with the company collecting all the shit, and voila!” He waved his arms at the simplicity, but Jason was still trying to absorb everything. “Besides, isn’t this fun?”
Jason squelched the nasty glare he wanted to give the man claiming to be his dad and gave Mae one last squeeze. He turned back to the giant pile of explosives, trying to decipher it without touching anything.
In his training, he’d been taught to still his mind and block out distractions. If this man really was his father, and he really was on the world’s most wanted lists, then he would know all of that. He had planned this perfectly. Somehow, he’d gotten the inside track and figured out what would hurt Jason the most .
There had to be some sort of trigger to the bomb, but there wasn’t a visible timer, so Jason scanned the area around it, looking for something that would set it off. Eventually, his eyes settled on a tube snaking under the table. He bent to his knees and let out a low breath.
He didn’t have as much time as he’d hoped.
**
Mae didn’t know what had Jason gasping, but it seemed to please the asshole calling himself dad. She understood enough to know this whole thing was orchestrated for Jason to fail, so she did her best to not be an added distraction.
Keeping her voice low and soothing, she tried to engage the man. “Who are you? Your name?”
“Edgar Smalls. That’s the main one. The one his mother knew.” He nodded to Jason, and Mae noticed his eyes soften slightly from the mad tinge he’d had. He almost looked as if he cared for Jason.
“So you’ve been keeping track of him? All this time?” She didn’t really care. This man was a monster; her heart thudded it like thunder in her ears. Madman. Madman. Madman.
“Yes, off and on. When he went into the Marines, I knew they would instill some false sense of ‘Murica in him and he’d be lost to me, but when I found him again at Amir’s, it wasn’t hard to see where he’d be an asset. Especially with you in his sights. Not that I knew about you at first, but …” Shrugging, he walked to the wet bar and poured himself something amber. “Like father like son. I always loved blondes. So sweet. So pure. His mother was, too. Blonde. Pure.” His voice tapered off as he seemed a little lost in his musings, holding the drink under his nose.
They were interrupted by a knock at the door. “I would say the Delta forces are an hour out.” The voice belonged to a shockingly familiar man. “The live feed went to the White House press corp contact list, so it’s probably a matter of minutes before a team scrambles together.”
“Agent Harper!” Mae couldn’t help the expletive that left her mouth. “Fucking hell.” The faux agent winked at her.
“So I’ll be leaving you to this?” Harper asked Edgar, who had tossed back his drink and already poured another.
“Sure. This is handled. Go on.”
“Were you behind the other attempt at my company?” Why she felt such an ownership to the document company, Mae would never understand. But somehow, she did. This asshole was messing with her normal. Her livelihood. The place she had found her happiness.
Edgar waved his hand as Mae risked a glance at Jason. He was under the table, sweating bullets while he examined something down there.
“They were a bunch of yahoos I found at a militia meeting, but they weren’t loyal to anything but the almighty dollar. I honestly thought I could save a few bucks there, but they ended up helping me find so much more.” His eyes cut to Jason and grew misty, even as he sipped his third drink. “They were d
umbasses, but the USB drive they installed was crucial to my plan. Even though the explosion didn’t happen then, it still gave me the data on the server. All the digital documents, the emails back and forth, and Amir was too stupid to realize it before he sent that virus into my space. I got what I needed way before that.”
“What did you need?” Mae was almost too afraid to ask.
“Initially, just court documents so my client could pay me for the job. Ultimately, information about my son, like who he’s seeing now, where he lives, his new promotion.” He took another slug of his drink like they were sitting at a bar, catching up. Mae wanted to throw up. “You two send some spicy emails on company time.” He winked at Jason, as if sharing a secret.
“If your family is so important, why are you killing him? Why all this? Help me understand, Edgar.” She didn’t want to understand. She wanted to go home. With Jason. But this lunatic was opening up to her, and she felt like it was something to do besides sweat bullets alongside Jason and possibly distract him from what he was doing, which was an attempt to save them all.
“There’s no way to help you understand, sweetheart.” The term of endearment coming from this man was almost too much, but Mae cringed through it. “His mother was too good for me, so I left, but I couldn’t leave leave. When she’d raised a good boy, if not a little apathetic, I knew I would only screw him up.” Another drink poured, and Mae had the slight hope he would get drunk and spill the secret to disarming the bomb if she could get him to open up some more. “But facing your mortality changes things. I’m not invincible anymore. And I’m pissed at whatever higher power there is that gave me all these fucking killer cells in my body that are mutating and eating me alive.” Another drink tossed back, and instead of pouring another, Edgar grabbed the neck of the bottle. “I’m dying. I’m pissed about it. I’ll take everybody I can with me. Drink?” He held out the bottle to her, and as tempting as it was to numb the fear, Mae resisted.
