Page 63 of Final Approach

The four slashes had cut deep but missed bone and tissue, thanks to well-developed pec muscles and a small bone structure. Gym and genes for the win, I guess. My ribs still hurt with every inhale, but I was convinced at this point they were only bruised. The purple and yellow coloring the base of my chest was enough to confirm it. My torso was a fucking mess of bandages, but I was alive.

“I’m serious,” he protested, that wide smile he loved to flash growing across his face. “The antibiotic ointment is working, and the wound stayed nice and dry despite the rain. Take another ibuprofen today for the swelling, but you’re looking good!”

Despite the rain, I sucked on my teeth to will away the heat in my cheeks. His hands in my hair yesterday had felt as good as a slow fuck. I’d never had another man’s hands on my body like that for anything other than a spar.

I was also desperate to be clean. Living with the layers of sweat, dirt, and damp air that clung to each cell of my skin was just as painful as the gashes across my chest. The feeling of soap had been blissful relief in this hellhole, but it was completely short-lived when I woke up this morning in a puddle of my own drool with a bug trying to burrow into my ear.

Day three of the five days you promised, Captain. You’d better be right.

With slightly shaking hands, Nikki wrapped clean gauze around my torso and leaned in, the harsh smell of astringent and peppermint overwhelming my senses. “Maybe the cocaine trick was a life-saver?”

Yeah. Maybe. Or maybe it was the three strangers who saved me.

He pulled back and cinched the gauze in place by tucking one end under the wrapped layers.

“Is that where she is now?” I fought to keep my tone disinterested, but watching her and the madman take off this morning toward the plane had soured my mood.

“Yes,” Nikki murmured with a meaningful stare through the one working lens of his glasses. “She still wants to find Jamie. They’re looking for clues and getting rid of a few things.”

Getting rid of a few things. Getting rid of the illegal drugs they were transporting across an entire continent. Jamie’s drugs.

My whole body stiffened as fiery blood tore through my veins. She’d taken an incarcerated criminal alone into the middle of the jungle where we’d been attacked by a killer cat just two nights ago, looking for a man who obviously had conned the shit out of her with his friendship. There was no way in hell the damn copilot was innocent. I’d bet my fucking company on that.

“Hey,” Nikki soothed, brushing his large hand over my forearm in a calming gesture. “I get it. But they have the gun, and daylight is on their side.”

He was mistaking my reaction for fear. I wasn’t afraid for her. I was furious she could be so fucking stupid. I might not hate her like I thought I did, but Madman was an actual madman and the copilot was a drug smuggler at the very least. It was terrible risk management.

“They should have taken us with them.” The terse words tumbled out before I could stop them.

“You,” Nikki said with a serious frown, “are healing. You know the last words she said to me were about taking care of you? She blames herself for what happened to you the other night, so there’s no way she’d risk you again.”

He shrugged. “And my place is here, looking after things.”

The more I learned about Nikki and Marley, the more I understood their sense of responsibility. Maybe they taught it at flight school, like their own version of the Hippocratic Oath. Nikki wore it with a lightness, like it was an honor to take care of us. Marley wore it like Atlas, like a heavy weight she’d chosen to hold.

Like recognizes like.

I couldn’t make sense of Madman’s motivations—what kind of guy was in prison for murder, but then saved a random passenger who he could have robbed and then fed to another jaguar on another night?

It would have been easy enough to let me die, steal my laptop and the $40,000 watch I still had on my wrist, and claim I was a victim of the circle of life when Aileron finally rescued us.

Hell, if I had died in the jungle, my business woes would be over because even though I’d made some shitty decisions, I had the best insurance money could buy. If I was a coward, I’d have faked my death long ago.

Desperate and miserable, sure, but I wasn’t a coward. I could have helped today in some way. At least as a buffer from him.

“I’m not hers to risk,” I snapped sullenly like a bratty teenager. “She doesn’t get to make that decision for me.”

Nikki’s smooth lips quirked upward as if trying to stop a smirk. “Noted, mate. But then you can be equally pissed at me because I agreed to it. I don’t want you dead, either.”

He handed me back the T-shirt, now gross from another night’s wear, and I shook my head. I’d go shirtless today before wearing that disgusting thing again.

“Fair enough.” He shrugged his shoulders, rounded biceps flexing with the movement. He worked out, that much was obvious. There’s no way a man had that kind of shape without intentional intensity. He sat down beside me, leaving a few inches of space between us, but his body heat hit my naked skin in a hot wave.

“Nice watch,” he noted. “My father had a similar one.”

“Your father …” I mused, knowing the average man couldn’t afford anything close. “So, you grew up rich?”

It was surprising, but it wasn’t. Nikki held himself like he’d had manners classes and dinner table training, with the poise of someone who grew up with expectations.