Page 59 of Deacon

‘The wind rips hard near the cliffs, Raff,’ I told him, pointing a butter knife his way. ‘Fly it low, below the tree line, and away from the hotel decks.’

‘Also keep it in your sight,’ Christine added, handing him a napkin. ‘We don’t need to rescue your quadcopter from the ocean.’

‘I’ll be careful, I promise,’ Raff mumbled around a mouthful of bread. ‘The footage is going to look epic. Maybe one day I’ll get as good as mum with a camera.’

My phone went off on the counter, the loud, jarring ringtone interrupting our spirited chat.

The screen displayed Théa’s name.

Ana’s mother never called me unless shit was burning up, so I picked up fast.

‘Théa,’ I said, keeping my tone even so Raff wouldn’t pick up the sudden spike in my pulse.

‘Deacon?’ she gasped, her voice thin, vibrating with pure terror. ‘Oh God, Deacon. It’s Ana.’

I stood up, my chair scraping hard against the marble. ‘Calm down, Théa. Breathe. What’s happened?’

I prowled away from Raff’s earshot and eased onto the deck outside.

‘I just got a call from her assistant, Yael, requesting my help,’ Théa sobbed, the words tumbling out in a panicked rush. ‘Ana’s in trouble. She and her crew went to photograph the volcano in Ethiopia, the Hayli Gubbi. It erupted when they were at the crater. The whole area is covered in ash. Ana got hurt on the slopes while they were trying to run away from the resulting cloud. Yael said her leg is broken; she can’t walk, and she might have other injuries. The local helo took her back to her campsite. However, the haze is so bad that no regional aircraft can take her to a proper hospital because of the visibility issues.’

My hand gripped the edge of the deck railing until my knuckles turned white. ‘Where’s the crew? Where’s Baz?’

‘They’re with her, but they can’t drive out of camp, as the roads are terrible and might make her injury worse; they’re worried about clots.’

‘No one at all, not even a rescue team, can access her?’

‘The local air support won’t get the authorization to fly out; they need a specialized aircraft, and no one has one in the region to get her out,’ she cried. ‘I called Massimo several times, but the call went to voicemail. We called his agent, his publicist, everyone. They tried to reach him, but that useless pissant coward isn’t answering. Merde! C’est un tel raté. He’s not taking my calls, Deacon. Il a disparu. It’s like he’s vanished.’

Damn.

I glanced at Raff inside the house, who was staring at me, his sandwich halfway to his mouth, his eyes crowded with worry.

I had to help; this was Ana, his mother, and still, despite it all, the love of my life.

‘I’m on it, Théa,’ I said, my stance dropping into a cold, steady baseline where emotion died and execution took over. ‘Hang up the phone. I’ll make a few calls and reach out to you asap; give me ten or 20 minutes, OK?’

‘You’ve always got things done, son; it’s why I called you, why we’ve all relied on you all these years, so please do all you can to bring her back home to us.’

‘I’ve got you,’ I said. ‘Send me her satellite phone details in Ethiopia.’

The primal instinct to protect Ana roared to life inside me, and I swept aside any past bitterness toward her for one reason alone: she needed me.

After Théa texted the Panoramik crew’s satellite number, I tapped the glass screen and dialed.

The connection buzzed, static popping before a voice broke through.

‘This is Yael Mathers. Who’s this?’

‘Yael, it’s Deacon Vega,’ I said through the interference.

‘Who?’

‘Ana De Stella’s ex. We met once at her house in Nashville when I picked up my son, Raff, after school. I got this number from her mother.’

‘Deacon! Of course.’

‘How’s Ana?’