searched the posh lavatory.
There...
Her pulse slowed a little. The men who’d taken her last night had crammed her bag into a small storage compartment. She still grappled with the fact that Roberto Hernandez had found her after over twenty years—and kidnapped her again. He’d gone to a lot of trouble to get her and because of that, she doubted she’d escape his claws this time. That fighter jet showed her just how determined he’d become.
But why now? What had happened to reignite his interest in her? She didn’t doubt that her father had everything to do with it. She dumped the contents of her purse, which seemed considerably lighter, on the counter. Lipstick, a small brush, mirror and breath mints spilled out.
But no wallet.
Her heart skipped an awkward rhythm. That meant no cash. No credit cards. No driver’s license. She dug inside the handwoven bamboo-and-satin bag. There. She felt something... Her hopes climbed.
Maya tugged out her passport. They’d taken her money but wanted her to be able to travel without raising questions. She stumbled from the lavatory, dropped into the rear seat, set her bag on the floor at her feet and pressed her passport against her chest.
Without this, she couldn’t even make it back into the country. She drew in a few calming breaths. If she could just walk off the plane, slide through customs and evade Roberto’s men somehow, then she’d have a chance to consider her next step.
Without her passport, avoiding more trouble would be impossible.
Still, she was reduced to walking through this crisis moment by moment, one day at a time. Everything hinged on what the pilot intended to do with her. She’d been kidnapped and stowed away on his plane. Yes. But he wasn’t involved with Roberto. That much she believed. Now to convince him to let her be.
She needed to handle this in her own way. She couldn’t lose control of her life again. How could she make him understand?
Maya stared out the window at the Caribbean Sea passing beneath them. Soon it would change to the Gulf of Mexico as they traveled to Miami on what had to be a ninety-minute, maybe two-hour, flight.
She had an hour, if that, to figure things out. How much could she share with him and still hold on to what little of her life was left?
She only had herself to blame for the mess she was left with—she should never have agreed to meet her father.
One wrong decision and everything she’d worked for slipped from her grasp. How would she survive this? Even if she did survive, how would she escape and return unscathed, live the life she’d created without anyone being the wiser?
The pilot would want answers. She needed to tell him enough so he would understand how important it was to avoid contacting the authorities, and yet keep her identity and her life as secret as possible.
No one knew better than her, no one would understand that only she could solve this problem. Only she could connect with her father—for real this time—to discover why this man kidnapped her again. To discover what it would take to end this once and for all.
For twenty-plus years, she had deluded herself into believing she’d escaped Roberto for good. Roberto and her father were bitter rivals, and their feud could easily be taken right out of the headlines as they’d battled over territories for decades. He wanted to use her against her father, and the authorities would do the same if they discovered who she was. Her life would never be her own.
If the authorities knew her true identity, she’d be monitored, and then she could never safely make contact with her father again. Nor would she get the chance to say goodbye.
But Connor wouldn’t understand, nor did she blame him. Maya pressed her hands over her face and rubbed her eyes. She heard the squish of leather and knew the pilot sat across from her.
Instead of acknowledging him, she coiled inside herself, wanting to stay hidden away as long as possible.
“You need to tell me everything.” The deep timbre of his voice mingled frustration with betrayal, but she didn’t hear the fear she expected. “Right. Now.”
She dropped her hands and lifted her eyes to meet the piercing daggers in his. “Why do you look at me like that? I’m as much a victim here as you.”
Her words didn’t appear to move him with compassion. Not much, anyway. Still, she didn’t miss the fleeting crease between his brows. Using a harsh tone with her pained him. He didn’t like having to question her like this any more than she liked being interrogated. But she understood why he needed answers.
“You said, ‘he already has people inside, and they’ll be waiting for us.’ What did you mean? Who are you talking about? We don’t have time for games. Who kidnapped you?”
Why wasn’t he terrified? Didn’t he understand the danger they were in? Or was he a tough guy, a dangerous man himself, for reasons she’d yet to learn? Maybe his Eagle Scout air was simply a facade. Who was he, really?
When Maya didn’t answer, he leaned back in the seat as though he had all the time and patience in the world. Maybe he did. But he didn’t know what she knew. “You don’t have to tell me anything. You can tell the authorities when we land,” he said.
Maya’s heart jolted against her chest. He knew which buttons to push. Smart man.
“The man who kidnapped me, who owns this Learjet, is a powerful Colombian drug lord.” She’d been pulled back into the Colombian drug wars, used as a pawn and stretched between the warring factions. Between Roberto and her father, but she’d leave that information out as long as she could.
“I see.” Connor pressed his finger against his lower lip, contemplating her words. “Then why does he want you? What are you to him?”
This was the part where Maya needed to buy herself time, stall him as long as possible. Forever, if she could. And anyway she honestly didn’t understand why she’d been kidnapped this time. She could only guess. “You should be more worried about the fact that you stole his Learjet. He will be waiting for you.”
Roberto Hernandez had connections everywhere. That’s why her mother had gone to great lengths to hide her over twenty years ago. Maya would have thought he’d forgotten her with so much time gone by. Now she doubted she’d ever find solace again until the man was dead.
The pilot shook his head. “We’re landing in Miami. He can’t get us there.”
Maya prided herself on reading people and understanding their motivations. Despite her previous concern that he could be a dangerous man himself, Maya believed Connor considered himself a law-abiding citizen, and that what he’d done in taking the plane was aboveboard. He didn’t understand that “right” and “wrong” didn’t matter to Roberto. All he cared about was what he viewed as his property—and he’d go to any lengths to hold on to it...and punish those who took it.
“You don’t know who you can trust, even there. Even if you remove me from the equation, you forget that you have just stolen a plane.”
“I didn’t steal the plane. I was acting as a recovery agent, representing my friend at a leasing company that owns it. For whatever reason, the payments—which are significant, by the way—have fallen into arrears.
