In a flash, the deadly second to Beck was at our side. “Check her ribs,” Beck bit out, his eyes a gray so dark it was almost black. “And her throat. Some fucker tried to choke her.”
Dylan shot me softer eyes than I’d seen from him before. “Jasper told me you saved him,” he said as he pushed my coat open and gently stroked his fingers across my side.
I snorted before tiredly dropping my head back, clanking it against the tree trunk behind me. “Jasper saved me. That … assassin or whatever was strangling me, and he dragged himself out to shoot your blade my way.”
Soft fingers brushed across my throat then, and since Dylan was still prodding my side, I knew it was Beck. Touching the marks blooming on my fair skin. I didn’t open my eyes, somehow content in this moment to have two of the deadliest guys I’d ever met in my life, touching me. Protecting me.
“I think your ribs are just bruised,” Dylan said, breaking me from my stupor. “Let me know though if the pain gets worse, or if you have any trouble breathing.”
He moved on to my neck then, and this time I flinched as he pressed near the center.
“Your throat is bruised as well. But since you’re still managing to talk, somewhat, I think you’ll be fine.”
I nodded, finally opening my eyes. Beck allowed me to zip the new jacket up, and after that I moved closer to the fire. Dylan took off, heading to put out our distress call, and Beck went out to scout the area and make sure we were definitely alone. Creeping closer, I grabbed one of the blankets and draped it over Jasper. I pressed my hand to his head, worried by the slightly flushed look of his skin. “His vitals are steady,” Evan said from his perch nearby. “As long as Dylan can get the call out, we’ll be out of here by morning, and Jasper will have the best medical care in the country.”
I snorted. “Which country, Canada or America?”
It truly hit me then that this was my first time out of America. Shit, I didn’t even have a passport.
Evan and I remained close to Jasper, both of us checking on him. I forced some water into him at one point, and he didn’t even curse at me. Beck reappeared, scaring the ever living fuck out of me, because he made like zero noise. Despite the fact he was tall and built like a high level athlete.
Whatever those survival skills were, they’d definitely excelled.
For four dudes who had done nothing but torment and scare me in the short time I’d known them, I felt awfully safe right now, especially as Beck settled in on the other side of me, his heat seeping into the colder parts of my body.
“Still clear?” Evan asked, and Beck nodded.
“Nothing is trailing us, we took out the entire team.”
Swallowing roughly, wishing my throat wasn’t burning like a bitch, I had to ask. “Who tried to kill us?”
Beck met my gaze, and for a moment I thought he was going to tell me it wasn’t my business.
“Huntley Incorporated.”
I blinked, wondering why that name sounded vaguely familiar.
“They started in oil,” Evan supplied from the other side of Jasper. “Not that long ago, which is why they’re ‘new money.’ Those fuckers are quick to throw their green and power around, but they lack the foresight to think long term. They’ve decided now they want to own it all, control the world, and they’re not taking it well that we still manage to come out on top.”
What was this fucking world? They were supposed to be civilized people, and they sabotaged planes and sent out teams of hired killers?
“They tried to kill us?” I all but screeched. Or I would have screeched had I been capable of that sound right now. “A little step up from buying shares out from under you to take over your companies.”
Beck shook his head, drawing my attention to him. “You don’t understand, we’ve all moved past the point of shares and hostile takeovers … now it’s about control. Control of the world. Of wars. Of resources. At the moment Delta has more, and Huntley wants it. They also know we have a strong set of rules which govern us. Company shares can only be passed to heirs … the inheritors. If there are no heirs … you have a weakness that can be manipulated. “
“Not to mention we’re the first inheritors, since our great-great-grandfathers, to have a bond stronger than simply being part of Delta,” Evan added. “We’re loyal. We’re even more highly trained than our fathers, and we can’t be bought or manipulated. They’re afraid when we rise up and take control of our companies, we will decimate them.”
Beck’s chest rumbled, and I shivered as he pressed closer to me. “We need to figure out what our retaliation is going to be.”
“How can you be sure it was them, though?” I asked, wondering if they might be overlooking another enemy. “I know this Huntley is the competition, but surely you have other enemies to worry about?”
Beck and Evan exchanged a glance, and I reached out to check Jasper’s pulse and temperature again, adjusting the blanket that had fallen down.
“No one else has the resources to get to our people,” Beck finally said, answering my question. “That pilot, he’d been with us for a long time.”
My hands trembled as I recalled his drawn face, the tears in his eyes as he lifted the gun. “He said he had to protect his family,” I whispered, my own eyes burning as those dark memories tried to edge further into my head.
A thought hit me then. “Why don’t you guys have bodyguards? I mean, Huntley sent hired killers after us, and clearly after the pilot, so why are you always…”
Alone. They handled everything themselves, and considering they were rich and powerful, clearly had dangerous enemies—I already knew of more than one attempt on their lives—but there was never any sign of bodyguards.
Jasper chuckled then, and I was relieved to see him open his eyes a touch. “Our parents tried to keep a team around us,” he rasped. “But we ditched them so often, they eventually gave up.”
“We don’t need any others,” Beck said without emotion. “We have no weaknesses in our group, the four of us are a team. We trust no one else. We have each other’s back, and no team of bodyguards could do what we can.”
That was for sure, I’d never seen anybody move the way they did when those hired killers showed up. That was cool, capable, kill-without-remorse sort of shit that I expected from hardened soldiers. Not dudes only a year or two older than me.
“What about my brother?” I asked, reaching for the water again, and making Jasper drink a few more sips. My throat seized then and I took a few drinks myself before continuing, “Was he … part of your inner circle?”
A somber air fell across them, and I got the sense that they didn’t like to talk about Oscar. “He was,” Beck said simply, and that was the most I got out of them on that subject.
Evan, who was eyeing me with more interest and warmth than I’d ever seen from him, leaned forward. “What’s your story, Riley? How did Catherine pull you back into this world?”
Darkness pressed on the edge of my mind then, because my story was filled with enough pain to drag me into a place I wasn’t sure I could go. Not yet.
Only, it felt like we were on a precipice right now, the five of us. A shared pain existed between us, and it was bonding us. It felt like maybe they had stopped thinking of me as a spare heir, at least for the moment. Maybe if I shared my past, they would accept I wasn’t just a pawn for Catherine, sent here to sabotage them, just like Huntley was trying to do.
“My parents died,” I whispered those words, letting them fly into the world. Wishing the pain, that was so much worse than any bruised throat and ribs, would fly with them too.
Before I could say another word, Beck jumped to his feet, gun in his hand as his eyes did that predator thing again. I tensed, half pulling myself into a crouch position in preparation for an attack. A sigh left me a moment later when Beck relaxed, somehow knowing it was Dylan, even though the other boy didn’t appear in the clearing for three more minutes.
Jasper’s hand on my wrist had me shooting him a worried glance. “Are you okay?” I whispered, my eyes running across his wane features.
He shot me a grin, and it looked genuine. Not like those smiles he gave all the chicks he fucked—those were fake, designed to make them feel comfortable, to think that he liked them as much as they liked him. Not many saw the real Jasper, but I felt like in this moment, I might be.
“You positioned yourself in front of me,” he said, amusement in his weak voice. “I knew you wanted me.”
I snorted, gently shaking his hand off. “In your fucking dreams. I just don’t feel like dealing with your friends if you die. All that crying...”
I sensed it wasn’t in my best interest to let them know about my newfound softer emotions regarding the four of them. To let them know that I was starting to … like them. That I would cry if Jasper died.
And Beck … I refused to even think about him not being in the world.
Dylan settled in near Beck. “Did you get a call out?” Beck asked him.
Dylan nodded. “Yep. Reinforcements are on the way. They tracked our location.” He checked that fancy watch with a thick black dial that he always wore. “They’ll be here at 0300 hours. Which gives us six more hours to camp out and wait.”
I shivered because night had well and truly fallen now, only the light of the fire illuminating the area, and the moment that sun disappeared, the temperature had dropped. Could we survive another six hours in this sort of environment?
Beck reached out and draped an arm around me, pulling me closer into his side. We were both padded up in thick jackets, but somehow I could still feel his warmth right along the parts of my body he pressed. As he tightened his hold, I flinched at the sharp pain in my ribs, but I didn’t complain. I was finally warm.
“Body heat is essential to survival,” Dylan said softly, his eyes glittering in the half light as he watched Beck and me. “I’m going to make another shelter, and then the five of us … we’re going to get very well acquainted.”