Taking Flight (A Devereux Novel) (9 page)

“Hello?” Gary’s voice was clear, although the
reception on the cell phone was a little tinny. “Derek?”

“Hey,
Gare
,
I wanted to make sure you were okay. Have you settled in at the house?”

Derek dodged a puddle as he
paced away from the entrance to the club. It was noisy enough to make it
difficult to hear his brother’s words, so he tried to find what quiet he could
in the crowded
nighttime
streets of Los Angeles.

“I’m fine, Derek. Shouldn’t
you be enjoying your date?” Gary’s voice was a little exasperated. As the
youngest, he already had to put up with three concerned older brothers at the
best of times. They had each taken a special interest in looking out for him
since he was born, especially since their mother had never been there for him.

Derek winced. He still shied
away from calling his meetings with Sara “dates.” It layered in an array of
expectations he wasn’t comfortable with. He had been a bachelor living it up
for a couple years, and he wasn’t actively looking to change that. He just
couldn’t seem to get enough of the bright blonde who showed him a unique side
of things.

“We’re doing fine, Gary. You
know it’s dangerous here for us. It’s not a bad idea to check in every once in
a while so we know everything’s good. We don’t even know who would have reason
to take us out—without suspects there’s nothing we can do beyond
remaining vigilant.”

Gary was six years younger
than he was, and the difference in age, while not as marked as when they were
younger, was still telling.

“Ah, relax, D. It’s not like
someone will break into your house and get me. I’m not running out to go have
any wild parties. I’m respecting your wishes that much. I could do it, you
know. I’ve gotten tons of invites since I landed yesterday.”

Derek believed it. Even if
he’d wanted to go to them all, Gary would have had to turn down the majority of
invitations he received simply because he couldn’t be in multiple places at the
same time. In L.A. it seemed like there was always an endless supply of
parties, if that’s what you wanted.

“I’m glad you’re taking it
at least that seriously. Remember, someone tried to run me off the road the
other day, and I still have a splint on my hand for the fractured finger. This
wasn’t one of Evan’s nebulous ‘accidents’ where he can’t put a finger on what
went wrong. This was an actual act of aggression. It means whoever’s responsible
has stepped their game up and isn’t afraid to let us know of their existence.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. I’ll
just be here, watching Netflix and wasting away. I don’t get why you can go out
but I can’t. We took the same lessons growing up, and I took them more recently
than you did. If you recall, I beat you a few rounds the last time we sparred.”

And that had been a shock.
Derek had held the upper hand on his little brother
for so long he’d gotten cocky, and it had been a
much needed
wake-up call.

“Yeah, well, I hope you’ve
continued practicing since then. Have you heard from Stephen?”

“Not since he and Liberty
left New York to shoot on location in the tropics. They didn’t even know where
they would end up.”

Derek tapped his thigh.
“That might be a good thing. Hard to track, no way for anyone to know where
they will be.”

“Exactly. They are the
safest of all of us.”

“That’s true. Anyway, I
should get back in the club. I’ll see you when I get home, and we can talk it
out a little more. There’s got to be a way to sort this out and take care of
things. I don’t want to be on guard for the rest of my life without even
knowing why.”

“Looking forward to it. I’m
still a little jetlagged, though, so I might be passed out on your couch by
then.”

Derek laughed. Just like old
times. “I’ll carry you up to your bed and tuck you in, then.”

“Don’t you
dare!
The couch is just fine. Take it easy.”

“See you.”

When he hung up the phone,
Derek looked around and raised an eyebrow. He had gone on autopilot while
talking on the phone, and now he wasn’t even sure where he was. At one point he
had turned into an alley and paced back and forth to find the place closest to
silence.

Now, how do I get back?

He was about equal distance
out to a street in either direction, so he picked a direction and started
walking. Once he got out to where there
were
street
signs he’d be able to figure out where he was quickly enough.

He took three steps before
something wrapped around his neck and a weight settled on his back, bearing him
to the ground.

Ahh
!
The grip on his neck let
him do no more than gargle, the fierce scream inside his head instead of the
challenging roar his body intended to produce.

His face fell against the
hard asphalt, his hands rising to his throat to try to free up his windpipe. He
found an arm there digging into his Adam’s apple. A man lay on his back, the
weight pinning him and preventing him from moving.

His attacker was silent,
making no sounds, no demands, and not even breathing audibly. Derek’s choked
gasps were harsh to his own ears, and his vision grayed from the lack of
oxygen.

Derek wormed his fingers in
beside his throat and pulled as hard as he could. It barely made an impact, but
it was enough that a trickle of glorious air found its way to his deprived
lungs. He breathed shallowly, conserving as much strength as possible and
buying himself time to think. This could be the same man from the other
night—the driver who had outraced him and almost caused his demise, back
to finish the job.

Oh, hell no.

Derek struggled to get to
his elbows, fighting to lift both his own and his opponent’s weight against
gravity. The position gave him the extra leverage he needed, and he squeezed
his head further down, getting his chin out of the deadly lock that the other
man’s forearm had held against the soft tissue of his throat.

He bit into the arm, not
averse to using whatever tactics necessary to emerge victorious. But instead of
sinking into flesh, his teeth encountered something solid and unyielding, and
Derek had to let up on his bite before his teeth shattered.

What the fuck? Is he wearing
armor
?

It explained why the forearm
had been even harder against his neck than he was used to from sparring and
wrestling; it wasn’t just bone that he struggled against.

Derek used all his muscle to
try to lever the arm away from him and get to his feet. It didn’t do as much as
he expected, as though he fought against someone with superhuman strength.
Derek’s own strength waned, and the arm closed back in.

In a desperate
maneuver
, Derek let one of his hands go to launch his elbow
backward as hard as he could manage. The pointed bone landed with a solid blow,
and thankfully it didn’t feel like there was any unnatural
armor
covering his adversary’s body. It caught the other man right in between the
ribs, and a startled exclamation and wheeze rewarded Derek’s efforts. The grip
on his neck loosened, and he broke free.

Derek leapt to his feet and
turned to face his attacker. The man wore a balaclava and a mask that didn’t
match the suit and shined leather shoes covering the rest of him. The headwear
obscured his face except for dark eyes that darted back and forth, examining
Derek’s stance and defenses in the way a trained professional would.

“Who the hell are you, and
what do you want?” Derek asked.

The man didn’t talk, but
instead feinted to the side with such speed that Derek stumbled trying to
adjust.

He cursed internally, but
hoped the mistake might make his opponent underestimate him. If he could
pretend he had gotten lucky before, then maybe he stood a chance.

With that in mind, he
loosened up a little, dropping his guard to something more appropriate for an
amateur. It was impossible to tell if the attacker bought his ploy with the
mask covering any hint of expression.

Just as he hoped, the man
came at him in a straightforward manner, dropping all
pretense
and swooping in with a lightning-quick
attack. Derek had the perfect counter lined up to use his adversary’s momentum
against him, but just as he was about to execute it, the man wasn’t where he
expected him to be.

Oh, no.

He hadn’t fooled the
attacker at all—he’d been duped the same way he had hoped to lure in an
easy attack. Instead of crushing the man with his counter, Derek found himself
levered over with a level of grace until he toppled, sprawling onto the ground.
He prepared himself for the other man’s follow-up, expecting another chokehold.

“Derek! Help’s coming, hold
on!”

It was Sara’s voice. He had
never been so glad yet terrified to hear another person.

“Sara, get away from here!”
He looked up to see the back of his attacker as the mysterious man sprinted
down the alley in the opposite direction of Sara’s voice. As he watched, the
man took an incredible leap up to a high window ledge and flung himself upward,
grabbing onto the edge of the roof above and swinging over top with a small
flip of the body. Just like that, he disappeared.

“Are you okay?” Sara had run
up beside him as he watched the graceful escape of his attacker. She knelt down
and put her hands on his back. “Are you hurt?”

He sat up and winced. His
neck felt sore and stiff, like he wouldn’t be able to move it at all tomorrow.
“I’m fine. I think. He didn’t use a
weapon,
I’m just
going to have a few bruises. I’m lucky it’s not worse, it’s a good thing you
got here when you did. You said help’s coming?”

He didn’t want to talk to
the police about this, but it appeared as though he wouldn’t have a choice. At
least now he had two separate incidents to report, although they wouldn’t be
pleased there was more to the car crash than he’d let on.

She looked guilty. “Well,
no. I wasn’t sure you were in trouble until I saw you fighting, and then it was
too late to go get anyone. So I ran down here screaming, hoping it would throw
him off and you could get the upper hand.”

Derek stared at her in
disbelief. “You’ve got serious balls on you, you know that?”

For a lady, she looked
inordinately pleased with herself at his comment. “Thank you. If there was one
thing I always wanted, it was a big set of manly balls.”

They locked eyes for a
moment, and then both burst out laughing until she helped him get off the
ground.

“Who was that, anyway? I
wasn’t under the impression billionaires were mugged in back alleys often.”

“We aren’t. And as for who
it was…” He looked at the spot where the attacker had disappeared onto the
rooftops. “That is a superb question.”

Sara didn’t want to concern Derek by examining him
under a microscope, but she stole sidelong glances as they made their way back
to the club. He looked scuffed up, but it took keen observation to notice the
few places where the fabric of the suit had snagged and frayed a little under
the duress of the fight. Her eyes drew back up to his face, the proud
cheekbones and intense eyes lost in thought. She didn’t blame him.

“I’m not sure if it’s a
great idea if you hang around me too much anymore,” Derek said. “It’s
dangerous, and I couldn’t forgive myself if I became the reason someone else
got hurt.”

Her eyes felt like they
would bug out of her head. She had been having the same thought, but in the
opposite direction. Whoever left the threatening note on her front door must
have also been after Derek because of her investigation, and it was her fault
he’d been attacked.

“You don’t think it was a
random mugging?” she asked.
“I mean, this is the city.
These
things happen sometimes.”

His look showed how little
credence he gave to that idea. “What mugger attacks someone without saying a
single thing? He didn’t stop and try to intimidate me out of my wallet or
watch. He landed on my back and tried to choke me out straight from the drop.
That doesn’t fit the profile of any mugger I’ve ever heard of.”

Sara kicked at a rock that
stood up on its end in front of her. It skipped along the alley a satisfying
long distance, the gentle
plink,
plink, plink
fading to nothingness. She
didn’t know what to say. This was almost worse than if Derek had been the force
behind the threat. That, at least, would have been something she could face
head-on, and either stand up to or back away from. That he remained the good
guy she had sensed and was under attack
himself
because of her actions made things more difficult.

“I guess you’re right. Are
you going to do anything about it? I don’t want to stop spending time with
you.” It was the truth. And not just for the sake of her story.

Derek furrowed his brow, and
when they came up to the rock she had kicked, he gave it his own swat and sent
it tumbling ahead. “I’m not sure, to be honest. He was a good fighter. Great
fighter. And he knew what I would do in response to every move he made. And
then the way he got away so easily, climbing up that wall… There’s something
more to this, something deeper than anything I can understand at the moment.”
He cocked his head to the side and slowed down. “You’re used to investigating
these types of things, aren’t you?”

“Uh, what?” His question
caught her by surprise.

“I have no leads, no
information about who might have attacked me. And this isn’t the first time,
either. And my brother… Let’s just say that there might be a concerted effort
to remove Devereux influence from the world. That’s not something I’m just
going to lie down and take, but I need help in figuring out how I can fight
back. Have you ever investigated something like that before?”

Is this for real?
The target of her investigation was asking her if she could…
investigate him?

“I… well, I don’t have a ton
of experience at cases like this. I rarely get involved in things with a
potential for violence, but I’ve gotten close.” She didn’t want to give him
reason to stop trusting her, but she had to be honest with him, at least in
this much. “Still, I’m confident I can make progress on it. Plus I don’t like
seeing you at a loss for what to do. It doesn’t suit you.”

He rolled his eyes. “You’ve
got that right. I’m in unfamiliar territory and need a guide. Does that mean
you’re willing to find out what’s going on around
me and my
family
? I can trust you, and that’s more than I could say about any
random person I might hire off the street.”

She stopped walking, and he
did the same. She took his hand in hers. It was scraped and a little bloody
where it had scrabbled against the asphalt to break the attacker’s grip on his
throat. “I promise I will do everything I can to solve this. You are a good
guy, Derek, and I don’t like you in jeopardy.”

I hope you never find out it may be my fault. And I hope you’ll forgive
me for the deceit I represent. If this was a different situation, and I was
here for a different reason, then maybe things would have a better chance of
working out between us.
She didn’t see that happening the way things were going. It felt like
she roared along at a hundred miles per hour straight into a brick wall.

“Excellent. Do you want to
come to my place tomorrow night, and we can figure out where to begin?”

She would never turn down a
chance to spend time at his amazing house in the hills. “I would like that.”

They continued walking, but
he never let go of her hand. The contact warmed Sara deep down in a way she was
almost ashamed to admit to herself. She played a very dangerous game, weaving
tangled webs of obligation and emotion, and it became difficult to keep the
strands straight.

It was hard to slide back
into the club unnoticed, and more than a few cameras turned their way once
people recognized Derek. Hopefully his black suit could hide the harm it
suffered, otherwise the tabloids would have all new fodder for their morning
stories: the billionaire appeared all scuffed up returning from an alley with a
woman he had been seen with multiple times already.

When they returned to the
VIP section, they found Becky surrounded by people. Sara doubted her roommate
had even noticed their absence as she chatted with a veritable onslaught of
actresses and models.

Wow. I knew she was outgoing, but I never realized she could run with
this crowd so easily.
It made Sara happy, seeing her friend come into her own after so many
struggles.