Second Chances by Andrea Speed, A.B. Gayle, Jessie Blackwood, Katisha Moreish, J.J. Levesque Page B

if – she was right. Aiden was the weak link; if the mob wanted to make him hurt, they’d go after him first and save Flynn for last. It wasn’t like he had any family the mob could kill first, as they’d already hunted them all down. They knew he had no family left, and it was a good bet they knew from Vale that all he had was Aiden. That was as good as slapping a big GPS enabled target on his back, with the words “Aim Here” written on his forehead. And it was all his fault. No, strike that, it was all his father’s fault. He was the one who got mixed up with the mob in the first place, and everyone else had to suffer for it. “If I -” he paused. He had to force himself to say it. “If I work with you, you protect Aiden.”
    “I assure you, Mr. Archer, we have no interest in -”
    “Listen to me,” he interrupted, forcefully enough that the two goons were now glaring at him. “This is a non-negotiable point. I will be your goddamn puppet, but you protect him. Full stop. If he is not protected, if he is hurt in any way, I will burn this place to the fucking ground.”
    The goons really didn’t like that. Eye fucking him wasn’t enough anymore, they were converging on him, but Pierce held up her hand, making them suddenly stop. They didn’t look happy about it, though. “I think we have an agreement then, Mr. Archer. Would you like to be taken to your real quarters now?”
    “Do I have a choice?”
    She smiled at him but didn’t say a word, simply stepped off to one side and held out her hand, as if showcasing this beautiful hallway. He glared at the gorillas, but they seemed to be his escorts, so with reluctance he followed the first, the second one following right behind him. He was the filling of an ugly sandwich.
    Flynn had no idea who he’d really just made a deal with, but he was reasonably certain calling it a deal with the devil wasn’t an exaggeration. Now he had to figure out how to get him and Aiden out of it without getting them both killed.
    @—}–—}——
     
    When Pierce returned to her office, there was a call waiting for her. She put in on speaker as she sorted through her paperwork. “Report,” the voice said.
    “Satisfactory,” she replied. “His ingenuity is impressive, although subtlety isn’t his strong suit. He doesn’t trust us, and we won’t be able to trust him.”
    “Will he be able to unlock it?”
    “I think, right now, he’s our best bet. But he will become a liability sooner rather than later.”
    “That’s what we expected. Prepare the contingency plan.”
    “Already on it,” she said, dropping Flynn’s files in a desk drawer.
    She hoped Flynn fell into line pretty quickly, because replacing him was going to be a paperwork nightmare.

9: Planes and…Planes…and Feeling Low

Lyle Ashley Tate, Aiden Parker, Carter (Gil) Gillespie, Miles Sutherland,
Agent Breslaw and introducing Gideon Sterling
     
    ___________________________________________________
     
    A private airfield, somewhere in America, 23rd January 9.50am
     
    Agent Breslaw was watching him, Lyle could tell. He’d only got up to buy a bottle of coke, for god’s sake! The agent had told them not to move. Aiden and his dog were sitting obediently by his side, but Lyle was restless.
    Aiden’s pet, Dante, looked at him too, cautiously wagging its curly, fluffy tail. The poor thing was going to find the ‘plane ride stressful, Lyle guessed. They probably all were. Nothing much had been said yet about where they were heading or what they would find when they got there. Lyle wished he’d got a look at a paper this morning, but they had been hustled into this room almost as soon as they got to the airfield. He hadn’t seen or heard anything on the news to suggest there had been a humanitarian disaster anywhere lately, other than the flooding in Australia. He wondered briefly if that had concerned Miles Sutherland at all? He didn’t know which part of the place the Aussie doctor was from.
    The