Love Me to Death (Underveil, #1)(78)

“I can hear you,” Ricardo shouted to her over the increasing motor noise.

Elena hummed an indistinct tune as the wheels roughly touched down and she bounced in her seat several times. The engines roared, and the plane slowed to a roll.

Stefan’s phone rang, and he put it to his ear. Elena couldn’t hear what he was saying over the plane noises. Eventually, they came to a stop, and she unbuckled. “I need to put on cold weather gear,” she said. “Being so cold sucked beyond belief, and I’m not going to let it happen this time.” She unzipped the bag and pulled out the warm clothes and jacket she had bought. While Stefan finished his phone call, she pulled the gear on over her clothes. Sliding on the Gore-Tex boots, she thought about how much better it would have been to be outfitted like this when she was in the cabin with Nik. If only she could have those moments back. A smile pulled at the corners of her mouth as she remembered their time together. The long conversations, the incredible things he did to her with…

“I can hear you,” Ricardo practically shouted. “If you don’t learn to mask what you’re thinking, they could discover what he means to you. That he’s your weakness and you carry his child.”

“It’s too late,” Stefan said, sliding his phone back in his pocket. He unfastened his seat belt. “They already know she’s here. And they’re waiting for her. She can’t disembark. None of us can. The entire airport is full of Underveilers of all kinds. Someone tipped them off.”

Ricardo shot from his seat, and crouching to not hit his head, stormed toward his sister, whose eyes grew huge. “It’s that * weasel you work for. You told him where you were going, didn’t you?” He grabbed her by the throat with one hand.

She appeared calm. “No. I called in sick. He doesn’t know anything.”

“If you have compromised us, I’ll kill you, Margarita. You know I will.” From the rage on his face, Elena knew he was dead serious. “Let down your guard and allow me into your mind, or your life ends right now.”

Elena had never seen anything as terrifying as Ricardo’s eyes. The red from the iris had spread all the way out into the whites. She shrunk back into her chair, praying Margarita was telling the truth. Stefan gestured her to the front of the plane, and she gladly put distance between herself and the enraged vampire.

“Is he going to kill her?” she whispered, sliding into the copilot chair.

“If she lied, yes.” Stefan seemed eerily calm.

She peered out the tiny windscreen of the plane and gasped. It was dark out. The tarmac was covered in beings with torches and… Holy crap. Torches, weapons, and big tools, including pitchforks. It was like they’d landed in the middle of a Dracula movie shoot. “Oh my God.”

“The situation is less than optimal,” Stefan said, gaze never leaving the brother and sister locked together in the first row in the plane. Both were stone still with their eyes closed. Then, Ricardo broke away and moved to the seat across from her.

“You didn’t betray us.”

“Of course I didn’t.” Margarita didn’t seem angry, which surprised Elena.

“Oh good. No blood on the carpet,” Stefan said, face expressionless.

There were crazy people waiting outside the plane with torches and deadly farm tools, a vampire was ready to kill his own sister mere feet away, Nik was being tortured in a cell somewhere, and this * was worried about blood on the carpet? “I can’t believe you!”

He gave no reaction whatsoever to her outburst.

It felt like her head would explode. “How can you be so cold?”

He shifted only his eyes in her direction. “Actually, that was a clearly unsuccessful attempt at humor. Though I truly am relieved to not have to replace the carpet. It would have been messy.”

Elena clasped her fingers together in an effort to consciously not store a charge in her palms, which happened every time she got angry. “I just don’t get you.”

“When you are several centuries old…no. If you live to be several centuries old, you will understand completely. There is nothing I have not seen and very few things I have not done. I try not to get invested or tangled up in other people’s business unless it affects my own.”

“So you don’t really give a shit whether I live or die.”

A smile crossed his lips. “You are absolutely wrong. I care very much about your fate. I will do whatever I can to facilitate your success. Mine depends on it.” He indicated Ricardo and Margarita with a nod of his head. “So does theirs.” Then he gestured with one hand to the crowd that was closing in around the plane. “And ironically, theirs as well. We all need you to succeed.”

“So if Margarita did not tip Fydor off, who did?” Ricardo asked, looking out the tiny, round window next to his seat. “They appear to be primarily shifters.”

Stefan touched Elena’s hand to draw her attention back from Ricardo. “Other than us, who knew Itzov was taken and that you were coming to Romania?”

“Only Aunt Uza.”

“No one overheard your interactions with her? You didn’t tell anyone where you were going?”

“No.”

Stefan ran a hand through his hair. “Odd. Uza would not have sabotaged your success unless it will be better for the outcome. Well, this certainly changes our plans. Angry mobs are historically not my thing, and though they cannot kill me, they can slow me down. We also can’t risk losing Ricardo yet.”