“My purse, you big gorilla! Move out of my way. My sister needs her medication,” Bat yelled.
Drantos frowned while he stared into her eyes. “What’s wrong with you?”
He was strong, easily holding her in his arms while he stood in the aisle. She appreciated that he’d prevented her from falling on the floor and taking her sister down with her when he’d swept her off her feet.
“I’ve got a rare form of anemia. It’s bad sometimes and makes me dizzy. I have iron shots in my purse but Bat keeps a few of them with her, too, in case of emergency.”
He paled a little, lifting his face to stare at someone behind her. “She’s defective. I think we saved the wrong two women.”
“Shit,” Kraven cursed softly. “They were the only two single females aboard. I was positive they were the ones Filmore sent for. That blows every theory we had.”
Shock tore through Dusti while she stared up at the man holding her. “You know my grandfather?”
He swiftly looked back at her. “You’re Decker Filmore’s granddaughter?”
She nodded, feeling a little stronger and less lightheaded. Maybe it wasn’t her anemia kicking her in the ass but just the shock that had gotten to her. She’d also been battered around and nearly crushed by the big man who currently held her. “He’s my mother’s father. We were on our way to see him. He’s terminally ill.”
Rage tightened the man’s features, making Dusti feel more fear than when the plane was going down. He looked really scary.
“That’s a lie. That bastard will never die until someone takes him out.” He jerked his head up to glare at his brother. “We’ve got the right women. I never saw this coming, did you? Granddaughters? But we can stop him now that we’re the ones who have them.”
A soft growl came from behind Dusti, making her startle at the chilling animalistic sound Kraven had made. “I wouldn’t have risked my neck to save one of them if I’d known they were related to him by blood. Now we’re going to have to kill them ourselves.”
Terror struck Dusti as she stared into Drantos’s furious blue eyes, which were fixed on her. He blinked once, then twice. His plush lips pressed tightly together to show his displeasure. He finally looked away and shook his head.
“I don’t kill helpless women, and you aren’t going to either. I know it’s tough to get a good read in here, what with all the blood and everything else filling the air, but they smell just like the other passengers.” He paused. “You know what I’m saying. You’re just angry and it’s been a bad day. We’ll find out what they know and crush that bastard’s plan. We’ll use them against him. They’re his blood, even if it is faint enough that we can’t pick it up. That means they’ll be valuable to him.”
Kraven glared at her and his nostrils flared. “How can they be his blood?”
“We’ll figure it out later, after we deal with this mess, but do you know anyone who would purposely claim to be a relative to that bastard unless it was the truth?”
“I found it!” Bat rushed to them, gripping her purse. “Hang on, Dusti. I have some of your shots.”
Dusti flashed a terrified look at Bat, trying to convey that things were much worse than just being in a plane crash. She tried to catch her sister’s eye but Bat remained too intent on finding the iron shots, digging inside her purse with one hand. She jerked out a small black case with a grin.
“Here it is. They aren’t broken.”
Dusti glanced at Drantos, only to discover him glaring down at her. She and Bat were in a lot of trouble.
Her grandfather was rich—and she had a sinking feeling they were about to be held for ransom.
Can this day get any worse?
Drantos watched the sister inject the woman in his arms with a small syringe. Then he looked at his brother, attempting to conceal his rage and dismay.
These women were the granddaughters of their worst enemy. He knew his brother hated Decker even more than he did, which was the only reason why Kraven would even contemplate killing the obviously helpless sisters.
Decker Filmore had sent a woman to seduce Kraven months before, and then she’d attempted to murder him. She’d failed, but it had left his brother with a hair-trigger abhorrence toward any females associated with Decker’s clan.
Drantos didn’t blame him for being leery. It would be unnerving to have a woman attempt to stab him in the heart during sex.
Still, one thing was clear. The ultimate fate of the sisters wasn’t to be decided until he found out what they knew.
He’d hate to have to kill them. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t if he was left with no other choice.
He peered down at the one he held in his arms. Dusti. She had pretty blue eyes, confusion and fear shining clearly in them. It was easy for him to read her emotions, but he couldn’t make sense of either. Decker had to have warned them that they might be met by the enemy. She could be faking whatever physical flaw she seemed to have just to appear weak. It could be a cunning game they played, hoping to get him and his brother to let down their guards. They wouldn’t escape, if that was their plan.
Dusti had said her mother was the tie to that family, and he tried to remember details about Decker’s daughter, but Antina Filmore had run away from her father shortly after her mother’s death. Nobody had heard from her again. It was assumed by Drantos’s clan that the girl had known or suspected her own father had murdered her mom, and she had also likely known what he had in store for her future. Antina had never resurfaced.