“Nope. I’m still very much alive, and we’re on our way back to Phoenix. Some stuff happened in LA that was kind of weird. It wasn’t due to him, though. So I’ll be in town, and you can stop worrying.”
“I amnotgoing to stop worrying.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Are you going to your apartment? I should bring your monitor back.”
“I’ll let you know if I need it, but I’m not sure where we’re going to be.” Colleen needed to phrase this next part delicately. “Yeah, all three of us are going to be back in Phoenix in about an hour.”
“Allthree?Jian is coming to Phoenix? Oh! Did I tell you that he texted me?”
“No, do tell.”
For the next few minutes, Anjali described several texts with more excitement than most people summoned about winning lottery tickets.
While they’d been talking, Tristan had also returned to the table near the front of the plane. Then, seeing her on her phone, he’d wandered a few yards away and dialed someone on his phone.
Colleen was listening to Anjali with all her attention, practically memorizing the texts that Jian had sent and Anjali’s tortured ruminating before each response.
Anjali scolded her, “I needed you here, you know. Because you are a sister to me. I needed you here to talk about these texts that Jian has sent me.”
Colleen smiled big even though they were just talking on a voice call. Anjali was so great when she was happy about something. “I’m on my way back. We can parse them out tomorrow, okay?”
Nevertheless, she could hear what Tristan was saying because the plane was small, and the whining engines weren’t that loud.
Tristan said, “Nope, Blaze. I haven’t received anything.”
Liar.
11
Blaze
Tristan
Tristan followed Colleen back toward the front of the plane, watching her cute little butt jiggle in the clingy shorts she wore. She began to hurry, and then at the table, she dug around in her purse until she found her phone.“Hello?”
She probably wanted some privacy for that.
Tristan veered off and answered his phone, which was ringing so furiously that it was skittering across the galley countertop. He checked the caller ID before he answered. “Blaze? That you?”
Blaze’s deep voice growled through the phone, “Micah said he rescued youin a helicopter?What the hell is going on with you, Twist?”
Tristan chuckled at him. “When I toss up a red flag, Ireallytoss up a red flag.”
“No shit! People wereshootingat you? InCalifornia?”
“Luckily, they sucked at it.”
“Micah said it was the Butorin Russian mafia.”
Micah must have been busy texting everyone they knew, considering he was probably just landing at the heliport in San Francisco. “Looks that way.”
“You aren’t involved with the Butorins or any of those guys, are you?” Blaze asked him.
“No. God, no.” Or he hadn’t been.
“Or, um, with any of the other Russian syndicates? Like, you haven’treceivedanything from one of them, have you?” Blaze asked.
