Nadine watched intently as the plane taxied on the tarmac under the stars. She had been restless the entire flight, though no one would know it to look at her. She'd worn a scowl and stared out the window the entire 12-hour flight, only interrupting her musings to use the lavatory or quiet the hunger pangs with some stale airplane chips.
The entire way she had tried to make a plan. Chloe had once told her to relax, she'd live longer. And Nadine had indeed learned to relax and go with the flow. Unfortunately, the flow was always Chloe's. Nadine had never been in charge of coming up with a plan on the fly. She was incredibly bad at it. Whenever she had planned a job, it was planned. And when that plan inevitably went out the window, Chloe had been there to pick up the pieces and turn it into a payday.
Nadine would just shake her head and make some comment about being the muscle. And Chloe would smirk, eye her, and make suggestions for what she could do with all that muscle later. And that was good enough for Nadine. She did not need to be the subterfuge behind their operations. She was not a thief by training, and knew where her actual strengths lay. Ask her to plan a battle, or threaten someone into cooperating, and she would succeed with flying colors.
That's it, she thought as the plane came to a stop. Everyone else around her was actually antsy, just waiting for the moment they could grab their carry-ons and leave, but Nadine had reached a stillness that usually only accompanied a battle scenario. I am a tactician. I am a soldier, even without an army. A warrior, as Chloe once so eloquently put it. I need to stop approaching this like a job with a payload. This is a warzone. What does an individual soldier do when cut off from reinforcements?
Nadine nodded her head like she was actually speaking with someone in front of her.
They focus on their next move and they don't worry about the whole battlefield. I can't help Chloe without weapons and her location. So that's what's next. Weapons, and Chloe's location.
The plane empty, Nadine got up and pulled her backpack over her shoulder, moving almost mechanically as she plotted out her next steps.
An hour later, Nadine was in a back alley, putting away her cash after paying a haggled price for guns, knives, and pepper spray – you could never discount the silent usefulness of the stuff. Holding his head was the weapons dealer, sporting a black eye for trying to shake her down with a knife after she'd already paid what she knew was a fair price for the items. His injury had been her "haggling."
Messy, but effective, as Chloe would say.
Pulling out her phone – heavily encrypted and impossible to track (she'd learned her lesson when Rafe had tracked the Drake brothers that way) – Nadine set about the business of looking up Chloe's position.
Her heart leapt into her throat. Chloe was practically on top of her!
Nadine looked up and around, but of course saw nothing. She was in an alley, a black market arms dealer cursing in Hindi nearby. Heading out to the street, she still saw nothing. Again, not a surprise. The street was as densely packed as the cans of sardines Nadine always had on-hand in case Chloe hangrily ransacked their other rations.
Sighing, Nadine shook her head. Her GPS tracker would not tell her anything more specific than that the signal was nearby.
I hate climbing, she thought, reaching for a drainpipe nearby and testing her weight. She began her climb, aiming for the room so she could scan the crowds for Chloe the old-fashioned way – with her eyes. Why did this have to be timed so I'm looking for her in the dark?
Chloe awoke with a start. Her run through the city had been a romp, but she had started to lose speed, so she'd headed for the rooftops, hoping she could lose her pursuers in the process. It had worked, and she'd spent the rest of the afternoon and into the night holed up in the same tight spot on a random roof.
"Must've dozed off," she murmured to herself. Stretching her neck, she peeked up over the ducts she'd taken refuge within.
No sign of anyone.
"Well," she breathed. "No one's found me. That's a good sign." She frowned. She'd lost Derek, which meant she'd come here for nothing and left her family in someone else's hands.
Nadine won't let harm come to them, Chloe thought as she rose from her hiding place and stretched muscles stiff from running and then sleeping curled in an uncomfortable ball. She promised.
A niggling voice in the back of her head reminded her that promises were often broken. She tried hard to tell the voice to go fuck itself, but still it remained, quietly making her doubt everything.
"Stop it," she finally said out loud, crouching to draw less attention to herself on the off-chance someone was up here. "You made it this far, Chloe. You just need to put on your big-girl pants and see it the rest of the way through. Figure out who actually wanted you here and would hire Derek to get you. Then go from there."
Taking a deep breath, Chloe began to move. She would need to attempt to find the dingy motel again and gather intel from there. If she could find a familiar landmark from the day before, she should be able to make her way back to where she'd been shot at.
She headed for the tallest building in the vicinity. The streets were narrow enough she did not need to touch the ground in order to make her way. It took her some time to climb, but it was a good stretch for her muscles after the long night.
As the sun began rising, Chloe reached the top platform of the old brick apartment building she was climbing. She stood at the top for a few minutes, hovering near the edge, appreciating the oranges and pinks of the sunrise just as they emerged.
Then she heard something that made her heart try to jump right out of her chest.
"Chloe?!"
Chloe crouched and turned, scanning for the voice. It sounded like Nadine, a harsh whisper that carried in the stillness of the dawn. A dark shape moved, nearly black against the sunless sky behind it.
"Nadine?" Chloe whispered, still unable to see properly so soon after staring into the sunrise.
Several of Chloe's senses were triggered at once. Nadine said her name again, the sound of her voice like heaven after shit hit the fan with Derek back in Sydney. Warmth and strength wrapped around her, lifting her out of her crouch and off her feet for a moment. Next came the familiar scent, coconut oil and sweat and cotton all mixing together and filling Chloe with such hope.
Shit, I really do love her, she thought before framing that beautiful face in two hands and kissing Nadine for all she was worth, adding a warm, wet taste to her already nearly overloaded senses. Arms settled around Chloe's waist, holding firmly but not too tightly, just like always. Chloe hadn't even realized there was a "just like always" and yet here she was.
So much for keeping my distance, she thought.
Fun though this reunion was, Chloe never lost sight of the fact they were on a very visible rooftop in New Delhi, city where she'd been shot at twelve hours before.
"Come on," she said, pulling away and taking Nadine by the hand. She led the other woman – both of them panting from the intensity of their kiss – away from the edge of the building, crouching once more near a heating vent, unused now during the summer time.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, unwilling to let go of Nadine's muscular arms.
"What am I doing here? What are you doing here?!" Nadine countered, though her smile was still in place, small and beautiful and a little harsh. A moment's consideration told Chloe that her own cheeks hurt from smiling so hard. "Aren't you supposed to be finding out Derek's big secret?"
"The bastard led me into a trap," Chloe said, shaking her head. "I got away-"
"I'm going to kill that little maggot," Nadine interjected.
"-and I hid out on a rooftop," Chloe finished, her smile pulling into a smirk.
"Any sign of pursuit?" Nadine said, finally breaking their connection to look around. Ever the professional, even now. Chloe's heart ached.
"No." Chloe took hold of the other woman's arm, turning her. "Nadine. My family. Max." Her voice cracked. "My mum. They're…?"
"They're safe," Nadine said, brown eyes looking directly into Chloe's, never flinching. Trust Nadine Ross to never, ever shy away from giving you the truth. "I had to call in some help, but they'll be safe."
"Who?"
A frown. "Drake. Sam Drake. And Victor Sullivan."
Chloe relaxed. Yes, those two would keep her mother and son safe. She wasn't thrilled they now knew about Chloe's son. She'd worked hard to keep enemies and colleagues alike from her son. But given Derek's involvement, the world knowing about Max was going to happen anyway. At least he was with friends.
"I'm sure they'll have him winning at poker by the time we get back," Nadine finished with a noise of disgust.
Chloe laughed, shaking her head. "You think Mum doesn't already have him hustling me whenever I'm home?"
Nadine chuckled. "What little I've learned of her, you're probably right. That woman has layers." She grew serious, reaching for Chloe's arm. "You didn't get away completely unharmed," she said, pulling Chloe's attention to her bicep. A ragged wound was visible through her thermal shirt – still on, still far too hot for this climate. The wound had clearly bled for some time, though Chloe had been too busy running for her life to notice. It was now dried blood, but a flexing of her arm started the bleeding up again.
Chloe winced, sucking in a breath. "Shit. Fucking silenced pistol."
"I'll take care of it," Nadine said, and began working silently and methodically. She tore away the ripped sleeve – Chloe was not sad to see it go – and pulled a knife from her belt. After it was cut length-wise twice, she soaked one rag in water from her backpack and held it over the wound to loosen the scabs and dried blood.
While she worked, Chloe couldn't help but notice Nadine's smooth and efficient movements, marveling once again at how Nadine was harsh and no-nonsense without crossing over into rough. She could even be gentle. She would've made a good partner with a baby, Chloe found herself thinking.
Nadine pulled the wet cloth away after a minute or two and flushed the wound from her water bottle. Finally, she tied the second length of Chloe's sleeve – sans bloodstained bits – around the wound. "Can't stitch it, so it'll scar. But hopefully we've kept infection out." Brown eyes flashed up to Chloe's, and her brows furrowed. "What?"
Chloe shook away her warm thoughts of domesticity. Seriously where the hell did that come from? "Nothing. It's… nothing."
Nadine frowned, but dropped it. "So. What next? Do we leave? Find Derek and break both his legs?"
Chloe sighed, running her hand through her hair. It had been in a braid, but between her run through the city and subsequent night crammed into what was essentially a crawlspace, it was more out than in. She set about re-braiding the long strands while she stared at Nadine, thinking.
"I think we need to see this through," Chloe finally said, binding her brain and dropping her hands. "Bastard was right about one thing."
"What?" Nadine asked.
"Oh. He told me they'd find me, totally giving away that he was working for someone and not himself. Idiot. But he's right. They know where I live; or, Derek does, anyway. They know about Max. They want my cooperation, or my silence. We need to finish this or we'll never know peace."
"Never figured you for a peace sort of girl," Nadine scoffed.
Chloe smirked. "With you, china, I think I'd like to try it." She placed a hand on Nadine's arm, and the contact pulled a genuine – if small – smile from her.
"Ja. All right." Nadine stood up. "So. We find them. See what they want. Take out the threat."
Chloe chuckled. "When you say it like that, it sounds like a plan."
"A vague plan. An outline of a plan." Nadine scowled. "Lots of room for shit to go sideways."
Chloe pursed her lips. "Sure. Or, you could say it leaves room for improvisation?"
Nadine shrugged. "Tomato, tomato."
"You mean to-mah-to."
"I meant what I said," Nadine said, eyebrow raised in challenge.
Chloe rolled her eyes, moving around her girlfriend – girlfriend. When did that start sounding right? – and toward the edge of the building once more. "Jesus. You came all the way to Australia and then India to declare your love for me, and I can't even catch a break on the improv? It works!" Chloe pursed her lips. "Most of the time."
Nadine caught her arm. "Hey."
Chloe turned. "Yeah?"
"I do. Love you, I mean. It's… I do."
Chloe smiled, putting her hand over Nadine's. "I know, Nadine. I love you, too."
They spent a moment staring at each other before Chloe cleared her throat. "Come on. Work to do. We can fuck like bunnies later, yeah?"
Nadine breathed out a laugh. "Ja." She nodded ahead of her. "After you."
Chloe headed for the building's edge to get a lay of the land, Nadine's hand in her own and her heart settled for the first time since leaving Sydney.