Chapter 2

***Quick Note***

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People began shoving past each other, desperate to get away from whoever had fired the shot. As I passed, I caught a glimpse of a bloodied arm. Desperate to see what was happening, I clawed through the group that had suddenly gathered and saw Charles panting and holding his shoulder.

"Eva, go!" He seethed through gritted teeth. His command rang through my ears.

"Go!"

I backed away, aghast. Before I could even think about what was happening, I ran. I ran as fast as I could through the parking lot and into my car, locking the doors with shaking hands as I did. Shit.I began to dial 9-1-1.

As I did, my cellphone started ringing and I paused a moment before realizing I was hyperventilating to the point where I was going to faint. It was Gio. I slid the green arrow to the left.

"Gio. Charles. He's hurt!" I panted and pressed my shaking blanched-white fingers to my forehead.

"Yes, I know Eva, he just called me. Calm down. He told me it must have been a warning shot. It was a clean wound through his shoulder."

"A clean wound?!" I screeched, trying not to picture the blood. Finally getting a hold of my surroundings I dropped the phone and frantically reached for the seatbelt. Getting to Charles and getting him to a hospital was the only thing I could think about now.

A tall figure jumped in front of my car door and tried to open it. I almost had a heart attack before I realized it was Gio. The phone was still by his ear and he looked irritated.

"How the hell did you find me?" I asked angrily.

"Do now, question later. Get in the passenger seat." I followed his instructions without hesitation and the engine roared to life.

"We need to get Charles to a hospital." My vision was slowly begging to go dark.

"We need to get you home. I already called the ambulance." Gio's voice was too steady. "He's going to be fine, this isn't his first rodeo."

"I'm going to be sick." I replied suddenly, sinking into my chair. My thoughts began to swirl and I began to wonder if it was partially a result of Gio's erratic driving. He quickly took one gloved hand off the steering wheel and found my trembling one. The action brought my world snapping back to the present.

"Now you see why we need to leave immediately, Eva. All of our lives are at risk now."

The rest of the evening involved Gio calling the hospital every ten minutes or so about Charles and me frantically packing my suitcase. I felt completely useless because I couldn't help him or Charles.

Mrs. McDowell looked paper-white when Gio explained some of what had happened. He couldn't go into great detail with either of them. As he explained to me, it could put them at a greater risk if they knew the full truth and I didn't want anything happening to the only real family I had ever known. Whoever was suddenly tracking me down could have already found out where I lived, even though Gio assured me that he, Charles, and my Father were the only ones that knew before his death.

But now, somehow, they had found out and were here in LA. Questions swam in my head, biting at me like millions of piranhas in a feeding frenzy. Gio didn't answer any of them, only insisting that we keep moving. I could tell he was worried about Charles though he persisted to deny it like the stubborn Scot he was.

All those lectures he gave me on becoming a strong woman might as well have been used on someone who didn't lose their lunch every time they saw blood. I didn't bother eating the steak Mr. McDowell prepared because the cost to my system was greater than all of the $50 I spent on it.

I padded over to my bathroom to observe at least five bruises that somehow occurred between the supermarket and my Toyota. In the mirror I looked pale, and my sandy blond hair didn't help me look any less ghostly. I never thought I was unattractive, but I had always envied Holly's brunette hair and sharp features. It made her look very smart and every bit the intelligent lawyer she was.

There was a soft rap at the door. "Come in." I replied.

Gio entered with a dinner tray, complete with some of Mr. McDowell's steak with rice and a tall glass of water on the side. "I thought you could use an Advil or two after the events of today."

"Two." I replied without hesitation.

"Ah, then two it is."

I suppressed a smile. Gio's deep Scottish brogue never hesitated to make me feel better. I used to force him to read to me when I was younger, just so I could hear him tell all the spooky Scottish tales in that wonderful accent.

"I took the liberty to check on Charles. It looks like he'll be released just in time for our plane to take off." I could feel my frown deepening.

"It was my fault." I sat on the bed, setting aside the glass of water.

"Now, miss, let's not go through this again, shall we? It's our job and our duty to your late Father." He sat beside me and the gleam in his eye told me he was on another one of his philosophical journeys. "Aye, and what a brave man he was. We will miss him like our own Fathers."

That brought to mind my conversation with Holly earlier. It might have been a bad time to bring this up, but it would keep eating away at me until I had it out. "About Dad.."

"Yes?"

"What was it he did exactly that could be forcing people to—" I paused. "Track us down like this?"

It came out a little more blunt than intended. Gio had been getting the 'What does my Father do for a living' question from me for ages. This time he smiled a little, accepting the question instead of pushing it away.

"Ah, well you'll see when our plane lands in Manchester. It's a bit too complicated to explain now."

"Manchester?!" I interrupted.

I closed my, eyes, shaking it all off. It wasn't worth all the confusion that I had been feeling anyways since I was a kid. I had forgotten that Dad's company was based out of Manchester in the U.K. He had only told me once a long time ago.

"Never mind that." I replied. The Advil was finely kicking in and I felt somewhat less tense. "I just need to know one thing and I need for you to be honest with me." He looked skeptical, but nodded.

"Does... whatever it is, whatever he worked with... involve drugs?" There was an awkward pause, then Gio started to laugh. A genuine, hearty laugh that I hadn't seen on him in a long time.

"My dear, is that really what you thought he did?" He laughed some more, interrupting what he was going to say next. "Drugs?!"

I didn't know how anyone would have come to a different conclusion.

"Boy, he would have loved to hear that- would have given him a good laugh."

I sat in stunned silence. "I don't see what's so funny about it! It's a legitimate concern!" To be perfectly honest I was more relieved than frustrated.

Gio rested his hand on my shoulder. "Eva," He said, a genuine smile returning to his tired face. "What your Father did- no, what his legacy is doing today is going to be the most powerful technological developments in world history. And I'm going to finely be able to show it to you."

His eyes creased. "Because it's all going to be yours now."

**********

The headache had not ceased as we pulled up to the tarmac the next morning, but a feeling of curiosity and excitement began to slowly overtake the doubts.

"Charles!" I yelled and threw myself into his arms, recoiling when I noticed him wincing. How on earth was he not still in the hospital? "I'm so sorry." The cast looked pretty tight around his right arm.

He waved his left hand. "Don't worry about it, Eva. It'll be as good as new in a few days."

I surveyed the small local airstrip we were on. There wasn't a soul around except for two pilots in uniform running around a small Learjet. Off-handedly, I wondered if it belonged to my Dad.

"She's fueled up and ready to go!" Gio announced, walking back from somewhere on the other side of the plane. For a moment, I froze in place, wondering if I was really ready for this. I had seen the jet before when it flew in carrying my Dad when he came to visit, but I had never been inside of it myself.

"Everything okay, Eva?" Gio stood close beside me as he always did.

"Y...yes, I think so." I was given the life most people couldn't even dream of- the least I could do was embrace it. Something just seemed to be holding me back from that. A feeling that I couldn't shake off. Familiar faces began to fly through my mind; the McDowells, Holly and Jay, my Dad. His face was the one that stayed with me the longest. The realization came to me that somehow I was doing this all for him.

"I'm... ready." I said hesitantly at the steps leading upward.

"Shall we?" He escorted me up the stairs and into the handsomely furnished cabin. It was complete with tan leather seats and marble counter-tops. There was a place to eat, a sitting area with seat-belts and a place to sleep judging by the closed ivory doors. It was everything I imagined it to be while Dad was alive!

"She's a beauty, isn't she?" Gio took two of my bags and led me through the ivory doors. Sure enough, there was a king-sized bed complete with a bottle in an ice bucket. "If you're going to live the life of your Father, we're going to have to teach you a thing or two on refined refreshments."

I smiled at the way he mentioned "champagne".

There was a sound coming from the cabin and Gio led me back out of the room. "I want you to meet the pilots. Your Father has trusted them for over 7 years."

We approached them and one of them extended his hand, introducing himself as Woody. I assumed that he was the captain since there were four white stripes on the black strips attached to his shirt. He looked about Gio's age, maybe 40 years old, and stood at an impressive 6 ft. 2 inches. How he handled working in such a confined space at his height, I'd never know.

The co-pilot introduced herself as Pia. She was maybe older than Woody, I guessed maybe 60, and was shorter than myself. Her silvering hair was tied back into a tidy pony-tail.

"What a unique name." I pointed out.

"Yes, she is from Greece." Gio mentioned. Pia smiled at his reply and shyly reverted back to the cabin.

Woody's steady gaze was trained on me. "We are very glad to finally meet you, Miss... "

"Call me Eva, please." I interjected.

"Eva. Your Father always spoke the world of you."

Really? I guess between seeing him once a year and the phone calls that never really happened, I could see how I came up frequently in conversation. The sarcastic retort stayed in my head. I nodded genuinely. "Thank you, Woody."

We seated ourselves for takeoff and I quietly observed the scenery, feeling as though my world had just slipped away with our slow ascent upward. Mr. and Mrs. McDowell, my friends, Mr. Jeffries- all back in LA where they were now safe, away from me. A sinking feeling settled in the pit of my stomach.

"You okay?" Gio squeezed my forearm gently.

I nodded. I could only hope so.  The seatbelt light flashed and Gio quickly went to my room and re-emerged with the bottle of champagne.

"I think we need to make a toast." He announced as he popped the cork and poured the fizzy drink into three glasses.

"And what toast would that be?" I inquired. I didn't feel like celebrating anything at the moment.

"A toast to your Father's legacy. May it live on through his daughter and continue to inspire the world." He raised his glass and Charles and I followed. I was still bewildered at the fact that my Father had left his company to me. I had no experience in leadership of that scale or any experience at all working there.

What if I didn't like what he was involved in? The question started burrowing at me as I sipped the champagne from the clear fluted glass. Charles looked equally deep in thought as he looked out the window and rubbed his arm. I hadn't known him all that well over the years besides our few check-ins, but I knew how strong and impenetrable he appeared to be on the outside, even after being shot. Sometimes he reminded me of the Terminator without the Arnold Schwarzenegger accent. I fought the smile that the image brought with it.

"We've set up all of the arrangements for your Father's funeral." Gio said, examining the contents of a folder. "It's going to be in Greece."

"Greece?!" I almost spit out my drink. "Why Greece?"

"It's where he wanted it." Gio replied matter-of-factly. "I suspect because Greece is where he met your Mother."

"My Mother?" All I knew about her was that she died when I was barely old enough to walk. Something about a skiing accident. I had always wondered what she looked like because my Father never showed me any pictures of her. The subject was to bitter to talk about in the few times we had visited so I left it alone.

"You look just like her, you know." Gio said, picking up a legal document. I caught a glimpse of my Father's signature on it.

"I do?!" I replied incredulously. "Do you have a picture?" He shook his head sadly.

"Your Father had the only picture I know about. I guess we could search for it when we get back to his office to go through his effects." I wondered how Gio saw the picture. If I asked, he would just call it a question for another day.

My mind began to wander to the events of yesterday. Even though I didn't have a wink of sleep the night before, the time alone helped me sort through the events piece by piece.

I thought I saw the man who shot Charles, when I tried on those glasses at the grocery store. My mind was in such a panic at the time I could hardly remember what he looked like, other than the fact that he wore a dark beret. I thought about mentioning it to Gio, but he had enough on his plate already. It was so kind of him to take care of Dad's funeral arrangements and help me feel at home. Suddenly whatever turbulence we had been feeling for the past few minutes smoothed over and I heard Woody's even-toned voice over the intercom.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we are now flying over the Pacific Ocean."

Author's Note

This chapter was a fun one to write/edit. Very excited to introduce a man named Will into the plot, look for him soon. 😏

Also, please remember to vote on this chapter if you enjoyed it. :) :)