“Get out,” the driver said, deathly quiet.
I stared at him. It took a few moments to understand what he’d said. The engine started and he found me in the rearview mirror, repeating the same two words. Sal kept watching my brother but the third man turned at the engine’s noise.
The sliding door rammed against the end of its rail when I threw it open. The driver didn’t even wait for me to close it before he gunned the engine. The van tore down the driveway, leaving twin clouds of dust in its wake.
“Where is he taking her…” my brother yelled before he finally noticed me, “don’t let her get away!”
I darted to the manor’s plywood door as fast as my heels could take me. I’d pulled my penlight from my purse just after the plywood fell back into place, blanketing me in darkness. Its light led me across the foyer.
The door behind me opened. I blinked the light away and stepped into the grand hall. My feet fell on the beams, retracing the wide-legged steps Ian and I had used when we’d explored the manor.
“Shite, it’s too damn dark in here.” My cousin’s voice echoed through the cavernous room. “I’ll hold the door open. You go after her.”
Light burst from the entryway. A single pair of footsteps stepped the stone floor. They stopped at the grand hall. By now, I’d reached the staircase that rose in the middle of the room, walking on top of the beams.
Wood cracked near the entrance. Sal screamed, the sound falling until a thud sounded and his breath blew out with gurgling cough. Splintered boards surrounded a Sal-sized hole in the floor.
“I think I broke my damn leg!” he bellowed from below. “Help.”
He really should have picked better associates. I didn’t expect my cousin or brother to prioritize him. As I darted up the stairs, skipping the dangerously rotten boards, I couldn’t help but wonder if Ian would come for me.
16
The White Knight
Ian
“Shit,” Emma’s mum hissed in the passenger seat. “Sal’s phone is coming our way now, and fast.”
“I already know where they’re going,” I said, eyes on the road.
My phone dinged with the alarm sound. Someone had entered the manor. Even kidnapped, Emma kept a level head; had somehow gotten her brother to take her back to the manor and triggered the alarm. If it wasn’t for her mum and the tracker she’d put on her husband’s phone, we’d have been at least half an hour later.
A van screamed out of the manor’s long drive. It zipped past us, the sliding door wide open. The man Emma had tormented at the pub drove but I didn’t notice anyone else inside. The engine gunned after he passed us.
“She’s not in the van,” I said to my mother-in-law. “She’s in the manor house.”
“Manor house?” Her eyes blinked with greed before concern for her daughter took over again.
“It’s not much to look at.” I let out a chuckle. Emma had mentioned how much she’d learned from her mother.
I pulled to a stop on the drive right before the turn brought the manor into view. When Monica moved to open her door, I patted her shoulder.
“It would be best if I go alone,” I said, nodding to Bashir and my borrowed Scouse muscle in the back. “Stay with her and don’t let anyone past if I don’t come back.”
Monica wanted to argue. Her eyes narrowed dangerously, exactly the kind of look you didn’t want on your mother-in-law, especially when you’d robbed her of an actual wedding. Her expression softened and she nodded. Before I could open my door, her talon-like fingernails grabbed my wrist.
“You better bring her back or die trying,” she hissed, fingers tight. “If you come back alone, I’ll finish the job myself.”
“Damn, she’s a firecracker, too,” Bashir said, earning a glare from Emma’s surprisingly scary mum.
I nodded and stepped out the door. Jogging up the drive, I kept low and right near the tree line. The van had been their only vehicle but I couldn’t see anyone. How had Emma convinced them to take her here? She was scarily crafty, would make a good partner. If I could convince her of that, at least.
A darker thought intruded soon after and slowed my steps. The entire way following Monica’s tracker, my thoughts had centered on saving Emma. She’d got them out here, had triggered the alarm she knew would alert me. She’d told me how much she hated white knights the night we met. Was she double crossing me? Had her brother offered her a better deal?
I shook my head at such questions. Everything began transactional, especially on her part. Hell, money had to rank in the top three of her turn-ons, even now. The time we’d spent here took it beyond the tit for tat agreement we’d made last year. She wouldn’t betray that for a brother who wanted nothing to do with her. He couldn’t offer her half of what I brought to the table.
A muffled yell reached me as I neared the plywood door. Too deep for Emma, my steps hurried anyway. I flicked my phone’s flashlight on and pulled the door open. Nobody ambushed me in the doorway, or stood anywhere in the foyer. I crept across the stone floor.
