When Will cried out, “Do not come in, Jon!” Jonny nearlysurged to his feet and would have done so had Ada not been holding onto his hand.
“I don’t like you going in alone,” Ada said in a soft voice a few minutes later, as the time ticked down.
“I’m never alone,” he said, turning and meeting her gaze. “Not with you in my heart.”
Her eyes widened at his near-confession of love, the closest he had ever come to telling her what he truly felt for her. But if he didn’t return from that warehouse — despite all of their precautions, there most certainly was a chance — he needed her to know that what he felt for her was real. True.
“Don’t leave me,” Ada said, her words nearly desperate as she gripped his hand, and he knew she didn’t mean in this moment — she would be fine out here.
She meant forever.
“I will do my very best,” he said, leaning in and pressing his lips hard against hers for a moment that was both too long and too short in the same breath. When he finally pulled away and checked his watch one last time, he nodded at her, before beginning a slow walk toward the warehouse door.
He wanted to look back, but he knew doing so would only weaken his resolve.
He had one chance at this, to make right all the years his brother had stayed in this hellhole while Jonny had been free, and he refused to squander it.
He banged on the door.
“I’m here. Let me in, Sharpe.”
The door opened to reveal Sharpe himself, standing there with a near-gleeful smile on his lips.
“Why, Jonny. I was beginning to think you wouldn’t show,” he said. A pistol gleamed in his hand, and he waved it inside, motioning Jonny in. “I’ve saved you a seat next to your brother.”
He pointed the gun toward a chair, Will sitting beside it.He was tied to his chair with a rope, his nose bloodied and cuts above his eyes, but besides that, there didn’t appear to be any further damage.
Jonny let out a long breath.
“What do you want, Sharpe?” he said, taking the seat beside Will. “Why did you bring me here?”
“I wanted to have this out,” Sharpe said, sitting across from them, pistol still in hand, although it was no longer trained on them. “Blackwood might have let you go, but I had no such arrangement with Will. Then imagine my surprise when I found out that the two of you were much closer than you ever let on.”
“We’re not close,” Jonny bluffed. “Our mother forces us to speak now and then.”
“I would have believed it, had Will not let you go the other night,” Sharpe said. “That was far too coincidental, along with the note you left to convince my men to turn against me. It was all a setup. The two of you want to take over operations.”
Well, he was close, but at least he hadn’t guessed the entire truth — that the second part of their plan was turning this all over to the authorities, to shut them down completely.
Jonny had to keep Sharpe talking, to provide time for the plan to fall into place.
“What happens if we don’t agree to work for you?” he asked.
Sharpe’s lips began to turn upward. “That, my former friend, isn’t an option anymore. It stopped being an option when Will began working against me. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to go for a little walk down to the river. Then the two of you are going to take a swim. Tie him,” he ordered one of his men, who walked up to Jonny and roughly began to tie a tight knot around his wrists. He desperately wanted to fight him off, but he knew to do so would be futile.
As Sharpe marched them toward the door, pistol againstthe back of Jonny’s head, Jonny closed his eyes, taking a deep breath in.
Perhaps this was the end, then.
At least Ada knew how he felt about her. He should have told her he loved her. He hoped she would guess.
For it seemed he would no longer have the chance to tell her himself.
Chapter Thirty-One
Ada tried to even out her breathing as she watched Sharpe lead Jonny and Will toward the river. Once Jonny had gone inside the warehouse, she had moved around to watch from the back door, while others covered the front.
She hoped Finch was on time tonight — unlike last time, when she’d had no choice but to take matters into her own hands.
