“I won’t allow it.” Collin catches on quickly. He puts a protective arm around me. “Why would you be willing to invest this absurd amount of money to go into a dirty business like this? Lucas, Jonathan, you can’t be on board with this insane plan.”
“It’s all about diversification,” Lucas says, looking completely indifferent to his brother’s shock. “You expand, or you fall behind.”
“What about the risk of civilian casualties?” Collin argues, “You’d bring down law enforcement on us from every continent on earth.”
Oh, sweet baby Jesus, Malcolm mentioned Kai was on his way here. Eight hours, he said? I can’t let him come here. Richard, that bastard, that fucking snake, he’ll kill him in some horrible way. Probably me too, but I can’t think about that right now.
“It’s worth the risk,” Lucas says impatiently. “This weapon puts us in an invincible position. No mafia, mob, or bratva would dare come after us.”
“This kind of opportunity is a lightning strike,” Malcolm says. “You finding your granddaughter and we discover that she’s the last piece to negotiating this deal? Of course we’d move on this.”
I look around the room for exits, but I don’t see any. Guards are patrolling outside the windows, and the door we came in likely has a dozen armed men hovering on the other side.
Then I see that on the wall opposite the windows, there is a door, beautifully carved to fit in with the rest of the wainscoting. It probably just leads to a bathroom or something but…
There’s a thunderous boom outside, unimaginably loud like standing next to a train roaring past you on the tracks, and it’s so powerful it makes the windows - and my eardrums - bulge. Then it’s all on fire.
Something hits me in the shoulder, knocking me to the ground. My ears are ringing, I can’t hear anything. Collin’s shouting something he has blood on the side of his face. There’s fire. Fire and broken bodies and glass and I moan in pain when my grandfather hauls me off the floor by my arm dragging me toward the door in the wall.
Ripping open the door, he shoves me inside, cupping my face with his hands. “...attack …stay here …safe.” I blink up at him stupidly, wishing my ears would stop ringing violently and I could understand him. Grandpa kisses my forehead and slams the door shut. With me inside. He’s on the other side with the fire and broken bodies.
Kai…
Two minutes earlier…
“You’re sure you have her fecking position?” I’ve got a grip on Georges’ shirt, and I know he’s too scared to pull loose.
“I swear it.” He shows me an iPad with the heat signatures in the room. The only one I’m sure of is my Luna, thanks to the tracker in her wedding ring. That she is still wearing it is the best news I’ve had since she walked out of my house. “She’s on the north side, the farthest from the window. There’s a person in front of her.” He points to the red dot next to her. “I don’t know if he’s friendly or hostile, but his body will shield her from any shrapnel.”
“There won’t be any,” Michael’s hunched over another screen with Roger. “These charges are precisely targeted. The only danger is if she suddenly moves within the next sixty seconds.”
Our men surround the compound on every side. One of the explosive charges will tear open the west corner, the weakest spot in the perimeter. The other will rip right through the wall of the house.
“Feck…” I’m pacing, hand on my hips, watching the drones streak toward their destination.
“You were the only one to speak to Collin,” Da says. “Do ya think he’ll protect Luna?”
“I saw his expression when he looked at her. It was his chance to get his daughter back through Luna, in a way. Aye, I think he’ll protect her.”
Bulletproof vest on, guns loaded, pockets bulging with ammo, we climb into the jeep. I’m in the first team to breach the mansion and my only priority is my wife.
The roar from the charges is percussive, and the earth rolls. Our armored car tears through landscaping, knocking down men shooting at us and bursts through the hole in the mansion’s wall created by the explosives.
There’s dust, always dust during a firefight, choking and blinding. In the shattered room, fires are burning here and there, and the bloody remains of what I’m guessing are two of the Harris brothers are sprawled on the floor. I search every corner. No Luna.
Striding toward Collin, I grab him by the throat. Blood is coursing down his white shirt. “Where is my wife!” I shout in his face.
“Door behind me,” he wheezes, “didn’t know. I didn’t know. Get her out.”
A fresh bloom of blood spreads across his chest, and I look back to see Malcolm crouched behind his desk, still aiming his smoking gun at his own brother. “She wasnothing!”he screams at Collin. “All you had to do was hand her over! It was the fucking opportunity of alifetime, she fell into our laps!” His voice is high and hysterical, and I shoot him in the face, sending his brains splattering against his expensive paneling.
“Armstrong’s over here!” Da shouts, holding the red-faced, struggling bastard in a chokehold.
Endless rounds of gunfire echo through the house and in the distance as our men bring down the rest of the compound. The fires in this room are getting aggressive; time to get my girl out of here.
Pounding on the door, I shout, “Luna! Open the door love, it’s me.”
“I didn’t want you to come!” Luna rips open the door, sobbing as she leaps into my arms. “They were going to kill you and torture you and me too, probably, but I didn’t want you to die!”
