“No.” Ben swallowed again. “I mean, yeah. I’m up for it. You’re right. It’s the only way to set everything right. But, Lawrence… Brother, I gotta tell you, I don’t like it.”
“You don’t gotta like it, Ben. You just gotta do it.”
Ben firmed his jaw and pushed himself from the SUV. Lawrence followed him out, gun in hand.
“How you wanna do this?” Ben asked, heading towardthe tree line next to the road.
“We sneak up to the place and see what’s what.” Lawrence’s heart beat with an eager rhythm. When he sucked in a breath, the air felt stingingly crisp and cool. It flooded his lungs and hardened his resolve.
This was right. What they were about to do wasright. He knew it. Hefeltit.
Neither of them spoke as they trudged through the dripping forest towardthe manor house, their booted feet kicking up the smell of wet leaves and dark, fertile soil.
Lawrence imagined what his life would have been like had Christian Watson not buggered it all by starting that ruckus at the Iraqi roadblock. His brother would be alive. His parents would be alive. And maybe he wouldn’t feel the need to hurt people. Maybe he wouldn’t have so much hatred in his heartthat it required an occasional outlet and—
“It’s up ahead,” Ben whispered, pulling Lawrence from his thoughts.
He motioned for Ben to keep going and stayed tight to his brother’s flank. Once they reached the edge of the forest, they positioned themselves behind neighboring trees. Lawrence narrowed his eyes as he took in the great gray manor house and the recently cut front lawn.
Hiseyes skimmed over the bushes trimmed to look like flying horses and dragons, slipped past the rock lions, and landed on the gravel car park. Theemptygravel car park. A hard stone of bitterness and self-disgust settled in his chest.
He’d chosen wrong. He’d thought Watson and his mates would avoid the CCTV cameras, but obviously they—
“They’re not here,” Ben breathed.
Lawrence couldn’ttell if his little brother sounded annoyed or relieved. Either emotion cheesed Lawrence off, since what Benshouldbe feeling was fear. And fury. And a bone-deep frustration that they wouldn’t be spilling the blood of their enemies this day!
“I can bloody well see that, Ben. I got eyes.”
“So what you wanna do now?”
What did he want to do now? What didhewant to do now? Well, he wantedto fit his little brother with some cement galoshes, sail him out to the middle of the Celtic Sea, and feed him to the fecking fishes! If it weren’t for Ben, Lawrence wouldn’t beinthis mess and—
No.No.He forced himself to take a deep breath. Forced down the anger that was always so near his surface. Ben was family, and the Michelsons stuck together. Plus, maybe Ben was right. Maybe Lawrencehadwatched too many gangster movies.
“We go with your original plan,” he said decisively, turning back into the forest as his mind raced through the possible stumbling blocks in their new path. “And we hope like hell it holds up to scrutiny.”
Trudging alongside him, Ben glanced at his watch. “But it’s been too long. The body at the airport musta been discovered by now. How in soddinghell are we gonna explain why we fled the scene? And what are we gonna say when someone asks why we waited over an hour to call in what happened?”
“Easy,” Lawrence said. “We were chasing the perpetrators all over Cornwall.” Again, it was close enough to the truth to be believable. “And we couldn’t call it in ’cause your mobile is broken.”
“But that doesn’t explain why we wouldn’t haveusedyours.”
“I forgot mine at home in my hurry to leave the house to confront Watson.” Lawrence smiled. It wasn’t the way he’d wanted to play things. But if he and Ben kept their story straight, they might come up smelling like roses.
“Is that true?” Ben lifted a brow and hopped over a fallen log.
“It is.” Lawrence had never been so pleased to forget his phone in his life. “We saywe chased them and lost them, and only after that did we stop to make the call.”
“Okay.” Ben nodded. “Okay, it could work.”
“Itwillwork,” Lawrence insisted as they broke through the cover of the forest and headed toward the parked SUV. “We just gotta stick to the story. And it’d probably be better if we call it in to our own unit. They’ll be more likely to take our words at face value.”After all, hadn’t his unit turned a blind eye the few times some sack-of-shit pub patron had accused Lawrence of being the one to start a fight?
“Right,” Ben said, opening the passenger door and hopping inside.
Lawrence was behind the wheel a second later, cranking over the engine and hanging a u-ey. They hadn’t made it far, maybe a half mile or so, before a flash of green caught his eye.He stomped on the brakes so hard that the SUV fishtailed down the road.
Ben gripped the dashboard. “What in hell?”
