“Let’s get out of here,” Noah murmured, his gaze scanning the area. “I don’t think the MCs are finished. I’d rather not find out if I’m right.”
“Agreed.” Seth draped one of Elias’ arms over his shoulders again, as did Noah.
Together the group headed for the back door of the building, with Iona in the lead. “Teagan, are we clear?”
“For the moment. There’s another contingent coming. You have two minutes to exit the compound.”
“Copy that.” Iona pushed the pace toward the back of the compound.
Elias kept his weapon ready. Alert to every move Iona made, he was the first to see the shadow emerge to her right and aim a weapon at her. “Gun!”
She dropped and did a forward roll into a crouch, her weapon up and aimed at the man.
It took Elias a split second to recognize their opponent. Of course. Why wouldn’t he let this go? “Get out of the way, Dad.”
Eddie laughed, gesturing around them. “I don’t think so, Elias. You’re outnumbered, son.”
More men emerged from the shadows with weapons in their hands, then still more behind them.
Elias’ gut knotted. This wasn’t good. Fortress could handle two-to-one odds easily. What he didn’t want was for his friends to be killed before Fortress took down the Reckoners.
“Give it up.” Seth aimed his weapon at Eddie, center mass. “We’ve already taken down close to a hundred of your MC members and Blackthorn Riders. You’re finished, Eddie.”
He smiled. “These aren’t the only MC members left alive. More wait outside the gates.”
Elias assessed his father. His words might be true. Then again, they could be a total lie. He was a consummate liar.
Without looking away from Elias, Eddie said, “All of you point your weapons at the beautiful Iona.”
With those words, his father changed the game.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“NO.” ELIAS LOWEREDhis arms from his friends’ shoulders and pointed his Sig at Eddie. He couldn’t allow his father to kill Iona. No one meant more to him than the woman he loved with every beat of his heart. If Eddie killed her, Elias’ life would be meaningless. “Don’t.”
“You can stop this, Elias.”
“How?” Elias knew. Oh, he knew what his father wanted. His heart, his will, his soul. Everything. To become what his father demanded was Elias’ worst nightmare. But to save Iona, he’d do anything, even give up a life he loved.
Elias had warned Iona how ruthless his father was, how he manipulated people to gain the outcome he desired. Ironic how he’d run from his father for over twenty years only to come full circle and fall into Eddie’s grand scheme, anyway.
“Elias, no,” Iona said. “You know what he wants. Don’t give it to him.”
And allow his father to kill her? Despair rolled up like a tidal wave. He’d have to give her up no matter what he desired. That would be the price of her survival. Elias scowled. If his father kept his word. No guarantee on that. “What do you want?” he asked his father, forcing the words past his lips. That was the last question he wanted to ask.
“You will accept your place by my side. Together, we’ll build the strongest MC ever known. To save your woman, you will give me your wholehearted obedience and submission to my will.”
And there it was, the one thing he’d run from since the day he escaped the Reckoners. Elias literally heard a death wail in his head, the death of everything he’d fought to become. All for nothing. If he accepted Eddie’s bargain, his life was over. If he refused, Echo, Artemis, and Iona’s lives were forfeit, and still he’d be forced to bend to his father’s will. “That’s the price of the lives of my friends and the woman I love?”
His father beamed at him. “Give me what I want, and they can walk away unharmed.”
“Don’t, Elias,” Seth snapped. “That’s an order.”
“Oh, tsk, tsk, Dixon. You should rethink that. One of my men has a bead on your Old Lady.”
Echo unit’s leader laughed. “She can shoot the wings off a fly. Your man is the one who should watch out for himself.”
“Thank you, sweetheart,” Teagan said. “Shall I demonstrate my prowess to them?”
