‘He told me—he told meyou…’ Lachlan balks slightly when the kid’s voice breaks.‘He said you’re allowed to use necessary force.’
Lachlan’s insides turn cold, satisfaction long gone.‘I don’t make the rules.’
‘That’s not whathesaid!’
‘Well, that wasn’t my decision.’
‘You get off on hurting kids, do you?’Julian demands, voice shaking.‘Are you gonna hurt Mimi too?’
Lachlan stares impassively, refuses to react.‘No one is going to get hurt.’
Julian grits his teeth, wipes his eyes.‘Justyou, motherfucker.’
CHAPTER FIVE
Lachlan is still using the old tracking devices left behind by former security; bracelet pulse monitor locators that are supposed to be impossible to remove.Other security in the East Wing consists of motion detectors on the windowsills.The “big one” is the CCTV which should capture and flag any and all motion after eight PM on Estate grounds.
This should all combine to keep Julian safely inside.
It’s two AM when Lachlan realises the kid has successfully snuck out.His tracking bracelet is onMimi,fast asleep in her bed.God only knows how he achieved that.The sill monitor is disabled.Lachlan will never be sure how he avoided the motion detectors in the cameras, but at two thirty AM, Julian is well and trulyfree,and the cameras caught nothing.
It takes Lachlan almost two hours to find him.
He has to run a backtrace using satellite imagery after calling his friend Jolene Mercer for a favour, and that takes time, but eventually he finds Julian in the back of an SUV parked up by alover’slaketwenty miles away.In the driver’s seat is a guy closer to Lachlan’s own age than Julian’s plus a few others, all of whom he drags out roughly.
Lachlan fires three warning shots into the air, angled to land in the lake nearby when they’re all out.They huddle close to the SUV, afraid of the gunshots, so Lachlan pulls them away from it, uses force on everyonebutJulian whose expression of disgusted anger transforms into wary confusion.Lachlan doesn’t harm anyone, no bruises, just some good old-fashioned roughing up,especially for the twenty-something loser with apimple-tachewho was in the driver’s seat with Julian in his fucking lap.
Lachlan puts himself between the kids and the SUV, now a fair way away, facing them.‘Let me tell you the top three outcomes of befriending a rich kid,’ he reels off, tone deadly flat.‘Number one; you become leverage.Number two; you die protecting them.Number three: you’re used to send a message.’His gaze flicks ontopimple-tache.‘Engaging in sexual activity with a minor that I was hired to protect seems more like a bid to commit violent suicide than anything else.’
The guy balks.‘It… what?’
Lachlan steps in, hauls the guy up by his collar.
‘Stop it!’Julian yells.‘Leave him alone!STOP!’
Lachlan ignores him and instead, presses the gun right where it’d do the most damage.‘If you evercome nearhim again,’ he intones with soft lethality, holding the gaze.‘I’ll make a hole where there wasn’t one before and pay men on the inside to take turns breaking it in.Heard?’
The guy nods frantically, scrabbling uselessly to get free.‘Yes,God, I’m sorry, I’ll stay away, I’ll—’
‘Julian,’ Lachlan calls out, clipped.‘Come here.’
‘You don’t tell me what to do, you fuckingpsychopath!’
Lachlan doesn’t repeat himself.
He punchespimple-tachehard enough to split his lip, nothing more.The guy squeals with his hands over his mouth, falling gracelessly to the ground.
Julian starts hitting Lachlan or trying to.
Lachlan holds him back easily.
‘I will now demonstrate the least harmful outcome of number three.’He wheels around, raises the gun at the SUV parked up behind him and then opens fire at the fuel line.The car catches fire violently beneath, not exploding but roasting itself.Pimple-tacheis sobbing his heart out.
Julian is staring at the fireball with wide, wet eyes.
Lachlan lets silence do the work until he feels it’s time.
‘I have plenty of bullets and full immunity,’ he informs Julian loud enough that the others can hear it over the burning roar.‘Look at me.’Julian’s fire-filled focus snaps onto Lachlan, all his clever sharpness and hostility struck through, mortally wounded.‘I signed a five-year contract.You’restuckwith me, so either get over it and meet me halfway, or tell your friends to start buying cheaper cars.’
