Chapter 12
Chapter 12
Fearghas covered for Dmytro as he moved forward, getting closer to the four men left behind to slow them down.
He worried they might have sent someone back to get to Catya and Madison, but he couldn’t focus on them when they needed to get to Atkins. Catya would take care of the girl and herself. She was strong, highly skilled and pretty badass. She’d be all right.
He fired a couple of rounds to keep their four opponents from killing Dmytro on his push forward.
Once Dmytro made it to the next alley where he took cover, he waved Fearghas forward.
“Got your back,” Jasmine said. “Go.”
Fearghas rose from his position and darted toward the corner of a building several yards further ahead of Dmytro.
A man leaned out from behind a concrete flowerpot.
Fearghas dove to the ground, aimed and fired at the man. His bullet glanced off the flowerpot and hit the man in the chest. The man fell.
Fearghas leaped to his feet and made it to the corner. He had a vague idea of where the other three had taken up defensive positions.
“We have one man behind the tree near the tavern,” Fearghas said.
“One on the corner of the building ahead of Fearghas,” Dmytro said.
“The third is on the ground behind the wooden wagon,” Fearghas said.
“Coming up on your left,” Jasmine said into his radio headset.
As soon as Jasmine moved, the man on the ground behind the wagon raised slightly.
Fearghas aimed down the barrel of his pistol, wishing he had a rifle with a scope. He was good with the pistol but needed to be great to hit the target at night with a handgun. He pulled the trigger and missed.
The man ducked his head low and rolled behind a post.
Jasmine made it to the corner on the opposite side of the street from Fearghas.
“This is taking too long,” Dmytro said. “Be ready to take them out.”
“I’ll take the man on the corner ahead of Fearghas,” Jasmine said. “And then I’ll go after the man behind the tree.”
“I’ve got wagon guy,” Fearghas said.
“Going.” Dmytro burst from his position, yelling like a demented fiend.
All three of their opponents leaned out at once.
Fearghas nailed the man by the wagon.
Jasmine got the guy on the corner and turned on the guy leaning out from the tree at the same time Fearghas pulled his trigger.
The man dropped.
Dmytro slowed to a stop as he came abreast of Fearghas, and Jasmine and clutched his side.
Jasmine went to him. “Dmytro, are you okay? Where were you hit?”
“Not hit,” Dmytro wheezed and planted his hands on his knees. “Out of shape.”
A shot rang out behind them.
All three of them dropped to the ground.
“It’s okay,” Ace said into Fearghas’s headset. “I got the sniper.” He jogged up to where they were. “Where’s Atkins?”
Fearghas scrambled to his feet. “They left guys behind to stall us. Three of them kept going with Atkins.” He took off running.
Jasmine, Ace and Dmytro hurried to catch up.
Fearghas ran to the street where he’d last seen them turn.
The street was empty. He kept running, trying to remember the way to the train station and out of the old city. As he neared the roundabout he recalled was close to the train station, he heard a low moan from a shadowy corner beside an old house.
As he neared the sound, he slowed to find a dark lump lying on the sidewalk. When he saw bare feet, his heart slipped into the pit of his belly. “I found Atkins,” he said, knelt beside the man and rolled him over. “He’s in bad shape. Shot in the belly.” He pressed a hand to the wound to stem the flow of blood at the same time as he pressed two fingers to the base of the man’s throat.
Ace caught up to him first. “Is he dead?”
Fearghas found a pulse. “It’s faint, but there. “No, but we need to get him to a hospital as soon as possible.”
Jasmine arrived with her cell phone pressed to her ear. She spoke in a language Fearghas didn’t know. After a moment, she ended the call and slipped her cell phone into her pocket. “An ambulance is on the way. I suggest one of us gathers our weapons and gets out of here, before the ambulance and police arrive.”
“Let me,” Ace said. “I need to go back to the church and collect my duffel bag and extra ammo.” He took the handguns from Fearghas and Jasmine, tucking them into his jacket.
“I’ll keep mine and go with you,” Dmytro said.
“I’m going with you, too,” Jasmine said.
Ace nodded. “Once I’ve retrieved my gear, we’ll go back and collect Catya and Madison.”
“You don’t have to,” Catya’s voice said into Fearghas’s ear. “We’re here.”
“Oh my God!” a voice called out. Madison Atkins ran toward them and dropped to her knees beside her father, tears running down her cheeks. “Oh, Father,” she lifted his hand and pressed it to her cheek. “Please, don’t die.”
Peter Atkins’s eyes blinked open. “It’s okay, baby,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, and then he passed out.
Sirens wailed in the distance, moving closer.
“That’s our cue to leave,” Ace said. “When you can, get back to Brussels. We’ll regroup at Lucie’s.”
Fearghas nodded. He had to stay until the ambulance arrived and keep pressure on Atkins’s wound. His gaze met Catya’s. “You should go with the others. Madison and I will make sure her father gets the care he needs.”
Catya shook her head. “I’m with you. You need someone to have your back.”
“Then you’d better give Ace your weapons.” Fearghas nodded toward his boss. “We can’t afford to end up in a holding cell.”
Catya handed over her handgun and the knife and sheath she had clipped to her belt.
“We can stay close by until you’re on your way to the hospital,” Ace offered. “Is there anything we can do for Atkins?”
Fearghas shook his head. “All we can do until the ambulance arrives is keep pressure on the wound. As for the men who did this, they’re long gone. They were after the disk. They wouldn’t have stayed around, nor would they have wanted to be around when the police arrived.”
“Then we’re out of here,” Ace said. “Hopefully, Lucie has made headway on decrypting the data she copied.”
“Let’s hope she did,” Fearghas said. “I didn’t recognize any of the men sent to fetch the disk.”
“Even so, I’ll see what our computer guru can do to track them.”
Ace, Jasmine and Dmytro hurried away.
“It might be best if we tell the doctor your father was attacked on his way to the train station,” Catya said. “If we go into too much detail, we could be held for questioning, and we don’t want to say anything about the gunfight in the market square. The police could already have had reports of shots fired and are probably on their way there as we speak.”
“I hope Ace and the others don’t run into the police,” Fearghas said. “They need to get back to Brussels.”
Catya nodded. “We need to know what’s on that disk and who the people are who want it so badly.”
The wailing sirens grew louder. An ambulance rounded a corner down the street.
Catya waved to direct them to where Fearghas held his hand to the wound in Atkins’s belly. The MI6 agent was still breathing, but he was unconscious.
The medics took over and transferred the man into the back of the ambulance.
They allowed Madison to ride in the front of the ambulance to the hospital.
“Don’t worry,” Fearghas told the traumatized young woman. “We’ll be right behind you.”
Catya had called a cab, which arrived as the medics closed the back of the ambulance and drove away.
Once in the cab, Fearghas and Catya followed the ambulance to the hospital, where they made sure Atkins would be cared for.
The agent was taken into surgery shortly after arriving at the hospital.
Catya and Fearghas wanted the emergency room doctor to check Madison.
The young woman refused, afraid to draw attention to herself. When the doctor had asked how her father had been shot, she’d told him someone had attacked him when they’d been on their way to the train station.
Fearghas and Catya sat with Madison in the waiting room. Fearghas asked Madison about her time in captivity. The men who’d held her hadn’t done more than give her water and some bread. Although they hadn’t physically assaulted her during that time, they had kept her locked in a room the size of a closet, only letting her out to use the toilet.
Fearghas found a vending machine with bottled water and another with snacks. He used his credit card to purchase items for Madison, urging her to eat. He’d find her better food in the morning when restaurants opened.
Madison nibbled on a packaged apple strudel, too distraught to manage to eat very much.
A couple of hours after her father had gone into surgery, a doctor came into the waiting room looking for Madison.
Fearghas and Catya flanked her, holding her hands as the doctor spoke.
“Your father came through surgery all right. I was able to stop the internal bleeding, but he lost a lot of blood. Fortunately, the bullet missed more than it hit. His major organs, like his heart and lungs, escaped injury. Still, he will need time to recover. We want to keep him at the hospital to observe his progress as long as necessary until we are sure he is recovering well.”
“Thank you,” Madison said. “May I see him?”
“Yes, you can see him,” the doctor said, “but he won’t be awake.”
“I understand. I just want to see him.” Madison looked at Fearghas and Catya. “Is it okay if my friends come with me?”
The doctor nodded. “Yes, but you can only stay a few minutes. Do you have a place to stay?”
“We’ll make sure she does,” Fearghas said. “Thank you for all you did for her father.”
The doctor gave them a brief nod. “It is my job. A nurse will show you to his room.” He turned and left.
Moments later, a nurse showed them to the room where Atkins lay on a hospital bed hooked up to an IV, monitors and a cannula feeding him oxygen.
Madison went to her father’s side and took his hand. She leaned over and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “You’re going to be all right. We’re going to be all right. Now, hurry up and get better. I can’t lose you like we lost Mother.”
Catya slipped her hand into Fearghas’s and leaned against him as they stood watching Madison with her father.
“We need to get to Brussels,” Fearghas said softly.
Catya squeezed his hand. “No, we need to be here. That girl needs someone with her until she knows her father’s going to be okay.”
Fearghas nodded. “I know.”
“I’m just as worried that the people who did this won’t pay for the damage they’ve done.”
“We’ll find them,” Fearghas said, his jaw tightening.
Madison placed her father’s hand on the bed beside him and joined Fearghas and Catya as they left the room.
“We should get a hotel room for the night,” Fearghas said.
Madison shook her head. “I want to stay here. At least until I know he’s going to be okay.” She looked up at Fearghas, her eyes filling with tears. “I’ve never been so scared in my life.”
Fearghas pulled the girl into his arms and held her as she cried. “It’s terrifying being abducted and held hostage. You’ve been through a lot.”
She shook her head. “I was scared, but I knew my father would find me. No. I’m more terrified of losing him. After losing my mother, he’s all the family I have.” She pressed her face against Fearghas’s chest, soaking his shirt with her tears.
He patted her back, his gaze meeting Catya’s.
Catya wrapped her arms around Madison from behind.
They held the girl between them until her sobs subsided.
Fearghas guided the girl to a seat and pressed her into it. He sat on one side of her and Catya sat on the other, each holding one of her hands.
Exhausted from all she’d endured, Madison soon nodded off, resting her cheek against Fearghas’s shoulder.
Catya continued to hold Madison’s hand, her gaze on the girl and Fearghas.
“You’d make a good mother,” Fearghas whispered.
Her brow wrinkled. “How do you know? I’ve never changed a diaper on a screaming baby.”
“You care about the innocents.”
Catya snorted. “I’m a killer.” She released Madison’s hand and pushed her feet. “Right now, I’m thinking about how I want to murder the people who shot this girl’s father and left him for dead. I want to find and kill the men responsible for Gia Rosolino’s death.” She paced away from Fearghas and Madison and stood with her back to them, looking out the hospital window into the dark night sky. “I want to be the judge, jury and executioner for the monsters who prey on the weak and use them in ways they should never have to endure.”
Fearghas eased Madison off his shoulder, slipped out of his seat and laid her on her side with his jacket as a pillow.
Once he had the girl situated, he went to where Catya stood by the window and rested his hands on her shoulders. “The point is that you care more than anyone I know. More than some parents care about their own children. I know that if you had a child of your own, you would move heaven and earth to make her safe and happy. You’d be a kind and loving mother.”
Catya leaned back against his chest. “Well, we’ll never know. I can’t bring a child into this world. She’d never be safe. I couldn’t do that to a kid. What kind of life would that be? I mean, look at what happened to Madison.” She shook her head. “I would be devastated if my child were kidnapped.”
Fearghas wrapped his arms around her middle and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Why did you leave me in Athens, Catya?”
She sighed. “You’ll never be safe if you’re with me.”
His arms tightened around her. “I can take care of myself.”
“I almost convinced myself we could be happy together. Like a normal couple.”
Fearghas’s heart skipped several beats and then made up for it by pounding hard through his veins. “What changed your mind?” he asked softly.
“Someone followed me the day I left.” She turned in his arms and stared up into his eyes. “I dodged him before I came back to your place, but it reminded me of why I couldn’t stay. I will always be followed, which means you will always be at risk.”
“Again, I can take care of myself.” He swept a strand of her silk black hair back from her forehead. “Shouldn’t it be my decision on the amount of risk I’m willing to take?”
Catya shook her head, her brow wrinkling. “It was my choice to become an assassin. I can’t let you take a hit because of my decisions. I would never be able to live with myself if something happened to you.”
Catya rested her hands on his chest. “And now that my parents are gone, you’re all I have left. I won’t let you die.”
“If you leave me, you have no choice in whether I live or die.” He cupped her cheeks in his palms. “Together, we have each other’s back. Apart, we have nothing.”
“I want you so much.” Catya shook her head from side to side, caught between his hands. “But I can’t do it. I can’t put you in danger every day of your life.”
“Cat—”
“Father?” a voice called out behind Fearghas.
He spun to find Madison pushing herself to an upright position, her eyes rounding. “Father?”
Catya ducked around Fearghas and knelt on the floor in front of Madison. “Hey, everything is going to be okay. Your father is recovering from surgery. Remember?”
She nodded and pushed dirty blond hair back from her face. “I was dreaming. I couldn’t get out of that room. I couldn’t get to my father.”
Catya hugged Madison. “You’re safe now. And your father is safe. Lay your head down, go back to sleep and dream of fields of flowers and puppies.”
Madison gave Catya a watery smile. “Thanks.” Her gaze went to Fearghas. “Thanks for helping me and my father.”
Footsteps tapped against the floor, heading their way. Two sets of footsteps, by the sound of it.
Fearghas tensed, his hand going to where his shoulder holster had been before remembering he’d handed it off to Ace before the ambulance had arrived—until he saw who they were.
When a man and a woman appeared in the doorway to the waiting room, Fearghas let out a sigh of relief, and a smile spread across his face.
He strode over to greet the newcomers.
“Hank, Sadie, I didn’t expect to see you two here.” Fearghas gripped Hank’s hand and gave it a firm shake. Then he turned to Sadie and shook the movie star’s hand as well.
“We were flying to Brussels when we heard what happened,” Hank said. “Sadie insisted we alter our course and come to Bruges to help.”
“Thank you,” Fearghas said. “I suppose Ace told you we ran into a wee bit of trouble.”
Hank nodded. “He did. We came to check on Atkins and his daughter. I’m prepared to stay as long as it takes to get them somewhere safe.” He touched a hand to the small of his wife’s back. “Sadie can stay a few days before she heads back to Montana and our babies.”
Sadie nodded. “We want to help.” She looked past Fearghas.
“Let me introduce you,” Fearghas turned to Catya. “Catya Romanov, this is Hank Patterson, the founder of the Brotherhood Protectors. His wife, Sadie McClain?—”
“Is a world-famous actor,” Catya finished. She held out a hand to Sadie. “It’s an honor to meet you. I’ve seen several of your movies. You’re very talented.”
Sadie’s cheeks pinkened. “Thank you. And thank you for helping rescue Ms. Atkins. I can’t imagine how dangerous it was.”
Catya held out her hand to Hank. “I have heard good things about your organization from Fearghas and others. The Brotherhood Protectors is building a good reputation in the US and around the world.”
Hank shook her hand. “We only hire the best.” He lifted his chin toward Fearghas. “Having protectors from other countries will help us provide even more protection to people in Europe and around the world. We’re happy Fearghas decided to join us.”
Sadie stepped around Hank and Catya. “And you must be Madison.”
The young woman rose from the waiting room chair, her eyes wide. “Are you really the Sadie McClain?”
Sadie crossed to take Madison’s hands in hers. “I am. Please, call me Sadie. How’s your father?”
While Sadie spoke with Madison, Catya and Fearghas moved closer to Hank.
“I figured someone needed to be here to look out for Atkins while he’s recuperating,” Hank said. “For now, that someone is me. As soon as Atkins is able to move, we will transport him and his daughter to somewhere safer until we can figure out what’s going on.” He glanced from Fearghas to Catya and back. “You two are closer to this case and need to get back to Brussels. ASAP. Ace thinks the hacker will break through the encryption at any time.”
Catya glanced back at Sadie and Madison.
Hank chuckled. “Don’t worry. Sadie will make sure Madison is safe and loved. She’s amazing with children and adults alike. And I’ll protect Atkins until he’s moved to a safer location.”
Fearghas met Catya’s gaze. “Ready to get back in the game?”
Catya’s gaze rested on Madison for a moment before she squared her shoulders and gave a brief nod. “Ready.”