Chapter 11 Maeve #2
He’s a gorgeous, satiny black Thoroughbred with a white blaze down his face and three white socks, lean and muscled from his years as a racehorse, kept in shape by riders at the stables when I’m not here.
His ears twitch back and forth as I approach and feed him a peppermint, stroking his nose before going to get a curry brush.
I take my time, wanting to enjoy this measure of peace for as long as I can have it.
Twenty minutes later, I'm mounted up, and Eddie is behind me on a gray mare that looks less than thrilled about having a stranger on her back. "Stay on the marked trails," Cole instructs. "Keep your phone on."
I nod, already gathering the reins. Atlas shifts beneath me, eager to move, and for the first time in days, I feel something like excitement.
We head out, following the familiar trail that winds through the woods behind the stable.
The wind and cold make Atlas fractious, dancing underneath me with the desire to be allowed to run, but he behaves all the same, obeying my commands.
Eddie rides behind me, silent and watchful.
I try to ignore him, try to pretend I'm alone out here like I used to be.
Atlas tosses his head, picking up on my tension, and I force myself to relax.
To focus on the rhythm of his gait, the creak of leather, the birdsong in the trees.
The pattern of their branches, cold and dark, reaching out along the cloudy grey skies.
For a little while, it almost works. I almost forget about files full of kills and the blood on my husband's knuckles and the cold reality that he wants as little to do with me as I wanted to do with him. I focus on the rhythm of Atlas beneath me and the sting of the cold against my cheeks, waiting until a stretch of trail that I know is open and clear before letting him pick up the pace. I don’t bother calling back to Eddie to let him know that we’re going faster; he can figure it out on his own.
Atlas moves like a dream, his canter a swift glide down the hard-packed trail, mane blowing back against my gloved hands as I lose myself in the bliss of being outdoors, on my horse, very nearly free.
I imagine giving Atlas his head, letting him gallop full-out, running as far away from this place as I could get, as if Sean wouldn’t find me eventually.
As if I have any means to care for myself, or Atlas.
But I let myself pretend, just for a moment. I feel a bubbling sensation in my chest, and I remember, for a brief time, what it feels like to be happy. To feel like I can fly.
And then the crack of a gunshot splits the air.
Something hot and sharp grazes my upper arm, burning across my flesh with an abrupt, startling pain, and Atlas rears, screaming.
I grab for his mane, for the reins, for anything, but he's panicking now, spinning and bucking.
I feel myself slung hard to one side as he bolts, and the world tilts sideways.
The sky flies past me, the ground rushing up to meet me. I hit the dirt hard with a sickening sensation, the impact knocking the wind out of me.
"Down! Stay down!" Eddie is suddenly there, his body hovering over mine, pressing me into the leaves and mud. "Don't move!"
There’s another shot, making my eardrums ring. This one hits a tree trunk inches from where we're lying, bark exploding outward.
"Davis! Cole!" Eddie shouts into his radio. "Shots fired! We need someone out here now!"
Atlas has bolted, his hoofbeats disappearing into the distance. The gray mare is gone, too. It's just me and Eddie, pressed into the ground while someone shoots at us.
Someone is shooting at me.
The thought feels surreal. Even after my sister was targeted, it always felt impossible that someone would come after me.
I’m no one, the quiet mouse of the Connelly family, with no knowledge of the estate or the business or anything worth having—until Desmond died.
Then there was a target painted on my back, something in my possession that others would want.
But Sean already laid claim to me. I’m no longer there for the taking. So why would anyone—
"Can you move?" Eddie's voice is urgent in my ear. "Are you hit? I see blood." He’s careful in how he touches me, no doubt not wanting me to report anything untoward back to Sean.
"I—I don't know,” I stammer, my voice cracking with fear and confusion. The shots have stopped, but for how long? Is the shooter just coming closer, waiting until they can see us? “My arm—"
He shifts enough to check, his hands efficient and impersonal. "Grazed. You'll be fine. But we need to move. Now."
He helps me to my feet, keeping his body between me and where the shots came from. My legs feel like water, barely holding me up, but he's already propelling me forward. I hear the sound of a vehicle, and a moment later, see a Jeep coming down the trail toward us, Davis in the driver’s seat.
“Run to the Jeep,” Eddie orders, his gun drawn as his head constantly turns to scan the woods around us.
As I bolt for the Jeep and climb in, I feel hands grab me, pulling me up, and voices shouting questions.
Someone wraps something around my bleeding arm.
Someone else is on the phone, voice clipped and urgent.
"—shots fired—Mrs. Flannery is safe but injured—shooter escaped—yes, sir, I'm calling him now—"
The world feels distant. Muffled. Like I'm underwater.
Someone tried to kill me.
The thought keeps repeating in my mind, over and over, but I can't seem to make it feel real. The Jeep rattles over the trail, and my thoughts feel just as shaken, jolting back and forth from the shock that someone shot at me, to fear for Atlas, worry over whether he’ll make it safely back to the stable…
The Jeep slows, and I realize that we’re pulling into the driveway in front of the stables. I hear the sound of feet on gravel, stopping just in front of me.
"Maeve." Susan's face swims into view, pale and frightened. "Oh my God, Maeve. Are you all right?"
I open my mouth to answer, but nothing comes out. Am I all right?
I was just shot at. Someone just tried to murder me on a trail I've ridden a hundred times. A trail where I felt safe.
Nowhere is safe anymore.
The trembling starts then. Small at first, just my hands. Then my arms. Then my whole body, shaking so hard my teeth chatter.
"Shock," someone says. "Get her in the car. We need to move. Get her home."
“Atlas.” I look at Susan, choosing that as the one thing I can focus on right now. “He ran away—”
“We’ll find him,” she promises. “He’s a smart boy, and he knows where his dinner is. He’ll come back to the stables.”
“But if the shooter—”
“We’ll find him,” she repeats. “But there’s nothing you can do right now, so take care of yourself.” She looks worriedly at my arm. “You need to get to the hospital.”
“We’ll handle it from here, ma’am,” Eddie says flatly, stepping out of the Jeep and reaching to help me down. I’m guided from there into the SUV that brought me here, with no chance to do anything else. Eddie slides in beside me, his gun still drawn, his eyes scanning everything.
"We're moving," Cole says from the driver's seat. "ETA thirty minutes. I've already called ahead—he knows."
Sean.
Of course he knows. By now, he’s probably already planning what to do, how to respond, who to punish for this.
The trembling gets worse.
I press my hand over my mouth, trying to hold back the sob building in my chest, but it escapes anyway. Then another. Then I'm crying, great gulping sobs that make my whole body shake.
Eddie doesn't try to comfort me. Doesn't tell me it's going to be okay. Just sits there, alert and ready, doing his job and ignoring me entirely.
"Did you get him?" I manage to choke out when the tears finally start to slow. "The shooter?"
Cole is the one who answers. "No, ma'am. He was gone by the time backup arrived. It was clearly a professional. Knew what he was doing."
Someone sent a professional to kill me.
The sob that escapes then is almost a laugh. Because of course someone did. Of course my life—which is already a disaster—would escalate to assassination attempts.
My arm throbs. I look down at it—at the makeshift bandage someone wrapped around it, already stained red. I was shot—actually shot. If I'd been sitting differently in the saddle, if Atlas hadn't moved at that exact moment, if Eddie hadn't been there to cover me during the second shot…
I'd be dead. The thought is so overwhelming I can't process it.
"Mrs. Flannery." Eddie's voice cuts through my spiraling thoughts. "Look at me."
I force myself to obey, feeling a lump in my throat that makes it feel hard to breathe.
"You're alive,” he says firmly. “You're safe. We're getting you home. That's all that matters right now."
"Someone tried to kill me," I whisper.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I don't know. But Mr. Flannery will find out."
Mr. Flannery. Sean. My husband, who has a file full of confirmed kills. Who beat a man half to death in our driveway yesterday for threatening me.
What will he do to whoever tried to kill me?
The thought should terrify me. But right now, sitting in this car with blood soaking through the bandage on my arm and adrenaline still flooding my system, all I feel is a sick kind of relief.
Whoever did this—whoever sent a professional shooter after me—is about to learn what happens when you threaten the Wolf's wife.
And God help them when they do.
—
By the time we pull through the gates of the estate, my tears have dried, but the trembling hasn't stopped.
My arm hurts. Everything hurts. And I can't stop seeing that moment—the crack of the gunshot, the hot sting of the bullet grazing my skin, the feeling of Atlas panicking underneath me, the tree bark exploding where the second bullet hit.
The car pulls up to the front entrance, and even before it stops, the door to the house opens, and Sean is coming out onto the front steps.
He looks like he's been through a war. His hair is disheveled, like he's been running his hands through it. His jaw is clenched so tight I can see it from the car, and his eyes—
His eyes are terrifying.
I've seen Sean cold. I've seen him violent. But I've never seen him look like this—like barely controlled rage given human form. He looks angrier than he did yesterday as he strides toward the SUV as the door opens, his eyes burning with fury.
"Out," he says to Eddie, his voice flat and deadly. "Now."
Eddie doesn't argue. Just slides out of the car and steps back.
Sean steps closer, and for a moment I think he's going to yell at me—tell me this is my fault for leaving the house, for not listening, for being foolish enough to think I could have one moment of normalcy.
But he doesn't.
His hands are gentle as he lifts me out of the car and sets me down to examine the bandage on my arm. His fingers are light against my skin, and I feel a shudder down my spine.
"Are you hurt anywhere else?" His voice is still that flat, dangerous calm. "Tell me the truth."
"No. Just my arm. It's not bad. I think the bleeding stopped already… it just grazed—"
"Someone shot you." Each word is precisely enunciated. "Someone shot my wife."
"Sean—"
"Inside." He doesn't let me finish. Just scoops me up like I weigh nothing, cradling me against his chest, and carries me toward the house.