Chapter 20
MARGOT
Bear twitched against me and it drew me out of sleep. I sighed and rolled over, wrapping my arm around him as I prepared myself to go back to sleep. But, when he quickly bolted upright in bed, my eyes flew open.
“Bear?” I asked, my voice hoarse.
“Shh,” he said curtly.
Then, I heard it.
The sounds of brush moving around outside.
“Stay here,” Bear commanded.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Just do as I say, Margot. Stay here,” he said.
I watched him get dressed quicker than I’d ever seen any man get dressed. He pulled out a pair of black boxers. Black jeans. A black shirt. It wasn’t until he pulled on his black boots that I realized what he thought was happening.
He thought someone was here.
“Bear, I’m sure you don’t need—”
“Put some clothes on and stay down. There’s a gun underneath the bed. A small case with ammunition in it. It’s a basic handgun, but if you need it—”
A knock came at the bedroom door, but it wasn’t just any knock. It had a rhythm to it. A cadence to it. Bear’s arms prickled. I literally saw the hairs on his strong arms stand on end as the cadence finished.
“Shit,” he hissed.
“What happened? Who was that?” I asked.
He sighed. “That was Diesel. He’s alerting me to the fact that I have to take up my station.”
“What does that mean?”
He cocked a gun out of nowhere before he tucked it behind his back.
He pulled another gun out from his nightstand, holstering it at his side.
He did that with two other guns before he dipped down, pulling out a suitcase from underneath the bed.
He unlatched it, brought out the small handgun, then slid it to me along with three other magazines.
“It means we have intruders,” he said, his eyes burrowing into my face.
I leapt out of bed and scrambled to get clothes on myself.
I ended up with a pair of jeans on, a tunic with no bra, and a pair of tennis shoes.
I tucked my shirt in before sliding the gun around my back, like I saw Bear do.
I slid the three magazines into my back pockets so I could easily access them.
Then, another rhythmic knock came at the door.
One that had a different cadence. A different code. A different sound to it altogether.
“That’s Rock. I have to go. Here’s what I want you to do, though. Get with the girls. Everyone has a part to play in all this. Piper will explain to you what your role is in all this and where you need to be,” Bear said.
“I’m scared. What’s going on?” I asked.
He rushed to me and scooped me up, pressing a hot kiss against my lips.
“No matter what, nothing will happen to you tonight. You have my word,” he murmured.
Then, like lightning, he was out the door.
I stood there, paralyzed with fear before I could move.
I slipped out of the bedroom and saw the girls rushing up and down the hallway.
Brynn carried her two children against her, rushing them to a dark spot in the wall where they disappeared.
Piper ushered three more children down the hallway, dragging along their stuffed animals and their blankets with their thumbs in their mouths.
“What’s going on?”
A small voice piped up beside me and I looked down. I saw a slightly older girl, maybe nine or ten, standing at my side. She was wrapped in a blanket and looked like the spitting image of her mother.
Makenna.
“Hey there, sweetheart. Come on. I have a special surprise for you,” I said.
I smiled at her as I held out my hand and she took it.
I led her to where the girls were disappearing into the wall, only to come face to face with a set of stairs.
I guided the small girl down them, listening as the women chattered to themselves.
I heard them becoming frantic. I heard tears in their voices.
And as I rounded the corner, Makenna squealed with delight.
“There you are!” she exclaimed.
The little girl took off running from my side and leapt into her mother’s arms. There was an entire room down here.
One outfitted with bookshelves that lined the walls from top to bottom.
There were couches and bean bag chairs. A couple of beds with tousled sheets.
I watched Makenna walk her daughter through an entryway toward the back of the massive in-home library, where the rest of the children were gathered.
“It’s a panic room that was built for the children,” Piper said.
I whipped my head over to look at her as Makenna tucked her little girl into one of the many beds.
“What’s happening right now?” I asked.
“Rock and Diesel are under the assumption the mafia’s about to ambush the warehouse,” she said.
“This all my fault, isn’t it?”
She shook her head. “It’s no one’s fault. This has been coming for weeks now. And I owe you an apology for—”
“We can do this later. Right now, we have to get going,” Sutton said.
I watched Makenna come out of the panic room and press a button.
The lights went off and I heard a movie turn on before a metallic door slid closed.
A wall came down, blending right in with the library before a bookcase moved in front of it.
A completely concealed room where the children would be safe, even if the entire warehouse was infiltrated and burned to the ground.
“We have to take up our positions,” Makenna said.
“What are our positions?” I asked.
“The guys are holding down the outside, but we’re the ones who hold down the inside. Have you seen the closets yet?” Piper asked.
“What closets?” I asked.
“Shit,” Brynn murmured.
“Fill me in. We don’t have much time,” I said.
“Some of the hallways are dead ends, and they have regular-looking closets. Except, they’re not closets.
They’re our ammo depots. Our gun storage.
And they’ve got comfortable seating for us with windows down the hallways for us to pick off people as they walk down.
Almost inconspicuous, especially with the lights dimmed,” Piper said.
“Which we can control from within the rooms,” Sutton said.
“So, I’m supposed to be in one of these not-closets?” I asked.
But before anyone could answer my question, the ratta-tat-tat of gunfire echoed off in the distance.
“Come on!” Brynn exclaimed.
She grabbed my hand and all of us ran up the steps.
I watched the girls break off down hallways I hadn’t explored yet, and I felt myself drowning in responsibility I didn’t know how to handle.
Brynn guided me down hallways. Snaking me through winding pathways that made my head spin.
I looked back and saw Sutton hot on our heels, a gun drawn as she kept the barrel aimed back down the hallways we were walking.
Then, we stopped at a door down one of the dead-end hallways.
“I’m going to put you here because Sutton’s only a hallway over, so she can easily get to you if something goes wrong,” Brynn said.
“What would go wrong?” I asked.
She leveled me with a look, and I shut up.
“Brynn, you go. I’ll help her get her gear on,” Sutton said.
“You’ve got less than a minute. Get her set up, then run,” Brynn said.
And as the gunfire outside mounted, Brynn ran down the hallway like a bat out of hell before she drew her gun and cleared the hallway’s corners.
“What’s going to happen?” I asked breathlessly.
“It’s better if you compartmentalize right now. Come on, we have to get you in your gear,” Sutton said.
She threw the invisible door open and turned on the light.
She showed me the mechanisms that controlled the hallway light, then set it to a very dim setting.
She strapped me into a bulletproof vest and slid a helmet over my head, then showed me where to sit.
I had to give it to her, the seat was comfortable.
And the small slit in the doorway would hold the tip of the barrel of whatever gun I chose off the wall.
I had seven guns with me, including the one tucked behind my back.
All of them had plenty of ammunition, but I only knew how to use the one behind me.
Sutton’s crash course in all things guns hadn’t nearly prepared me for something like this.
Even the things she rattled off to me in the heat of the moment made absolutely no sense.
Then, she cupped my cheeks as the gunfire grew even closer.
“If you’re in trouble, there’s a red button to your left. You push it, and I’ll come running. Do you understand?” she asked.
I nodded quickly, feeling her press a kiss to my forehead before she stepped back.
“Wait, what happens if you press the button?” I asked.
“Red lights will start flashing at you. If that happens, open the door, run down the hallway, and take a hard left. Take your next left and come running down that hallway to the dead end. That’s where I’ll be,” she said.
“Two hard lefts. Got it.”
“You shoot at anyone coming down this hallway you don’t recognize.
The girls will be easy to recognize because our bulletproof gear reflects yellow in the hallway lights.
If you see yellow reflective gear, hesitate and assess.
The guys’ bulletproof gear reflect red. If you see red reflective gear, hesitate and assess.
Otherwise, unless it looks like one of the kids? Shoot,” she said.
“Can the kids get out of that panic room?” I asked breathlessly.
“Not a chance in hell. But you don’t really want to shoot a kid anyway, no matter where they came from, do you?”
I shook my head quickly before she closed my door, dipping down to gaze at me through its slit.
She reminded me of a few things about the guns one last time, but I kept chanting that mantra in my head.
Red and yellow reflective gear, hesitate.
Otherwise, shoot. I repeated it to myself until it was second nature, then watched as Sutton stuck her fingers through the slit.
I took them within my own fingers, feeling her squeeze me however she could to try and bleed some courage into my body.
Then, she released me and rushed down the hallway. Clearing her corners before taking a hard left. Leaving me alone to fend for myself.
Leaving me alone to listen to the gunshots and automatic fire scouring the outside of the building.
“Holy shit,” I whispered.
I pulled the gun from behind my back and made sure the magazine was full.
I closed my eyes, drawing in a deep breath before I pulled out the three other magazines Bear had given to me in the bedroom.
I lined them up on my thighs, making them easily accessible as I slid to the edge of the chair.
I settled the small barrel of the handgun against the slit in the doorway, then kept my eyes trained on the hallway.
“Stay calm. Stay calm, Margot. Remember Sutton’s pointers,” I whispered to myself.
You didn’t sign up to kill people.
Yeah. But I did sign up to protect people.
Something slammed open in the distance and it made me jump.
The gunfire was much too close for my liking and tears leaked down my cheeks.
My hands trembled as I held the gun as steadily as I could.
I heard mounting footsteps. I heard men with voices I didn’t recognize yelling at one another.
I trembled with fear, listening as gunfire continued to rain down outside with people rushing around inside the damn warehouse.
Where were the guys?
Where was Bear?
The footsteps grew closer and I held my breath.
I forced myself to stop crying as my entire body trembled with adrenaline.
I kept my eyes trained down the hallway.
Every muscle in my body tensed as footsteps grew closer.
As those voices grew louder. As their guns cocked, magazines exchanged, and men whistled for us to come out and play.
Then, a red light started blinking in my peripheral vision.