Chapter Fourteen #2
Her jaw sets. “He taught me how to break him, just by thinking I wasn’t just as knowledgeable as him. His mistake for underestimating a woman. The daughter of the Irish King.”
I feel it—something old and lethal stirring behind my ribs. Pride. Awe. The sharp, clean heat of wanting to watch her burn the world that burned her.
“Jesus,” Joshua mutters. “Remind me never to play chess with you.”
Surry almost smiles. “Papa used to make us play risk instead. Said it kept our minds sharp and our hearts soft. You can’t rule if you can’t feel.”
I glance sideways at her, a line of white hair slipping forward from her braid. I reach forward and tuck in while speaking directly to her. “You still feel, Surry.”
She meets my gaze, unflinching. “That’s the point, Brenden. I can feel and still fight.”
And there it is—the difference between who she was and who she’s become. She isn’t just a survivor anymore. She’s a strategist. The woman sitting beside me could take apart an empire with a highlighter and a grudge.
Gunnar’s voice crackles back through the line, low and satisfied. “Hell of an asset you’ve got there, Slater.”
I look at her, then back at the map. “Not an asset,” I correct. “She’s the plan.”
Arnie’s voice: “Send me a five-mile radius around your supply routes. I’ll flag leases that smell like mercenary boarding houses.”
Surry doesn’t flinch at the word mercenary.
She just slides the map closer and starts reading off coordinates like a second language.
Her dad did well teaching her, without ever letting her know what he was teaching her.
I think she, herself, blocked this information until now.
A key unlocking a part of her that was buried under duress.
Now, free from the secrets, she can unlock herself.
We talk for another half hour. When we finally break, the room is warm with intent. Plans have edges again. We have the next steps. It isn't a victory. It’s momentum. Sometimes that’s more valuable.
Joshua ends the call, pushes the laptop away, and rubs his jaw. “You know,” he says to the ceiling, “I used to think construction was logistics. This is logistics with teeth.”
“You always liked teeth,” I tell him, a small smile on my face.
“True.” He nods with a shit eating grin on his own.
I’m about to stand when my phone vibrates. No buzz pattern. No name. Just a number that carries weight like an anvil. I answer.
“Slater.” Stefan’s voice is iron and peat, no preamble. “He knows you’re in Oregon.”
Cold licks up my spine. “Understood. Orders?”
“Tell Bridget da word.” His accent thickens on it. “Lockdown.”
The line clicks dead. That’s all. That’s enough.
Surry’s already watching me. She doesn’t need the words to know. Still, I give them to her.
“Lockdown,” I say.
She’s on her feet before the syllables finish. No panic. No tremor. She moves the way a conductor lifts a baton—clean, decisive, absolute.
“Joshua,” she says, voice carrying down the corridor like a bell, “east wing shutters first, then the galleries. Get Richie and Hazel to gather the staff inside, account for everyone, no exceptions. Alisha will go to the safe room with Bridget and ensure medical kits are staged at the foyer and the back terrace. Juniper can kill the exterior lights as soon as the last person’s through the doors, then check cams for a sweep. ”
“On it,” Joshua answers, already racing up the stairs to collect the others to give orders.
Bridget appears in the dining room doorway as if conjured—apron off, hair braided, a small laminated key card already in her hand. She doesn’t ask questions; she has run this play before. “Go,” she says simply, and tosses the card to Surry, who catches it without looking.
The house begins to change. Hidden panels hum.
Steel sighs behind old wood. The glass that made afternoons glow honey-warm now reveals its real job, sliding into armored channels with a steady, expensive purr.
Air pressure shifts. Somewhere above us, a metallic clank confirms the roof hatches have sealed.
I move with Surry—room to room, hall to hall—our steps in sync. I don’t touch her unless she needs a passcode or a second set of hands. She doesn’t need rescuing. She needs room to lead.
We reach the last set of shutters in the rear gallery—a long throat of windows that look down into the trees. She swipes the card, keys in the code, and I watch the final panel glide into place. The night outside becomes a reflection of ourselves.
Silence settles. Not empty. Primed.
Surry exhales once, slow and steady. She looks at me then, and all the steel in her eases just enough for the woman to step forward again. She steps into my space, presses her forehead to my chest, breathes me in like a reset.
“I’m okay,” she says, mostly to herself. Then, more firmly, to me: “We’re okay.”
“We are,” I answer. My hand finds the small of her back, holding there, steady as bedrock. “He doesn’t get to touch what’s ours.”
Footsteps approach—Joshua, fast. “Outer perimeter’s clean. No vehicles within a mile on our cams. If he knows we’re here, he’s not knocking tonight.”
“He’s watching,” I say.
“Then let him watch us be ready,” Surry replies.
There it is—that forged thing again. She turns, shoulders squared, eyes bright and clear, and starts walking toward the foyer where everyone will gather for headcount and a debrief. I fall in at her side.
I’m not na?ve. This isn’t over. It’s barely begun. But tonight, the house is sealed, the people we love are inside, and the woman I walked into a room and chose is choosing this fight with me.
If he thinks that’s a weakness, he’s never seen what it looks like when a siren stops singing and starts steering the ship.