Chapter Fifteen
brENDEN MEETS MY eyes—steady, grounding—and then I turn down the hall following Bridget’s lead.
My legs move before my brain catches up, automatic, trained.
The floor under my bare feet is cold, the hallway lit in the faint amber wash of emergency lights.
I register the tiny details the way Papa taught us as kids: count cameras, count corners, count exits.
My pulse stutters, then locks to a rhythm—inhale four, hold two, exhale six. Don’t feed the fear.
The control room feels bigger than I remember.
I haven’t been inside since I was here recovering all those years ago.
I used to lock myself in here when I would have panic attacks or nightmares; it was the only place I felt safe.
It looks like the heart of something meant to outlive the people who built it—rows of metal consoles, cables running like veins into the walls, and the huge wall of monitors flickering with grainy night vision.
Every angle of the house is here: the gates, the terrace, the pool, the forest. A schematic of the main manor hums along the bottom row—green where systems are live, steady amber where the manual backups own the line.
The air hums faintly with electricity and fear.
Bridget always said this room could survive a bomb.
I used to laugh at that. Now, with my palms sweating and my heart in my throat, it doesn’t sound like an exaggeration.
The door is pure steel, thick as a vault, disguised on the outside to look like a wall.
You’d never know it existed unless you’d built it.
“Right, loves,” Bridget says, voice low and iron-calm, “eyes up an’ mouths shut. If ye hear me say ‘down cellar’, ye move before ye think. D’ye understand?” Her brogue thickens when it matters. It steadies me.
Then the cameras flash, calling my focus to the wall of monitors. Headlights. Four cars at the gate.
They’re just sitting there—engines idling, white light bleeding through the trees like ghosts waiting for permission. I don’t recognize the vehicles, but my stomach knows who they belong to.
They haven’t breached yet. Not yet. But we are ready for them, and something inside me says let them come.
“Stay here,” I tell Bridget and the others. My voice sounds steady. That’s good. It doesn’t feel steady, but it sounds it.
Then I run.
Back through the hallway, across the polished floor of the living room, breath tight in my chest. Brenden’s already there, pulling people out of their rooms, shouting orders in that low voice that makes people listen.
Richie’s half-joking to keep Alisha from spinning out; Hazel has both hands on Juniper’s shoulders, eyes bright, jaw set.
“This way!” I call, waving them toward the hallway. “Down, then right. Open vault door—get inside!”
I start for the stairs, but Brenden catches my arm. The look in his eyes says what his mouth doesn’t: Where the hell do you think you’re going?
“I need shoes and real pants,” I hiss. I glance down. Over sized T-shirt. Leggings. Literally nothing else.
His jaw flexes. “I’m coming with you.” No room for argument. He grabs my hand and shouts for Josh to stay with Bridget, to get everyone inside and sealed.
We take the stairs two at a time, somewhere between a run and a prayer. The house smells like lemon oil and danger. My room feels too far away, every hallway longer than it should be. Papa always said houses remember footsteps; tonight the manor is learning ours again.
We burst inside. I grab the first pair of pants I see, socks, and a bra. Brenden snatches my shoes from the door. I’m bending to step in when—
Everything goes black.
The lights cut out. The hum of the house dies. For one heartbeat, the silence is total.
“Fuck.” The word slips out before I can stop it. “They breached the gates. Power’s cut—it’s a failsafe. Everything runs on the mechanical grid. It’ll slow them down, but not for long. We’ve got four minutes, tops.”
He squeezes my hand. No panic in him—just motion. I drag the socks on, shove my feet into shoes. He slings my bra over his shoulder like it’s a spare magazine, grabs my hand firmly, and we run.
The last stair is in sight when the first sound hits—cars, close. Too close. Tires on gravel, the growl of engines, the hiss of wet stone.
“How the hell—” I don’t finish. We’re already moving.
Josh is waiting at the vault, door cracked. We dive through, and he slams it shut. The lock thunders home, echoing through my bones.
“What the fuck,” Brenden snaps, breath ragged. “How are they already at the doors?”
“Because they knew the road,” Bridget answers, pale but focused. “Drove it like they’d done it before.”
No one says it, but we’re all thinking it: they’ve been here.
“Ye can’t fly drones this close,” she adds quickly. “The EM field blocks the signal, so they can’t spy that way. This isn’t random. They were told.”
“Our phones,” Alisha blurts out. My stomach drops.
“Possibly,” Bridget says. She doesn’t sugarcoat it. “Or the foreman on the outer road. People break under the wrong sort of ask.”
The only light comes from the monitors, painting our faces in cold blue. The front of the house—headlights still, unmoving. Then, a flicker of motion. Shadows.
“There.” Josh points to a smaller monitor—the back door off the kitchen. The old service entrance. They’re in the house.
“They’re already inside,” I whisper. How the fuck did they get in without us hearing it?
“Kitchen door’s a double seal,” I murmur, brain flicking through schematics I thought I’d forgotten. “If the outer lock is jammed, the inner pin can be teased with a thin driver. Papa kept that flaw on purpose—‘for family if the power goes.’” I swallow. “Gavin knows old Irish men. He’d guess.”
I reach for the volume knob. “Turn it up.”
Brenden’s hand finds mine. He doesn’t look at me, just holds on.
The speakers crackle, and then his voice fills the room.
“The house is too quiet,” Gavin says, tone calm and cold as ever. “Are you sure they’re even here? You said you had intel.”
My heart twists. I know that voice in my bones.
One of his men answers, “We tapped into the brother’s phone—Joshua Slater. Got the foreman at gunpoint. Used the signal to track ‘em. Spoofed the ping. They’re home.”
The breath leaves the room. I glance at Josh—his face is carved with guilt. No wonder we hadn’t heard from him.
“Don’t,” I tell him. “You didn’t know.”
“Give me a minute and I’ll make it hurt,” he mutters, already hunched over the console.
Fingers flying. “If they’re still leeching my cell node, I can backbleed them.
Static theirs, clean ours. Maybe pull a plate, a face.
Anything.” Josh told us he started learning the computer wizardry a few years ago in case we were ever separated from Corver and he and Gunnar left for Washington. I guess it’s finally paying off.
“So where the fuck are they, Sawyer?” Gavin snarls. Glass skitters somewhere off-screen.
Josh’s jaw tightens. “Keep them talking,” he whispers to the air, like he can bend time.
More footsteps. A door opens somewhere upstairs—my door.
The camera catches Gavin at the edge of frame, pale light across his cheekbones.
He moves through my room like a man touring a museum, touching nothing until he does.
He drags his knuckles along my dresser. Runs two fingers across my pillow. Smiles without joy.
The bile rises so fast I taste metal.
“How long has that camera been in there?” I hiss at Bridget.
“Since ye were just a girl,” Bridget murmurs. “We never meant ta use it, love. But right now, I’m glad we can see what we’re fightin’.”
I don’t answer. I pull the blanket tighter around me, curl deeper into Brenden’s chest, and watch the monitor.
Gavin’s face contorts, the vein at his temple pulsing.
“This bitch doesn’t have a single shred of proof we were married,” he hisses, slamming his fist against the mahogany desk.
“Little cunt should be ready to come back. Run the empire like we planned.” He straightens his collar with trembling fingers.
“She doesn’t even know how good she would have had it. No one can give her what I can.”
I almost laugh. He’s delusional. He never understood the math of me: what I’ll burn to keep my people warm.
Outside the room, his men pace the halls, frustrated and confused. One says, “They have to be in here somewhere. Maybe we wait them out.”
“Fuck that,” Josh mutters, typing faster.
“Got him.” He slaps a key. On the left monitor, a still frame freezes: a plate half-caught, mud-splashed.
Another key, and a grainy face sharpens—a beard, a broken nose, a neck tattoo like a wire.
“Richie, memorize it,” Josh says. “Hazel, snap it. Bridget, record channel three always-on.”
“There’s another option,” Bridget says, calm as ever. “An escape hatch. It’s new—leads to a hidden garage a few miles off the property. Fully stocked. Fuel, food, backup vehicles.”
Richie whistles. “Got a chopper down there, too?”
“Actually, yes.”
We all blink at her.
“Well since none of us can fly a helicopter is there also like vans or trucks and stuff down here?” Brenden asks Bridget. She is about to speak when Hazel cuts in.
She raises her hand, “I can fly it.” Sweet, sweet baby Hazel. How the fuck did I not know she could fly a helicopter?
Even in this nightmare, I can’t help but huff a laugh. “Of course you can.”
“Bucket list item,” she says, unbothered.
“Right then,” Bridget says, eyes bright and fierce. “We’re not mice in a barrel. We’ll leave the bastards chasin’ shadows.” She flicks a switch on the console—one I’ve never seen used. “Ghost walk.”
A speaker upstairs clicks on. Footsteps start to play—recorded movement through the north gallery, the kind of creak you only learn if you live in a house long enough. A door shuts, faint. Then a woman’s cough. Then silence.
On the monitor, Gavin’s head snaps toward the gallery. He gestures, and two men peel off, guns up.