4. Cormac
Chapter Four
CORMAC
The waiting is unbearable.
I’ve survived more gunfights than I can count, but hiding in the shadows of Adrian Smirnov’s estate while my son is somewhere beyond my reach is something else entirely.
It feels like dying a slow death, with each second that passes draining the last of the oxygen from my lungs.
But I can’t move yet, not until I’ve heard the signal. Otherwise, I could give our position away and risk putting Scout in even more danger.
The night air is cold and damp, heavy with the smell of wet earth.
I shift my grip on my gun for the hundredth time, flexing my fingers to try and get rid of some of the nervous energy circulating through my body.
My heart is pounding so hard it hurts.
I keep seeing Scout’s face in my mind when I last tucked him into bed. At the time, he looked so grown-up, so sure of himself despite being completely unaware of how vicious the world really is.
But the reality is he isn’t grown. He’s a child who is completely reliant on me to keep him safe and protected. And I failed.
The thought tries to take root, but I push it down deep.
There will be time for me to sit in my guilt later. If I let it in now, it will destroy me.
The comm in my ear crackles, and Ronan’s voice appears.
“East perimeter, all in position.”
There’s a pause.
“West wing, secure,” Kieran adds.
Brennan doesn’t check in, but he doesn’t need to. I know where he is. I know what he’s focused on.
Scout.
Their voices ground me for a split second before the panic floods back in.
My brothers are right alongside me, poised and ready. We’ve planned this ambush down to the second, with every possible exit mapped and covered, and every contingency discussed until my head ached. And yet, it still doesn’t feel like enough.
There is a real possibility that even after all this work and planning, Scout might not be here. It feels too obvious for Adrian to have brought him to his own estate in Rhode Island that often sits empty, but it’s the only lead we have.
I’m counting on the fact that he will be more interested in having a living and breathing male heir than slaughtering him to get back at me.
I just hope to God I’ve made the right call.
Ronan speaks over the comms. “Cormac, we’re waiting for you.”
I check my gun for the hundredth time, making sure it’s loaded and ready.
There isn’t time for any more planning. The only thing left to do is move.
“I’m ready.”
“Then let’s bring Scout home.”
I suck in a breath before launching into action.
The estate erupts into chaos.
Gunfire tears through the night, sharp and deafening, shattering the silence as our men surge forward.
The guards at the gate barely have time to register what’s happening before they’re on the ground, their blood darkening the gravel beneath them.
Floodlights blaze to life, but by the time any of Smirnov’s men catch wind of what is happening, my brothers have taken them out.
We move toward the mansion like a single organism, making sure we have every blind spot covered.
Doors splinter, and glass explodes as we infiltrate Smirnov’s walls.
The mansion is obscene, but the once pristine stone floors are now streaked with blood, and the art worth more than most people will earn in a lifetime falls off the walls and crashes to the floor as we take out more of Adrian’s men.
I move through it like a ghost, not lingering in any one place for too long.
Once every man has been taken out, I move on to the next room without looking back. The bodies that fall at my feet are nothing more than obstacles removed.
At some point, Adrian is going to run out of men and places to hide.
I barely hear the sounds of the gunshots or the screams of pain, not when every instinct I have is screaming one thing over and over again.
Find Scout.
Someone yells, “Cormac! On your left!”
A man lunges at me from the side, but I take him down without breaking my stride.
Blood splatters across my cheek, warm and sticky, but I don’t wipe it away. That would only waste time.
The deeper we move through the house, the worse the feeling gets that I might already be too late. That I’m chasing something too far out of reach.
Maybe Scout isn’t here after all, and we’ve played right into Adrian’s hand.
He likely banked on us coming here first and decided to plant some of his men to keep us occupied while he took Scout deeper underground.
“Ground floor, clear!” Kieran yells over the comms.
I sprint straight for the stairs.
A sea of men appears from the upstairs landing, but I quickly land bullets in their necks, taking them out as quickly as possible. I don’t need some fucker lodging a bullet in my head because I wasn’t thorough enough with killing him.
I throw the bodies over the banister before they even have a chance to register the fatal shot.
The sickening crunch they make as they land on the stone floor below is starting to feel like music to my ears.
“Where are you, Scout?” I mutter to myself as I wade through the sea of bodies.
All I want is to scream his name, but that could be more damaging than helpful.
Once Adrian learns I’m among the men ambushing him, he’s going to retaliate, and I can’t afford to put Scout in any more danger.
“Fuck. Upstairs, clear,” Ronan says in my ear.
“Maybe he’s not here,” Brennan says.
“He’s here…” I mutter.
I can’t explain it, but I know Scout is somewhere in this place. The only question is, where?
I turn and head back down the stairs, darting out of the way as Kieran slams someone into the wall and uses his own head to knock him out.
“You better finish that,” I grunt as I pass him.
A second later, a gunfire is shot.
He scoffs, passing me as he sprints down the hall. “You think I’m some kind of amateur?”
I’m about to call after him when a sound catches my attention.
It’s so soft and quiet that it nearly gets lost beneath all the chaos, but my ears are so attuned that I know immediately it came from Scout.
“Scout,” I whisper, already moving.
My heart stutters violently, and I backtrack a few steps, wondering if the sleep deprivation has made me hallucinate.
But then I hear it again, a soft whimper of a noise.
My knees almost buckle with relief.
He’s alive.
“Ground floor, East hallway, now,” I hiss into my earpiece.
Kieran replies, “On my way.”
The hallway narrows around me as I follow the sound of Scout’s whimpers, the air growing heavier with each step.
There’s a door at the end, which is slightly ajar.
I don’t wait for my brothers to catch up to me before readying my gun and kicking the door open with my boot.
The world around me tilts as I lock eyes with Smirnov.
He looks exactly the same as when I last saw him, except his once jet-black hair is almost entirely white, and his face is more heavily lined. But those dark gray eyes… I would recognize those eyes anywhere. They’re Nadia’s eyes.
Adrian stands there, one arm locked around my son’s small, trembling body.
I growl. “You son of a bitch.”
Scout doesn’t even struggle. His cheeks aren’t even tear-stained. His face is pale, and his eyes are wide with fear as his hands cling to the arm wrapped around him, as if he’s holding on for dear life.
He looks…broken.
Something inside me snaps.
I don’t remember deciding to move. One second, I’m standing there, the next, I’m slamming into Adrian with every ounce of force I have, driving him back into the wall as I knock Scout out of the way.
The impact rattles the room, and Scout lets out a thin, terrified sound that cuts straight through me.
“Get him!” I roar.
Brennan is there instantly, pulling Scout to his feet.
I chance a look over at him as Scout collapses into Brennan, shaking violently as he buries his face against Brennan’s shoulder as if that’s the only safe place left in the world.
“Go! Get him out of here. Now!”
Brennan doesn’t hesitate. He just scoops Scout into his arms and runs.
Adrian, panicked now that he’s lost his hold on Scout, starts to fight back. But his moves are sloppy. Probably due to desperation.
We crash to the floor, our fists flying, but even if he manages to land a punch, I don’t feel a thing. I feel nothing but pure, undiluted rage.
I want him dead. I want him to understand exactly what it feels like to be powerless.
But Ronan is suddenly there, hauling me back before I cross that line. “Cormac, we’re exposed.”
Reality slams back into place.
I catch the sound of more gunfire outside as fresh orders come through the comms. I need to move, but I can’t just leave Adrian like this.
As if reading my mind, Ronan slams the barrel of his gun into the side of Adrian’s head as he attempts to climb to his feet.
He staggers and crashes into a low table, shattering the glass top.
Ronan keeps his focus on Adrian as he pushes me out. “Move.”
We sprint back through the house, making sure to cover Brennan’s exit. We’ve rehearsed this part the most because it has the highest margin for error. We might have Scout, but the fight doesn’t stop until he’s safely back at home with his family.
“Sullivan!” someone yells as we cross the threshold and head back out onto the ground.
But I don’t falter. I keep moving, relying on Ronan to stop me from getting shot because my focus is only on Scout.
We’re almost at the cars.
“I yield!”
Those two words are enough to cut through the roaring in my head.
I stagger to a halt and spin around just as Adrian staggers out of the house after us.
Blood is smeared across his temple from the wound Ronan inflicted, and his expensive suit is ripped to shreds, not that I give a shit. The fucker should be grateful he’s even able to walk, given the nightmare he’s put my son through.
In my eyes, even if I were to cut his limbs off one by one, it would be merciful compared to what I really want to do.
But every second I give to him is one less I give to Scout, and I would rather spend my time playing with toy rockets than shedding blood.
“I yield,” Adrian repeats, raising his hands slowly as his eyes fixate on my gun that I didn’t even notice I had pointed and aimed.
The sound that rips out of me might be a laugh.
Does he really think I’m going to believe he’s willing to surrender? No one goes to the trouble of kidnapping a Sullivan heir without cause. He knew it would start a full-out war.
The question that still remains is why?
“Nice fucking try,” I spit.
Adrian’s voice is steady despite the chaos surrounding us. “One way or another, you’re going to pay for keeping my grandson from me all this time.”
And there’s the answer I didn’t want to consider.
I stagger backward a step as reality hits me.
He knows about Scout, about Nadia, about the lie I built brick by brick to keep my son safe.
Adrian’s lips pull up into a sneer, as if he can read the thoughts racing in my head.
“What did you just say?” I keep my voice low.
“Cormac,” Ronan warns from behind me, but I don’t listen.
Right now, my only focus is on Adrian.
“You heard me, Sullivan. I know Scout is my grandchild.”
I explode. “You kidnapped my child, and this is how you chose to tell me you knew?”
“Cormac!” Ronan yells, but I don’t hear him as I stalk forward.
Adrian seethes. “You stole him from me first. You had no right—”
“You don’t get to talk about rights after what you did to him.” I press my gun to his chest.
His gaze flicks to a spot over my shoulder. “He’ll recover. Children are resilient.”
Something inside me fractures.
How could he possibly justify this? Then again, this is the man who killed his own daughter without batting an eye.
I guess I underestimated Adrian Smirnov. He’s more of a monster than I could have ever believed possible.
My voice shakes with rage. “He couldn’t speak. He is so traumatized he couldn’t even form words!”
For the first time, uncertainty flickers across Adrian’s face, but it doesn’t last.
“You don’t get to erase me from his life. My blood is in his veins.”
I shake my head slowly, doing everything I can to fight the urge to pull the trigger. A bullet in the chest is a mercy he doesn’t deserve.
“Any chance you had of being a part of his life is gone, and you only have yourself to blame.”
“You can think that all you want, but this fight isn’t over.”
I lean in close, my voice low and lethal. “It is, for you.”
I leave Adrian standing there, only because killing him tonight would cost more than it’s worth. I’m done giving any more of my time and energy to that son of a bitch. Right now, I just want to be with Scout.
The second I climb into the backseat of the SUV, Scout is in my arms.
He clings to me as the engine roars to life and Adrian’s estate disappears behind us.
“You’re safe,” I murmur in his ear as I hold him against my chest.
But for how long, I can’t be sure.
Smirnov knows the truth about Scout. And that knowledge is a weapon.
One I don’t yet know how to survive.