Chapter 17 #5
“Where are we?” Josh asked. Tentatively he stretched his body, hoping he could move past the weakness that had gotten him in here and the stiffness that had set in while he’d been curled up in this confined space.
Josh had always been much like Grace—unafflicted with either fear of heights or small spaces, but he thought this particular small space might give him nightmares after this.
There was no padding in a trunk, and while there was light from the rear lights, it was tinted nightmare red and yellow.
The carpet was rough under his cheek, and the surface was hard and unyielding—he could feel bruises forming on his hip from his position.
“You’re in the upper parking lot of D??in,” Stirling said, sounding stressed. “Tell Grace to be ready to help you out. There’s an exchange going on.”
“A what?” Josh asked, but at that moment the car stopped and shit got real.
“A WHAT?” LEON demanded as he helped the last terrified, abused child—they were children, most under sixteen, fuck the monsters who did this to them—into the yacht he’d rented for the occasion.
Leon paid very well, and the captain of the ship had instructions to pilot to Hamburg the minute the gangplank was withdrawn.
At home, Julia was in charge of fundraising for a number of overseas aid groups, one for missing and exploited children in particular.
It had enabled her to recruit volunteers, and the yacht—which was going to be a bit crowded, although not nearly as badly as the one they’d just come from—was full of people armed with blankets, food, clothing, and most importantly, the language skills and diplomatic ties to get these children home.
“An exchange, sir,” Michael said, with such earnestness that Leon felt compelled to keep from laying into the younger man with all of the frustration in his soul.
The cofferdam and the long vinyl hallway attached to it required constant monitoring and pumping—pumping the air in and the water out so the young women could emerge under the slip and, thus covered, make the short swim to the ladder that took them to the rescue yacht’s gangplank.
Securing the equipment, installing it, and maintaining it had all fallen under Michael’s wheelhouse, and given that he’d had about six hours to gather everything so he, Chuck, and Hunter could start the work under the yacht, he’d proven invaluable.
Leon could not—would not—dishonor that work by screaming at him like a drunken sailor.
“What, pray tell, are they exchanging?” Normally, they were all mic’d—but normally, on a job this size, there would be two people on comms. Leon had opted out.
He’d be speaking in multiple languages to multiple people, and who needed somebody in your ear at a time like that?
So hearing that Danny was going out to meet the one goddamned person that they had all worked so hard to keep him away from was not only a surprise, it was a gut punch to all of their hard work.
And Leon had promised Julia he’d keep her family safe.
He was new to this game—but he loved it. He loved the dedication to righting wrongs, the acceptance that humans were flawed, and the fact that the family looked eagerly for redemption at every chance.
But more than that, he loved the people. His brother’s child, Josh, was as brilliant and as principled as Matteo had been—a shining celestial being. But hopefully Josh would have more time to shine than Matteo’d had. Leon would give his life—his soul—to see that happened.
And Julia…. Dear God, she was transcendent.
Not merely beautiful—although her beauty left him blind to all else in the world—but as brilliant as her son.
As principled. She’d admitted to him once that, unlike Felix, her pedigree was real.
She’d graduated from Vassar at nineteen, and when he’d professed admiration, she’d waved it off.
“I had nothing to do but study, Leon—it was part of grooming me to be a trophy wife.”
Any man who listened to her speak, saw the wickedness of her wit or the deft competence of her compassion, and thought of her as a “trophy wife” didn’t deserve a wife, much less a trophy.
And that afternoon, as she’d readied for her part to play, she’d called him up and reminded him once again of his one promise to her.
To take care of the family that had cared so beautifully for her and her son.
He had one goddamned job to do, and Danny was proposing a what?
Literally, as the kids would say, what in the fucking hell?
Michael stared at him as he tried to put all this into words and then backtracked.
In two minutes, Michael had spilled it all.
Grace’s abduction, Josh hiding in the back of Kadjic’s town car, Danny’s plan for scuttling the ship, which came with the corollary of getting their own ship the fuck out of the slip before that happened, and, oh, hey, Danny exchanging himself for Grace and Josh before—or was it during or after? —the explosion.
“An excha—” Michael started, but Leon didn’t stay to listen.
With a few terse words to the volunteer next to him, he warned her to pull the gangplank as soon as he left, since the last two girls had confirmed that Molly was behind them.
With that, he abandoned his post at the hatch, hauling ass down the dock with Michael trotting after him.
In a few terse sentences he told the captain to pull out and head for Hamburg immediately, because the ship in the dock next to his was about to be scuttled.
Then he hung up and—feeling a twinge of sympathy for a sopping wet Molly, who had just cleared the cofferdam tunnel herself and was climbing onto the dock instead of the ship as she’d expected to—barked, “Come on!” to the two of them.
Then Leon shoved his phone away and grabbed the keys to the SUV some of them had taken to the dock that night.
Lucius, who had been serving as a lookout near the front of the yacht, joined them as they ran.
“Where are we going?” Michael panted.
“I’m going to the exchange,” Leon told him. “You said the upper parking lot?”
“Yessir,” Michael said.
“Exchange?” Molly and Lucius asked, and Leon waved them off.
“More running, less talking,” he gasped. “Molly, Michael, you go get the SUV and wait on my order.”
“Where am I going?” Lucius asked, and to his credit, he sounded like a runner in his natural stride.
“We’re going to the upper parking lot to try to keep Danny and Felix from getting killed,” he said, and because he was more a fan of free weights than running, he had to save his breath for the sprint.
LIAM HATED the smell of blood, he really did, and the smell of blood mixed with dank metal was right there with rotting garbage fermenting in piss as his least favorite odors.
He was sweating and breathless, and the hand and wrist holding his baton ached as though he’d broken his own bones, and his dagger hand and the blade itself were dripping with blood.
“Chuck, are you through yet?” Hunter asked, and he sounded breathless himself, both of them staring through the white-painted pipes and mystery fixtures of the engine room, now dripping red, to see if there were any more men with weapons running down to stop them from scuttling the ship.
“Almost there,” Chuck sang, and the man at Liam’s feet groaned.
Liam kicked him in the ribs, and he coughed and sputtered and fell silent. Liam scanned the surrounding hatches—there were several, one from their level, one from each of the upper levels—looking to see if there were any more henchmen.
“Think they know the cargo is cleared yet?” Hunter asked.
“I don’t know,” Liam said. He’d told them about Kadjic abducting Grace—and Josh climbing in the trunk—as they’d run. “I think Kadjic has his hands full.” He gave Hunter an apologetic smile. “I gather Grace was being… uhm….”
“Grace,” Hunter said, one side of his mouth pulling up. This man had no illusions about the man he’d fallen in love with.
At that moment there was a voice in his ear. “Liam?”
“Gotcha, Stirling.”
“How long?”
“Got it!” Chuck called. “We’re out of here!”
“Two minutes,” Liam said, hauling ass after Chuck as he led them, as agreed upon, up the stairs to the hatch that led to the main upper deck.
“Exfil?”
“Off the boat, aft.”
“You’ll hit the water. It’s deep enough.
If you flatten out, you should be fine, but be careful of the boat’s props.
You’ll get your earwig wet, so don’t expect it to work.
When you surface, the van will be in the lower parking lot.
Lucius has the keys. I’ve got the equipment set up to track us.
You can follow, and if Chuck drives, you’ll catch up. I gotta go!”
“Go?” Liam muttered. “Go where?”
At that moment, Chuck swore. “You guys ready for another bout? I’ll block, you kick ’em out of play!”
And with that, he swung his massive fist into the jaw of the first bad guy with a gun coming down the stairs. The guy fell sideways, and Hunter threw him over the rail while Liam got ready to handle the next one.
“How long?” Hunter called, sounding worried as three more men appeared in the hatch.
“Two minutes!” Chuck screamed at them. “She’s gonna blow in two minutes!”
Liam knew barely enough Russian to translate, and suddenly they didn’t have to hit any bad guys anymore.
But they did have to yell at them to run faster.
“DANNY, NO,” Felix hissed, his heart as cold as it had ever been. Of course they had to get Grace and Josh back—there was no question about that. But dear God. Had he ever thought he’d have to make a choice between his lover and their son?
You did. You both did. Over two decades ago when you decided to give him and his mother a good home, the one none of you had grown up in. You both made a choice to choose them first. It’s why he left, you moron. Because it was better for all four of you.
And he came back because we’re better together, Felix reminded himself fiercely.
“Please, no,” Felix answered in response to Danny’s stony silence.