Chapter 38
ANDREW
The warehouse where Evelyn was being held was about a half hour drive from Bluebell House, which meant they’d started torturing her basically as soon as they’d got her secured there. It also meant we had to suffer through the footage of her being electrocuted over and over for most of the drive.
About five minutes before we arrived, the feed cut off and Ethan put his foot down harder on the gas. Either they’d achieved what they wanted and Abraham had beaten us to rescue Evie…or they’d achieved what they wanted and killed her.
Fuck, it had better not be that option. The idea of losing her how I lost Daisy…it was incomprehensible.
“This is all my fault,” I muttered, sick with anxiety as I watched the GPS as if the force of my glare could move us faster. “If I hadn’t crashed my car and killed Daisy…if I’d never called Abraham to clean up my stupid mess, then Evie would never be involved in all of this.”
No one said anything, and my guilt tripled in depth.
“He’s got a point,” Brodie finally grunted.
I didn’t even have it in myself to tell him to suck my dick, because I hadn’t said it for false reassurances.
I knew I had a point; it was why I was saying it out loud: so they’d understand that I took full responsibility for everything happening to Evie right now.
Not Ethan, who’d let her return to the house alone, or Haze who’d slept through her message, or even Brodie, who’d slept through everything.
No, this was my fault from day one: four years ago, when I made the foolish decision to drive my Ferrari while drunk and coked up; since I’d panicked and called my mother’s Mr. Fix- It rather than taking responsibility for my mistake.
“Stop beating yourself up, Drew,” Ethan said with a sigh. “You were a kid, and a severely damaged, intoxicated one at that. Think of it this way…if you hadn’t set this all in motion, then Eve never would have enrolled at Meadowridge and none of us would have ever met her.”
I swallowed hard, the guilt eating away at me like acid. Just like it had been from the moment I made the connection between Harold and Daisy. “Maybe she’d be better off, had she never met us.”
I said it quietly, but they all heard.
No one spoke. No one denied it. Because they all knew I was right. She would be a hell of a lot better off having never met us, and yet our lives wouldn’t have been complete without her in them.
“We’re almost there. What’s our plan?” Ethan asked, breaking the tension with more tension.
“We need to cut the power as soon as possible, so park behind warehouse two,” Haze instructed, consulting his computer, which was open on his lap.
“Once we get within range, I can swap to a thermal scan, thanks to the low-Earth-orbit satellite just a hundred and thirty miles above us, and figure out what part of the building they’re holding her.
Then we go in guns blazing, as discussed. Everyone remember their roles, yes?”
Everyone murmured their confirmation, even me. For once, they weren’t leaving me behind to keep the car running…thank fuck. I’d actually lose my mind if my brothers were all in there with gunfire ringing out and my girl potentially caught in the crossfire.
“Drew,” Haze growled. “You good?”
“I already said yes,” I snapped back. “Do the thermal thing. We don’t have any time to waste.”
Haze didn’t need to be told twice, bringing up the satellite images before Ethan even stopped the car.
He expanded the image, briefly explaining to us where all the people were located within the building.
It was pretty damn obvious where our girl was held, as there was only one thermal body in a “seated” position, with a good dozen or so standing bodies scattered around that same area.
“Let’s do this shit,” Connor said with dark determination as we piled out of the vehicle and started loading up with weapons. Between him and Haze, we had enough to take down a small army.
The two of them had come up with our rough plan on the drive, and the bottom line was clear: get Eve out, no matter what the cost.
We moved with silent efficiency, following Haze’s hand signals like a veteran unit as Connor and Ethan led the way, eliminating the perimeter guards without a sound.
We wasted no time getting inside and spreading out, then I nearly ruined our element of surprise by gasping out loud when I laid eyes on our girl.
One of the enemy stood in front of her, his gun pointed at her head, but she didn’t flinch away. She didn’t close her eyes or duck. She stared right down the barrel of that gun with fury and the silent promise of retribution in the next life.
I’d never been more in love with her than right then.
Suddenly the room plunged into darkness—Haze had cut the power and it was go time.
Brodie and I slipped on the night-vision goggles our resident espionage expert had provided and made a beeline for Evie. Our task was to get her out, no matter what. We both needed to trust that Ethan, Connor, and Haze could handle the rest.
Chaos broke out in the darkness. We needed to stay low to avoid random bullets from trigger-happy dickheads scared of the shadows, but we had the distinct advantage of being able to actually see what we were doing.
Once we got Evie loose of her restraints, it became clear that she was unconscious, and our time was even more limited now than we’d anticipated.
Had she been shot? Had she suffered a heart attack from the electrocution?
Her pulse was weak, and my heart lodged in my throat as I hoisted her in my arms and followed Brodie swiftly through the darkness toward the exit. He had to take out three more of Elijah’s men on route, but then we were clear and running toward the car.
“We need to go!” I barked to Brodie as he threw open the back door for me to climb inside with Eve still cradled in my arms. “She’s not conscious, and I don’t like how weak her pulse feels.”
“On it,” he snapped back, quickly unloading the cases of weapons from the trunk, then sliding into the driver's seat. We were leaving our brothers behind, but they’d be just fine without us and Eve…she didn’t have the time to wait.
“We’ve got you now, Evie,” I whispered to her, as Brodie sped out of the warehouse area with a squeal of tires, making me brace my shoulder against the door.
I couldn’t let her go to put a seatbelt on, so I just needed to hold on tight.
“We’ve got you. You’re going to be okay, baby. Just hold on a little longer.”
“Is she bleeding?” Brodie asked, not taking his eyes off the road as he employed his full stunt-driving course to get us to the hospital faster than any ambulance could manage. “Was she shot?”
I took a moment to run my hand over her body as much as I could in the position we were in, then checked my palm. “A little, but not enough to have been shot.” Which was a huge relief.
“Okay, thank fuck,” Brodie said on an exhale, and I dimly clocked that this was no doubt giving him flashbacks of the first time he and Eve had met, when he’d held her together all the way to the hospital after she had been shot in the back.
I fumbled to feel Eve’s pulse in her neck again, my guts twisting with fear as I struggled to find it this time. Right as Brodie came to a screeching halt in the ambulance bay in front of the emergency room, I found the weak thrum of her heartbeat.
Relief flooded through me as the chaos of hospital staff erupted around us, and Eve was taken out of my arms by the professionals who would surely save her life.
Surely.
“She’s going to be okay, Drew,” Brodie said quietly as we watched our love being whisked away on a stretcher with a dozen medical staff crowded around.
“I told them what we know, and they’ll…do whatever needs to be done.
” He said it weakly, and I had to assume it was because he—like me—had no clue what the hell could even be done.
How did someone recover from repeated electrocution?
I nodded slowly, running a shaking hand through my hair. “Of course she will. Evie’s too stubborn to let some lowlife two-bit criminal take her down for good.”
The two of us made our way slowly into the waiting room and provided all the information that an efficient, stern-faced nurse asked about Evie’s personal details.
I put down my own health insurance information, address, and credit card details, without even second-guessing it.
I’d already added her as a subsidiary on my accounts anyway, since it was painfully clear Abraham had left her with nothing when he disappeared.
What an asshole.
“Was he there?” I asked Brodie as we sat down to wait. “Her father, I mean. Was he there?”
“Huh?” Brodie looked at me with a frown of confusion. “You didn’t hear them talking when we approached?”
I shook my head. “No, I was just focused on finding Evie.”
My friend nodded slowly. “Yeah, I get it. But yeah, he was there. I don’t know whether he’ll make it out alive or if the guys will accidentally kill him in the scuffle with Crusades.”
I huffed a short laugh. “Accidentally.”
He laughed too, then grabbed me in a rough hug that took me completely by surprise. It wasn’t a casual bro hug that was more of a chest bump, this was a full-on hug, and after a moment of shock I hugged him back.
We didn’t need words. We just needed each other. And her. We all needed her.
Brodie's eyes were wet when he released me, but neither of us acknowledged it. He sniffed, then glanced across the waiting room and whispered a curse under his breath.
“We’ve been recognized,” he told me quietly, and I looked in the direction he’d indicated.
Sure enough, there were a pair of teenage girls with their phones pointed our way, undoubtedly taking photos. Shit.