Chapter 30—Bobby #2
I don’t look back at the plane. I don’t see if Willow is looking out a window or if she’s even at the door we left open.
Once we landed, she stayed on the plane and never stepped off.
I prefer it that way. She’s not putting herself in a position to know anything beyond trusting me and the famiglia to take care of it.
Which we will.
The ride to the ranch takes forty minutes. It’s a silent trip, as everyone knows their job.
When we get close, Danny’s team and ours pull off, and we cover the remaining distance by foot, coming up from behind. It’s midafternoon, so there’s nowhere to hide in the sun. We’re banking on surprise that we’re there and nothing else.
Danny has a team already tapping into the cameras.
We know they’re covering the front gate, but not the side or back until you get fifty yards out.
This is a ten-acre plot of land. Cameras around the entire thing are the wisest option.
Thank God for stupid idiots who think country living is the safest. Just because it takes a while to get to your place, that doesn’t mean you’re safer here than in New York.
Just takes more planning, but the opportunities are the same.
It all depends on how badly enough a person wants it.
And we definitely want it.
These are probably the same people who think they can just leave their doors and windows unlocked because they live in a “safe” area. Hell, I run the Mafia with my brothers. No one comes knocking at my door, and I still lock my shit up.
Once we get close enough, Danny has the other team cut the power, shut off all cameras, and breach the front gate, making as much noise as possible as we run our asses off to the back door.
Danny’s team gets there first and throws smoke bombs through two of the windows.
Three guys come out, and I take one out while someone else gets the other two with quick shots to the head.
I might be a numbers guy, but I’ve been training most of my life with a firearm in my hand. I aim to shoot, and shoot to kill.
Marco’s on my heels as we take the back steps two at a time. Danny’s team takes the lower level, and we go high. The third team comes through the front door and secures the entrances and exits.
We hear a grunt, a scream, but the higher we get on the stairs, the less noise we hear. We take a two-by-two formation with one man covering the rear as we check the first two rooms. The third has what the other two didn’t: a locked door.
Marco nods once to me to kick it open after taking position. I ram my foot into the door and he quickly goes in, followed by me. No one else is in here. There’s just a single bed and a wardrobe on one wall.
This time it’s Marco who positions himself to open the wardrobe door while I take aim. The second he does, cries hit my ears, as does relief. I holster my gun and sink to my knees.
“Lily. Ivy. Oh, sweethearts, it’s okay.”
They settle almost instantly at my voice.
“Mr. Bobby?” Ivy asks, skeptical that it’s really me.
“Yes, princess, it’s me.”
Lily is quicker than her sister and leaps into my arms a second before Ivy joins.
When the door closes behind them, Lily jumps and looks back to see Marco, and then she’s rushing toward him.
The big man holds her close, and we share a look that doesn’t need words.
These girls are our life. We both would perish right now if it meant they got to live.
“Okay, how about we go see your mommy, huh?” I ask as I pull back just enough to look over Ivy as Marco does the same with Lily. They seem okay. Nothing visible, at least. But I’ll have a doctor do a full scan on them once I have them safe in their mama’s arms.
“I want to see Mommy,” Lily says before she starts to cry.
“Shhh, you will, sweetheart. You will. Come on.”
“Wait,” Ivy says, and I still. “He could still be out there.”
“Who?” Marco barks, and it’s enough for Lily to flinch at the noise, but not at the person as she curls into him a bit more.
“Father. He had us drink something on the plane, and then we woke up here.”
“Have you seen him or anyone else since you woke up?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No. I woke up, and the door was locked. Lily woke up after me, and I hid us in the cabinet thingy when we heard something downstairs.”
“You did good,” Marco encourages, even if there’s no smile on his face.
“Is Daddy a dragon?” Lily asks Marco and then looks at me.
I hold her eyes as I answer. “Yes. And my brother is very good at slaying dragons.”
“Is he here too?” Ivy asks.
“Tommy and Danny are.”
“Really?”
The fact that neither of these little girls realizes the impact they have on my entire family befuddles me.
Surely they know how amazing they are. Then again, Trevor is their father, so perhaps not.
I know Willow does her best to show them.
I’ve seen it. I guess it’ll be left up to me and mine to make them believe it in the next coming years.
Because that’s how long they’ll have us in their lives. For forever.
“Of course. You mean the world to them. To all of us. Come on. Let’s go see your mommy, and then you can see my brothers.”
I lift Ivy into my arms and touch the comms in my ear. “I have two packages. We’re coming out.”
I wait a beat and see the rest of the team I came up with enter the room. But we don’t move until Danny speaks over all our interlinks. “Go out the front. I have a team waiting to take you back.”
No word on if they found Trevor or Jessica.
I heard a scream earlier, but that doesn’t mean it was one of them.
All I know is Danny is happy enough that the place is secure for me to take Ivy and Marco to gather Lily in his arms and have us walk out the front door without either seeing a mess of blood or bodies that would cause the girls any psychological harm.
Danny dealt with that shit at a young age, and it’s one of his triggers. He’ll keep it from the innocent whenever he can, no matter their age.
Despite that, I still cover Ivy’s eyes and Marco does the same for Lily as we exit the room and head downstairs on quick feet.
As we hit the ground floor, we double-time it to the front, but a scream pulls my attention. I move Ivy to one of our men’s arms and take aim in the direction the noise came from as they keep going out the front.
There, crawling toward me, is Trevor. There’s blood covering his face as he shuffles away on what look like broken legs.
But I don’t fire. Even if everything in my gut, my soul, demands I do. Vinny made a promise to the Strays, and it’s their man, Liam, who I see grabbing Trevor’s legs and pulling him back into the room with more glee than a child being given a puppy.
I stay but a moment, just long enough to match eyes with Danny before he shuts them back in whatever made-up torture room they’re in, before I move to the front door.
I trust my brother to take care of it. And seeing a man crawling away, begging for mercy, gives me enough satisfaction to pocket my gun and get in the back of the SUV.
As soon as I’m in, I gather the girls close to me and note that Marco took the front passenger seat as we begin to drive away. Once we make it to the main gate and start down the road, I give them space to look around if they wish.
Not that they do. They just huddle closer to me, holding me as tightly as I hold them, and I remind them that they’re safe. Promise them that they will always be safe.
And I mean to keep my promise.
If I find out he touched them… did anything to them… I will ignore Vinny’s orders and go back and kill Trevor myself.
Him and everyone he ever knew.