CHAPTER SIX
Despite Jules’ refusal, Lachlan goes about ordering the construction of a training room. It’s necessary anyway for himself and for those he’ll eventually recruit. They need to stay sharp.
The second month is stable.
Not better, not worse.
Lachlan is extremely thorough when it comes to selecting a second in command, mostly because he knows their loyalty will be directly routed to the old man and that troubles him. That final instruction still weighs heavy in Lachlan’s mind.
Lachlan has had someone in mind from the start.
Priscilla Carrigan, who he met in boot and kept in touch with. She’s extremely tough, ambitious and cold-blooded. All in all, he figures that she’s someone who can decide cleanly whether or not to take the job without any sense of obligation.
Lachlan performs her second interview away from the Estate, knows he’s being monitored, well aware that the “house devices” he uses are mirrored. Therefore the second interview marks the first serious breach in his loyalty to Alistair Penhalyx.
Lachlan is fully honest with Carrigan about everything.
The contract, Alistair, Jules and Mimi, the clauses, the slant towards imprisonment, all of it. Carrigan is a consummate professional, asks the same questions Lachlan did plus a few he didn’t, knowing in advance the pitfalls of the contract.
‘What’s your feel of the father?’ she asks, holding her coffee but not drinking it. Carrigan is twenty-four years old, and currently out of rotation.
‘Control more than protection,’ he answers, keeping to what he knows rather than speculating, which would lead down a dark path. ‘The Estate is run like a city and the kids don’t leave, ever.’
‘Why do you want me?’
‘You’re ambitious and money-oriented.’
‘I don’t do private security and it’s live-in.’
‘I’ll promote you whenever I can. This place has enormous potential.’
‘So call Voss or one of the others you served with in RB.’ Lachlan tries to think how best to say what he needs to but she catches him in the hesitation. ‘Or do you not want to drag someone you care about into a scenario like this?’
‘I like you.’
She snorts. ‘A one-time fuck behind the munitions shed doesn’t mean shit.’
‘That’s not why.’
‘Then be honest.’
‘I know you can handle yourself.’
‘And?’
He sighs. ‘I need someone to help me do things my way. The father is never there. Yes, he supervises. Yes, he has people, eyes in the sky, all of that but he’s not interested in his son’s wellbeing beyond no scars or damage and ensuring that he’s isolated and confined.’
‘What about the little girl?’
‘She’s terrified of me,’ Lachlan admits. ‘I’m hoping you can form a better impression than I did.’
‘Because I’m a woman.’
‘Essentially, yeah.’
‘From what you told me, the boy didn’t help much.’
‘He’s been through fifteen bodyguards and those are just the ones I know about. He’s not teaching her to stay away to punish me. It’s because he’s scared.’
‘Of what?’
Lachlan looks away, holds back what he suspects and sticks to facts. ‘Look, I can’t get out of this contract and if I’m replaced, it could be someone worse who takes over.’
‘So what? Break now.’
‘I just said—’
‘Who cares who takes over? My instincts say better to break now and face the legalities than stay and get deeper.’
‘I know I can build a bubble. Make it safe, do it my way, keep the old man in the dark for what needs to be done.’
‘Bubbles burst.’
‘This one just has to last four years and ten months.’
She considers. ‘You’re talking at least twelve more people onside.’
‘I know.’
‘Odds are good that one will defect, especially if money is the motivator.’
‘I know that too, which is why,’ he says, sighing, ‘for the first month I need you to run loyalty checks to weed out who we bring into the bubble and who gets frozen.’
‘This is crazy.’
‘Carrigan—’
‘You’re talking about multiple ops while professionally guarding high-risk kids and walking a legal tight-rope.’
‘Which is why I’m telling you everything and making it clear that this would be a personal favour.’
‘Pay scale slanted down?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s because he’ll offer incentives to rat you out.’
‘We can demonstrate believability.’
‘You’re mounting an insurrection.’
‘I’m protecting the kids.’
‘Don’t give me bullshit like that,’ she insists. ‘You’re dragging me into this, the least you can do is tell me why.’
‘What do you want me to say?’
‘Give me the ugly reason. I trust ugly.’
‘I think…’ He shakes his head. ‘I feel like there’s something fucked up circling the eldest kid. If I walked away or gave up on him, I couldn’t stand it.’
‘From what you’ve told me, the father wants him house-trained for an arranged marriage.
No socialising means no support network.
That’s how these people operate. He’ll be gifted to someone on his twenty-first. Is that obscene?
Yes. Does it turn my stomach? Always. But to put twelve lives including mine in mortal danger for a kid who doesn’t know what it feels like to be hungry or cold… that’s unreasonable.’
‘Hence why I’m telling you before you sign, if you do. I want you to know what you’re getting into.’
‘I need time to think about it.’
‘Let me know what you decide.’
The third interview sees Priscilla Carrigan signing the contract in Lachlan and Clara’s presence. No meetings with Alistair. The lawyers oversee it all. Her contract is almost identical to Lachlan’s own, save for the acknowledgement of her rank below Lachlan and the lack of Latin leftovers.
Carrigan gets her own quarters given that she’s his second, but the others Lachlan eventually hires will sleep in a newly commissioned barracks attached only to the East Wing.
It'll take another two months before Carrigan comes to him with a list of who she knows is solid and who she expects will subvert their authority to impress Alistair. The latter column only has two names on it and Lachlan will make sure they’re assigned to perimeter patrols and grounds checks, almost never allowed inside the East Wing.
He will also gradually “promote” them to the wider mansion with a pay bump so as not to elicit suspicion or resentment.
Despite Jules refusing the training, Lachlan assesses his strength from a distance.
He speaks with the chef about nutrition and discovers that, although all food served and prepared is top of the range, most of what Jules eats is nutritionally shallow.
Organic, yes, but stripped of protein, fats and complex carbohydrates in favour of aesthetic purity.
Endless juices, raw greens, chia puddings, micro-salads and controlled portions of white fish obscured by finery, truffles and gold-rimmed plates.
Knowing it’ll flag, Lachlan makes no alterations to the menu itself but plans to make changes in the future if and when he can. Mimi’s diet isn’t controlled at all from what he sees but then he doesn’t know much about what three-year-olds are supposed to eat anyway.
After two months since signing, Lachlan truly has his lay of the land.
No bloodshed incidents. He has a second in command now. He can finally take a day off, although he doesn’t because all he’ll do is think about the East Wing and how he can make it safer. He can take a fucking breath.
And then in the third month, the East Wing is attacked.
?
It happens fast, always does.
There’s no warning, never is.
It just happens.
Lands.
Strikes.
And you have to react instantly.
Which is what Lachlan’s been trained to do.
Two hours before dawn, an alarm is tripped. Then another. Then three more. The entire East Wing rings out. Glass windows are shattered for entry. Semi-automatics are fired in controlled bursts. It’s a full-on attack performed by professionals and the target, clear as day, is Jules.
Lachlan gives the order over dark-band and the Cove, as he calls it over the radio, is locked down tight. The Cove is the central wedge of three connecting rooms where Jules and Mimi sleep, all of which have been reinforced to become panic rooms when necessary.
It’s the first attack on Lachlan’s watch.
What goes right is this:
Making those three rooms into secure locations to protect from night invasions works because they can’t get to the kids. Lachlan, plus six others, gun down the attackers who approach.
But that’s all that goes right.
What goes wrong is this:
The attack was an airdrop, therefore rendering all Lachlan’s clever plans about ground sensors irrelevant.
They used light-bending camouflage meaning the security footage shows nothing but white blurs.
They brought mini EMPs which shorted out long-range communications, including all the lights, which plunges the Estate into confusing darkness.
And worst of all, the inside job. A childminder who takes Jules hostage from the inside of the Cove blindsides him. She was planted, biding her time.
Later, he’ll assess his own failure and transform it into improvements going forward. But in the moment, it hits hard.
The traitor communicates with Lachlan through the door.
She tells him and the others to stand down or she’ll spill blood.
Lachlan is calculating fast, nods at Carrigan.
They give the full appearance of acquiescing to a fresh wave of intruders who force them to their knees and train guns on them.
The traitor comes out from the Cove slowly, using Jules as a shield, scalpel to his throat.
No blood drawn but the slightest of wrong moves will make little rivers.
Lachlan watches intently.
The childminder in question is Alyssa Monroe.
She moves like a professional. Monroe walks slowly and Lachlan sees that little Mimi is following, clinging to Monroe’s shirt tail, eyes wide.
Jules is pale but holding up well.
The only source of light comes from the ones fixed on the end of semi-automatics. ‘You,’ Monroe directs at Carrigan. ‘You walk with us.’
‘Let her stay,’ Jules begs softly. ‘Let Mimi stay, please.’
The childminder whose sole job it was to care for the three-year-old glances down. ‘Fine.’ She looks at Lachlan. ‘Take her.’