CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR #3
Jules is waking now, softly calls out, ‘Bodyguard,’ all croaky and weak.
Lachlan takes a breath that hurts to hold. ‘Ro, did you fill—?’
‘Everything I could,’ he tells Lachlan, checking Savannah over. ‘You don’t seem right,’ he says, lightly touching her face. ‘Did they take too much?’
‘Roman,’ Alistair calls out, clipped and stern. ‘Go and check the bathroom for a medical kit.’
Reluctantly, he leaves Savannah where she is, sat on the bed beside Jules. Ariadne is put in the corner like furniture. Alistair reaches for Savannah’s IV stand. He turns the dial attached to one of several drips, cranks it all the way.
‘What the fuck are you—?’
‘She needs to rest.’
From upstairs, Sorrenko yells, ‘Tanner, close the door!’
Savannah’s mouth is in a thin line as she watches him tamper with her IV but she says nothing, offers no argument.
‘You heard him. Close the door now,’ Alistair says.
‘Sorrenko is still—’
‘Mikhail is lost to us,’ Alistair says, like it pains him to speak such a thing into existence. ‘We must close and lock the door until help arrives.’
‘I can get him.’
‘I am ordering you to stay where my son is.’
Jules is almost fully awake.
Savannah is losing consciousness, slipping away as whatever is fed intravenously causes her to sleep. It makes Lachlan sick, but the urgency of the invading threat comes first for now.
‘It’s better she rest,’ Alistair says, reaching for the lock button on the wall.
Roman comes out of the bathroom clutching supplies.
He stares at the door, sees what Alistair is about to do.
‘Papa.’
Jules is awake.
Lachlan feels those honey brown eyes on him. Roman breaks into a run out the door just as Jules says, ‘Lachlan,’ and Alistair touches the lock button.
The fast-moving world slows for Lachlan.
He makes his decision in a snap second, ignores years of training to do so.
‘Stay quiet, conserve water, keep each other safe,’ he tells Jules as he slips through the door after Roman, steel grazing his shoulder as the door starts to close. ‘I’ll come back for you.’
He hears Jules scream his name as the door slams shut, locking tight. Lachlan trusts that Alistair won’t open it for anything. He has everything he needs in that room. There will be no risk worth taking.
He’s outside now, they both are.
Lachlan grabs Roman by the arm to drag him out of range from incoming fire, backing into the medical room for cover.
‘Papa, Papa! We have to—’
‘Be quiet.’ Footsteps thud down the metal spiral. They’re coming in droves. ‘We’ll get him, all right? Just follow my lead.’
Roman nods, more afraid than Lachlan’s ever seen him. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s all right.’ Lachlan tightly grips his hand. ‘You’re brave.’
‘Stupid more like.’
Lachlan aims at the door. ‘Can’t be one without the other.’
He’s waiting for them to bottleneck, but they never do.
Instead, they throw in gas.
Lachlan should have expected it.
‘Fuck,’ he utters, scrambling for an oxygen tank and a mask, can’t fucking see, the gas is too thick, spreads too fast. He’s already feeling it. Fuck, fuck, fuck, this is bad, but they wouldn’t use gas if they didn’t want them alive.
‘Ro,’ he slurs, hands numb. ‘S-stay… calm when… when… they…’
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Twelve is better.
Yes, twelve hours would definitely have been better.
Lachlan must tell Danya he was right when he sees him.
‘He’s fading again. Wake him.’
Blistering agony violently tears Lachlan from the peace of darkness. He chokes on his own breath, tastes blood, body seizing.
Electrocution is really fucking painful.
His hands are tied tightly behind his back.
They have him on a chair.
There’s rope around his middle.
They’re using tasers, he can tell from the harsh click-bite of the voltage.
His tongue is sore from where he’s bitten it too hard.
Lachlan tastes metal.
The pain vanishes, but his nerves are torn to shreds, lungs still spasming.
‘That’s better,’ a voice says, accent familiar. ‘Let’s try something different.’
There’s glass absolutely everywhere. What’s left of the mansion is a skeletal ruin. The sun is beating down hard and after the rain last night, it kicks up tremendous humidity. When Lachlan cranes around awkwardly, he sees that he’s right on the edge of the pool, and then his breath catches hard.
The swimming pool is full of bodies, the water ruby red.
The staff. All the staff, even Paola. Kessler is among them, face down.
‘Roman,’ he utters, terrified.
‘The boy’s not in there,’ the man tells Lachlan. ‘Roman Olek Sorrenko is an HVT just like his dad, you know that. Too valuable to kill outright.’
Lachlan takes in his surroundings.
Uniformed units are dragging furniture outside and gathering supplies. Someone has already started organising medical gear across a dining table while others discuss watch rotations. The man before him is younger than Mason Fenwick but he has the look of him, no doubt.
‘You look just like your brother,’ Lachlan states dispassionately.
The man smiles coldly. ‘Craig Fenwick.’
‘So. What’s your endgame? You have no leverage.’
‘Oh come on now, don’t insult my intelligence. We’ve got leverage a-plenty, mate. Top three billionaires under our feet and Mikhail Sorrenko’s eldest boy? If that’s not leverage, I don’t know what is.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I want to know how my brother died and who did it.’
‘Did you launch this operation for that reason?’
‘This operation was commissioned via private contract. I just made sure I was leading the team.’
‘Who’s we?’
‘Tase him.’
Lachlan barely has time to brace before the shock hits far too close to his heart. Every muscle in his body locks up violently, spine arching hard enough to hurt as his teeth grind together with enough force to chip enamel.
‘Now drop him,’ the younger Fenwick says.
The pain leaves but Lachlan’s muscles stay locked after, body juddering in the aftershocks. It’s a debilitating kind of agony that requires a few seconds to pass, but before he has even a moment to recover, he’s kicked backwards.
The shock of it steals his breath.
Lachlan is plunged into the water. What mild relief there is to be had from the heat is of no comfort whatsoever because he was spasming mildly from the electric shocks so he can’t help but swallow some of it, choking.
The weight of the chair sinks him immediately, all the way down.
He struggles hard, but he’s got no chance.
All he can do is desperately lock his body up tight and force himself not to inhale.
After ten seconds that feel like years, the restraints around his middle tug hard and they drag him out by the rope. It’s far from ideal.
They accidentally drop him back in twice.
No leverage from above, not enough thought gone into it.
They’re not professionals like Lachlan is used to dealing with, but that doesn’t make them less dangerous, far from it.
When he’s finally upright, he ventilates slow and deep, forcing his body to regulate. He tastes iron from the blood and chlorine from the pool.
‘That was a fucking graft,’ one of the men complains, very British. ‘Next time just dip him in, maybe.’
‘How is dipping him any easier?’ someone else asks, also British.
‘Like, tip him backwards and pull him up again.’
‘How?’
‘Y’know. Under the water, under the sea.’
‘The fuck are you talking about?’
‘Catching fishes for my tea.’
‘Chubb, shut the fuck up.’
‘I’m just saying he weighs a ton on that chair.’
‘Enough!’ younger Fenwick snaps. ‘Fuck me. Go check on the bunker, see if they’ve made any progress.’
Both men walk away. Staring down as he is, Lachlan sees a fat land crab make its way into the pool. The bodies must be attracting them.
‘Sorry about that.’
‘You’re PMC.’
‘You don’t ask the questions. I do.’
Inexperienced. Unprofessional. A grudge.
Lachlan can use that.
‘I wasn’t asking, dipshit.’
Younger Fenwick tases him again, doesn’t wait until it passes to ask, ‘I know you knew him. You wrote the fucking report about his death.’
Lachlan spits blood and tells lies. ‘Your brother was a good man who died protecting the people you’re attacking right now.’
Younger Fenwick laughs. ‘My brother was a stone-cold cunt, but he knew something was fucked with that place. The last time we talked he told me that the heir to it all, Julian Penhalyx, is a Paranatural.’
‘I was with him when he died.’
‘Mason told me if anything happened to him, he’d been killed because of what he knew.’
‘I can tell you the last thing he said.’
‘The ashes they gave us had no trace of his DNA.’
‘He was electrocuted by a malfunction caused by the storm.’
‘Paranaturals cause storms, everyone knows that.’
‘It’s bullshit. They’re not even real,’ Lachlan pants when the current leaves his body. ‘It’s a fucking witch hunt.’
‘How did my brother die?’
‘The same way you’re killing me!’
‘Tell me how Mason died and it’ll stop.’
‘He died from the storm.’
‘And who caused it?’
‘It’s weather. No one causes it!’
The younger Fenwick paces in front of Lachlan.
‘It’s very secure down there. We can’t get in yet, but we did cut off all communications as well as their water supply, and in this heat,’ he says, looking around, ‘they’ll just be begging for a drop soon, don’t you think?’
Lachlan says nothing.
He knows Jules’ side has at least enough water to survive.
The other side, less so.
‘We’ve put heaters outside of the rooms and once we find their ventilation, we’ll flood it with smoke too. Meanwhile, you have a chance to do yourself a favour.’ Fenwick holds his gaze. ‘Tell me how my brother really died.’
‘Your brother,’ Lachlan says, scarcely able to draw breath, but for this, he’ll find some, ‘bottomed for me like a bitch.’
Lachlan allows himself a smug, dark smile before the shocks come back full force. He goes where it’s quiet. Where it’s safe.
One sunny day with the people he loves.
?
It’s been a full day.
Two?
No, one.
Three?
It’s hard to keep track.
Lachlan is in the wrecked mansion interior with the Delacroix twins and the dead body of Thomas Whitlock.
Mikhail Sorrenko is intermittently brought in and out.
Roman also comes and goes.