Chapter 10
Irish
Night changed Croft House in ways daylight had hidden. During Skye's appointment, the estate had been able to rely on pale stone, manicured grounds, soft furnishings, and the carefully cultivated image of a private recovery center. After midnight, none of that mattered.
The windows became black rectangles interrupted by the occasional glow of low interior lighting, security cameras stood out against the darker walls, and every locked gate looked less decorative when there were no visitors around to distract from what it was designed to keep in or out.
We had been watching the rear service road for nearly two hours when the medical-supply vehicle finally appeared, moving slowly through the trees without headlights until it reached the coded gate.
Hawkeye lay several meters to my left beneath the cover of an overgrown stone boundary wall, binoculars raised while Trigger watched the road from a second position farther back.
Raze and Storm were stationed near the vehicles with Maverick, ready to move if the night turned into something other than reconnaissance.
Skye lay beside me on the damp ground in dark trousers and a black jacket that Maverick had somehow found in her size, her tablet tucked inside a protective case beneath one arm.
I had argued against bringing her this close to the property right up until the moment she reconstructed the service entrance from memory and identified two structural features none of us had noticed.
After that, keeping her behind would have been about my comfort rather than the mission, and I was trying very hard not to become exactly the kind of man she already expected me to be.
The van stopped beside a low service building attached to the rear of Croft House.
Two men emerged first, both wearing ordinary work jackets, followed by a woman in dark medical scrubs who used a card to unlock the loading entrance.
Hawkeye murmured through the earpiece, "Camera on the northwest corner rotated thirty degrees when the van entered. "
"I've got it," Trigger answered.
Skye shifted slightly beside me. "That's not automatic."
I kept my eyes on the building. "Why?"
"The camera should sweep evenly if it's on a programmed rotation. It moved directly toward the van, then stopped."
"Someone's controlling it."
"Yes."
That meant an active security station.
I sent the observation to Storm, then watched the delivery team unload three insulated medical cases and several ordinary cartons. Nothing about the transfer looked unusual until one of the rear doors opened again and a fourth person climbed out.
A young woman climbed out, barefoot despite the cold.
She wore a long gray cardigan over what looked like hospital clothing, and even from this distance I could see the way her arms were held close to her body. One of the men reached for her elbow. She recoiled before allowing him to guide her toward the entrance.
Skye went rigid.
"That's not Isla," she whispered.
Relief and disappointment lived in the same breath.
"No."
"They're transporting residents in medical vans."
"Aye."
"And barefoot."
I looked toward her.
Her expression had hardened.
"Remember why we're here."
"To confirm the service route."
"And leave."
"I remember."
I wanted to believe her.
The delivery team disappeared inside, but the door remained open.
For the next fifteen minutes, staff moved between the vehicle and the building carrying supplies.
We documented everything we could: the number of people, timing, security-camera rotation, door access, and exterior lighting.
The service corridor visible through the entrance aligned almost perfectly with the old plan Skye had shown us.
Then a light came on in the upper west wing.
Skye's hand closed around my sleeve.
"Callum."
I followed her gaze.
A thin, dark-haired woman stood behind a narrow window partly obscured by the blinds. Skye raised the binoculars, and I heard her breath catch beside me.
"Isla."
Every muscle in my body tightened.
"You sure?"
"I know her."
"Skye—"
"That's Isla."
The figure moved closer to the glass.
For perhaps two seconds, the woman's face appeared between the slats.
I didn't know Isla Lennox well enough to recognize her from that distance, but Skye did. She slowly lowered the binoculars, and the expression on her face told me everything before she spoke.
"She's alive."
"Aye."
The words had barely left my mouth when the woman disappeared from the window. A second figure entered the room behind her and Skye moved. I caught the back of her jacket before she made it three feet.
"What are you doing?"
"Getting closer."
"No."
"Let go."
"Not happening."
She twisted toward me, keeping her voice low only because years of stubbornness had apparently learned at least one survival skill. "I can reach the wall beneath that wing from the tree line."
"And then what?"
"I can see whether there's another entrance."
"We already know there's an entrance."
"We know where it should be."
"That's enough tonight."
"For you."
The words landed exactly where she intended because, while I was forcing myself to treat what we had seen as intelligence for an operation, the woman behind that glass was Skye's family.
I lowered my voice. "If you move toward that building now, every camera between here and the west wing sees you."
"You don't know that."
"I know enough."
"And if they move her tonight?"
"We follow."
"What if we lose them?"
"We don't."
She stared at me, anger and terror fighting for control.
Then something behind my shoulder changed.
A security light came on near the service road.
Hawkeye's voice hit my ear.
"Movement. Two guards leaving rear entrance."
Trigger followed immediately. "Camera sweep changed. They're checking grounds."
They had clearly seen something, and whether that something was us or an unrelated movement no longer mattered because the security pattern had changed.
I pulled Skye lower behind the wall.
"We're done."
Her face hardened. "I'm not leaving her."
"You're not helping her by getting caught."
The guards separated, one moving toward the van while the other headed directly toward the tree line and came far too close to our position.
I signaled retreat.
Hawkeye disappeared first, moving silently toward Trigger's position. Skye stayed beside me because I had one hand locked around hers and no intention of giving her another chance to decide her fear mattered more than the security man twenty yards away.
We moved low through the trees as a beam of light swept behind us. Skye stumbled on a root. I caught her around the waist before she hit the ground, pulled her against me, and pressed us behind the trunk of an old oak as the flashlight moved across the undergrowth.
The guard was close enough that I heard him breathing.
Skye's hand flattened against my chest.
Her heartbeat hammered through her palm or mine. Hard to tell which.
The beam passed within feet of us, stopped, and then slowly swept back in our direction.
I felt Skye hold her breath.
My body covered hers almost completely, one arm braced beside her head and the other wrapped around her waist. Under different circumstances I might have blamed the danger for making me so aware of every place we touched, but the truth was that I noticed the closeness anyway.
Only when the guard finally moved on did I force my attention back to getting us out.
Hawkeye whispered, "Path clear east."
I waited another five seconds before pulling Skye with me.
We reached the outer boundary and crossed into the neighboring field just as an alarm sounded behind us.
It wasn't a full security alarm, only a short electronic tone, but it was enough to tell me someone inside knew something was wrong.
Trigger emerged from the darkness near the stone wall. "Vehicles are hot."
We moved fast.
By the time we reached the SUV, Raze already had the rear door open and Storm was telling Maverick to take the alternate route. I shoved Skye inside, climbed in after her, and barely had the door closed before the vehicle started moving.
Nobody spoke for the first mile as adrenaline filled the SUV. Storm watched the rear window while Trigger checked the mirrors, Maverick concentrated on putting distance between us and Croft House, and Raze monitored the radio for any sign that we were being followed.
Skye sat beside me breathing too quickly and staring through the glass as Croft House disappeared behind us.
Then she said, "Turn around."
Nobody answered.
"Turn the car around."
"No," I said.
Her head snapped toward me.
"She's there."
"I know."
"We saw her."
"I know."
"And we're driving away."
"Because they know someone was in the grounds."
"You don't know they saw us."
"I know security changed patterns thirty seconds after you moved toward the house."
Her eyes flashed. "So this is my fault?"
That wasn't what I had said, but fear had already decided what she heard.
"No."
"You grabbed me like I was a child."
"I grabbed you because you were walking into a monitored security zone."
"I was trying to get closer to Isla."
"And I was trying to stop them from taking you too."
The words came out harder than I intended.
Silence filled the SUV.
Even Raze stopped pretending not to listen.
Skye stared at me.
"You don't get to use her against me."
"I'm not."
"You think because you're trained and I'm not, you understand what I should be willing to risk."
"No. I think you were scared enough to stop thinking about risk at all."
"And you weren't?"
That shut me up.
Her gaze sharpened.
"There it is."
"What?"
"You're not angry because I ignored the plan."
I looked away.
"Callum."
I hated the way she could make my own name sound like a demand for honesty.
"You're angry because you were scared."
"Leave it."
"No."
The word came quietly. It didn’t sound defiant but certain as she shifted toward me.
"You were scared."
I looked back at her.
The fear I had spent the last twenty minutes disguising as anger was still there, fresh and ugly and far too familiar.
For one second behind that tree, I'd imagined the guard finding her. Another second after that, I'd imagined Croft House swallowing her into one of those locked rooms while I stood outside knowing exactly what happened to people I failed to protect.
The image had been far too easy to create.
"I was afraid they were going to take you too."
Skye went still.
The SUV seemed to disappear around us.
She searched my face as though she expected me to take the words back.
I couldn't take the words back without lying to both of us.
"Then stop pretending I'm just part of the investigation."
My pulse kicked harder.
"Skye."
"No. You don't get to spend every hour watching whether I've eaten, remembering my coffee, checking where I am in a room, grabbing my hand when you think I'm in danger, and then act like all of that is professional."
"You're reading too much into it."
"Am I?"
Part of me wanted to insist she was reading too much into my behavior, but another part already knew she wasn't, and I no longer knew which one I was trying to convince.
Her face was inches from mine and I knew I should have moved. I had spent years becoming very good at leaving before something mattered enough to hurt.
Instead, my hand came up to the side of her neck.
Skye's breath caught beneath my hand, and whatever restraint I had been relying on disappeared with the sound.
I kissed her without the caution I had spent days pretending I still possessed, with no hesitation left after pretending I hadn't noticed the way she watched me or how easily she had started fitting beside me in every room.
Her fingers twisted into the front of my shirt as I pulled her closer, and the kiss turned from frustration into something hotter almost immediately.
She kissed me back with the same stubborn certainty she brought to everything else, giving me no room to pretend I'd misread the moment.
For several seconds, maybe longer, I forgot we were in the back of an SUV with half my brothers sitting around us.
Then Raze cleared his throat loudly enough to drag both of us back to the reality that we were still surrounded by half the team.
I broke the kiss.
Skye's lips were parted, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes held the kind of triumph that should have warned me not to say anything stupid.
I rested my forehead briefly against hers before forcing myself back.
"That can't happen again."
The instant the words left my mouth, I knew how stupid they sounded. Skye blinked once before her lips curved, not with hurt or disappointment but unmistakable amusement.
"You keep telling yourself that."
Raze made a choking sound from the front seat and Storm smacked him.
I leaned back against the seat and stared out the window while every instinct I had spent years trusting told me I'd just made the mission infinitely more complicated.
Beside me, Skye made no attempt to move away, and her knee remained pressed against mine for the rest of the drive. I could have created the distance myself, but I didn't, and that worried me considerably more than the kiss.