22. Mary
Mary
Maeve reached me before Artem did.
That should’ve been impossible. Guards stood between the house and the gate. The helicopter was still dragging noise across the sky, and Sienna’s firm hand on my shoulder kept me inside the Range Rover.
None of that mattered.
My sister appeared running through the rain with Gregor behind her, Ivan at her side with what looked like an enormous gun, and Artem moving a few paces back with a phone to his ear and a face so cold it made the air look warmer.
Maeve yanked the car door open. “Mary.”
I made a sound that might have been her name and reached for her like I was five years old and had woken from a nightmare.
Maeve climbed into the car and wrapped both arms around me.
She smelled like home. Mac’s shampoo, Mila’s biscuits, her own soft omega warmth, and the faint scent of her pack clinging to her sweater.
“I’ve got you,” she whispered.
“I shouldn’t have left my alphas. But I didn’t think he’d dare come here again.”
“Money is a driver for him. He’s too stupid to know better.”
A laugh broke out of me and turned into a sob halfway through.
Maeve held me tighter.
Outside, Artem’s voice carried through the rain in Russian. Ivan answered him, sharp and fast. Gregor stood by the open door, enormous and silent, his hazel eyes fixed on the sky above and the retreating helicopter.
“Is he gone?” I asked.
Maeve’s hand moved over my hair. “Not yet. But about thirty rifles are currently aimed at the helicopter so I reckon he won’t try again.”
“I threatened him with Artem,” I said.
“That was excellent work.”
I glanced at Artem. “I may have over-promised.”
Ivan appeared beside Gregor, he lifted the gun draped across his arms. “He was warned to stay away from here and he breached that deal. He no longer has any grace left.”
Maeve looked up. “You’re going to blow the helicopter up?”
“We had a deal.” Ivan looked at the helicopter with sneer and pointed the gun at it.
Gregor coughed.
Artem glanced at him.
Maeve narrowed her eyes. “Ivan.”
Ivan growled, “I explained the options. He breached the agreement, and I’m not having him threaten you or Mary again. Now can I kill the bastard?”
“He’s too far away,” I said.
“Not for this bad boy. It’s a heat seeking rocket launcher.”
Despite everything, I laughed. “You’re crazy,” I said just as the helicopter turned and banked low, swinging back toward us.
The rotor wash flattened the grass in a wide circle. My hair whipped across my face. The thud of the blades pressed into my chest.
A shot cracked through the air.
The Range Rover’s hood erupted. Flames belched up from the engine block, black and orange, and the heat wave shoved me back. Sienna grabbed my arm. I shook her off.
Ivan’s expression went cold. “Sorry, Maeve.” His voice was flat. “Sorry, but neither of you has a safe future with that mudak alive.”
Maeve didn’t answer. She watched the helicopter circling, her face giving nothing away.
I looked at the flames eating through the Range Rover. Then at Ivan. Then my sister. “My alphas and my babies are my future. Get rid of him.”
Maeve turned her head and met my eyes as something passed between us. It had been there since we were girls, since before we knew what the world would demand. “It’s time to prove we’re the stronger McCarthys.”
“Do it, Ivan,” I said.
Ivan didn’t hesitate. He lifted the launcher to his shoulder, tracked the helicopter as it swooped low over the burning car. The pilot was a dark shape behind the glass. He looked at Ivan and banked the helicopter.
“He’s leaving.”
“And that was his final warning,” Ivan said.
Sienna shifted beside me. “We should move her into the house.”
Gregor reached in and took me from the car as if I weighed nothing. He kept one huge arm under my knees and one behind my back, while Maeve climbed out and stayed close with her hand on my shoulder.
“I can walk,” I said.
“I know,” Gregor said. “But you’ve had a shock.”
“No, my father tries to kill me everyday.”
Maeve sniffed. “I’m going to kill him myself.”
The house swallowed us in warmth, light, and the smell of coffee. Mac wasn’t in the hall, which meant someone had done the sensible thing and kept him away from the windows.
Mila shouted somewhere upstairs.
That helped. It was normal…for this family.
Gregor carried me into the sitting room and put me on the sofa closest to the fire. Maeve sat beside me. Sienna took position near the door and spoke quietly into her comms. Ivan disappeared. Artem stood in front of the fireplace and looked at me.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“No.”
“Pain?”
“That’s the same as hurt. No.”
“Cramping?”
“Cramping. No.”
Maeve squeezed my hand. “He does this. It’s awful and useful.”
“I’m being medically interrogated by the man my father tried to sell me to.”
Artem’s mouth curved faintly. “And yet I’m still more charming than your father.”
“The bar is in hell.”
“I will accept the victory.”
I smiled as the front door opened hard enough that voices rose in the hall, and my whole body reacted before my mind did.
Hudson and Lincoln.
Their scents hit me before I saw them, more awake in a way I hadn’t smelled from them before.
Sienna stepped aside.
Lincoln came in first. His hair was wet from the rain, his coat open, his broad chest rising as if he had run from the car. Hudson followed half a step behind, controlled enough to look composed unless you saw his eyes.
“Mary.” Lincoln crossed the room and dropped to his knees in front of me.
I reached for him. His hands closed around mine, warm and shaking. That shocked me.
“I’m okay,” I said.
His gaze moved over my face, my body, my hands, then down to my stomach. “Thank God. And the babies?”
“Okay, I think.”
“You think?”
“Lincoln.”
Hudson was already beside me, one hand cupping the side of my face. “Any pain?”
“No.”
“Cramping?”
“Jesus. What is it with the cramping? No. And Artem already asked all the terrifying questions.”
Hudson’s thumb moved over my cheek. His hand was cold from the rain. “The doctor is on his way.”
“Now?”
“Today,” Lincoln said, and there was iron under it.
I looked between them.
This was the other side. The one hidden beneath the feeding, the jokes, the way Lincoln bought me cake and fed it to me, and Hudson remembered appointments.
Now they showed it.
I should have recoiled. But Hudson’s hand stayed open against my face. Lincoln’s thumbs moved over my knuckles as if he knew exactly how close the line was.
“I’m okay,” I said again, softer.
Lincoln leaned forward and pressed his mouth to my belly through my sweater.
The room went quiet. Even Artem looked away.
Hudson’s forehead touched mine. “He came for you,” Hudson said.
“He tried.”
His jaw tightened. “He came for you. I’m so angry that we let you go. I should have listened.”
“Callum McCarthy is a persistent man.”
“That doesn’t happen twice.”
I believed him.
Artem waited until Hudson lifted his forehead from mine.
“Study,” he said.
Lincoln looked back at him. “I’m not leaving her.”
“Then bring her,” Artem said.
Maeve stood. “She can sit in the study while you all plan whatever masculine nonsense is about to happen.”
“It’s security,” Ivan said from the doorway.
“Masculine nonsense with guns,” Maeve replied.
“Usually,” Gregor said.
“I’m coming.”
Hudson looked at me. “You don’t have to.”
“I know. I’m coming.”
The study smelled like leather, coffee, firewood, and Fergus’s wet coat.
Artem stood behind the desk. Ivan took the chair nearest the screens, already pulling up something on a laptop.
Gregor leaned against the wall by the window, arms folded.
Maeve sat beside me on the sofa with one hand on my knee.
Hudson and Lincoln stood behind my chair until I looked up at them.
“Sit down,” I said.
Lincoln blinked.
“You’re looming.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. Sit.”
Maeve made a small sound into her hand.
Hudson sat on one side of me, Lincoln sat on the other.
Artem watched that with interest but didn’t comment.
“Callum landed at a private field outside Guildford,” Ivan said. “In a helicopter registered through a shell company. The pilot filed a route from Dublin to Kent with a stop amendment twenty minutes before arrival.”
“Can he be detained?” Hudson asked.
Artem’s eyes moved to him. “On what grounds?”
“Harassment. Threats. Trespass.”
“The estate airspace issue is messy,” Ivan said. “Threats are harder unless Mary wants to make a formal statement.”
Every man in the room looked at me and then, to their credit, looked away before it became a tribunal.
“Not today,” Maeve said for me.
I squeezed her hand.
“Not today,” I repeated.
Hudson nodded once. “Then we make it impossible for him to reach her again.”
Lincoln’s voice was low. “He knew she was coming here.”
Sienna had followed us into the study and stood near the door. “Or he knew she would eventually come here. He could’ve been watching the estate.”
My skin chilled.
Lincoln’s scent sharpened. “Watching my omega.”
Nobody corrected the ‘my.’
I didn’t want them to.
Artem folded his hands on the desk. “Surrey is secure. But it’s obvious.”
“London is secure,” Hudson said.
“Also obvious,” Ivan said.
“The penthouse has controlled elevator access, private parking, vetted staff, and sightline coverage,” Hudson said.
“And a river,” Gregor said.
Hudson looked at him. “The river isn’t generally a security flaw.”
“Depends how dramatic your enemies are.”
“Unfortunately,” Maeve muttered, “we have evidence of drama.”
My stomach tightened. Lincoln’s hand came to the back of my neck, warm and grounding.
Artem looked at Hudson and Lincoln. “You could live somewhere close by. Quieter. Safer. Calmer for Mary and the babies. I can find you a house.”
“No,” I said.
Everyone looked at me.
I swallowed. “No, thank you.”
Hudson was still looking at Artem. “If we considered it, would the purchase be legitimate?”
For a second, the room was silent.
Then Maeve laughed.
Artem’s brows lifted. “Legitimate?”
Hudson adjusted his cuff. “I prefer my property transactions without coercion.”
“How limiting,” Ivan said.
Gregor looked amused. “Very English.”
“Speak for yourself,” Hudson murmured.
I turned my head. “Are you joking?”
“A little.”
Artem actually laughed.
“Everyone has a price,” he said.
Hudson looked pained. “Those are exactly the words that make me ask about legitimacy.”
That was when Fergus ran in with a slipper in his mouth.
He came around the corner at speed, small legs working with heroic commitment.
Maeve shot to her feet. “Fergus.”
Fergus accelerated. Behind him, a young housekeeper appeared in the hall looking distraught.
Maeve pointed. “Drop it.”
Fergus didn’t drop it. He made for the study rug.
“Those are my best Prada!” Maeve said, voice rising.
Fergus shook the slipper once.
Gregor moved.
Fergus changed direction like a fugitive who’d been cornered, and slid under Artem’s desk.
Ivan laughed so hard he turned away from the laptop.
Maeve got on her knees in front of the desk. “Fergus, I swear to God, if you chew that slipper, I will replace your treats with laxatives.”
Fergus growled around the slipper.
I started laughing.
Hudson looked from me to the dog beneath the desk, and his mouth softened.
“Let’s stay in London,” I said.
Maeve looked up from the desk. “What?”
I wiped my cheeks of tears, still half laughing. “Let’s stay in London. The building has security on the door. The penthouse has its own entrance. Why do we have to live in the country? He came here, not London.”
Hudson stiffened beside me. “You want to stay at the penthouse?” he asked.
I looked at him. “Yes.”
“Mary,” Maeve said gently, “you used to like living here. You said you painted the best landscapes here.”
Hudson turned his head toward me. Lincoln did too.
They knew I hated cream muslins and secretly liked ginger tea. They knew the shape of my fear. But they didn’t know I painted.
“You paint?” Lincoln asked.
I shrugged too quickly. “A bit.”
Maeve made a noise.
I looked at her. “Don’t sister me right now.”
“I was breathing.”
“You were looking at me judgmentally.”
Hudson didn’t smile. He was looking at me. “What do you paint?” he asked.
“Whatever sits still long enough.”
“She paints landscapes,” Maeve said. “And people when she thinks they’re not looking. She used to paint the orchard in Ireland until Da told her art was a hobby for children.”
The room went quiet.
Fergus chose that moment to emerge from beneath the desk without the slipper.
Maeve lunged.
He dodged.
“I don’t want much,” I said, staring at the fire. “I want the babies safe. I want you both. And I want to paint sometimes without feeling like I should be doing something more useful.”
Lincoln exhaled.
Hudson’s hand found mine. “Then that’s what we build,” he said.
Artem studied him. “In London?”
“In London,” Hudson replied.
Lincoln nodded. “With upgraded security.”
“And no helicopter access,” Gregor said.
“We have a roof terrace, not a helipad,” Hudson said.
Ivan typed something. “I can make it very difficult for helicopters to get close to you.”
“Legitimately?” Hudson asked.
Ivan smiled. “Define that.”
Maeve finally retrieved the slipper from under the desk and held it up. It had one small tooth mark.
“Fergus,” she said, betrayed.
Fergus sat beside Gregor’s boot and looked innocent.
For the first time since the helicopter, my breathing felt like it belonged to me.
Maeve sat back beside me, slipper in hand.
“Are you sure?” she asked. “About London?”
I looked around the room at Artem, who had once been meant to own me and had refused. At Ivan, already building invisible walls. At Gregor, pretending not to feed Fergus something from his pocket despite his guilt. And at my sister Maeve, who had found safety here and wanted me to have it too.
Then I looked at Hudson and Lincoln.
“I used to like living here,” I said to Maeve. “And I did paint the best landscapes here.”
“There are no hills in London.” She waited.
“There’s a river.” My voice softened. “And it’s where I have a nest, and a pack, and I never had alphas then.”
Lincoln’s scent broke first, then Hudson’s followed, until I was surrounded by whiskey, rain, blackberry and the most precious smell of all, Violet bloomed.
Maeve looked at them, then at me.
Her smile was small and sad and happy all at once.
“No,” she said. “You didn’t.”