Chapter 46
Before I understood what was happening, Will had already shoved into his jeans, sprinted to the door, and let Thomas into our suite.
“Sitrep,” Will snapped.
Thomas followed him to his closet.
“Eight men, sitting on low ground near the estate’s north border. We have to assume they’re armed. I’ve implemented protocol. Ben is prepping weapons and ammo. Joe and Andrew are outside to cover the rest of the team as they arrive.”
I threw on my robe and went to Will’s closet. I could only stare in horror as he strapped a leather holster around his waist.
“Thomas, you get John on monitors and comms. Change the code and lock him inside the room. Arm him anyway…no one in this house should be unarmed. Mum knows what to do…make sure she gets Mrs. Bates and the girls to the safe room. Let her know I’ll bring Elle down myself.”
Thomas rushed past me and ran out the door.
I moved closer behind Will. My knees trembled. My hands shook. I stared at his back.
He holstered his Glock and then turned to me.
“You must quickly dress and get your phone. We need to go down immediately.”
After pocketing his phone, he grabbed another gun.
But I couldn’t move. My body was frozen in place.
“You must move, Elle,” he shouted at me.
My mind refused to move forward, but my body reacted to his orders. I ran to my dressing room and pulled on my jeans.
Will came in, pulled a sweater down over my head, and helped me with my shoes.
“If they cut the electricity, a secure generator will be triggered. It’ll power the safe room and the war room. You must stay inside the room with my mother,” he said.
I recognized the life-and-death urgency in his tone. He was going outside to fight hit men. He didn’t have time for my questions, so I kept my mouth shut.
All that mattered was that he came back.
“Get your phone, Elle…let’s go…”
I’d left it on the table by the fireplace. I ran to get it, shoving it into my pocket. I hesitated at the sight of the ruby ring on the mantel.
Will shouted at me again, grabbing my arm as I met him at the door, and led me down to the basement. We entered the weapons room, where the security team was gathered, and he pushed open a wall panel. A small alcove and a steel door appeared.
The safe room.
He placed his hand on the electronic pad mounted by the door, and something mechanical clicked like he’d unlocked a bank vault. The door hummed open. He held it with one arm and wrapped his other arm around my waist while taking a head count.
Inside, Chelsea slept in a bundle of blankets on Mrs. Bates’s lap. Lily had stayed over and was sitting next to them. Mary and Lissie sat on another sofa. Mary had Lissie wrapped up tightly in her arms. Lissie was quiet but alert, her eyes wide with fear.
Mary’s stare nailed Will as she silently pleaded with him for her youngest son’s safety.
“I need John’s help with comms. We’ve locked him inside the war room. No harm will come to him there. I’ll send him to you as soon as I can,” he said.
Then he pulled the door shut, put my back on the wall, and smashed his lips against mine.
Ben reached his arm into the little alcove, handing over my pistol to Will.
Will held me in place with his body while he ejected, inspected, and reinserted the gun’s magazine.
“You won’t need this, Elle. Still, I won’t leave you unarmed. Remember…ten rounds…rack the slide to chamber a round…keep your finger off the trigger unless you intend to fire.”
I nodded.
“Yes, I remember…I will.”
My heart thumped so savagely that I thought it might burst out of my chest. Anxiety wrecked my stomach. Silent screams banged around in my head.
“You will not let anyone leave this room. You’ll allow no one other than me or one of my brothers to enter. There’s a monitor inside the door…if you can’t see one of us, do not open the door. If someone you don’t know opens this door, you shoot them. Aim at the chest. Understand?”
Outside the alcove, magazines clicked into guns. Slides scraped metal. A red laser beam bounced on the wall. Soldier’s voices rumbled as they prepared to fight what could only be described as a small war.
“Will?” I whispered.
“Do you understand what I’ve said, Elle? Answer me.”
“Yes, but?—”
He became an intense storm, gripping my shoulders, shaking me.
“—you must do exactly as I’ve said, goddamn it!”
“Okay, I understand,” I snapped.
He let go of me and put the gun in my hand.
“Nothing else matters right now, Elle.”
But he was wrong. One thing mattered. And to me, it mattered more than anything at that moment. I didn’t want him to go out there without seeing his ring on my finger. I dug it out of my pocket and pressed it onto his palm.
“Put it on my finger, Will.”
Our eyes locked, and for a minute, everything else faded.
“You’re everything to me, baby. Everything.”
He slipped the ring on my finger and kissed it, then he brought his mouth to mine. And as he pressed his mouth against mine, he put his hand on the electronic pad, launched me into the safe room, and yanked the door shut, locking me inside.
I stumbled from the force of it, catching myself on a chair.
Lissie raced across the room and threw herself on me with enough energy to knock me off balance again, and I fell back against the door.
I wrapped one arm around her while raising my other hand above my head, the hand with the gun, so Mary could take it from me.
Lissie had been so quiet until the moment she collided with me. While I held her, I wondered if she remembered her time in the little secret room in Stonington, the day we lost her mother. I wondered if she thought about our former life in Stonington.
She had fallen quickly for her new life and her new family. She genuinely loved Will and his brothers, and they loved her too. Will was the closest thing to a father she had ever known. And Mary was already her “grannie.”
We didn’t yet have legal proof that she was Ethan’s child, but it was hard to believe otherwise. Her striking eyes really couldn’t be denied, and she’d inherited not only that from Ethan, but also his warmth and his sense of adventure.
Losing this family would devastate her all over again.
I kissed the top of her head and hugged her with everything I had, letting her hide her face on my sweater as she cried.
“Your uncles will be back soon, I promise,” I said softly.
And then she surprised me by pulling my hand to her belly and twisting my ring. Her crying stopped, and she let out a little gasp before lifting her face to see my eyes.
“Did Uncle Will give this to you?”
I tucked my finger under her chin and rubbed her tiny dimple with my thumb.
“Yes, he did.”
Her eyes sparkled.
“Does it mean we can stay with him forever?”
“Yes, that’s what it means. This is your home now, Lissie…here with all of us. See? He’ll come back home soon.”
God, please, we can’t lose him.
Sweat soaked the hair on my neck as I braced myself for another round of vomiting. I covered my mouth, trying to hold back, but it didn’t help.
Mary knocked on the bathroom door.
“Ellie, are you all right? Let me help you, darling. May I come in?”
Mary opened the door slowly but rushed in once she saw me on the floor. She gathered my hair and put her other arm around me.
I straightened my back and wiped my mouth on a towel.
“I’m so sorry about this. Have you heard from them?”
“Oh, my girl, there’s nothing for you to be sorry about. I understand…Will explained about the anxiety and how it might affect you. I’m afraid none of the boys have called yet.”
I wiped my mouth again and sipped on the water she handed me.
Mrs. Bates called out on the other side of the door.
“Mary, John’s come. I can see the lad on the telly screen.”
I jumped up, and we both hurried out to the main space. I ran to the door, crashing into John as he came through it.
He reached out to steady me. As he stared at me, he spoke to his mother.
“Everyone is safe, Mum. The estate is secure. I can take you all upstairs.”
“Where is Will?” I asked.
John avoided making eye contact with me.
“I watched everything on the monitors. A gang of hit men attacked us, and two got away. Thomas is waiting for you in the billiard room, Ellie.”
More dead men. Another heavy burden for Will to carry.
I gripped John’s arm.
“But what are you not saying? Two got a?—”
Gasping, I realized what I wouldn’t make him say—that Will was gone.
“He went after them,” I whispered.
John finally met my eyes and nodded.
I darted out and ran up the stairs, shouting for Will, even though I knew he wouldn’t be there. When I burst into the room, only seven men stood there, soaked from the rain. I grabbed at Thomas.
“Thomas, please. Please go after him!”
Thomas pried my fingers off his arms and pulled his blood-stained shirt over his head.
“Someone, give me a clean fucking shirt,” he snapped.
Ben tossed a plain white t-shirt at Thomas.
“Will’s alone. Why are you all so damn calm!” I shouted.
Digging my fingers into Thomas’s flesh again, I pleaded.
“You must find him and go with him…don’t leave him alone. Please, Thomas!”
He pushed me back, pulled on the shirt, and then wrapped his arms around me as I came at him again. With a low growl near my ear, he warned me to get myself together.
“Stop it, Ellie, right now.”
But I didn’t stop. I shouted at him.
“Where is he? Where has he gone?”
Without another word, Thomas hauled me into the war room while I shouted at him more.
“Tell me, damn you!”
Once he turned me loose in the room with the door shut, I came at him and punched his chest twice. I was out of my mind, trembling, so scared.
He put his palms out against my shoulders, keeping me at arm’s length, but something else stopped me in my tracks—not his arms but his eyes.
Will’s eyes.
John and Lissie had the same, yes, but something I couldn’t define about Thomas’s stare shook me…something that made him even more like Will.
I crumbled over the conference table and cried.
Thomas let me cry there for a minute before gathering me in his arms.
I put my stupid fucking wet face on his shoulder.
“Is he hurt, Thomas?”
“Jesus, you have quite a fucking temper, Ellie.”
“I’m sorry. Please just tell me what’s going on.”
“My brother’s not hurt. We didn’t let anyone touch him. He went after the two we lost. He’ll track them and kill them, and he won’t come back until it’s done. So I need you to do what I ask, starting with no more coming at me with your fists.”
He let out a small chuckle.
“But why is he alone, Thomas?”
“Because he ordered everyone to stay here with you.”
My fault. Will went out there alone, risking his life for the sake of mine, and it was my fault. A sob broke free in my chest, and my breath shuddered.
Thomas held me, waiting for me to quit crying, and rested his cheek on my head.
“Christ, stop fucking crying,” he said softly.
“Will you find him and help him?”
We all knew once Will made the decision to do something, he couldn’t be stopped. But maybe Thomas could be with him, wherever he was, and help him.
He shook his head, his chin rubbing against my hair.
“You know I can’t leave you. He would never forgive me. One of us must be here with you. If not him, then me. You’ll never be alone again.”
Those words, the promise in them.
I lifted my head and backed away a little, finding my strength.
“I need to know what’s happening. Not just that he’s gone, but why and where.”
He grabbed a towel from a cabinet.
“I’ll share what I can with you, Ellie.”
“Okay, we’ll start with that,” I said.
“I can’t tell you where he is because I don’t know. Maybe he’ll let me know soon. Why he left is a bit more complicated. We received intel earlier, confirming Charles Green is the informant our uncle warned us about. We think he wants revenge now, after losing his brothers.
“We had a plan to deal with him, not knowing he would show up here today. He managed to find his way out. You have to know, Ellie, my brother believes he’s doing what’s best to keep you safe and to keep this family whole. He needs you to trust that, and I need you to trust me.”
“Wait. Back up a minute, Thomas. Are you saying Will planned to leave?”
“Yeah. He’s been quite torn up. I know the two of you talked about it, but he still blames himself. I would feel no differently in his shoes. He isn’t going to stop until he eliminates every man involved.”
“But if he had this planned, why didn’t he tell you where he was going?”
“Because he thinks you can manipulate me.”
“What?” I whispered.
“He has his reasons for not telling you. Hell, maybe he would have if he’d had more time tonight. I know you weren’t with us back when all the MI5 shit went down, but you must learn to see things from that kind of perspective.”
Thomas took my hand and stared at the ring.
“You know who he is, what he is…or was.”
Thomas was right. I had to learn to reframe my thoughts.
“Yes, I do know. Look, I shouldn’t have behaved that way. I had no right to?—”
But he quickly cut me off.
“—you’re an important part of this family now, and that makes it your right. I don’t want to hear apologies. It’s quite simple…we take care of what’s ours.”
I couldn’t help but smile.
“You sound just like your brother.”
He smirked as he opened the door, gesturing for me to pass through, but then his expression turned serious, and he grabbed my shoulder to stop me.