Chapter 18 #3
This time, she placed one hand over Charlie’s ear and mouthed something deliberately.
He knows.
I understood immediately.
She believed Malachi knew they were inside.
Or knew enough to make her believe it.
Either way, the terror in her expression was no longer about herself alone. Charlie had become another child Sunshine loved, another promise she was determined not to fail, and Malachi had aimed directly at the wound she carried deepest.
I lifted one hand toward the screen despite knowing she could not see the gesture.
“I’m going upstairs,” I said.
Toxic turned. “No.”
“She needs me.”
“She has Bishop.”
“She needs me.”
The words came harder this time.
Toxic stared at me for a long moment, weighing command against the reality neither of us could ignore. Then Cipher spoke without looking away from the diagnostic feed.
“Jammer’s west of the property. Signal strength is strongest near the old equipment shed.”
Mace answered immediately over the radio. “I’m twenty yards east of it.”
Toxic’s head snapped toward the speaker. “Do not approach.”
“Wasn’t planning to.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Fine. I was considering it.”
Steel’s voice cut in. “Movement near the courtyard.”
Every man in the room turned toward the internal camera grid.
The courtyard feed flickered but remained active. Rain-dark brick surrounded the narrow interior space between the clubhouse wings, empty except for two benches, a storage chest, and a child’s abandoned red ball resting near the drain.
Nothing moved.
Then the ball rolled.
Not far.
Only a few inches.
The wind might have done it.
Except the courtyard was enclosed.
Cipher enlarged the feed.
A shadow shifted beneath the overhang near the service door.
My hand went to my weapon.
Toxic pointed toward Gage and Steel’s positions on the map. “Courtyard access. Quiet.”
Both men acknowledged.
The shadow remained motionless.
Then a gloved hand appeared from beneath the overhang and placed something on the bench.
A small rectangular box.
The hand vanished.
The service door alarm sounded less than a second later.
Not opened.
Touched.
Tested.
“He’s inside the outer structure,” Cipher said.
Toxic’s expression became lethal. “Seal interior fire doors.”
Heavy locks engaged throughout the clubhouse with a series of mechanical thuds. The nursery camera shook slightly as children startled at the sound, and Sunshine immediately began speaking to Charlie while Daisy turned the noise into a game about castles closing their gates.
I watched the service corridor feed.
Steel appeared at one end, moving low with his weapon ready. Gage entered from the opposite side. Neither approached the courtyard door directly. They cleared each interior doorway, checked the ceiling access, and held position while Mace moved along the exterior wing.
The box remained on the bench.
“What are the chances it’s explosive?” I asked.
“Too high to touch,” Toxic answered.
Mace’s voice came through the radio. “No visual on the west wall. Jammer’s still active.”
“Then he may be controlling it remotely,” Cipher said.
“Or waiting for someone to retrieve the box,” Bishop added through his radio.
A child began crying upstairs.
The sound came faintly through the internal microphone, followed by Sunshine’s voice.
“Look at me, sweetheart. That’s it. We’re in the castle room. The doors are strong, and everyone is together.”
Charlie said something too quietly to hear.
Sunshine answered, “Your daddy knows where we are.”
The confidence in her voice was for Charlie.
The fear in her face was for me.
I could not remain downstairs.
“Toxic.”
He followed my gaze toward the nursery feed.
“Go,” he said finally. “Bishop comes down.”
I was moving before the final word left him.
The locked fire door forced me through the interior stairwell, where another brother verified my face before releasing the magnetic seal.
Every second stretched. I climbed two steps at a time, hearing the muffled movie still playing in one room, Daisy singing softly in another, and radios carrying clipped updates from men tracking an enemy through blind spots.
Bishop met me outside the nursery.
“No breach upstairs.”
“Courtyard?”
“Gage and Steel are holding.”
He touched my shoulder before passing. “She’s keeping everyone calm, but she’s barely holding herself together.”
“I know.”
Bishop headed downstairs.
I opened the nursery door.
Charlie saw me first.
“Daddy!”
She climbed from Sunshine’s lap and ran across the room before anyone could stop her. I holstered my weapon securely and caught her against my chest, lifting her high enough that both arms wrapped around my neck.
“You came.”
“I did.”
“You said not yet.”
“It’s later now.”
She pressed her face into my shoulder.
Sunshine remained seated against the wall, both hands empty now that Charlie had left them. The family drawing rested across her knees, slightly crumpled but intact. She looked at me as if she wanted to move and no longer trusted her legs.
I carried Charlie toward her.
“Come here,” I said quietly.
Sunshine rose.
The moment she reached us, I wrapped one arm around her and pulled her close enough that Charlie rested between us. Sunshine’s hands gripped the back of my shirt while my daughter clung to both of us, creating the same shape she had drawn beneath that crooked purple roof.
For several seconds, none of us spoke.
The room continued around us. Daisy reassured the children, Lark checked the door, and rainwater ticked against the distant courtyard glass. Yet all I could feel was Charlie’s small body against my chest and Sunshine trembling beside her.
“He pointed here,” Sunshine whispered.
“I know.”
“He wanted me to understand.”
“I know.”
“He knows about Charlie.”
“We don’t know that.”
“He knows she matters to me.”
The words broke slightly.
I shifted Charlie higher with one arm and cupped the back of Sunshine’s head with the other.
“Then he knows exactly why you’re not going anywhere.”
Her eyes lifted to mine.
“I can’t let him hurt her.”
“You won’t face him alone.”
“What if that isn’t enough?”
“It has to be.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No,” I admitted. “It’s a promise about what we do next.”
She searched my face, desperate for certainty I could not honestly provide.
I lowered my forehead to hers.