30. Lorcan
Lorcan
The red silk of her dress flashes in the corner of my eye. Then, the wet, sliding sound of steel parting skin.
Silas shrieks loudly like a gutted pig.
The heavy black handgun slips from his fingers, clattering onto the marble floor. My hand stops shaking. The cold, leaden weight that has been pinning my boots to the floorboards for the last five minutes simply vanishes.
She actually did it. This crazy, beautiful little woman actually cut him.
"Echo! Sweep the left!" I roar, my voice tearing through the ringing in my ears. "Kieran, on me!"
"I'm on it, boss! Move!" Echo yells back, his submachine gun spit-firing into the dark.
I don't feel the floor under my boots. I only feel the forward momentum of my own body as I charge across the ruined dance floor. Silas's remaining men try to close the gap, but they are too slow.
They don't have the adrenaline of a father who almost watched his daughter die. All I can think of is how to save my daughter, and anything that gets in my way is going down.
A shooter steps into my path, raising a rifle.
I slide my hand under his collar, twist, and slam his head face-first into the corner of an overturned table, and the wood cracks, so does his nose.
He goes down, his face a red mess, and I don't even wait for him to hit the floor before I yank the weapon from his grip.
"Get out of the way!" another enforcer screams, lunging at my side with a combat knife.
I duck-step inside his reach, my forearm catching his wrist. I twist it backward, forcing the joint against its curve until the bone pops with a dry, splintering sound.
He lets out a high-pitched wail. I drive the butt of the rifle into his sternum, feeling his ribs collapse under the impact. He drops like a sack of wet sand.
"Kieran! Cover the stairs!" I bellow.
"I've got them! Go, Lorcan! Go!" Kieran screams, firing a three-round burst into a shooter leaning over the balcony.
I sweep my eyes across the floor. Silas is scrambling backward toward the service entrance, his hand clamped over his shredded right forearm.
Blood is pouring through his fingers, staining his pristine grey suit.
He looks up, and for the first time in five years, I see the absolute terror in his eyes.
"Kill him!" Silas shrieks, his voice cracking with panic. "What the fuck are you standing there for? Shoot him!"
"There's nowhere left to run, Silas," I growl, my boots splashing through a puddle of spilled champagne and blood.
I catch up to him near the heavy double doors of the service corridor. I grab him by the lapels of his expensive jacket, lifting him off his feet, and slam him back against the concrete support pillar. The stone chips under the impact.
Silas spits blood onto my cheek, his teeth bared in a desperate, ugly snarl. "You're still a brute, Lorcan. A brute who couldn't save his own wife."
"She was a rat, Silas," I say, my voice dropping into a register that is dead and cold. "And you're a dead man. I'm going to make sure you stay one."
I raise the barrel of my gun, pressing the cold steel right under his chin. My finger tightens on the trigger.
"Boss, down!" Kieran yells from across the room.
The service doors behind Silas blow open with a deafening crash. A hail of heavy-caliber rounds tears through the air, chewing up the concrete pillar right above my head. Stone dust explodes into my face, blinding me for a split second.
I'm forced to let go of Silas, rolling behind a fallen brass planter as the bullets rip through the metal.
"Silas! Get him out of here!" a voice barks through the smoke.
Four men in grey tactical vests, carrying short-barreled rifles, pour through the doorway. They lay down a relentless wall of suppressing fire. Two of them grab Silas by his good arm, dragging him backward into the dark hallway.
"I've got the door!" one of the shooters yells, firing a wild burst toward my position.
I lean out from behind the planter, firing three rounds. One catches the shooter in the neck, and he tumbles backward, his rifle clattering against the concrete. But the other three are already through. The heavy, reinforced steel security door slams shut, and I hear the deadbolt slide home.
"Fuck!" I roar, scrambling to my feet.
I sprint to the door, throwing my shoulder against the steel. It doesn't even budge. I raise my gun to shoot the lock.
"Lorcan, stop!" Kieran yells, lunging across the space and grabbing my arm. His grip is iron, his face covered in soot and sweat. "It's a deadbolt! You'll just bounce the rounds off the steel and hit one of us! Stop!"
"Get your hands off me, Kieran!" I snarl, trying to wrench my arm free. "He's right behind this fucking door! I'll tear the hinges off myself!"
"Boss! Look at Maeve!" Kieran shouts, his voice cracking over the ringing in the room. "Look at your daughter!"
The name hits me like a bucket of ice water.
My muscles go slack. I drop my arm, the gun heavy in my hand. I turn around slowly, my breathing shallow, my chest heaving against the tight fabric of my shirt.
The ballroom is now a graveyard of broken glass, shattered crystal, and white tablecloths soaked in red. The smoke is thick.
And there she is.
Maeve is standing near the edge of the dance floor, clutching her yellow pajama shirt. She is shaking so hard her knees are knocking together, her dark eyes wide and glassy as she stares at the blood pooling near her small, bare feet. She looks so small. Too small for a room like this.
I almost let him take her. I almost let it happen again.
I drop my gun. It hits the marble with a dull clank, but I don't care. I walk toward her, my boots heavy and slow. I don't look at Echo, or Kieran, or any of my men who are standing in a silent circle around us.
"Maeve," I say. My voice is rough, cracked, sounding like it belongs to someone else.
I kneel in front of her, ignoring the wetness of the floor soaking through my trousers. I reach out, my hands trembling as I hover them near her shoulders. I'm covered in blood, Silas's blood, my own blood, the dust of the stone. I don't want to touch her, but I need to.
"Dada?" she whispers, her lips trembling. "Are the fireworks over?"
"Yeah, baby," I say, my throat closing up. I pull her into my chest, wrapping my arms around her small frame, pressing her face into the crook of my neck so she can't see the floor. "The fireworks are all gone. I've got you. I've got you, Maeve."
She grabs my shirt with her tiny fingers, burying her face in my shoulder, her whole body convulsing with a quiet, terrified sob. I hold her with a completeness that feels like I'm trying to fuse her bones to mine.
The room is completely silent now. Nobody moves. Nobody speaks.
"Where is the safe room, Kieran?" I ask, not looking up.
"Third floor office, boss," Kieran says, his voice quiet, respectful. "Echo's already cleared the corridor. It's secure."
"Keep the men on the doors," I say. "Nobody comes up."
"Understood."
I scoop Maeve into my arms, standing up slowly. Her weight is nothing, but holding her feels like carrying the entire world. I walk through the shattered ballroom, my eyes fixed on the ceiling, refusing to look at the bodies on the floor.
The third-floor office is quiet, the heavy oak doors shutting out the distant sirens and the shouting from below. I sit in the large leather wingback chair, keeping Maeve tucked against my chest.
"Is Atara okay?" she asks, her voice muffled against my collar.
"She's fine, Maeve," I say, my hand gently stroking her hair. She's more than fine. She's the only reason you're breathing. “She’s safe."
"She was really fast, Daddy," she says, her breathing slowly calming. "She had a little knife."
"Yeah," I whisper, my eyes closing. "She did. She's very smart, baby."
"I like her," she murmurs. "She has nice hands."
"Me too, Maeve. Me too."
I stay there, rocking her slowly in the quiet room, until her fingers loosen on my shirt and her head goes heavy against my shoulder. She's asleep.
I watch her for a long moment, her small chest rising and falling against my ribs.
Then, the adrenaline drops, the coldness starts in my fingers, moving up my arms, settling in my chest like a sheet of ice. My collarbone is burning where the glass cut it, my knuckles are raw and bleeding, and my head is pounding with a vicious, black ache that makes it hard to see.
I almost lost her. Five years of building walls, and he walked right through them.
I gently lay Maeve down on the small leather sofa in the corner, pulling my suit jacket off and draping it over her shoulders. She stirs, murmuring something, then settles back into the dark.
I walk to the door, my legs feeling like lead, and step out into the corridor.
The hallway is dim, the only light coming from the emergency wall sconces.
Atara is there.
She is sitting on the floor against the wall, her knees pulled to her chest, her chin resting on them. Her dress is torn at the shoulder, exposing her pale skin, smudged with soot and blood. Her hair is a wild, dark halo around her face.
She doesn't look up when the door clicks. She doesn't speak.
I stand there, looking at her, and my heart does a heavy, painful thud against my ribs.
I want to pull her into my lap. I want to rip that red dress off her and mark every inch of her skin until she forgets the sound of the gunshots.
But I can't. My body feels hollowed out, like someone scooped the marrow from my bones.
I walk over, my boots dragging on the carpet, and slide down the wall right next to her.
Our shoulders touch.
She doesn't move away. She doesn't say a word. She just shifts slightly, pressing her arm against mine, her heat seeping through the fabric of my shirt.
We sit in the dark corridor, the silence of the building pressing in on us.
I look at my hands. They are covered in blood. I try to make a fist, but my fingers won't cooperate. They are shaking. Really shaking now.
The ice in my chest starts to crack.
I try to hold it. I clench my jaw until my teeth grind, my chest heaving as I try to force the air down into my lungs. But there's no room. The black pit is too big.
A sound leaves my throat, a low, broken noise that doesn't sound like a man at all.
I bury my face in my bloody hands, my shoulders shaking, and a cry tears itself from my chest.