Chapter 41
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Damien's estate was in chaos. His security force had fled the property like cockroaches running from sunlight.
Then there were the dead bodies. Violet wasn't sure of the current toll, but it was bound to increase—Abasi was still outside, in the darkness, eliminating trouble with the cool precision of a born assassin.
Violet didn't care about the men she'd killed, and that probably said more about her character than she liked to admit. But Max was not cut from the same cloth. Max was in shock. She could practically feel his guilt, it was so overwhelming. And undeserved.
"It was an accident," she told him as she got him to his feet. "All you did was shove him out of the way and he fell. You didn't kill him. It's not your fault." He showed no sign that her words were penetrating.
She waved at Rodrigo. "I'm taking Max to Harvey. He needs medical help."
Rodrigo nodded, his expression filled with understanding.
"Looks like he took a helluva beating." He held up his radio.
"Katrina has your family isolated in a corner suite on the top floor of the hotel.
Harris sweettalked the night manager into giving him the room and keeping it off the record, so nobody knows we're using it.
It was the best we could do, under the circumstances, to keep your family safe. "
"I appreciate it." Violet wedged her shoulder under Max's arm.
He seemed dazed and his eyes kept straying to Damien. The weirdest part of all was he'd stopped talking. It was unnatural.
"Do you need help getting him to the hotel?" Rodrigo asked.
She shook her head. "Best if you stay and sort things out here. Have you called the police?" Not that St. Patrice had much of a force, but it was a start, and it was needed.
"They're on their way." He smiled wryly. "So are the DEA. Abasi broke into the warehouse and found a comprehensive drug smuggling op, so he told Rochelle to inform her contacts they'd better get to the island before it disappeared. As in, tonight."
"Must have hurt Abasi to call in the cops." Violet felt a twinge of amusement for the former mobster. Law enforcement of any shape and form made him break out in hives.
"I don't think he'll ever recover," Rodrigo said with a smile.
Max stirred beside Violet. "Did we get photos of Damien's partner?" His voice sounded kind of hollow, as though he was only partly present.
Violet looked at Rodrigo, after all, she'd handed the camera to him.
He shook his head, genuinely remorseful. "Sorry, Max, the guy was gone at the first sign of trouble. But Abasi disabled his boat so he can't escape the island that easily. I called Harris and told him to go down to the dock to take photos. We'll find out who he is."
"It doesn't matter," Max said without emotion. "If I don't have hard evidence of him with Damien, all I've got is proof he visited the island. He could have been here for any reason. He'll just tell people it was a wedding. The story's dead."
"Okay," Violet said to Rodrigo. "The sooner he's checked out and back to his annoyingly optimistic self, the better."
Rodrigo jerked his head in the direction of the front of the house. "I saw a couple of golf carts parked outside. Grab one of those, it'll make things easier."
"Good thinking." Violet turned Max in the right direction before another thought struck her. "Wait, what do my family know?"
Rodrigo grimaced. "Everything. Sorry, but we didn't have a choice."
"Great," Violet grumbled. She'd just finished one fight and now she had to gear up for round two.
"Hey, boss man," Logan called from the doorway. He was bouncing on the balls of his feet, buzzing with barely contained excitement. "I found a wall safe."
Violet paused. "Can you get into it?"
The triplet looked smug. "Already did." He waggled his fingers. "These hands are magic."
"And did you find anything?" Rodrigo said.
"I found the mother lode, dude." Logan beamed at them. "I've got Damien's laptop."
Violet would have been more impressed if Max had shown any sort of reaction to the news, but he didn't.
"We'll talk about it later," she said and headed for the door.
Violet found her family exactly where Rodrigo said they would be.
And they'd armed themselves. Her mother, sister and brother-in-law all wielded golf clubs, while her father held a knife, and her two nieces hid behind the sofa with—Violet's stomach lurched at the sight—unlit Molotov cocktails in their hands.
Her grandmother, who was unarmed but not defenseless, had taken up a classic martial arts attack pose.
"I suppose we have you to blame for this," Violet said to Lian.
Her family relaxed, put down their weapons and rushed at her. Engulfing her and Max in their embrace. Fantastic. She survived Damien only to be smothered to death by the Lees.
"Back off," Violet snapped. "Max is hurt."
They moved away instantly, although her mother and sister went straight into parent mode and started making concerned noises at Max. Any second now, they'd start talking about chicken soup and cold compresses.
Violet decided it was time to bring in the professional. "Harvey, could you take him into the bedroom and check him out?"
"Of course." He angled himself under Max's other side and took his weight from her. "You can call me Dr. Harv," he told Max. "All my patients do."
"All your patients are six years old, Dad," Poppy said, putting her make-shift firebomb down on the floor.
"I'm still a doctor," Harvey said with a good-natured smile. "And a bloody good one, if I say so myself." He looked down at Max. "As I tell my patients, there are the Harvs and the Harvs Not and they're lucky they have a Harv."
His daughters groaned.
Violet turned her attention to Katrina who, she was relieved to see, was carrying a proper weapon. "Harris still at the dock?" she asked.
Katrina put her gun away. "No. I sent him to your bungalow to pack up your belongings. I didn't think you'd want to stay there tonight. I thought you could stay here instead. Nobody's using this room."
Her father stepped forward. "Is it safe now?" he asked, sounding more worried than she'd ever heard him.
"Yes." She carefully removed the steak knife from his hand. "It's safe."
His shoulders slumped with relief. "I was worried about you," he said. "The phones were down and nobody could tell us if you were…"
This was exactly why she never wanted her family to be involved in her work. The thought of them being in danger was enough to drive her insane, but even just seeing them afraid was almost too much to bear.
"I'm okay, Dad," she said. "Not a scratch on me." Unless she counted the ones she got escaping from the bungalow toilet.
"Katrina told us everything," her mother said in an anxious rush.
"Everything?" Violet asked Katrina.
She cleared her throat. "I told them you'd been hired to act as Max's bodyguard while he got enough evidence to bring the owner of the resort to justice. I explained that Damien was responsible for the death of Max's college friend and many others, and he that was a very dangerous man."
Violet's dad took up the story. "She also told us that Max locked you up so you wouldn't get hurt, then he went off in the storm to confront this Damien guy all on his own." He huffed. "That man doesn't know you at all if he thought he was better able to deal with the threat than you were."
It was the nicest thing he'd ever said to her.
Her mother pressed herself into Samuel's side and he wrapped an arm around her, tugging her close. "Very foolish of him. Why would you leave your bodyguard behind?"
"Exactly," Violet said, inordinately pleased with both her parents.
"Then," her father said. "Katrina told us there was danger and that this Damien fellow might try to hurt our family. That's how we ended up here." He gestured around the room.
Violet took in the mess they'd made of the place.
Someone had used the dining table and a mattress to barricade the wall between the suite and the hallway.
The rest of the furniture had been arranged in a kind of a fort, in the middle of the room.
A safe zone within a safe room. It was a tactic she knew her grandmother had used in the past.
She sighed. "Did you expect an army to attack?" she asked Lian.
Her grandmother lifted her chin in defiance. "One can never be too careful," she started.
"Or too prepared," Violet finished for her. "How about you guys set the room to rights and then we'll turn in for the night. We can pick this up in the morning. By then we should have more information."
"Yes," Katrina said, sounding relieved that there was a plan for dealing with the Lees.
"The police should be arriving on the island any minute.
They'll round up everyone who worked for Damien's criminal business, and the storm is easing so we should have a better idea of the situation by morning. We can have breakfast here.” She smiled. "Along with a debriefing."
"No more secrets or lies." Her mother pointed at Violet.
"Unless you really don't need to know something," Violet amended.
Her mother narrowed her eyes, but Samuel put his hand on his wife's arm to stop her. "Violet is the expert and we don't want to scare the girls." He cocked his head toward Poppy and Marigold who were soaking up every word.
"No." Her mother rallied. "Okay, let's get this room sorted." She turned to Jasmine and her daughters and started issuing orders.
Meanwhile, her father took a step closer to Violet. "Tell me the bastard is dead," he said in a tone filled with fury.
Violet had never felt closer to her father than in that moment. For once, she knew they perfectly understood each other.
"He's definitely dead," she said and saw satisfaction gleam in his eyes. For some reason, she felt she had to give him more. "Max took care of him because he was about to shoot me."