“We don’t know for sure that anybody knows about this location, right?” Diesel asked.
“No,” he said, “and that’ll be one of the issues, so we can’t slack off.”
“But waiting will be hard. We have to do it all at the same time.” Just then his phone buzzed. Shane pulled it out to see a text message from Gavin.
Op in progress.
He winced and put it away. “Well, that’s not helpful,” he muttered. “The op to rescue my sister is in progress, and now I just have to sit here and wait.”
As he stood in the shadows, a bullet soared over his head, nearly parting his hair. He swore and dropped to the ground, then turned to see Diesel on the ground beside him. They looked at each other; then they split up, going in opposite directions. Shane wasn’t sure what the hell was happening, but, as far as timing went, this one didn’t really give them a chance to adjust. He quickly sent a message to Shelly that they were under attack and to stay inside and away from windows. Then he turned off his phone and shoved it in his pocket and headed toward the shooter.
Three other men—MI6—should be out here somewhere, supporting their effort to protect the women, but, as Shane raced forward, his foot caught on something, and he hit the ground hard facedown in the shrubs. Pulling himself back up, he turned to see what he had tripped over to find one of the MI6 men dead—dressed in black ops gear, his own weapon still beside him.
Swearing, Shane grabbed the weapons and quickly melted into the shadows. He had no idea how many enemy operatives were here, probably more than they expected. Could be a large group. When a voice called out, he strained to hear it. But then he heard his name.
“Shane, get your ass out in the open. You’ve got my daughter,” he said. “I want her now.”
“That may be,” he called back, “but you’ve got my family, or do you?”
“I said I wanted a peaceful exchange.”
“Maybe so, but you haven’t even taken out the asshole who did this to your daughter.”
“Well, he’s here too, as it turns out,” he said. “We’re on a peaceful mission together to make sure we get her back.”
“And how is that possible?” Shane cried out.
“The asshole who kidnapped her is the father of her child.”
What the hell? he thought to himself, in shock. That’s not at all what he had understood from Aleah. When there was no more word, he tried to wrap his mind around that and then shook his head. He didn’t believe it. “That’s bullshit,” he shouted.
The man laughed. “Well, it was worth a try.”
“Where’s the guy who kidnapped her in the first place?” he said.
“Dead,” he snapped.
And there was such a wealth of satisfaction in his voice that Shane tended to believe him, yet he knew he couldn’t really trust anything this guy said. Maybe the guy who pulled off the kidnapping was dead, but Shane didn’t think the perpetrator behind the kidnapping was dead. “Well, I’ll need proof of that,” he said.
“Well, you won’t get it,” he said. “I want my daughter.”
“I want my family.”
“Well, how about I leave your little girly here alive?” he said. “I could have killed her back in New York, you know? But I opted to leave you that one.”
“I want my family, and I want you to leave them and Shelly alone,” he snapped, sidling closer, until he noted where the voice was coming from. And damn if it wasn’t from the house beside him. He shook his head. “Did you kill the occupants of that house?”
“Roadkill,” he said.
“What if your daughter doesn’t want to go with you?”
“Too damn bad,” he said. “I’ve gone through too much to leave her in your care now.”
None of this made any sense. “Are you sure she’s even your daughter?” Shane asked. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on here, but, considering how very little contact you’ve had with her over the years, this doesn’t make sense.”
Just then Aleah’s voice called from inside the house, “Yes, it does make sense now, Shane. My new baby daughter is the heir to a decent fortune,” she murmured. “The father of my child, his lineage, combined with my own, that’s what my father wants to get his hands on.”
“Aleah,” her father said, “get out of that house now. Come on. We have to go home.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” she said. “I’m staying in England, where Interpol is looking for you, so you can’t very well stay here, much less return.”
Shane heard silence, then grumbling.
“No,” he said, “you’re coming back where you belong.”
“Only to get kidnapped again by somebody else in your world? No,” she snapped. “I won’t.”
“I’m not giving you an option,” he said.
“I’m not a child anymore, Father. I can live wherever I please.”
As their discussion went back and forth, Shane watched in the shadows, as Diesel shifted his position, and Shane knew things would blow up here very fast.
“You can’t have her,” Shelly called out. There was a moment of silence and then an ugly response.
“You have no say in the matter, and you just earned yourself a bullet between the eyes.”
At that, Shane shifted and looked again to see Diesel coming up on the side of the neighbor’s house.
“That won’t happen,” Shelly yelled, “but you’ll get yours. You killed eleven of my coworkers, just to test Shane,” she said. “Well, he saved your daughter, and here you are, still being an asshole.”
“There are always assholes in the world,” the father replied. “You just have to make sure you’re the bigger one.”
“But you weren’t,” she said, “because somebody yanked your chain and stole your daughter.”
“Well, he’s dead,” he snapped. “And so are you.”
Immediately bullets were fired at the front of the house. As Shane went to step forward, a gun came up against his neck. He froze, dropped to the ground, then kicked and fired. Taken by surprise, his assailant went down without a struggle. At that, Shane noted complete silence surrounded him. Moving quietly through the brush, he headed toward the last sighting of Aleah’s father.
Just then came another shout.
“Well, you got one,” the father said. “But half a dozen more are out there after you.”
At that, Shane froze, then thought about it, and shook his head. He continued to move silently through the trees. At one point, he was almost back up to the road. He stepped in behind a particularly nice wide bush and grabbed the lowest branch of the tree beside him and crawled up. When he was up a good ten feet high, he studied the layout. The front of the house had been riddled with bullets. Lights were on in several neighboring houses, and dogs were barking everywhere.
As far as the father though, he stood in the front of the neighboring house, completely unconcerned about getting shot. Which meant that he either did have a number of men in the woods around here, or he was completely encased in something that would save him. It was too dark to see. He did have something over his face. Even taking a bullet to a bulletproof vest was a hell of a blow though. It could cause bruising and soreness for days.