We were under the cover of shrubs, and the shooter was taking blind aim, unable to see us well, and we slowly crawled our way toward safety.
I glanced up at Roone and he shook his head. "This is bad. This is really, really bad."
"Can you get her to the boat?"
Roone frowned at me. "Why? What are you doing?"
I shook my head.
Ems was trying to do a tuck-and-tie thing with her sequined dress. "Oh, he's trying to do the thing where he stays behind, so he can go fight the bad guys or something. But what he doesn't realize is that I am not letting him do that. If he stays, I stay. So all of us have to get across that crest. Okay, my darling husband?"
Roone's chuckle was low and deep. "She reminds me of Jessa."
The princess, one of my best marketing employees, was no wilting heiress. She had a backbone made of steel, and I would be more than happy to take her into a firefight any day.
"Fine. Roone, on three, let’s get to work."
He nodded. "All right, take a deep breath folks. We have movement. They're coming for us," he said before dragging the night vision goggles off. "All right, one. Two. Three."
We all made the wild scramble. Emma was moving surprisingly quick. But still, I couldn't risk it. I nudged her on the back of her dress and then just shoved her up over the crest. She gave a little yelp, and I could hear her light squeaks as she bowled down the grass to the beach. Roone was over next. Several more shots hit the grass in front of us, and I launched myself over with a Hail Mary. Flying over the crest, practically feeling the heat of a bullet as it whizzed by me again. And then I was rolling. The jarring of my bones as they hit shrub after shrub made pain grate all over my body. And all I could do was pray that Emma was okay. That she had landed safe and sound at the bottom of this fucking beach, and we would soon be out of there.
When the rolling finally stopped and I could lift my head, I called for her. "Ems. Ems, where are you?"
She coughed about five feet away. "I'm right here."
I glanced around. "Roone?"
He was already on his feet moving toward the beach. "Come on."
Emma was on all fours, and I pushed myself to my feet, helping her up and running. Because above us, I could hear the shouting.
As we hauled arse to the boat, I saw two shadows down by the water. "Fuck."
But then ahead of us, I heard Roone laugh. "You are literally Houdini."
Lucas called out. "Sorry, getting Bryna out was a little tricky. I tripped something. I tried to send a warning, but the comms were jammed."
When we reached the boat, I glanced over at my friend and his wife, who was panting and checking everyone over. Bryna said, "Fucking hell, I hope what we got was worth all this."
I helped Emma on the boat as Roone unmoored it and then hopped in with us.
"Francis Middleton is even more dangerous than we realized, and we may have dipped our hands into something really, really horrendous.”
Forty-One
Bridge
The boat ride to our private runway and the subsequent flight to London was, in a word, tense. That was one way of looking at it anyway. We were all safe. No one had been hurt. But Middleton… We’d seen the side of him that he usually kept hidden but we’d known was there. That sinister leer wasn’t just a bad feeling. This wasn’t just about corruption and embezzlement. There was something very wrong with him. But now he knew we were onto him, which could be even more potentially dangerous.
The whole trip, Emma had been crashed out, too exhausted to do much more than exist. Her adrenaline levels had dropped. Bryna had been quiet, contemplative, and on her phone for most of the flight. Lucas, oddly, had passed out like a baby. Snoring too. Mouth open, drool coming out of the side of his mouth. How could he sleep after something like that? Telly, who had met us at the dock with Alex and Amelia in the van as planned, had her headphones on and was hunched over her laptop.
Roone was shaking his head when he looked at his friend and brother-in-law. "You forget, he's used to these kinds of situations. Literally running for his life. It juices him up. Us mere mortals, however, we think that shit was a little too close. That was nothing for him."
I glanced at Emma. She had her knees drawn up, and was curled into a little ball with the blanket around her. She didn't look particularly comfortable, and she probably wasn't. I tried to get her to go into the bedroom in the back of the plane, but she wouldn't. And I understood. She wanted to be close to me and everyone else. I didn't want her away from me either. One thing was for certain; there was no way in hell that she was ever going back to Middleton Communications.
Once we arrived back in London, the first stop was Covington House. It had better security than the hotel did. Far less civilians too.
Telly had made sure to keep Middleton’s plane grounded. His plane experienced all kinds of technical malfunctions she’d applied to make sure of our safe return home. Middleton could come for us, but he’d have to do it on our turf. When we arrived, almost everyone was already there. Livy and Nyla were carrying snacks Ben’s housekeeper had prepared for us into the great room.
I glanced down at the food as I settled Emma on the couch. "Wow. Isn't it a little late for all this?"
Livy shrugged. "I figured you guys might want to eat something when you came back, adrenaline and all. Also, it’s the Ghanaian way. Healing with food."
I gave her a thankful nod and leaned over to kiss her on the cheek. Ben clapped me on the back hard. "Hey, mitts off my bride, yeah?"
I chuckled. "Bride-to-be, you mean. How is it I got married before you did?"
Livy shrugged. "You know, that's a very good question. Is there still time to upgrade to Charlie Hunnam or Idris Elba?”
Ben smacked her arse. “You already have the best. Maybe I need to remind you.”
Livy giggled, and I had to keep from gagging a little.
Once everyone was settled, we all took a collective breath. Like we somehow needed a breather after all that had happened. Lucas however, was in a great mood. When he came back from the bathroom, his grin was huge. "Why are you guys acting like someone died? We're all fine. And we probably have some good information."
He tossed one flash drive to East, and one to Telly. "Between Bryna and I, we probably have something useful on those.”
Bryna shuddered. “I’m so sorry, you guys, I almost got us caught.” Her gaze met mine and then went to Emma's. "I'm so sorry. There had to be some security protocol I didn't check. I'm really sorry."
Ems shook her head. "Don't do that. Don't make your brain spin out on what could have gone wrong. Just focus on what you were able to get. Something, anything, is better than the nothing we had before. It's more than I've been able to get in all the weeks I've been there. The first info I got was completely useless."
"Oi,” East called from over in the corner with his laptop. “Not useless. Telly and I just couldn't get into it. That data was so dense and encrypted, and I get the feeling it's junk."
Telly seconded that. "There are hackers that will literally build you systems that if anyone attempts a copy, all they get is pure junk. Which is why even our super computers couldn't unfurl all that data. It's like a digital burning. Don't be upset."