He finished his coffee and wandered away with his cell in his hand, fingers busy. I finished mine and headed through to the living room, daring to put the TV on to check out the latest news.
It was all still the same, pleas for information from my family and people saying random shit about where they’d seen me. It seemed the mainstream media wasn’t anywhere closer to the truth. I doubted they ever would be.
I could hear Lucian speaking, his voice low and his tone his usual icy pitch. I didn’t focus on what he was saying. There was a strange calmness in me somehow, even with the looming carnage. It was trust. I trusted Lucian to take care. Of me. Of us.
He was gone a while before he came through to the living room.
“The UK,” he said to me. “We’ll go abroad. We’ll be running, but we stand more chance of surviving with the Atlantic Ocean as a buffer, at least.”
I hadn’t been overseas since I was a little girl. We’d gone there as a family, smiling for the cameras as we checked out London with a few of the aristocrats we were such good family friends with. I’d been in awe of the place. I’d loved it. The London Eye and Buckingham Palace and the quaint countryside surrounding the city.
“Can we get there?” I asked him. “Will we manage to make the journey?”
“Only one way to find out.”
One thing was for sure, I’d risk my life trying.
Chapter Four
Lucian
We were fighting time and I knew it. The tentacles were snaking closer to us. Questions hissing closer and closer.
I’d managed to find out that the Constantines were meeting the Power Brothers at that very moment. We had hours, tops, before those discussions would lead to our demise, or get very close to it. As soon as the Constantines stopped looking at the Power Brothers and shot even the slightest glance in another direction, we’d be fucked, and my father had his pulse in line with theirs, seeking out my lies.
The contacts I chose to use were distant from my regular network—as distant as I could possibly risk venturing. I mentioned nothing about Elaine Constantine being alongside me, just that I needed a fresh set of IDs to get out of the country. Wesley Dale was all set to meet me in the parking lot of JFK International Airport, but it would be over twenty-four hours until he could deliver. As well as the fake IDs, he was also getting us tickets on a flight out of there.
As much as twenty-four hours between now and our flight would be one hell of a long one, it did grant me a window to complete the calling in my soulless heart that couldn’t be silenced.
I had something that needed to be done first, before we made our escape. Something I couldn’t walk away from. Something I could never leave the country without fulfilling, no matter how insane it might be. It was festering too deep in my gut to ignore.
There was no guarantee I’d ever be back in the US again in this lifetime. This might well be my one and only chance to deliver what was deserved to the pieces of filth.
I’d do my damn fucking best trying.
I gave Elaine one more chance to back out of a future on the run before we were snared for good.
“You’re really sure about this? This is your last opportunity to head back to your world. Make sure you won’t regret the road you take with me, sweetheart.”
Her reply was instant. “I’d rather die with you than survive alone.”
It was a beautiful statement. One I fully reciprocated as I pulled her close and held her tight.
“Ditto.”
Her smile was amazing.
“Let’s go, then, Romeo. Let’s get across the ocean and start our new life.”
That’s when I told her, my eyes fixed firm on hers.
“Our escape will be tomorrow, which is just as well. I have something I need to do before then, Juliet.”
Her question was instant. Wide-eyed.
“What? What do you need to do before then?”
I contemplated sharing my plans, but I didn’t. She would only beg me to let them go, but I had no intention of it. I wouldn’t let retribution go for any fucking thing in the world.
It wasn’t only fake IDs and plane tickets and women’s clothes I’d been seeking out on my cell for the past sixty minutes. It was Colonel Hardwick’s current location. Only that had led me to so much more. You could call it God giving me his blessing. I fucking deserved it for the beautiful payback I was about to deliver.
Through my backhanded investigations, I’d managed to find out that it wasn’t just Colonel Hardwick who was at Hanborough Park Golf Course that morning. No. Lionel Constantine, the depraved uncle who’d delivered Elaine to her abusers when she was just a scared little girl, was right there with him. A forty minute drive away.
Halle-fucking-lujah.
I knew what they were there for. I knew the only thing they could possibly be there socializing for in the midst of Elaine Constantine’s abduction. Reverend Lynch. The vile priest and his sudden disappearance, and no doubt the girls I’d set free to run away from the manor late that night after I’d taken his sicko life away from him.
I changed my clothes to casual golfing attire as Elaine stared on from the bedroom doorway. She was visibly scared as I loaded myself up with the necessary weaponry from the cabinet downstairs. She was ghostly as she followed me around the place, eyes wide and terrified.
“Really, Lucian, whatever it is you need to do, do you really have to do it? We could hole up here and stay as quiet as we can, and just pray that nobody finds us.”
I stepped up close and took hold of her chin, tipping her face up to mine.
“I need to go. I can’t leave without delivering what’s due.”
She was shaking as I kissed her. She let out a breath as my tongue pushed its way inside her mouth and danced with a passion. Kissing stopped her questions.
“There are suitcases under the bed in my room,” I told her as I forced myself to pull away. “If you want to make our escape as smooth as possible, then please feel free to pack as many essentials as you can find for the journey. The more ready we are to leave, the better. Somehow we need to find you some damn clothes to go with, too. I don’t think you wearing my shirt on the plane is going to blend us into the hustle all that much.”
She smiled at me and did a scared little curtsy. “I kinda like wearing your shirt constantly. Can’t say I’ve been missing my wardrobe.”
I did my best to smile right back at her. “Lock the door behind me again. Same rules apply. I’m not back by dusk, you head back to the city.”
This time her nod was quiet, her meekness visible. The sassy doll who’d fired back at me at every opportunity just a few days earlier was well out of sight.
Surprisingly, I was looking forward to her return.
I was off quickly, slipping into the car and driving away with a screech of tires as she watched from the doorstep, arms wrapped around her chest.
I called up the navigation on my cell and sped toward my destination. I had my own membership to Hanborough Park, nobody would question my arrival.
There wasn’t even the faintest sliver of uncertainty in me as I pulled up into the golf course parking lot. I was as sure of my actions as I’d been of anything in my life. My fingers were already itching to pull the trigger and deliver revenge on behalf of the woman I loved.