She pressed her lips together and shook her head, on the verge of tears, but quickly shook it off and reached for a remote control on a nearby table.
Jesse kept watch near the double doors as Sydney aimed the remote at the mirrored part of the wall and pushed a button. The mirror shifted and began to slide sideways, revealing another corridor.
Sydney swapped her bow for the rifle slung around her neck and gestured for Beckett to get behind her.
“You’re not my shield, sweetheart. Sorry.” He peered at her. “But we can go in together. Side by side.”
She let go of a breath as if prepared to argue but then gave him a hesitant nod.
“I’ve got y’all’s six,” Jesse said. “Go ahead.”
The three of them slowly entered the space, finding a safe and precisely what Elaina had predicted they’d find—a tunnel. A bookshelf as the “cover” for the tunnel was off to the side of it.
“Jorge left it exposed on purpose.” Sydney turned in a three-sixty, ensuring the room was empty before advancing to the tunnel entrance. “This thing could be miles long, and we have no idea where it dumps out. But regardless of Elaina’s warning, we’d be crazy to go in there.”
“Not just crazy. Dead.” Jesse pointed to something on the wall just inside. “Jorge’s got the place rigged with explosives. He wanted us to follow, and once he exited, he’d blow the whole thing.”
“We’ll find him another way, then.” Beckett glanced at the bookshelf and saw a framed black-and-white photo of Al Capone. He started to turn away, but a reflection in the frame’s glass caught his eye. Jorge. He’s been hiding in the dungeon waiting for us.
Beckett shifted around and blocked Sydney’s body while raising his gun at Jorge. With his injuries, his shot was garbage, only striking Jorge in the shoulder, but Jesse finished him off with a bullet to the head.
“He’s down.” That was almost too easy. But he’d take easy every day of the week. When he whirled to face Sydney, she was frowning. “What’s wrong?”
And then he felt it.
He’d been shot too.
“Hey, you good?” Jesse asked on approach, not looking all that worried.
“I’m fine. It’s just a flesh wound,” he said, but Sydney didn’t seem to agree it was nothing.
She unstrapped her vest, tossed her bow and rifle, then ripped her shirt off and began wrapping the fabric like a tourniquet around his arm. “Bullet points only,” she hissed. “You’re not supposed to take an actual bullet for me.”
Beckett lifted his face to find her angry eyes focused as she continued to tighten her shirt around his arm.
“Hey, I sent word over comms to let everyone know our final HVT is down. They said all other threats have been extinguished. We should be safe to walk out,” Jesse informed them. Now Beckett could relax and let Sydney finish taking care of his arm.
But as she did so, his eyes lazily fell to her black bra. And he couldn’t help but tease, “This really is becoming a habit, Miss Archer.”
“Damn it, Cora. Don’t do this.” Beckett jerked his arm free from Griffin, who was attempting to patch up his flesh wound outside on the driveway of Jorge’s estate.
Cora was crouched before Miles, wiping tears away from her cheeks with one hand while holding his arm with the other. “I’m sorry, but I need to go. Thank you for bringing him back to me so I could say goodbye,” she said to Liam, who stood there with a confused look on his face.
Beckett knew Liam sure as hell hadn’t wanted to reunite a mother and child, only for them to separate. And like this, after what this poor kid just witnessed . . .
“Te quiero mucho, Miles.” Cora now pointed at Beckett as tears filled Miles’s eyes. “This man will take care of you,” she dropped the news on them all in English, so Beckett assumed Miles was bilingual.
“Cora, do not leave him,” he begged again. “You chose to stay in his life. Don’t walk away from him like you walked away from McKenna.”
Cora shook her head, a sob catching in her throat when she said, “You were right to keep me away from her. I’m not cut out to be a mom.”
Beckett caught sight of Sydney talking to Gray at a distance, her profile to him. Gray had given her his T-shirt to cover up. Beckett blinked and returned his attention to the problem at hand.
Cora leaned in and kissed her son’s cheek before standing. “Ivy and I are going. We’ll find a new home. A fresh start. Maybe I’ll check in? But please, be the one to take care of him.”
Ivy was behind the wheel of a sports car she’d driven from the garage a few minutes ago, waiting for her sister to bail on her child. Again.
“Mamá, no vayas. No, por favor!” Miles threw his arms around her leg and dropped his weight, nearly tugging her down to the ground with him. “No go. No, please,” he repeated in English, breaking Beckett’s heart.
What in the hell was he supposed to do? He couldn’t force Cora to stay with her son. Hell, even if she took him with her and Ivy, Beckett wouldn’t put it past her to hand him off to some stranger next month.
“You will be better without me, mi amor. You have a sister. Remember I told you about her. Showed you her pictures. Go be with her.”
Photos? You weren’t lying about that?
“Mamá, no vayas,” Miles cried again, holding on tighter. Beckett looked around at the others still outside, but they’d all turned away, whether to give him privacy or unable to handle the heartbreaking sight.
Carter, Camila, Jesse, and a few others had gone inside Jorge’s estate, hoping to crack his safe and find the scientist’s formula and records of the secrets Jorge had traded for favors.
“Cora, vamos!” Ivy yelled out the window and patted the side of the car, urging her to get a move on.
What the hell was wrong with these women? Did neither of them have a soul? Beckett lifted his good arm to set a hand to his aching chest, finding the emotional damage worse than any of the beatings he’d taken today.
“I’ll check in when I’m settled and safe.” Cora tried to pry Miles’s arms free, but he wasn’t relenting. “Help me, please.” She looked up at Beckett.
“You’re going to leave and start a new life. Just like that?” Beckett frowned. The woman was the devil in his eyes already, but this? This was cruel even for her.
“Take him, damn it,” she begged.
He cursed under his breath. “I’m so sorry,” Beckett said to Miles, then asked Liam to pick the boy up, worried he didn’t have the strength to handle a five-year-old’s resistance in the shape he was in.
Miles flailed in Liam’s arms while watching his mother run for the car. She stood outside the passenger door, gave her son one last look, and then they took off.
“Wait,” Sydney called out a second later. “Stop her.”
“She’s made up her mind.” Beckett looked back to see Sydney covering her ear while going for her gun.
“No, Jorge must’ve called for more reinforcements before we took him out,” Sydney yelled as Griffin and Gray drew their weapons in preparation for whoever was coming for them.
“Cora!” Beckett called out, limping after the car in vain, his sidearm now in hand. “It’s not safe! Stop!”