Thirty-Six
Mount
The coppery scent of blood hits my nostrils first, and every single one of my senses goes on alert. Something isn’t right. Every fiber of my body can attest to that.
I grab Keira and move her behind me, pushing her toward P, our driver. “Drop anyone you don’t recognize. Keep her safe, or I’ll kill you.”
“Lachlan?” My wife says only two syllables, but I feel fear in each of them.
I spin and cup the side of her face. “I love you. Now stay here.”
“What—” Keira cuts off her question because she knows better than to voice it. Our life is not without peril, but I haven’t put her in danger in a long fucking time, and I’m not about to start now.
With the grip of my gun resting comfortably in my palm, I stalk down the hallway, determined to find out who the hell would dare breach my sanctuary. Who would be so fucking stupid and reckless.
They will die today.
When I round the corner, I immediately spot a blood trail and a body. A shaft of rage and loss pierces my heart like a jagged stake.
V. My brother in arms and second-in-command.
I drop to one knee beside him and the red pooling beneath him, forcing myself not to react.
Find. Kill. Those are the only two thoughts in my head as I confirm there’s no pulse.
Not that I was expecting one with the number of holes in his chest and the amount of blood soaked into the carpet.
“I’m sorry, brother.” With my fingers, I close his eyelids and keep moving. Four more bodies lead me like fucked-up bread crumbs to the one room that should never see anything but love.
A sledgehammer thunders in my chest where my heart should be, despite my iron-clad control, as I reach for the door handle that’s smeared with blood.
Everything goes quiet, and I prepare for the worst.
Pain tears through me as I twist the knob and burst inside.
I will burn this city to the ground. I will—
My mind goes blank as I take in the scene in Rory’s pink bedroom. Bethany, her nanny, lies motionless on the floor, her head twisted to an awkward angle. I charge to the crib, but it’s empty.
I search the room for any sign of my baby girl, but there’s nothing.
Her nanny’s dead, and my baby is gone.
“NOOOOOOOOOOO!”
Thirty-Seven
Keira
My phone vibrates in my purse as I hear Lachlan’s roar. It’s fueled by an unholy rage that fills my heart with terror. The most horrendous fear that could ever strike a parent’s soul takes hold of me.
“Where’s my baby?” I scream as I charge down the hall, uncaring about the hands trying to hold me back. I don’t give a fuck if they rip my arms from my body. I just need my baby.
When I turn the corner, I stumble to a halt as my stomach revolts at the sight and smell of death.
Scar. My friend. My quiet confidant.
“Lachlan!” I scream with all the force inside me, but I’m already stumbling drunkenly toward the next lifeless body.
It’s like something out of a horror movie. So much blood and death. Dread chases me with every breath I’m scared to take.
“Rory!” I scream again, this time praying I’m not going to find what I fear most. My mind is filled with visions I will never recover from if they come true.
I see the blood on her door, and then I see Lachlan’s ashen face.
I freeze in my tracks. All the blood drains from my limbs at the stricken horror etched on my husband’s face.
“Oh God. Oh God.” Tears flood down my cheeks as my voice turns ragged and sobs are wrenched from the very depths of my soul. “Where is she? Where’s my baby? Is she—”
I can’t even get the word out.
My baby can’t be dead. My baby can’t be dead.
Lachlan rushes toward me and grips both my arms. His fingers are like iron manacles jerking me to a halt.
“Where is she?” I ask, but really, I’m begging for her to come back.
My heart stops when he finally speaks in a tortured tone I’ve never heard from his lips.
“She’s gone.”
Thirty-Eight
Magnolia
“Why aren’t they picking up?” Panic has set in as all of us try to reach Mount and Keira to relay the horrific news.
“Answer the fucking call, man!” Moses shouts at his phone as he tries Mount again.
“Come on, Keira! Pick up!” I shake my cell, like somehow that’s going to make her respond. Not that I have any fucking idea how to tell her that a bloodthirsty madman who wants me dead went after her helpless, innocent child instead. Tears spill down my cheeks in another wave of unrelenting guilt.
God, if it’s possible to regret an entire life, I’m doing it now.
Nothing—not grief, not love, not hate—could bring these emotions out of me. Nothing makes you realize every single way you’ve ever failed like an innocent suffering for your sins.
I try the call again, praying Keira’s going to pick up as much as I’m dreading the pain I’m going to cause.
And then it hits me.
I turn to Moses, who’s vibrating with unleashed fury beside me. “What if they already know? Oh my God! What if they’re already home?”
The driver punches it, laying on the horn as he blows through a red light. I grab the seat in front of me as he floors it through the crowded streets of the French Quarter, pedestrians darting out of the way.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” Moses punches at his screen again, trying Mount, and finally . . . he picks up.
“Unless you know where my baby girl is, you’d better stop fucking calling me,” Mount says in the coldest, scariest tone I’ve ever heard.
Chills skitter across every inch of my body as I feel the pain and fear underlying his every word.
“Reyes has her. We’re going to get her back. Noon. The French Market. Far end near Esplanade. He wants to make a trade for Magnolia.”
The roar that comes through the phone turns my bowels to liquid.
Reyes was right. Mount will turn me over in a heartbeat to save his baby girl. Hell, if we all survive this, he might kill me anyway for even putting her in danger.
I wouldn’t blame him one single bit. Hell, I’d hand him the loaded gun myself.
“We’re coming to you,” Moses says, cutting through the terrifying silence that followed the pained roar. “Everyone’s getting out alive today but Reyes, and if you say that you don’t give a damn what happens to Magnolia, I’ll kill you myself before I save them both. You hear me, Mount? We play this my way.”
I stare at Moses, shock searing through me as his words penetrate. The threats he just made. The ultimatum he just laid down. He just threatened to kill Mount for me.
“Fuck you, Gaspard. This is my daughter we’re talking about here!”
“And we’re getting her back. No one is dying today but Reyes. You have my word.”
Several beats of silence pass, and no one in the SUV breathes. We’re all waiting for judgment to be handed down. Whatever Mount says next will change the course of our lives. Hell, it’ll change this city if he decides to bathe the streets in blood.