Undone: The Untangled Series, Book Two

by Layne, Ivy

  All it would take was a careless finger on the wrong switch and the house would be obliterated, Alice and Adam along with it.

  Thinking of Cooper, I forced myself to breathe, drawing air in slowly, filling my lungs and emptying them. Creating calm. Focus. Pushing back the fear, the utter mind-numbing terror, that this whole thing would slip out of my hands, and Adam with it.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Knox

  Ialmost wept with relief at the jolt of the tires hitting the runway. We'd barely come to a stop when Lily and I were up, unbuckling our seatbelts and bolting for the door. She muttered under her breath, “Open it, open it,” the copilot slanting her an annoyed look.

  I ignored him and called Cooper.

  “You on the ground?”

  “Yeah,” I said, following Lily down the steps to the tarmac. “Headed for the car. Did you get it?”

  “Lucas bitched the whole time, but he managed to patch the cell signal on the alarm to your network. We sent a file to the printer from our end. It looks like it's been printing for twenty minutes. You've got to be out of paper by now. No fucking clue if she saw it because you don't have any goddamn cameras in your house.”

  Racing through the tiny terminal to the parking lot I barked, “Why the fuck would I have cameras in my own house?”

  I knew for a fucking fact Cooper didn't have them in his.

  He didn't answer my question. I could only hope Alice had heard the printer, that she and Adam were tucked away in the safe room.

  I had to think that because the other option—that they were wandering through the house unaware of the danger they were in, that they might try to go outside or realize there was something wrong with the phones—.

  No. I couldn't do anything about that. Except give Tsepov what he wanted and convince him to call off his goons.

  I slid behind the wheel of the SUV I'd left in the lot.

  “Evers have the money?”

  “He scraped together a million,” Cooper said. “What do you think?”

  “I need to text Tsepov and let him know I'm on my way.”

  “And the money? The box? What do you want to offer?”

  “Cooper, if you're about to fucking suggest that we lowball him—”

  “Shut the fuck up, you asshole. I'm not going to fucking lowball Tsepov when Alice's life is on the line.”

  “So we give him all of it,” I confirmed. “I'm good for it—”

  “I don't give a fuck about the money, Knox. We'll figure it out later. Are you headed here?”

  “I can't bring Lily.”

  I felt Lily go stiff beside me, but she didn't say a word. No fucking way I was bringing Lily anywhere near Tsepov. Bad enough he had Adam and Alice. I'd need everything I had to get this done. Lily would be a distraction.

  “Text Tsepov,” Cooper cut in, “Tell him you'll meet him at your house, in the driveway just past the curve. You'll be hidden from the road, not close enough to the house to make him nervous.”

  “That works,” I agreed.

  “Evers has a team together. They'll take position in the woods, far enough out that Tsepov's men won't spot them.”

  Tsepov had said to come alone. Standard bad guy orders.

  Evers knew what he was doing. If he'd put the team together, they'd be invisible, and we already knew Tsepov's men weren't the top of the barrel.

  They'd never see Evers coming.

  I knew that, and still, I didn't like it.

  Cooper went on, “Drive here. Pull into the garage. I'll have someone bring Lily up. I'm coming with you.”

  Cooper disconnected. I pulled up the number Tsepov had been using and handed my phone to Lily.

  “I need you to text for me.”

  She took the phone and waited.

  “Tell him—In Atlanta. Meet you in the middle of my driveway in twenty minutes.”

  Lily's fingers tapped the screen. When she was done, she looked up. “Is that it? Should I send it?”

  “That's it.”

  Less than a minute later my phone chimed. Lily read, “Twenty minutes. Come alone.”

  “Tell him—Bringing Cooper. He has what you want.”

  Another minute and a second chime from my phone. Lily read, “Fine. Only Cooper. Eighteen minutes.”

  Lily handed my phone back. “What an asshole,” she said, her voice shaky.

  “You got that right,” I agreed. She reached out, wrapping her hand around mine. I held on as we made our way through the streets of Atlanta to Sinclair Security. The four-story building was sleek, the exterior mirrored, flashing graphite in the summer sun.

  I pulled into the parking garage and came to a stop by the elevators. Lily was unbuckling her seatbelt when I leaned across and cupped her chin in my hand bringing her face to mine for a quick kiss.

  “The next time I see you I'll have Adam,” I promised.

  Lily's eyes met mine, her pupils too wide, her face still a little gray, but she gave me a resolute nod. “I'll see you soon,” she said and slid from the car.

  Cooper took her place, a small black gym bag on his lap. I threw the SUV into gear and headed out.

  “You couldn't find a briefcase?” I asked, preferring sarcasm if it would hold back everything else.

  We were so close. So close, and with every turn of the wheels, I grew more aware of all the ways this could go wrong.

  Cooper ignored my taunt about the briefcase.

  “Is Evers in position?” I asked, trying to focus on the job at hand.

  “He's there,” Cooper confirmed. “Where's the box?”

  I jerked my head at the backseat. Cooper turned and reached to retrieve the snuff box, wrapped in the cardigan Lily had brought to ward off the air-conditioned chill of the plane.

  “Think he'll go for it?” I asked Cooper.

  “If he doesn't, there's always Plan B,” he said ominously. I came to a stop at a red light and chanced a look at my brother. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen him like this.

  His ice blue eyes, so like my father's and Evers', were locked down. Impenetrable. A knot in his jaw flexed. I didn't say anything else. No point. We'd done what we could do. Now, all we had was hope.

  A few minutes later I turned down my driveway as I had so many times before. For the first thirty feet, everything looked normal. It could have been any other day.

  We came around the curve and the illusion fell apart. There were men in black gear holding rifles interspersed through the woods. A shiny, black sedan blocked the driveway.

  I pulled the SUV to a stop. Cooper reached for the door handle. My hand shot out and grabbed his arm. “I'm talking.”

  It was a measure of how tightly strung Cooper's nerves were that he grunted in acknowledgment but didn't argue. Holding the gym bag and the box, still wrapped in Lily's cardigan, Cooper got out of the car.

  I held on to hope. Hope that Adam and Alice were okay. Hope that Cooper would keep his shit together long enough to get them back. Hope that none of Evers' guys tipped off Tsepov's men. Hope that somehow, we'd all get out of this alive.

  Andrei Tsepov emerged from the sedan. Tall, slender, elegant in a dark suit, he sauntered toward us with the arrogance of a king.

  A hard stare fell on Cooper's full hands. “That doesn't look like account numbers.”

  There was no point in bullshitting him. “We found the numbers. The accounts are empty. We have something else.”

  Tsepov's dark eyes flared with rage. “I want what's mine, you fucking greedy—”

  His right arm lifted as if to signal. Cooper moved, drawing Tsepov's eye. He said nothing, but peeled back the edge of Lily's sweater, tilting the snuff box so the diamonds caught the light.

  Tsepov's head jerked around, his attention zeroing in on the flash of all those stones. His arm dropp
ed to his side. He took a step forward, mesmerized.

  “You know what it is?” Cooper asked, his voice flat, deadly.

  Andrei Tsepov nodded, eyes locked on the snuff box, his hand reaching forward as if to snatch it from Cooper's grasp.

  I took a step to the side, blocking Cooper and the box from Tsepov's gaze. “It was Sergey's,” I said. “He gave it to my father.”

  “It should be mine.” Tsepov's voice was breathy with awe. Then, firmer, “It's mine.”

  “I'll give you the box and a million dollars cash. Get the charges off my house and it's all yours.”

  Tsepov eyed me for a long moment, thinking before he said, with an easy shrug of one shoulder, “What's to stop me from taking it? These woods are filled with my men. They're armed and you're not. I could take the bag, the box, and blow the house anyway.”

  Beside me, Cooper growled low in his throat. Of all the fucking times for my rock-solid brother to lose it, it had to be now.

  I said, “You could, but your men aren't the only men in these woods, and if you blow the house, you'll die. If you pull a weapon on either of us, you'll die. Or, you could take the box, the money, and agree that whatever problem you have with my father, we’re out. My brothers and I, our women, our mother, our families—we’re all out of it. We give you that box and the cash, and your issues with my father stay between you and my father. Agreed?”

  Tsepov's teeth ground together, his chin jutting forward as he processed my demand. Maybe I should have bargained for my father's protection, too. Tried to end this whole thing once and for all.

  Fuck that. Andrei Tsepov wanted revenge on my dad. Fine then, he could have it. Adam's life wouldn't be in danger if it weren't for my dad.

  I was done protecting him. He was on his own. My concern was for the innocent. For my family. My father no longer qualified.

  “If I agree,” Tsepov said slowly, “your father is still fair game.”

  “My father is on his own,” I confirmed.

  Tsepov leaned to the side, trying to see around me, needing Cooper's assent. I stepped out of the way.

  “And you? You agree?” Tsepov demanded of Cooper.

  In a voice so tight I thought it would snap, Cooper said, “I agree. We're out. The women, the child, our mother—our family is out. Whatever you need to do to my father, have at it.”

  It tore at me. Buried under all that anger, under the betrayal, the rage, the futile wish that he was the man I'd always hoped he could be, it tore at me to throw my father to the wolves.

  He should have been so much more than this.

  I'd grown up wanting him to be the hero, never realizing how much he was the villain. A part of me wanted to save him. Wanted to believe he could be redeemed.

  The time for that had passed. I had people to protect. My father was no longer on that list.

  “We have a deal,” Tsepov said, taking a step forward, his hands reaching for the bounty he thought he'd earned.

  I moved to block him from Cooper.

  “I want the charges off the house. You can keep your men in place, but get the fucking charges off my house or you get nothing.”

  Irritation flashed across his face before Tsepov raised his phone and spoke a single word. I didn't catch what it was, but two men emerged from the woods and headed for the house.

  One of them went to the front corner, crouching to remove a white rectangle of C4. The other did the same at the front door.

  Cooper put the sweater-wrapped box in the bag with the money and moved to hand it to Tsepov.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Knox

  In the quiet of the summer afternoon, all hell broke loose.

  A shot rang out from inside the house. Then another. Before we registered the live fire, the house shook, a plume of smoke rising from the side of the garage.

  One of the charges had blown. At the sound of the shots and the explosion, Tsepov’s men scattered like rats, melting into the woods.

  Cooper shoved the bag at Tsepov and took off in a sprint. I was on his heels, Andrei forgotten. Cooper threw himself at the door, stumbling as it gave easily, unlocked. He bellowed Alice’s name.

  No answer.

  I opened my mouth to scream for Adam, then stopped. I didn’t want to scare him. Cooper’s shouts were bad enough.

  The house was silent except for the crackle of fire faintly coming from the direction of the garage. The acrid scent of smoke drifted down the hall.

  Cooper bolted toward the basement, skidding to a stop at the open door of the utility room. The tile floor in front of the printer was piled with paper, all of it bearing the same message.

  HOUSE SURROUNDED. GET TO SAFE ROOM.

  HOUSE SURROUNDED. GET TO SAFE ROOM.

  HOUSE SURROUNDED. GET TO SAFE ROOM.

  HOUSE SURROUNDED. GET TO SAFE ROOM.

  It was hard to tell if the pile had been disturbed, but from the single sheet crumpled by the door, I thought Alice had gotten our message.

  Cooper must have thought the same because he was at the basement door a second later, his feet pounding down the stairs.

  He shouted Alice's name. At the anguish in his tone, my heart stopped. Alice lay crumpled at the base of the stairs, my Walther PPQ inches from her open hand.

  Ten feet away, deeper in the basement, lay a second body, this one dressed in black like the rest of Tsepov's men.

  Cooper knelt at Alice's side, his fingers at her throat, feeling for a pulse. The pool of blood beneath Tsepov's man told me I didn't need to do the same for him.

  “Alice?”

  “Alive. Heartbeat stable.” His hands slid gently beneath her head. “Hell of a bump here,” he said, his fingers lingering behind her ear.

  Alive. It was all I needed to hear. I was at the safe room door, punching in the code. I tore the door open the second the lock disengaged.

  Adam sat cross-legged on the floor, his lip caught between his teeth as he studied a puzzle laid out on the carpet, a juice box and a bowl of goldfish by his side.

  He looked up to see me and grinned.

  “Mr. Knox. Where'd Alice go? We're playing a game, but she didn't come back. She's getting cookies.”

  “We'll get you cookies in a minute,” I said, relief giving my words buoyancy. “Are you—” The house shook above us, the steel-lined concrete of the safe room stable as everything around us shifted.

  Cooper moved like lightning, scooping Alice into his arms and bolting up the stairs. I did the same with Adam, holding him close to my body to shield him. I had no fucking clue how much C4 was left on the house or what set it off.

  Had the explosion been an accident or were they going to take the house down around us?

  Another charge went off, this time at the back of the garage. This close it was deafening. The house shook again, the floor rolling under our feet. Cooper stumbled, almost going to his knees with Alice before he caught himself and lunged for the door.

  Feet pounding, conscious only of Cooper ahead of me and Adam's hot breath in my ear, I ran for the SUV. It was still where we'd left it, but the sedan was gone, gouges in the grass beside the driveway evidence of Tsepov's escape.

  I wrenched open the back door. Cooper lay Alice down along the seat, her eyes still closed. Evers emerged from the woods, Griffen beside him.

  Griffen took one look at the situation and jumped behind the wheel, throwing the vehicle into gear before Cooper had his door shut. I stepped back, giving them room as he reversed down the drive and out of sight.

  Evers scanned Adam and then me.

  “He okay?”

  “He's okay,” I confirmed. Evers touched the mic at his ear. “Call it in. Cooper has Alice. They're headed to the hospital. Adam is unharmed. He's with Knox. Have someone take Lily to my house.” To me, he said, “Alice?”

  “
Unconscious, with a bump on her head. No other visible injuries.”

  He nodded, eyes worried. Alice had been with us for years. She was family. If anything happened to her—

  Evers shook off his worry and smiled, moving into Adam's line of sight. Adam burrowed into me, his eyes wide and a little wild after our crazed flight from the house.

  “Hey, Adam, I'm Evers, Knox's brother. I didn't get to meet you before. You like swimming?”

  Did he like swimming? What the fuck was Evers talking about?

  My heart pounding at our narrow escape, relief had slowed my processing power. I got it when Evers said, “I live right around the corner. Unlike Knox, I have a pool. You want to go swimming?”

  “I left my bathing suit inside,” Adam said, his face falling as he looked back at the house and caught sight of the garage engulfed in flames. “Are the firemen coming?”

  “They're on the way, kid,” Evers reassured. “It's my pool. I don't care if you want to swim in your underwear.”

  Adam brightened and looked up at me. “Can I swim in my underwear, Mr. Knox?”

  “It's good with me, bud.” I shot Evers a grateful look.

  “One of the guys is bringing my car around. Lily will be there soon. This'll be easier with you guys out of my way. I have to deal with the fire department and call Agent Holley. What are we looking at inside? Anything?”

  “Alice got one. Basement. Weapon looked like mine. Any clue what happened?”

  “Nope. My guess? The one in the house was looking for leverage in case the hand-off went bad.” Evers sent a meaningful look at Adam. “I was on the wrong side of the house to see, but the explosion feels like an accident.”

  We wouldn’t know until Agent Holley had time to examine the scene, but Evers’ analysis made sense. There was no denying that the sight of Adam with a gun to his head would have tilted negotiations in Tsepov’s favor.

  “Makes sense. Good thing Alice remembered her training.”

  Evers gave a nod. One of our black SUVs nosed down the drive. I slapped his shoulder once and took off at a jog, Adam in my arms, belting him in the back as soon as it stopped.