“Can you do me a favor?”
She peered up at him, her sad green eyes filling with tears once more. “Anything.”
“Can you look after Mina for me?” He barely got the words out without his voice shaking.
Jane grabbed his hand, squeezing it hard. “You didn’t need to ask. She’s family already, because you love her.”
“Thanks, Janey.” He gripped her hand back, letting her touch strengthen him. She’d always been a voice of reason, telling him when he was being a damnable idiot, and also letting him know when he’d done something right. She’d be good for Mina.
“Do you need anything else?” she asked.
“Not now.” He didn’t need to ask the details of the help she’d promised, didn’t want to chance that they’d be overheard. If Jane said she’d tried, that was enough for him. “Keep hummin’ that tune, would you? Reminds me of Mina.”
“All right,” she agreed, tilting her head up to look him in the eye. “You make me a promise, too.”
“Anything,” he said without hesitation, though he doubted he’d be able to keep any vows when he’d be dead soon.
“When you get out of here, you tell Mina what she means to you.” She said this with that no-nonsense tone he knew so well, the one she always used on men insisting on another round when they were already too foxed to hold their liquor. “You make her your wife, Charlie, come hell or high water. She deserves a future with you.”
“She deserves a lot better than my sorry hide,” Charlie began, closing his mouth when Jane fixed him with a glare. “All right. If I survive this hell, I’ll ask Mina to marry me.”
“Good.” Jane nodded. “You do that.”
Chapter 12
Kate left soon after going over the map Jane had quickly sketched on the back of the directions, detailing the number and positioning of the guards around the house where Charlie was held. There were five people besides Charlie in the building: three men Mina didn’t recognize, Jane, and Jason Baines. Not the worst of odds, as long as Cyrus agreed to help her.
Which he would, even if it meant she had to hold him at gunpoint to get him to agree.
He owed her. For standing by as Joaquin sold her off to the highest bidder. For never telling her the truth about the full extent of the family’s criminal activities. For all those times he’d led her to believe he’d stand by her, no matter what.
Mina knew exactly where her middle brother’s loyalties lay now. There was only one person Cyrus cared about more than himself, and that was Jane. She’d use that to her advantage.
She clasped the final snap on the same pair of breeches she’d stolen from her brother’s valet’s closet the other night, and tugged on the filched coat so that it fell properly across her chest. Again she’d bound her breasts underneath the simple white linen shirt and tucked up her hair underneath the cap, completing the look with a navy waistcoat and a simple Belcher neckcloth. This time, she’d worn her own half-boots, needing to be fleet of foot in case they had to run.
Kate had suggested this disguise, so the guards wouldn’t recognize her. Of course, once Cyrus dispensed with them, there’d be no need for disguise—but it was easier to move in these clothes, and Kate spoke with such authority Mina didn’t dare question her advice.
She poked her head out her bedroom door. Once she’d ascertained the way was clear, she tiptoed to the closet at the end of the hall. Her brothers kept the door locked at all times, and they were the only two with the key. But she’d taken care of that—assuming Kate had been able to pick the lock without being seen before she left. Mina held her breath as she turned the knob, exhaling on a silent prayer of gratitude as the door opened.
Joaquin had dubbed this closet the “armory,” which she’d always thought was a whimsical exaggeration. She’d been wrong about that too, for the six shelves inside were packed to the brim with every kind of weapon imaginable. The top shelf held flintlock rifles, which Mina dismissed outright for their weight and heft. She’d need to be able to move quickly, so easily portable weapons were on the top of the list. She skipped over the axes, hatchets, and broadswords, instead grabbing three small, but deadly sharp knives from the second shelf. She slipped one in the lining of each of her boots, and the other in the sheath at her side. The bottom shelf held shrapnel and black powder for explosives, which she considered for a second before decided against them. She didn’t know enough about bomb-making to be certain she’d be able to produce something powerful enough.
On the third shelf Mina found exactly what she needed: a double-barreled over-and-under pocket flintlock pistol. For an instrument of death, it was remarkably beautiful. A gold leaf pattern engraved the muzzle, and the upper barrel featured gold scrollwork and the inscription “W. SMITH LONDON” on the ribbon. She lifted it up from the shelf, the walnut half-stock smooth against her palm.
Quickly, Mina loaded the gun. She grabbed from the shelf another pocket pistol, less elaborate and older in make. Stashing the extra gun, the powder, rod, and cloth needed to reload it into a bag that she swung over her shoulder, she closed the closet door. With the gun drawn and ready, she made her way down the hall.
Earlier, she’d dismissed the idea of entering Joaquin’s meeting. This time, she swallowed down her fear and reached for the door.
It promptly opened, and Cyrus emerged, his hulking stature taking up the entire door frame. His brows rose as he took in the sight of her, outfitted in boy’s clothing with the gun raised at eye level with him.
“Who’s out there?” Joaquin called from inside.
“Ah, just a noisy maid,” Cyrus lied. “Gonna get some food, anyhow.”
“Your stomach can wait. We’ve got business to attend to.” Joaquin was probably scowling at his brother’s back now.
“You don’t need my input.” Cyrus looked over his shoulder, still keeping her protected from view with his large body. “Let me know when you decide who you want me to bloody. I don’t give a damn about the rest.”
“Fine,” Joaquin snapped, impatience peppering his tone as Cyrus shrugged.
Closing the door behind him, Cyrus slid to the left, his eyes locked on the raised pistol. Mina’s hand wavered at the sharpness of his gaze, so unnatural for him; he hadn’t been in a mill in the last few days, so the bruises around his eye had mostly healed, the greenish-yellow marks the only reminder.
Before she could steady her grip, he lunged for her. In a move that should have been too quick, too spry for his heavy frame, he disarmed her.
“Not wise, Min.” He shook his head, but there was no further disapproval in his expression to match his words. “What was your plan? Storm in and take me hostage?”
She stayed silent, figuring it was better not to admit how right he was. Instead, she held her hand out for the gun.
He frowned, glancing up and down at her, then at the gun he gripped. “You’ve got a spare, don’t you?”
She met his gaze head-on, her eyes burning defiantly. “Of course. I’m a Mason, after all.”
That brought a long, shoulder-shaking sigh from him. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
He passed her the gun, then gestured for her to follow him downstairs. They stopped in the dining room, empty at this in-between hour. Before Mina could inquire as to his plans, Cyrus pushed a chair up against the door, blocking the entry.
“Let me guess.” He raised his hands, locking them behind his head and stretching. “You want to retrieve the Chapman boy.”
Mina blinked. “How did you know?”
“You’ve got a loaded gun and you’re storming around the house like an imbecile.” Cyrus waved at her outfit, his lips curling into a knowing smirk. “Only one thing makes a sane woman act like a lunatic. Why do you think I’ve been wanting you to marry Donaldson? Love makes people do damnably foolhardy things, Min.”
“So you’d rather I be miserable than foolish?” She wrinkled her nose. “That’s not what I’d choose. I love Charlie, and I’m going to fight for him,
like he did for me.”
“You’ve done enough,” Cyrus declared. “That bastard McNair’s dead, and we sure didn’t do it. How do you know Charlie’s so innocent?”
“Because I know.” She lifted her chin up. “Charlie has many imperfections, but he is not without a conscience. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. He, unlike you and Joaquin, cares for my well-being.”
She may have overstepped with that line, though it was the truth. For a moment, he was silent, watching her. She did not flinch under his inspection, not now. She was right; she had to be.
She knew her brother too—knew he looked for any sign of weakness in his opponents.
“Which is why I’ve got to save him.” Mina tugged on the strap of her pack, ensuring it was secure. “And you’re going to help me.”
Cyrus raised a brow. “Oh?”
“Yes.” She matched his tone, pigheadedness for pigheadedness. “I know where Chapman’s keeping him. He’s got a small number of guards, nothing you haven’t faced before. We’re going to break in, and we’re going to get him out before that blackguard Baines kills him for something he didn’t do.”
She reached for him, fully intending to tug him along.
Cyrus shook off her grip, scowling. “You’d risk an all-out gang war for one man. Put everything Quin has worked for in jeopardy because you think you’re in love.” He spat out the last word, as though it tasted foul and bitter against his tongue. Given what he’d gone through with Jane, she supposed it did.
He’d never been the same, not since she’d left him.
Regrets had eaten Cyrus alive, left a dark, empty space where his heart had once been. Because he’d never made good on his promises. Because he’d let the gang get in the way of his love for her.
Mina wouldn’t make the same mistake. “If you’re asking me to choose between Charlie and the Kings, then yes. I’d choose Charlie every time. Now we have to leave.”
“Everything you’re going through now, I’ve done before. You think it was easier four years ago, when Joaquin didn’t have the power he’s got now? Every time I saw Janey, I undermined him. Every damn time—” Cyrus dropped his hands, crossing his arms over his chest. “So one night I got too foxed, and I went to a brothel with Tommy. You know the rest. Everybody done know the rest.”
“You made a mistake. People make mistakes.” Mina ran her finger across the checkered butt of the Smith pistol, trying to slow the fierce beating of her heart. It would take strength and time—time she didn’t have—to convince Cyrus by force.
So she had to remain calm, lure him along. Say the right thing. “Life’s determined by how we react to those mistakes. Maybe you can’t get Jane to forgive you. But I’ll forgive you for wanting to marry me off to a bounder, if you help Charlie.”
Cyrus eyed her skeptically. “Maybe I don’t want your forgiveness, Min. Maybe I don’t think I’ve been wrong, there.”
“Cy—” Mina bit her tongue, stopping the litany she wanted to deliver. Now was not the time. She had to stay on point. “Think of Jane. She’s already got one brother in prison, one you couldn’t save. Charlie is important to her—he’s like a brother to her. Do it for her, then.”
Cyrus considered this, tapping his chin with one finger. She held her breath, willing him silently to come with her. Because if he wouldn’t, she didn’t know what she’d do. Charge in and try to save Charlie by herself, she guessed. Get sentenced to death too. She couldn’t really be comforted by the fact that they’d be together, when death felt like admitting defeat.
“You really think this cove will do right by you? Keep you safe? He can’t set you up in the lifestyle Donaldson would.” Cyrus scrubbed a hand across his chin, his lips quirked downward. “You’d have a good life, Min. One free of the hurt that comes with all those damn feelings.”
“Maybe I want the hurt,” she murmured, squeezing his hand in hers. “Maybe I think nothing worth having is without risk. I don’t need to live in luxury, Cy. I want to be loved.”
“Quin’s right,” Cyrus said, and for a second her chest tightened unbearably, thinking he’d refuse to assist her. Then his lips split in a rare smile, like he used to do when he’d first started courting Jane. “We’re both fools, aren’t we? Must come with the bloodline.”
He knelt in the corner of the room, looping his finger around a small gap in the floorboards. Mina asked him what he was doing, but he didn’t answer. He lifted the floorboard up and out, reaching into the cavern beneath and taking out a pistol, a blade, two wooden sticks joined by a chain, and two sets of brass knuckles. He slid the blade into a side sheath, the sticks into his belt, and the brass knuckles onto his hands. The pistol he laid to the side as he closed up the floorboard.
Thus loaded, he rose to his feet. “Talk me through the plan when we’re in the hack.”
“Thank you, Cy. Thank you.” Mina threw her arms around him, hugging him to her with all her might. He let the embrace continue for a minute before shoving her off him and heading to the door.
“No time for all that maudlin shit.” He motioned for her to follow him down the hall. “Got a cove to save.”
Time passed like the slippery, sticky slide of honey into a murky cup of tea, one hour indistinguishable from the next. Were it not for Jane’s visits to change out the candle in the lantern, Charlie might have been convinced that time had stopped entirely.
Perhaps that would have been fitting, since he’d spent most of his life drifting from one day to the next, existing in the in-between of kindness and avarice. Never a good man, but not the worst of rogues either. He’d been so abysmally average. Even his upbringing was interchangeable with so many other rookery thieves. The son of a drunkard and a whore, joining Chapman as a young boy not because he’d believed in the gang’s ideals, but because it was better than starving on the streets.
He’d done one truly honorable thing in his life: defended Mina from harm at the hands of the blackguard McNair. Yet he’d failed there, too. Failed because he couldn’t keep his hands to himself, because he’d needed so desperately to know what she tasted like, because seeing her in that moment of ecstasy had brought him to his knees. He clenched his hands at his sides and wished he’d been smarter, swifter.
He might not have ruined her, but in refusing to offer for her he’d doomed her to Donaldson. If he could do it all over again, he’d say yes, God yes, let’s run away together—he’d never leave her wanting, waiting for him.
For as long as he could remember, he’d never been anything special. But she made him feel like a hero. She believed in him, when he was nothing but lost potential strung across scars and taut muscles from brawling.
It was that faith in him she’d regret the most, wouldn’t she?
He was going to die here, alone, for a crime he didn’t commit. Her brothers would force her to marry Donaldson, and that promise he’d made to her would go unfulfilled. All because he hadn’t been strong enough to take her away from this hell.
That ate at him the most. He’d grown acquainted with the possibility of imminent death, and he didn’t much mind that he’d die paying for another man’s murder. When one led as checkered of a life as he had, it didn’t matter how one ended up at the gallows. If it were not this crime, it would be another.
But leaving Mina with no options—that galled him. Jane had promised to watch over her, yes, but there was a limit to how much Jane could do against the combined power of the Masons. All he could expect was that Jane would observe from the outside, offering her support and guidance should Mina want it.
It’d have to be enough.
He laid his head back against the wall, plucking distractedly at a strand of straw in the mat where he sat. He guessed that a day or two had passed since his capture and incarceration. He held no hope that he’d live much longer. Harper had made that devilishly clear: death was inevitable. It was only a question of when.
There was a great boom in the corridor outside, followed by sounds of a struggle.
>
Charlie rose from the mat, crossing the room in four strides. He tried the doorknob, but the door was locked and he hadn’t his picks. So instead he put his ear to the door and listened to the violence outside as though it were its own language. The sounds seemed to drift, as though the fight was occurring farther down the hall and hadn’t reached his cell yet. That thud was probably a body hitting the wall, followed by the crick of knees giving out and someone falling to the floor. Crack went a shattered wrist. A slam produced a broken nose. That gurgle was the sick slosh of blood billowing out of a man’s mouth as he struggled to breathe.
Someone was out there. Someone who’d dispensed with a hell of a lot of adversaries, and lived to tell about it. The tactics of one man fighting many were different from that of multiple matched opponents, and so they produced different noises. He guessed that the victor was a large male, given the impact of the injuries.
The tiniest seed of hope burgeoned within him. Jane had said she’d sent for help, and there was no better pugilist in these parts than her ex-betrothed. Had Mina and Jane convinced Cyrus to help him? Charlie held his breath as silence descended for the space of a second, perhaps, maybe more.
The door swung open. Light poured in from the left side of the hall as Jane rushed into the cell, lantern in hand. “I don’t know what’s happening. There’s so much noise—” She jumped back from the doorway as a body spun across the floor at a furious pace. Unconscious already, the guard’s mad pace didn’t stop until his head smashed into the wall.
Jane screamed, but Charlie did not make a sound. He stood stock-still, listening. He didn’t recognize the guard, but that wasn’t unusual. Chapman had many members, and he doubted Jason would have selected anyone with possible loyalties to him.
When a Rogue Falls Page 23
