Resurrection

by Wendy Million

  “So you’re just going to follow me around all day?” I say.

  “Exactly an arm’s length away.”

  Amusement and unease war inside me. Finn can take care of himself. After our conversation last night and what Eric tried to do, I’m worried he’s finding a way to eliminate Eric behind my back. He doesn’t see himself as a protector, but I know better. When he loves, he loves hard. For years I watched as he tried to shield Lorcan from anything too damaging. Right now I’m the one he’s trying to protect. How far will he go?

  “Seriously, where did he go?” I say.

  “Seriously, I can’t tell you.” Jay frowns. “He said he was going dark for the next twelve to twenty-four hours. Hence,” he gestures to the space between us, “the glue.”

  “Please tell me he’s not doing something rash or stupid.”

  “You think he ran his plan past me?” He tsks. “We’re not bros. He only tells me what he wants me to know.”

  Lucas fusses in my arms, and I adjust my hold while I change from swaying to a light bounce.

  “The only thing I care about, the only thing I want, is for Finn, Lucas, and me to end up together.” My face is tight with suppressed emotion. “I’m close to having that. So close. But there’s this knot in my stomach that won’t ease.”

  “Eric thinks he’s got you on the ropes.”

  Lucas quiets, and I sway again. “I used to watch Finn fight when we were younger. Want to guess my favorite part?”

  Jay’s lips quirk up. “No idea.”

  “How unpredictable he was. If you go to enough fights, you find patterns in fighters. They favor certain combinations or skills. Not Finn. And he always won. No one could figure him out.” A piece of my hair comes loose from my ponytail and falls into my face. “That’s what scares me. We’re on the cusp of a knockout, and someone is going down. Who’s going to hit the mat first?”

  ~ * ~

  Every time the front door opened, or a car door slammed, I couldn’t help peering out the window, staring at the entrance with raw longing. Eric only kept his distance until he realized Finn wasn’t anywhere in the house. A few times, Jay redirected a conversation or stepped in the path of Eric’s straying hands.

  In a moment of weakness, I texted Finn. That was hours ago. While the message has been delivered, it hasn’t been read. When I glance up from checking my phone again, my father is frowning. Eric is outside talking to a security guy about a video game they play in their free time. Occasionally, their voices drift through an open window. It’s almost midnight.

  When I stand up, tired from waiting, I tuck my phone into the back pocket of my jeans. “I’m going to bed.”

  My father rises and so does Jay.

  “I’m flying out in the morning,” Dad says. “It seems like Finn’s come to his senses and gave you and Eric time to work on being a family. I can see how hard this transition has been for you today. But give—”

  “He’s coming back.” I stare at him, wondering how he could get it so wrong. “Eric and I will never be a family. We’ll raise Lucas as co-parents, but otherwise we won’t have a relationship. I’m not leaving Finn. He’s not leaving me.”

  “That’s a mistake. Eric will never—”

  “He doesn’t control me. Neither do you.” As I head toward the kitchen and the stairs at the rear of the house, Jay keeps pace beside me. “You can leave if you want. I couldn’t care less,” I call over my shoulder.

  Not completely true. Even though he isn’t exactly protective, he blocks Eric’s snider comments. Eric can switch facets of his personality to suit his audience, and he never showed my father the sides of himself I saw. In some ways, I can’t blame him for thinking Eric is better than he is—after all, Eric fooled me too for a while. Once the veil fell from my eyes, he could never get me to replace it the way he wanted.

  When we get to my bedroom door, which is the first one at the top of the stairs, I turn to Jay and say, “You’re off the hook. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  He chuckles. “Off the hook? I’ll be here outside your door until the sun rises or Finn comes home.”

  A protest mounts in my throat, but then I remember how Eric behaved last night, his lewd comments today before Jay could intervene. The smart choice is having a form of protection. He’s always charmed me in the past, and now it isn’t working. There is a chance he’ll resort to force.

  I swallow my words and nod. “Okay. I’ll get you a pillow and a blanket in case you get tired.”

  “That’s okay. I’m under strict orders to stay awake.” Jay waves me off. “I’ll be fine. Not the first all-nighter I’ve pulled.”

  “Thank you.” I turn the handle to my bedroom door.

  “That’s why you pay me the big bucks.” His grin is fleeting. “Lock the door.” His gaze connects with mine before I close the door. “Make sure you’ve got your gun somewhere you can reach it.”

  I frown. “Is there something I should know?”

  “Desperate, arrogant men don’t make smart choices. If I go take a piss and come back to find Eric’s knocked down the door, I want to be sure you can shoot him.”

  “Finn told you what happened last night?” I press my hand into the frame, remembering the spark of panic when he tried to push the issue.

  “None of us wants a repeat.” Jay adjusts the gun in the holster under his arm.

  It makes me wonder if the gun was supposed to serve as a visual warning to Eric today. Normally he keeps his gun concealed.

  “I don’t think—”

  “Has any of this been something you would have thought possible?” Jay’s tone is kind even though his words slice through me.

  “None of it.” I shake my head. “If you’d told me six months ago I’d be with Finn, that Eric would deliver a secret baby to me, that my father would have a hand in the deception, I would have thought you were out of your mind.” I sigh and prop open the door so I’m framed in the doorway. “Why do the best things and worst things seem to happen together?”

  Jay mirrors my sigh. “Finn will return with answers or solutions, no matter what he has to do to get them.”

  “I know,” I say. “That’s what I’m afraid of.” Longing has been my constant companion today. “If you hear from him, tell him I miss him.”

  Jay’s lips purse together. “I’ll be out here talking to my wife. This shit you two are going through right now makes me miss her more than normal.”

  “Tell Sofia I said hi.” I shut the door and lean against it. My phone buzzes in my pocket, and my chest fills with hope. My mother’s name appears on the display. With a sigh, I send it to voicemail. I can’t deal with her drama on top of everything else. I flip the lock into place on the door as I hear the soft murmurs of Jay sweet-talking his wife. When we leave Russia, he should be with his family for a while or prioritize moving his family to wherever we’re relocating.

  My phone is almost dead, so I plug it into the charger over by the window and move around the room, getting ready for bed. It’s impossible to keep my mind distracted enough to avoid thoughts of Finn. If we don’t make it out of this together, I’m not sure how I’ll survive. Having him gone today has been a slow form of torture, and I’ve realized Lucas won’t be enough. I need them both.

  Sliding under the sheets, I pull up the covers and stare at the ceiling. My meditation classes are going to come in handy tonight. I’m starting my breathing and visualization pattern when a chorus of loud, aggressive voices drift in the window.

  “Carys,” Jay shouts through the door. “I’m heading downstairs to see what’s going on. Lock yourself in the bathroom until you hear from me.”

  Heart racing, I throw back the bedding. “Okay!” I yell in response. Grabbing my gun from the bedside table, I’m halfway to the en suite bathroom when I remember Lucas. He can’t be left unprotected. I grab my robe off the bathroom door and shrug it on, pushing my gun into a pocket.

  As I rush to the door, a few loud pops echo. Outside or inside?r />
  Lucas.

  Unsnapping the lock, I peek out the door and draw my gun from my pocket. Gunfire somewhere. Keeping my side against the hallway wall, I point the gun toward the stairway as I make my way to Lucas’s room.

  An agonized scream streaks through the house, and my hand shakes. Whatever is happening, the noise sounded inhuman. More popping erupts.

  The door to Lucas’s room is ajar. My fingers squeeze my gun to keep it steady, and I use my free hand to open the door more. Heavy footsteps pound up the stairs behind me, and I whirl with the gun raised.

  “Carys.” Jay is out of breath, his white shirt stained with blood. “Don’t shoot.” He raises his hands, his gun high in the air. “We gotta get the fuck out of here. It’s chaos down there. I don’t understand what the hell is going on, but if I survive this and you don’t, I might as well be dead.”

  “Are you hurt?”The gunfire and shouting drift up the stairs, through the windows, surrounding us, but distant enough my heart isn’t booming out of my chest.

  “No, no. Not me. We gotta move.” He strides past me and my gun raised toward him. “We’ll grab Lucas—”

  “Wait.” More pops sound below. Lowering my gun, I slip through the door behind him. “How are we going to—” My voice trails off when my gaze lands on the crib.

  There, in the middle of the room, gun trained on us, is my father, Lucas cradled in his arms. “I need you to trust me,” he says. “I can save us, but you have to trust me.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Finn

  The kid who has been driving me around Russia for the last several hours is greener than a hill in Ireland after excessive rains. There were a few times when I worried he’d piss his pants at some of the hotshots I met. People don’t mess around in Russian politics without consequences. Thanks to Hagen, I got facetime with important senior officials. Even if Hagen was a total dick on the phone, he gave me decent leads. Two favors to him is bad business, but I’ll deal with that when he tries to cash them.

  “Hey, kid.” I lean forward from the backseat to yell over the music he thinks keeps him calm.

  We’ve spent the day together, and I haven’t bothered to ask his name. There’s no spark of promise in him. The desire for this life is the money, not the danger, not the violence. He’s nothing like me.

  He turns the dial on the stereo, and his gaze catches mine in the rearview mirror.

  “We’re headed to the house. You got no reason to shit your pants, so keep the music low, will ya?” I ease into my seat. “Your incoherent racket is giving me a headache.”

  “Sorry, boss.” His English is heavily accented.

  I thought we brought our security from Switzerland, but Jay must have picked up a couple of Russian kids at the airport when I demanded more muscle. He came in handy a few times when those Russian asshats tried to talk behind my back.

  My lips quirk up with the hint of a smile. All day he’s been calling me boss. Technically I’m not the one signing his cheques, but it’s so good to be in charge. To be leading the charge.

  Out the window, the scenery around Volgograd races by us, eaten up by the car, by the darkness in the middle of the night. I hoped to return earlier, instead it’s almost three in the morning. Jay better be camped out at Carys’s door, or he’ll experience my wrath whether or not Carys likes it.

  “Uh, boss?” The kid says, as the car slows.

  I meet his gaze in the mirror.

  “The house is dark, sir.”

  “And that’s weird because...?”

  “The house has security lights. They aren’t on.”

  Shaking myself out of my thoughts, I try to remember what the property was like a few days ago when we drove up. He’s right. There were a few guards at the entrance, and the place was lit up around the perimeter. There’s not a single light. If the kid hadn’t told me we were nearing the house, I wouldn’t have a clue.

  “Park here. We’ll enter on foot. Your gun loaded?”

  His hand shakes when he picks up his weapon from the passenger seat.

  Christ. He’s going to be no fucking good to me. “Don’t shut the car door when we get out. We’ll leave them open, so the slam doesn’t tip anyone off. Stay behind me. Avoid making any noise.”

  “When do I shoot, boss?” His voice wavers.

  “Not until I do and not when you’re behind my fucking head. You got me? You don’t fire on anyone first.”

  Once I’m out of the car, I try to forget he’s following. There’s no way he’s going to be worth anything to me in the next few minutes. It doesn’t take long for us to come across our first body. One of the original security guys Eric and Charles had with them lies with his face in the grass. We keep moving forward, body after body.

  The kid whimpers behind me.

  When we get to the front door, thrown open, my heart is in my throat. So far no one is alive. If Carys is injured or worse, I’ll hunt the people who did this, pound a stake into the ground, nail them to it, and light them on fire.

  Back from the entrance, I turn to the kid. “Keep your gun in your hand. Search the perimeter. You find anyone alive, you come to the front door and wait for me. You don’t shoot anyone unless I give you the order.”

  I will him to meet my gaze, but he doesn’t. He’s is in shock, but he’s not getting an ounce of sympathy from me. This is the life we live, the sooner he knows this path is not for him, the more likely he is to remain alive.

  “O—O—O—kay.”

  Carys would find his sudden stutter endearing, but it pisses me off. He’s my only backup, and he’s fucking useless.

  Checking my gun one last time, I consider using my phone as a flashlight. Everything is pitch black. At least I’m dressed in dark colors, too. Harder to see. Harder to shoot. Instead of taking out my phone, I slip into the house.

  There are two or three men dead in the main living room. None of them are guys I recognize. Doesn’t mean much since I barely knew the security detail we hired. I left that up to Jay. Leaning down, I touch the neck of the nearest man. He’s warm. Relief and fury surge through me in equal measures. If Carys is here somewhere, hurt, she could be saved. I’ll give up the rest of my nine lives to save hers. My chest and throat are so tight I can hardly breathe. Wherever she is, I will find her.

  My gun up, I sweep every hiding place on the main floor. I explore the kitchen at the rear. When I start up the stairs, a figure is sprawled on the landing. My heart kicks in my chest. A woman’s outline. Taking them two at a time, careful to avoid the creaks I discovered earlier, my breath leaves me in a whoosh. Galina.

  I don’t stop to check for a pulse but continue toward Carys’s room. Her door is ajar, and I keep my gun raised in front of me as I open it with my fingers. It’s empty. I examine the whole room and en suite as quickly as I can. Her purse is on a chair, and her phone is charging by the window. Both are like bright, neon signs telling me wherever she is now, she was in danger earlier—might still be in danger. She wouldn’t leave those items behind by choice.

  Without giving myself time to consider where she might be, who might have taken her, I go through the rest of the rooms on the second floor. They’re empty. No Lucas. No Jay. No Carys. No more bodies.

  Just outside her room, I peer at Galina’s dead body sprawled near the top of the stairs. Where are you, Carys?

  Basement.

  Whoever was on the property seems to have cleared out, so I don’t bother to keep quiet as I take the stairs. I clutch my gun as I make my way to the middle of the house and the narrow stairway just off the living room that leads to the basement. In no time I’ve searched everywhere and come up empty-handed. At the bottom of the stairs, I examine the layout of the basement again. I’m missing something, but I can’t put my finger on what’s making my senses tingle. Pinning down the feeling is a waste of time.

  What if they tried to run? What if they’re outside somewhere? So many bodies.

  My stomach has never been weak, but it r
olls once at the thought of her scared, alone. From an early age, I learned to control my emotions, to quiet my natural sense of unease when I’m on the hunt. But right now, knowing she is most likely in danger, anxiousness is a vise around my heart, squeezing it so tight I’m not sure it’ll recover. Her name is a drumbeat against my soul. Finding her is my central focus.

  When I get to the front door, I lead with my gun.

  “Boss,” the kid hisses when I step out.

  At the sound of his voice, my shoulders relax. “What’d you find?”

  “I got a guy, alive. Barely, but alive.”

  “Take me to him.” I motion for him to lead the way. “Any female bodies?”

  “Ms. Van de Berg isn’t out here, boss.”

  Thank fuck for that.

  “Jay?”

  “Didn’t come across him either.”

  Maybe they got away. But seeing the carnage here, their escape seems so unlikely. Did whoever came take them to hold as ransom or as a bargaining chip for a bigger game?

  “The house is clear?” The kid asks as his head shifts around, his hand still shaking.

  “Yeah.” I follow him to a tall figure lying face up on the ground.

  “He’s coming in and out. Kept asking for Ms. Van de Berg when I could get him to look at me.”

  The body sends a wave of satisfaction over me. Eric’s face is swollen so much he’s almost unrecognizable. His clothes are torn, and in places blood is oozing out of him. Whoever was here, they spent time to work him over. I would have paid good money to watch that.

  Demid? That’s the only person who makes sense. But it also means Lucas was probably a target, and by extension, Carys. If she is hurt, there is nowhere in the world Demid will be able to hide from me. I’ll hunt him and flay him open.

  “Did he say who did this?”

  “No.” The kid shakes his head. “Just keeps saying, ‘Carys’ over and over.”