Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 86629 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 433(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86629 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 433(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
I don’t know what to do. There are men below and if I try to stand, they’ll have an angle on me. But if I don’t start running, they’ll come up and we’re dead anyway.
But Rowan’s behind us, and I can’t carry Mom on my own.
Oh, God.
I brush a hand over my belly. Fear fills me like a weight. I can’t die here—I can’t let my baby die here—
I also can’t let Rowan and Mom get hurt.
“Please, don’t shoot!” I call out. “Please, we’re not a threat!” I can’t think of anything else.
“Stay where you are,” a man calls back. “We’re coming up. If you move, we’ll kill you.”
“Okay, we’re not moving. Please don’t hurt us! There’s an old woman here and a young girl.”
“Don’t move,” he repeats. I hear him on the steps. Climbing, getting closer.
I raise my chin in time to see Cathal striding toward me, a massive shotgun clutched between his hands. My jaw drops as he comes around the corner from his wing, notches the gun on his shoulder, and blasts it down the stairs.
I catch a glimpse of a man’s chest breaking open, blood and ribs blistering the air. Cathal fires again, and again, the booms deafening. “Run!” he roars, shooting down at the attackers below.
I scramble back and grab Rowan. She’s sobbing but she reacts when I touch her. She gets to her feet, crying and stumbling, nearly tripping over Colm’s corpse, but she makes it past Cathal and back into her wing. I hurry to Mom, take her arm, and start to drag her.
“Hurry, damn you!” Cathal shoots again but the next trigger-pull is a click. I scream, pulling as hard as I can, back aching and legs burning. Mom hardly reacts, a goofy smile on her face, drool at the corner of her mouth.
Cathal throws the shotgun down the steps and grabs Mom’s other arm. Together, we get her around the corner. He kneels down, hefts Mom, and lifts her to his chest like a baby.
“Run, Angie!” He ushers me forward urgently. “Go! Hurry!”
We sprint to the end of the hall and through another set of doors. This room is similar to the master I share with Connor. He leads me to the closet and I’m shocked to find the whole back wall is open, a room lined with steel beyond it. Danielle is holding a sobbing Rowan in the back corner, stroking her hair.
“Inside.” Cathal grunts and places Mom down on the floor beside a rack filled with food and several pallets of bottled water. He groans, knuckling his spine. “Angie, hurry. We need to close the doors.”
I look back over my shoulder. “Connor’s not here.”
“He’ll be fine. If anyone can handle this, it’s my son.”
“But, what if he doesn’t know—“
“He’ll know.” Cathal gently steers me. “Please, Angie. He’d be angry if I let something bad happen to his pregnant wife. My fool daughter already disobeyed me once.”
I catch my lip between my teeth, so afraid, so deeply, deeply afraid of going into that room, worried I might never see my husband again. What if we come back out and the world’s changed? What if we never come back out at all?
But there’s nothing I can do. Cathal drags me into the safe room, punches a code into an electronic pad, and the doors bang shut with a deep clang as a lock engages, and we’re alone.
Connor
I take point with Marcus behind. He sweeps our flanks while I keep my eyes locked ahead.
We don’t meet any resistance. Only a single body in the bushes. One of the house guards, his throat cut as if someone snuck up on him.
But how the hell did that happen? If they blew a fucking hole in the fence?
I’m disturbed but don’t have time to interrogate it. There’s still sporadic shooting coming from the house, but it’s slowing down, which isn’t a good sign. Either Colm and the defenders won or the Gallaghers are cleaning the place up. I fix my hold on my gun as we crest the hill and crouch in the brush fifty yards from the front doors.
Two trucks are parked out front. I count six men total lurking around. I don’t recognize any of them and I realize with a cold hate that they must be Gallaghers. I hold Marcus back a moment, plotting our move, thinking we’ll enter the mansion through the side and use the tight hallways to our advantage, find what’s left of the defense, and rally a counter attack to save my family—
When a man steps from the lead truck.
He’s wearing a fine black suit. His hair’s slicked back and he flips off a pair of sunglasses, tucking them neatly into his chest pocket. He taps at a phone as if he were at a business meeting. The others around him watch reverently.