“Let her go or I’ll shoot you both and take my chances with whoever thinks he’s man enough to go against me.”
Jack Whelan grabs Charlotte’s arm and squeezes it. She yelps around the rag stuffed in her mouth, and my blood roars in my ears. I don’t hear anything but my own pulse. He jerks the gag down and she works her jaw as if it’s stiff, as if that gag has been holding her mouth open but useless for too long.
Whelan tugs the rope around her neck again before he removes it and tosses it on the ground. “Happy now?”
Collin Whelan reaches into his pocket and pulls out a paper to show his father. “Let her go, Da. I have the account numbers.” He even looks back at me as he walks closer, as if to say he’s outsmarted me.
It’s what we worked out with the added bonus of the surprise gun at his back. If his father thinks he’s gotten his way and the numbers to the accounts he demanded as part of our bargaining agreement, the chances he’ll let Charlotte live are better.
I hope Charlotte can adapt to what she’s seeing and understand the deceptions unfolding as she walks toward me.
It all happens fast.
The flash of the silver gun Collin Whelan pulls from his waistband at the small of his back.
The raise, aim, fire, as son shoots father.
The plume of blood that erupts from the old man’s chest.
Charlotte passes Collin just as the first shot rings out.
I don’t wait for her to take another step. Instead, I run to her and use my body to shield her, but before we can get to the cover of one of the vehicles, my leg collapses, useless, burning, and the pain is intense.
I can feel her trembling beneath me as we fall to the ground. I lift my head with the gun in front of me and shoot any Irishman I can see.
We’re too out in the open and the ricochets pinging off the concrete are as dangerous as the open fire of bullets whizzing past us. Collin is pulling back from his own men, huddling on my side of the lot as his father advances. But Jack Whelan’s body jerks, once, twice, even as the gunshots continue to ring out and ping off the concrete near us.
It isn’t my men shooting at Whelan. It’s his own. The Irishmen are following Collin’s lead. Some of them, at least.
And finally, the shooting stops, and the shouting begins—directions given in Russian. Orders to drop weapons and lie flat on the ground.
But before my men can round up the Irish loyal to Jack, a new round of gunfire starts and a few of the Irish stage a rebellion out of devotion to their dead boss.
I need to get Charlotte to safety, to cover, but I’m weaker by the second until I can’t even move a finger. The colors are starting to drain from the world.
Shots ping the ground, close enough that I can feel the chipped concrete sting my face, but I can’t even move to roll away from it.
Boom. Boom.
My heartbeat pounds like a tin drum. The noise of the gunfight is fading away from me, or maybe it’s me who’s fading away from it.
I’m dimly aware of Charlotte’s voice, her whimper, the caress of her hand on my face.
It’s so cold all of a sudden. I’m shivering. No, I’m burning up. Back and forth as my body short-circuits.
The bullet must have struck an artery.
I might die here. On the concrete like a dog.
Charlotte is yelling desperately for my men to come help. But they know not to leave their posts until the danger is past and the men on the ground have rounded up the enemy. I was the one who gave them those orders. My men are trained to complete their objective no matter what the circumstance. I’ve trained them well.
I black out for a moment. I wake up again seconds later to feel myself sliding along the ground, the concrete scraping through my clothes as I’m pulled away from the gunfire, with Charlotte fighting for control of me. She’s tugging one arm as Collin pulls the other. She has no weapon and no idea that Collin Whelan is a friend. And right now, I can’t tell her.
There’s so much chaos and she’s still in the line of fire. I can’t stand and pull her behind me. I can’t even stop her screaming at Collin.
Instead, I jerk away from her with the last of my strength. She falls beside me. I mumble through lips that are weak and numb, “Come on, Charlotte. He’s with us.”
I don’t have time to explain I’ve worked out a truce with Collin Whelan to take his father out of the equation.
Her hands are still bound, but she moves in tandem with Collin as he drags me out of the line of fire. When he crouches beside me, checking my injury, she watches, her chest heaving, her eyes darting back and forth between me and the Irishman.
As she tries to work out what’s happening, blood pools under my thigh and I’m fading faster now. The world has shrunk to a tiny pinpoint, like I’m on the far end of a tunnel. I want to explain, but shadows darken the edges of my sight, and because there are things I need her to know in case I don’t make it, I pull Charlotte down next to me.
“Sweet Charlotte. I’m so sorry I believed you could betray me.”
Every word is broken by a breath that wreaks havoc on my battered body.
I want to see her face, want to know if there is forgiveness in her eyes, if she’s rightfully blaming me for whatever she’s endured since her abduction or if there’s a chance I can win her back, not just for me, but for Tiana.
“Charlotte, tell my daughter I love her. And I love you. Please forgive me for all of it.”
“I already
