LIAM
Ican’t believe we’re finally here.
After so many stops, so many twists and turns, we have the address of Alexandre Sartre’s apartment. The place where he’s almost certainly keeping Ana. And tonight, in just a few hours, I’m going to be the one to save her from him.
“You shouldn’t go in alone,” Levin says as I check my gun and then check it again, standing against one wall with his arms crossed. “It’s dangerous. You need backup.”
“For one man? We’ve already determined he doesn’t have security. He lives alone—or at least, he did before he bought Ana. It’s an apartment, not a compound. Three of us bursting in, even two, will be too much chaos. I’ll go in on my own, deal with him, extricate her, and the two of you should be waiting with the car, so we can make a quick getaway. We get to the hangar, get on the plane, and it’s straight back to Boston.”
“Very tidy,” Max says with a frown.
“Too tidy.” Levin shakes his head. “It’s not going to go off so simply, and you know that as well as Max and I do. Any man who has ever done a mission involving someone else’s blood knows that, and all three of us have.”
“I’m going in alone,” I repeat stubbornly. “I don’t want chaos, and I don’t want her to be frightened or any chance of her getting hit in the crossfire. Just have the car running outside, so we can get away quickly. I’ll handle Alexandre Sartre.”
I can see from Levin’s expression that he doesn’t agree, but he stays silent. I’m not sure why exactly, when he’s taken point for so much of this, but I expect that it’s because, in the end, this is my mission. My goal is to save Ana, and he’s not going to get in the way of that, if this is how I want to play it. Maybe he’s remembering that long-ago day when he went in guns blazing to avenge his dead wife. Maybe he simply has grown used to being the second-in-command rather than the one in charge, but for whatever reason, he merely shrugs and double-checks his own weapons.
“The car will be waiting for you,” he says simply, and that’s the end of that. Max is armed too, and he watches me with quiet, dark eyes, silent as he’s been for much of the time since we left Greece.
But as I step past him, striding towards the door as the clock hits seven, he rests his hand on my shoulder, his voice low and somber.
“The grace of St. Patrick of the Isles be with you,” he says quietly. “And keep you safe as you go after her.” He makes the sign of the cross, quick and sharp. I’m reminded of Father Donahue in the church after Saoirse and her father left, watching me with an intense gaze that says he’s afraid for me, if I keep going down this path.
But we’ve come too far now. There’s no going back. Ana is here, in this city, and I won’t leave until I take her back home with me.
* * *
It’s nothard to find the apartment. What is surprising is that I see a few people going up the stairs to it, men who look to be in their late twenties or early thirties, well-dressed, and a couple of prettily dressed, very French women. It makes it so much easier than even I had expected, though. I simply slip out of the car, tailing the last couple. Before they can shut the door behind themselves as I follow them up, I slip inside, closing the door myself as my hand goes to my gun.
Alexandre’s guests—since that’s what they must be—stop and stare at me in horror as I draw my gun, gesturing down the hallway. “Show me where he is,” I say coldly, glaring at them. “Alexandre Sartre. Take me to him.”
Most people aren’t equipped to fight back when faced with a gun. I don’t know exactly what to expect, but the guests at least do exactly as I thought they would—they move gingerly down the hallway, leading me through an over-decorated living room and through an arched doorway into a dining room with a heavy, long table set for a dinner party—and Ana, sitting to the right of the chair at the head of it.
For a moment, I freeze in place. I don’t know what condition I had expected her to be in or where exactly I had thought she would be—chained in his basement, maybe? Locked in a room?—but it wasn’t this. I hadn’t expected to see her with her cheeks flushed, blonde hair flowing over her shoulders, dressed prettily in a lavender linen dress with expensive-looking earrings at her ears.
She looks—happy. Radiant, even. Glowing.
Until she catches sight of me, and her mouth drops open.
“Liam?”
Her voice is a breathless gasp, and I hear it as relief, happiness that I’m here. That I’ve come to save her. I see the man I must be looking for emerging from the kitchen, another beautiful if slightly severe-looking Frenchwoman at his side with a cigarette in her fingers, his brow furrowed with confusion as he catches sight of me standing in the middle of the dining room with a gun leveled at his guests.
“Anastasia?” His voice is confused. “Do you know this man?”
“I—” her voice trembles, but when she looks at him, I don’t see fear. I see hesitancy and uncertainty, but not the fear I’d expected. And now I’m confused, too.
I’d expected to find her traumatized, terrified, panicking, and in need of rescue, not presiding over a dinner party like a lady of the house. Alexandre dusting flour off of his hands. It’s all strangely domestic, and I have an odd feeling in my stomach, like I’ve walked into the middle of a rehearsal for a play that I wasn’t supposed to see.
“Anastasia.” There’s a sudden warning tone to his voice, and she pales slightly.
“I—yes,” she manages. “A little.”
“And what is he doing here?” The tone darkens, thickens, Alexandre’s accent growing deeper. His gaze turns to me. “Liam?”
“Liam McGregor,” I say stiffly, raising my chin. “I’m here for Ana.”
Her face goes bone-white in the instant that a red flush springs to his cheekbones. “Like hell you are,” he snarls, striding forward, and then everything happens at once.