“Yes. They’ll both be waiting for you, and my daughter Lucia too.”
“Right.”
“You have to promise me you won’t hurt them though, Daddy. They’re my family and I love them too.”
“Of course, sweetheart,” he says softly in that deep, soothing politicians voice that reminds me of my teenage years.
“You promise? Because I would die if anything happened to them,” I ask again. I need him to know what I’m potentially giving up for him here.
“Promise,” he assures me.
“Okay. I have to go before Alejandro notices that I’m gone. Bye, Daddy.”
“Bye, sweetheart.”
I slip the phone back into my pocket. I know that was the right thing to do, but I still feel like I’m about to throw up.
I suck in a lungful of cool night air, push myself up and make my way back to the house.
Chapter34
Lucia
Foster Carmichael’s lake house is actually kind of beautiful. At least the huge, open plan living area is anyway. My mom told me that her own mom decorated the place and I guess that’s where she got her good taste from.
I’ve never met either of my grandparents, but I’ve often wondered what they were like. My mom never, ever talks about them, but I guess I’m about to meet dear old Grandpa.
Jax and my father said that they’d be waiting for him at eight p.m. and it’s five to, so it shouldn’t be too much longer. The clock on the mantelpiece ticks softly and it’s the only sound that can be heard, apart from the soft breathing of the people sitting either side of me.
It’s the whooshing sound that I hear first, followed by the shattering of whatever glass object the bullet hit. I wince instinctively, even though I’m not in that room. I’m nowhere near it.
I’m sitting in an office with my mom and our friends, Jessie and Shane Ryan, in New York. Together, the four of us watch via a camera as the whole room is torn apart by bullets. Anyone in there would be incredibly lucky to have made it out alive.
I glance at my mom and see her wipe a tear from her cheek. She reaches for my hand and squeezes it tightly. I guess she thought maybe her father might have had a shred of decency left. He just proved that he doesn’t.
When the shooting stops, there’s the sound of boots stomping through the house.
“It’s clear,” a figure dressed in back shouts as he comes into view. Then at least half a dozen more come into view, holding automatic rifles as they move through the room.
The sound of feet running up stairs. “There’s no-one here.”
“It’s a trap.”
“It’s time,” Shane says and I press the designated key on the laptop. There’s a deafening explosion and the splintering of wood before the camera cuts off.
“Are you both okay?” Jessie asks.
“Yup,” I nod.
Although it feels kind of strange thinking about what happened in that room. All of those men believed that I was in there, along with my husband and father. If we had been my son would be an orphan. That kind of takes the breath from my lungs. But that was never the plan.
“I told him you would be in there. You and your father,” my mom says with a shake of her head.
“I know, Mom.”
“I mean, I was prepared to do this anyway after what he did to you and poor Bethany, but now…” she sucks in a breath and suddenly I feel sorry for Foster Carmichael. Alana Montoya doesn’t get pissed very often, but when she does — well, even Satan himself would move out of her way.
“How about I get Mikey to make you both one of his famous soothing hot chocolates while you wait for Alejandro and Jax,” Jessie says, pushing herself to her feet and taking her husband’s hand.