“Yessir,” Michael said.
“Exchange?”Molly and Lucius asked, and Leon waved them off.
“More running, less talking,” he gasped.“Molly, Michael, you go get the SUV and wait on my order.”
“Where am I going?”Lucius asked, and to his credit, he sounded like a runner in his natural stride.
“We’re going to the upper parking lot to try to keep Danny and Felix from getting killed,” he said, and because he was more a fan of free weights than running, he had to save his breath for the sprint.
LIAM HATEDthe smell of blood, he really did, and the smell of blood mixed with dank metal was right there with rotting garbage fermenting in piss as his least favorite odors.
He was sweating and breathless, and the hand and wrist holding his baton ached as though he’d broken his own bones, and his dagger hand and the blade itself were dripping with blood.
“Chuck, are you through yet?”Hunter asked, and he sounded breathless himself, both of them staring through the white-painted pipes and mystery fixtures of the engine room, now dripping red, to see if there were any more men with weapons running down to stop them from scuttling the ship.
“Almost there,” Chuck sang, and the man at Liam’s feet groaned.
Liam kicked him in the ribs, and he coughed and sputtered and fell silent.Liam scanned the surrounding hatches—there were several, one from their level, one from each of the upper levels—looking to see if there were any more henchmen.
“Think they know the cargo is cleared yet?”Hunter asked.
“I don’t know,” Liam said.He’d told them about Kadjic abducting Grace—and Josh climbing in the trunk—as they’d run.“I think Kadjic has his hands full.”He gave Hunter an apologetic smile.“I gather Grace was being… uhm….”
“Grace,” Hunter said, one side of his mouth pulling up.This man had no illusions about the man he’d fallen in love with.
At that moment there was a voice in his ear.“Liam?”
“Gotcha, Stirling.”
“How long?”
“Got it!”Chuck called.“We’re out of here!”
“Two minutes,” Liam said, hauling ass after Chuck as he led them, as agreed upon, up the stairs to the hatch that led to the main upper deck.
“Exfil?”
“Off the boat, aft.”
“You’ll hit the water.It’s deep enough.If you flatten out, you should be fine, but be careful of the boat’s props.You’ll get your earwig wet, so don’t expect it to work.When you surface, the van will be in the lower parking lot.Lucius has the keys.I’ve got the equipment set up to track us.You can follow, and if Chuck drives, you’ll catch up.I gotta go!”
“Go?”Liam muttered.“Go where?”
At that moment, Chuck swore.“You guys ready for another bout?I’ll block, you kick ’em out of play!”
And with that, he swung his massive fist into the jaw of the first bad guy with a gun coming down the stairs.The guy fell sideways, and Hunter threw him over the rail while Liam got ready to handle the next one.
“How long?”Hunter called, sounding worried as three more men appeared in the hatch.
“Two minutes!”Chuck screamed at them.“She’s gonna blow in two minutes!”
Liam knew barely enough Russian to translate, and suddenly they didn’t have to hit any bad guys anymore.
But they did have to yell at them to run faster.
“DANNY, NO,”Felix hissed, his heart as cold as it had ever been.Of course they had to get Grace and Josh back—there was no question about that.But dear God.Had he ever thought he’d have to make a choice between his lover and their son?
You did.You both did.Over two decades ago when you decided to give him and his mother a good home, the one none of you had grown up in.You both made a choice to choose them first.It’s why he left, you moron.Because it was better for all four of you.
