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I crouched there in the snow and waited until I was sure that no one else was going to try to bum-rush the house. Then I pulled out my cell phone and dialed Finn's number. This time, this fucking time, he finally picked up.
"Where the hell are you, Gin?" Finn growled in my ear.
"Me? You're the one who hasn't been answering the phone," I snapped right back. "What have you been doing? Is Bria okay? How long have the bounty hunters been camped outside of the house?"
Finn let out a tense breath. "Bria's fine. She's right here with me. The bounty hunters have been outside for almost an hour now. As to why I wasn't answering my phone before, Bria and I were, ah, engaged in something else. "
I let out a soft curse. I should have known. Finn could never be in the same room with a beautiful woman without trying to seduce her, especially someone like Bria, whom he had some genuine feelings for. I'd always thought that Finn's womanizing ways would get him into trouble one day. I just hadn't realized that it would be this much trouble-and that Bria and I would be caught in the middle of it.
"You mean that the two of you were busy screwing around instead of waiting for my phone call like you were supposed to," I snarled. "What the hell were you thinking, Finn? You know better than that. Fletcher taught you better than that. "
I could almost hear him wince through the phone. "I know, Gin. Believe me, I know. The two of us were arguing, I don't even remember about what, but I was texting, and Bria grabbed my phone and threw it across the room. After that, one thing just led to another, and we ended up in one of the downstairs bedrooms. . . "
His voice trailed off in shame, but he didn't have to tell me the rest. I knew what had happened. Finn and Bria had finally given in to their simmering attraction, and the rest of the world had just fallen away-including my mission to kill Mab.
Finn cleared his throat. "Anyway, neither one of us heard your calls. We were right, ah, in the middle of things, when I hear someone roar up the driveway. Then another car, then another car, followed by a series of gunshots. By that point, we're out of bed, looking out the windows, and realizing that we're in deep trouble. The bastards just kept coming, and they surrounded the house before we could slip out the back. Some of them took out each other, but we didn't know how many more of them might show up, so Bria and I got out our guns and settled in to wait for you. "
I wanted to scream at Finn for being so sloppy, for being more interested in seducing my sister than keeping her safe. But it took two to tango, and Bria was just as much to blame as he was. They'd both known what was going down tonight, and they'd given in to their emotions instead of staying sharp like they should have.
I could-and would-yell at them later. The most important thing right now was getting Finn and Bria out of the house and away from the bounty hunters.
"All right," I said, my tone a little calmer. "All right. I'm here now, and I'm not leaving without the two of you. We can discuss everything else later. "
"Agreed," Finn said, the relief apparent in his voice. "What do you want us to do, Gin?"
I stared out at the assortment of bounty hunters before me. "You made a good choice staying in the house. There's no way you can break through the ring of them. They've got the whole front of the house surrounded, and there's too much ice and snow on the rocks to try to get out the back and rappel down the cliffs. You'll have to use the old tunnel. "
Finn knew as well as I did that there was a secret passage in Fletcher's office that led from the house into an underground tunnel. The tunnel snaked under the yard before opening up about a half mile away in the woods-well out of the tight ring of bounty hunters that circled around the house like pioneers on a wagon train heading west.
"I thought of that," Finn said. "But Bria spotted some flashlights in the woods, and I didn't want to risk stepping out of the tunnel and right into a couple of bounty hunters' line of fire. "
He'd made the right decision. Fletcher had designed his house to be almost impregnable, and there was enough food, water, and ammo stored inside to last for weeks. But there was also strength in numbers, which the bounty hunters had, and Finn couldn't shoot them all, not if they decided to attack all at once. He and Bria needed to get out of the house as soon as possible.
"All right," I said. "I'll make sure that the tunnel is clear and take care of any stragglers in the woods, then come in and get you. You keep them busy thinking that they've got a couple of shooters still inside. I want them focused on the house as long as possible and not thinking about our escape route. Got it?"
"Got it. "
"Good. And answer your fucking phone next time. "
"Yes, ma'am," Finn said, actually sounding chastised for once in his life.
I hung up and stuffed the phone back into my jacket pocket. Then I slipped away from my perch at the edge of the woods. I headed deeper into the gloom, skirting around to the west of the house, although I kept the bounty hunters in sight through the screen of trees. If a group of them made a move toward the house, I'd come out of the woods and cut my way through them until I got to Finn and Bria. But the bounty hunters weren't that brave-or stupid. They stayed close to their cars, muttering to each other about how best to get inside the house without getting dead. I took advantage of their inattention, moving quickly and quietly, slipping from tree to tree, shadow to shadow, all the while heading toward the secret tunnel.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
More gunshots rang out, along with something that sounded like rusted metal creaking, although the noise was mostly drowned out by the whine of the bullets. I'd almost reached the entrance when I heard voices-loud voices with a distinctive southern twang. Knives still in my hands, I paused behind a tree and peered around the ice-crusted trunk.
Ahead of me, two women and a man stood in the middle of the woods-right in front of the opening of the tunnel.
Somehow, they'd found it in the snow. They'd even been bright enough to pull back the metal hatch to reveal the dark hole leading down into the ground, which was no doubt the creaking sound that I'd heard. Fuck. I'd wanted to do this quick, clean, and quiet, and get Finn and Bria out of the house before the bounty hunters even realized that they were gone. Probably not going to happen now. Oh, it didn't bother me, the thought of killing the three people in front of me, but it meant more precious seconds wasted, more precious time when Finn and Bria were in danger of being overrun by the other bounty hunters.
"What do you think it is, Liza?" one of the women asked, shining a flashlight into the dark space.
"What do you think it is, Celia? Because it looks like some kind of tunnel to me, genius," Liza sniped.
"See?" The guy grinned. "I told you that an assassin like the Spider was sure to have some sort of escape hatch from that ugly-ass house of hers. "
"Yeah, Connor," the first woman, Celia, chimed in again. "But we don't even know that the Spider's in the house. According to that info bulletin that went out, the last time anyone saw her, she was still at the country club. "
