Another three pour inside, all aiming at Lachlan.Jules takes two more down, misses the third but Lachlan kicks the flashlight away, uses the confusion to crawl forward, grab an automatic weapon and unleash a spray of metal death down the bottleneck, doesn’t needaimwhen there’s seventeen bullets firing per second.
The narrow entrance fills with fallen bodies.
‘Closet!’he grits out, bleeding heavily now.Jules, of course, ignores him, flattens himself against the wall and peers around it like he must have seen people do in the movies.He’s still holding the gun.‘Julian,get your ass—’
Jules aims around the wall and fires three more shots, then ducks back into his corner before the return fire can get near him.Lachlan is grudgingly impressed despite being mad.He has three new weapons now, can take out most of whoever tries to come in but he knows it’s moments before they switch up tactics and throw in gas.
No window in here, but maybe he could—
A new burst of gunfire from outside draws his attention.
Jules looks that way too.
Lachlan waits.
Then,incredibly, he hears Roman’s voice.‘Lock?’he calls out.
‘Yeah,’ Lachlan answers weakly, ohGod,he’s dizzy and it’s so not the fucking time.‘Y-you OK, kid?’
‘I brought backup,’ Roman yells and then Lachlan hears Carrigan’s voice right before he passes the fuck out.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Six guests.Twenty-seven of Lachlan’s people.Forty intruders.
The incinerator in the basement has a lot to get through.
Although the guests won’t end up there, everyone else will.
Lachlan wakes in a medical suite.
Carrigan brings him the reports personally, walks him through the details of the attack even though much of it confirms what he already knew.The operation was coordinated from inside the Estate by one of the guests.Lachlan knew that the moment the East Wing was surrounded.
Once she confirmed Mimi, Blaire, Jules and the other children were alive and safe, Lachlan asks if the traitor is still alive.Carrigan informs him that the woman was killed by a stray bullet during the chaos.
None of the six guests killed were Alistair’s inner circle.
Jules’ statement of events is brief, but it makes Lachlan sound like a hero.His gaze catches on the word Jules used to describe how he shot and killed the intruders in that small room.
I fired a cascade of bullets.
If there was ever a sentence that so well captures Jules’ essence, it’s this.Fire and water, that’s him.Lachlan smiles faintly at the word choice, a brief moment of happiness before reality settles back in.
‘Where are the kids?’
‘Confined to the Cove for now.’
‘Smart.’
‘You’re a fucking idiot, you know that?You almost died.’
‘It was definitely the Front?’
‘Confirmed.They wanted the kids.’
He frowns.‘Kids?As in not just Jules?’
‘As in all of them.Mimi, Jules, Savannah, Sorrenko’s two.’
