“You must go back, Elizabeth. It’s better than the alternative,” Violet said as she met Edeen’s gaze. Both girls knew as well as he did, Lady Elizabeth’s future looked bleak.
Simon addressed the girls. “Listen to me. I am going to lead the way. We must be quick and quiet, and you must listen to every word of my instructions. It is imperative for our safety. Is that understood?” Anxious, frightened faces of various shapes and coloring looked up to him, and then to Edeen.
“He’s a good man,” Edeen assured every one of them. “One of the few men I would trust with my life.”
Simon wasn’t sure if he should be honoured by her words or offended by the way the girls hadn’t trusted him prior to Edeen giving him her approval.
Edeen and Robbi lined the girls up two by two, and they made their way to the stairwell where he turned and held his finger to his lips in one last signal to be silent. They slowly made their way to the bottom of the stairs, their bare feet noiselessly marching as if they were a trained regiment. Midway, he turned to ensure each girl was hale enough to make the two blocks to the hackney. Their expressions were as somber as if he wereleading them to the gallows, not freedom. How he would get them to safety, he had no idea. He just had to get them out.
Nodding to Robbi and Edeen in the rear, he returned his focus forward. Simon reached the bottom of the stairs and began gathering the girls into a group. A loud crack of wood resounded through the first floor as the heavy door they’d entered through slammed open. A man dressed in all black with light brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard stormed into the warehouse with a pistol drawn. A momentary silence encompassed the room.
The bound guard reacted first. He swept Payne’s feet out from underneath him with a swipe of his leg and knocked Payne to the floor. The newcomer was there instantly, pressing his pistol to Payne’s head as the spy regained his footing.
“Anyone moves, and I’ll blow his head off.”
“Untie me, mate, and we’ll ‘andle them with no problem t’all,” the guard’s eyes shimmered with the anticipation of violence.
“I don’t know who you take me for, but I’m not your mate,” the newcomer sneered.
Simon shifted backward, silently moving the girls behind the steps, until the man yelled, “Freeze right there, or I’ll blow his head off.”
Simon blocked the girls from view. “You’ve already said that. If your threat had bothered me the first time, do you think I would be moving now?”
Payne’s eyes narrowed. Except he wasn’t watching Simon. His gaze was fixed to the side where the wisp of a shadow slinked along the wall.
The man pulled back the hammer on his pistol.
“Fuuuck!” Simon yelled at the ceiling, desperate to cover Robbi’s stupid ploy.
The girls behind him gasped.
“Fine. Don’t shoot my brother,” he said, tinging his tone with defeat. “He may be a clod, but my mother would have my head if I sacrificed him.”
A gleam of satisfaction lit the man’s eyes, and Simon knew he had to keep him talking. “Look, we’re just trying to get a piece of the pie. What say you join the two of us and we split the profits three ways.”
A muscle in the man’s jaw ticked as he readjusted his aim.
“Well done, Astley.” Edeen whispered behind him. “Let me try.” Edeen said as she walked past him. Simon grabbed for her arm, but she scooted to the side and let out a giggle as if it were all a game. The little girl in her arms hid her face further into the crook of Edeen’s neck. Edeen’s hips swayed as she provocatively closed the distanced between her and the man with the gun.
Taking the bait, the man moved toward her while pushing Payne in front of him, the cocked pistol to his head.
The guard’s eyes rounded as he gazed in Robbi’s direction. “Hey!” he yelled.
The man kicked the tied-up guard in the head as they passed him. “Shut your gob,” the man sneered, knocking the guard down with a curse before his unknown ally could warn him about Robbi. The guard stayed down, limp and unconscious. Then the man only had eyes for Edeen.
Payne tracked the shadow to his right, where Robbi was progressing along the wall.
“Girls,” Simon said under his breath. “When I say run, you run behind the staircase screaming as loud as you can. But stay together.”
Robbi separated from the shadows, pistol drawn, now behind the man with Payne.
“One,” Simon whispered.
Edeen’s voice, low and sultry, in a tone that caught him off guard the first time he’d met her, dripped with sexual innuendo as she spoke. “I think we can come to some sort of arrangement.”
The man grinned and stepped closer.
“Two,” Simon whispered over his shoulder. “Three, run!” Simon shouted.
