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“It’s the truth,” Sylvia said. “You didn’t hear the things Alicia was saying. Crazy things.”
“Like what?” Walt asked, always the more peaceful of her brothers. Oscar and Langston had shorter fuses, always racing to the rescue, while Walt approached most everything in life with patience and logic.
However, before she could reply, the electronic lock beeped and the front door opened.
All five men stood up, the tension in the room thick enough to cut with a knife. Oscar and Langston armed themselves with steak knives from a hutch in the corner, while Hugo and Walt moved to flank her, clearly ready to shield her with their bodies if necessary. Lancelot pulled his gun, and she marveled that she hadn’t even known he had it on him.
Lancelot took charge, heading toward the front of the house. “Walt, Hugo, take Sylvia out the back door.”
Footsteps sounded in the hallway. There wasn’t time for any of them to escape, and Sylvia wasn’t prepared to simply run, leaving behind the five men she cared for most in the world to defend her.
It was more than one person. She could hear that from the sound of the footsteps.
Hugo hauled her behind the breakfast bar counter, his hand on her head, urging her to crouch. Walt joined them, a grim look on his face. Her brother wasn’t a coward. He’d flown through medical school, had his choice of top residencies, electing to go to Stroger Hospital in Chicago, where the ER regularly received the casualties of gang and gun violence. He’d gone where he could do the most good and finished his residency with a passion for battlefield medicine—he’d told her there were parts of Chicago that were without a doubt a battlefield—and a drive to change the way emergency surgery was performed.
After his residency, he’d enlisted in the Army, entering as a U.S. Army Captain, and immediately deploying to a war zone. He’d served for three years, and came back even quieter than he’d been before, but determined to save lives by developing new techniques and tech that could be used in both ER and battlefield settings.
He’d told her once that when the bullets were flying, he always took cover. Not because he was a coward. Not because he wanted to protect himself. Because his battle came later. He would fight for the lives of the wounded and dying, but he couldn’t do that if he was one of them.
She couldn’t see what the others were doing. She could barely breathe she was so scared—not for herself, but for her brothers, and for Lancelot.
Sylvia was surprised to hear a woman’s voice—not Alicia’s—coming from the dining room.
“Well, you’ve broken every condition I gave you. And in record time. Where is the other one?”
Hugo cursed quietly next to her, slowly coming to his feet. She looked up at him questioningly, then exchanged a confused glance with Walt. If Hugo was standing up, that probably meant he wasn’t expecting to get shot.
“Who is it?” she whispered.
“And you have all four of the Hayden siblings, I presume?” The woman had a Yankee accent.
“I can explain,” Lancelot said slowly.
Somehow that scared Sylvia more than anything. Lancelot didn’t explain himself. He didn’t defer to anyone. But for this woman, whoever she was, he sounded almost reverent.
“I can’t wait to hear this,” a new voice said. A man. Another Yankee accent. How many people had entered?
“If you want us to go easy on you, that pass to the catacombs would certainly help your case.”
This man, a different one, had a Hispanic accent, but he sounded almost cheerful, whereas the other two sounded calm but mean.
“Where is Sylvia and—” There was a long pause. “I’m going to guess you two are Langston and Oscar, so where’s Walt?”
How the hell did this woman know them? Know them well enough to tell the triplets apart? Something Hugo and Lancelot hadn’t even managed to do.
Walt squeezed her left hand. “Stay down.” Then he rose to his feet.
Sylvia was now the only one cowering, and she hated that. She hated that more than she hated the fear still rolling through her.
“You can come out, ma cherie,” Hugo urged. “You aren’t the one in danger this time.”
“What does that mean?” she asked as she rose from behind the counter.
Three people stood in the doorway to the kitchen area. A blonde woman stood slightly in front of two men. She was elegant and polished in a way Sylvia could never be, even if she tried. Her hair was a shiny gold, each strand in place. She wore a tailored navy-blue knee-length dress. Her shoes looked expensive. Sylvia didn’t know a lot about designer shoes, but she would have bet good money those had someone’s name stitched into the soles.
On either side of her were bookends of handsome. Two dark-haired, attractive men. While their physical features were similar, the same couldn’t be said of their attitudes. The man on the woman’s right was brooding, angry, while the man on the left seemed completely at ease, at home even.
When Sylvia looked at him, he smiled and waved. Sylvia blinked, then waved back.
