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“I will.” Henry looked drained.
“I’m going to take a few guards with me,” Malik told his dad.
A few against a dozen. But it would be better odds than he’d had before.
“Take as many as are here,” his dad said. “Jensen can bring reinforcements to the castle and Philippe can bring more men to Switzerland.”
“I’m coming,” T said.
“Me too.” Derek stepped up.
“Thank you.” Malik choked up. His brothers’ support was exactly what he needed.
“Dad, get ahold of Lieutenant General Cordon and stay with Henry and help him figure out everything with Jensen. Where are Kiera and Ellery?”
“They both went to stay with Curt and Aliya after the wedding party calmed down,” Derek said. “Aliya wanted to get to know Ellery and make up for her ‘snake in the grass’ comment.” Derek smiled despite how stressful that moment had been.
“Thank heavens.” That was a blessing. They didn’t have to worry about Kiera and Ellery. Curt would watch over them. “Get a message to Curt to hunker down and watch out for them.”
“Thank heavens?” T repeated.
“I’ve been praying,” Malik told him. “Miracle number one, you all survived. Pray with me for miracle number two. I’ve got to get to Sophie.”
“I guess Macey scheming for your beautiful ex-girlfriend to cater the wedding dinner was a good thing,” Derek teased.
“If William doesn’t kill her,” Malik said grimly.
That killed any teasing.
They all headed for the stairway. The next item of business was to make certain the guards with Chad told William the bomb had found its target, disarm them both, and get to Sophie.
Chapter Eleven
When Sunny was a newborn, time had seemed foggy and disjointed. Some hours, when Sophie couldn’t get her baby to calm down and sleep and she was exhausted and alone and missing Malik more than usual, time seemed to tick by slower than a funeral march.
The past couple hours had felt like that. Far too slow, and yet they were quickly running out of time.
She, Mason, and Levi had searched for and discussed options to get everyone safely off the balcony and to solid ground. Nothing seemed feasible. The best they had done so far was get Mason to the next balcony over. He had impressively climbed like a monkey above hundreds of meters of yawning death to reach the balcony. She had no clue how he’d accomplished the feat or what he’d clung to besides the jutting of the stone facade on the wall. There was no possible way she and Levi could follow him.
He had quietly tapped on the glass French doors until her dad had plowed out of them and tried to take Mason out. Sophie was able to calm him down before he hurt Mason any worse than those awful guards already had earlier tonight.
Sunny was still sleeping. That had been the only good news.
Her mum had ventured out onto the balcony, her face terrified and pale. Her dad had escorted her back into the room, asking her to stay close to Sunny. Her mum didn’t know that their death sentence had been signed, but that was probably for the best. No reason to have her panicked and terrified like Sophie was.
They each tried the doors leading into the hallway. Of course they were locked from the outside. They’d talked about trying to bust them down, but they still heard movement and men downstairs. Alerting William to their escape attempt would be a death sentence.
William and his men would have to vacate the house before Malik returned unless they wanted to go up in flames themselves. Levi felt their one chance was to bust through the doors after the men left and try to find an exit on the main level that wasn’t wired. What if William had wired all the doors? Could they get through a window?
They found heavy, solid decorations and set them by the bedroom doors in preparation to break through and then met back on the patios. Listening closely, they heard exterior doors opening and closing and men’s voices and footsteps moving away from the house in the still early morning air.
Levi nodded and pointed back into the rooms. He closed the patio door behind Sophie so the men couldn’t hear them from outside.
They ran to the bedroom door. Levi slammed several of the decorations against the handle, the door itself, and the wall next to the door. Nothing. He drove his shoulder into the door. It didn’t give. Of course it wouldn’t as interior doors opened into a room, so he was basically trying to bust through the wood. Regardless, he tried it again and again. The solid wood door didn’t budge. He kicked at the handle, and Sophie feared he had broken his leg.
“Captain?” Mason’s voice was on the other side of the door.
Yes!
