by Layne, Ivy
“Tsepov has the house surrounded. Adam and Alice don't know. They're fine. But we need to get him the account numbers.” I didn't mention the bombs. Lily didn't need that much truth. Not yet.
She swayed against me, pupils so wide her eyes were almost black. Sucking in a breath, she pressed her forehead to my chest, body trembling, the struggle to control her panic taking every ounce of her attention.
“Lily—”
“I'm okay.”
“We need to go,” I urged.
“Wait. Just give me a minute.”
We didn't have a minute. I gave her another few seconds anyway. Her breathing evened out. She straightened and pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes, then wiped beneath with her fingertips, erasing any signs of tears.
Voice tight and barely a whisper she said, “You can't give him the numbers, right? Because there's no money in the accounts. And not enough time to put it there.”
“Right,” I confirmed.
“What if we could give him something else?”
“We can try,” I started, “ask him how much he wants. I'll give him everything I have if it will get Adam back.”
Between the money Trey left with Lily and my own savings, we had assets. None of them were worth shit if we lost Adam.
Lily shook her head. Reaching out, she took my hand and tugged me back across the hall, ignoring LeAnne's curious gaze. I wanted to tell her we didn't have time to waste, that we had to deal with LeAnne and get moving, but I couldn't bear to shut her down after delivering such devastating news.
Lily pulled me past LeAnne to the far end of the living room, coming to a stop in front of a garish brass curio cabinet.
“What if we give him that?”
Holy fucking shit. The snuff box. Why would Trey have given it to LeAnne Gates?
“Get it,” I said.
Lily opened the curio cabinet. LeAnne twisted in her seat. When she saw what Lily was doing, she surged to her feet, vodka sloshing from the crystal glass in her hand.
“What the hell do you think you're doing? Get your hands off my stuff.”
“I believe this is mine,” Lily said, her voice coated in ice.
This was a Lily I'd never seen before. She wasn't shy or tentative. This was a woman who would do anything to save her son. LeAnne Gates no longer scared her. Nothing scared her but Adam coming to harm.
“That's not yours,” Leanne insisted, striding across the room, vodka spilling over her fingers. She reached to snatch the snuff box from Lily's hands. I closed my fingers around her wrist and yanked her back.
“Interesting,” I said, holding her away from Lily, “because we have a bill of sale that says it belonged to Trey. And Trey left it to Lily. Do you have a bill of sale?”
Lavender fire burned in Leanne's eyes. “I don't have a fucking bill of sale. Trey gave it to me. It's mine.”
Lily held onto the snuff box with both hands, her spine poker straight. Her usually warm eyes were frigid as she stared down LeAnne.
“I'm taking the box. I'll give you a hundred thousand dollars for the contract. Or, we walk out of here and you get nothing. Decide.”
Leanne looked from me to Lily, her lower lip quivering. Was she about to cry? I didn't give a fuck.
Dropping the pathetic act the moment she saw no one cared, LeAnne ground her teeth together and said, “Two hundred thousand.”
Lily took my arm, the box tucked against her chest. “Let's go.”
We turned for the door.
“Wait!”
We stopped, Lily looking over her shoulder. “We don't have time for this,” she said.
“One hundred thousand. I'll take it. I'll get the contract.”
Lily released my arm. Leaving her by the door, I said, “Stay here.”
“I'm coming with you,” I said to LeAnne, dogging her heels as she led me to a home office on the second floor. It looked unused except for the file cabinet built into the desk, stuffed full of papers.
Rifling through, she muttered, “I know you don't have the cash on you. Don't even think about stiffing me, or—”
“I'm the least of your worries right now,” I told her, honestly. “Andrei Tsepov is on a rampage. What do you think he'd do to you if he found you with that box?”
Her face went white.
“You'll get the money. I'll be in touch. Unless you can't find the contract.”
She tore a folder from the drawer and shoved it at me. I scanned the few pages, seeing all I needed. Trey and a woman's name I didn't recognize listed as the parties to the contract. In the section assigning parental rights: Trey Spencer and Lily Spencer.
“Why did Trey give you the box?”
“He owed me,” she shot back, her chin raised in defiance.
Lie. I'd bet anything he asked her to hold it for him, spreading out his assets, just in case.
She turned her head to the side with a jerk and lit another cigarette. I closed the folder with the contract and walked away, leaving LeAnne behind.
“Wait, what about my money?” she called down the stairs.
“We'll be in touch,” I said over my shoulder.
She might get her money. She might not. At that moment I could not possibly have cared less.
I had to get my boy back.
Chapter Forty-One
Knox
Can you drive?”
I expected Lily to balk, but she took the keys from my hand and switched directions, moving to the driver's side of our rental.
“Would you set the GPS in the car?”
I punched in the address to the private airfield where the plane was waiting and let her take over. I had calls to make before we were in the air.
A minute into the drive and I knew Lily had this under control. She drove smoothly, as fast as she could but not fast enough to get us pulled over. We didn't have time to waste on a ticket.
Before anything else, I called the pilot. I wanted the plane ready to take off when we got there.
The next call was a lot harder.
Cooper.
It was too dangerous to leave him out of the loop. Too much could go wrong before we got to Atlanta. If it were anyone else but Alice I wouldn't think twice.
All of us had experience in crisis situations, first in the military and then years of working with clients in touchy situations. Cooper wasn't in charge because he was the oldest. He was in charge because he never faltered, never lost focus, never let emotion rule.
Cooper was a fucking machine. Except this was Alice. And where Alice was concerned, all bets were off.
I didn't have a choice. I glanced at Lily, her eyes on the road, knuckles tight on the steering wheel. I loved the Lily I knew. Her shyness, her occasional uncertainty, was a part of her, and I loved that part as much as everything else.
This woman sitting beside me—this woman who would do anything to save her son—she wasn't the woman I wanted every day, but I loved Lily more knowing she had this resolve inside herself for Adam. For someone who was hers.
She was making good time, the traffic lights changing in our favor, one after the other. I could practically hear the clock ticking in my head. Less than two hours.
I tried Alice again. Straight to voicemail. Fuck.
Braced for the explosion to come, my finger hovered over Cooper's name on the screen of my phone. I made a split-second decision and hit the name below his.
“Hey, man, on your way home? Things go well?”
“Evers, we have a problem. You in the office?”
“Yeah.”
“You alone?”
“Yeah,” he said more slowly. “What happened? Are you okay?”
“Lily and I are fine. Alice and Adam are not. Tsepov has the house surrounded. I'm on my way and I'll need backup.”
A long silence. H
is voice precise, calculating, Evers said, “Cooper's going to flip his shit. I'm assuming Tsepov said to come alone?”
There was only a hint of irony in his words. I heard the thump as he pushed back from his desk, the sound of voices as he moved down the hall.
“Yeah. Don't send anybody or he'll shoot, yada, yada.”
“He wants the account numbers,” Evers said.
“Yeah.”
“Fucking hell. We're fucked—”
“No,” I cut him off, “we're not. I don't have time to explain, but I have something to trade. We'll hit the airport in a minute. I need to talk to Cooper, but not until you're in his office so he doesn't do anything—”
“Stupid, got it. Get on it. I'm here.”
Evers disconnected. Before I called Cooper, I texted to Evers,
Charges planted around the house. Didn’t want L to hear.
Then, I called Cooper.
“What the fuck?” my brother answered. “You guys okay?”
“We’re fine.” I didn’t have time to ease him into it. “Tsepov has Alice and Adam.” I heard Evers in the background, quietly filling him in on the explosives and Tsepov’s demands.
Complete and utter silence from Cooper.
I braced, waiting for him to swear, to yell, to throw the phone. Anything. There was fucking nothing.
I pulled the phone away from my ear to check the screen in case I’d disconnected. The time counter on the call ticked-up, second by second.
00:21
00:22
00:23
00:24
Nothing from Cooper.
Just when I was about to hang up and call Evers, a harsh breath sliced through the speaker like a blade. Cooper’s voice was guttural, the sounds barely words.
“I’m going to slit his fucking throat.”
I tried to decide if coldly enraged Cooper was better than a Cooper who was swearing and throwing things.
Better for Alice.
Better for Adam.
Not so good for Tsepov.
That was fine. As long as Adam and Alice were okay, I didn't give a shit what happened to Tsepov. Agent Holley might since he was trying to build a case, but we'd deal with the FBI later.
“When I get my fucking hands on him—”
“Coop,” I barked into the phone. “We have an hour and forty-five minutes before I have to be there. Before we need to make the trade. I don't have time for you to get your shit together. I need you now. Alice needs you now.”
Another grating breath, the hiss of Cooper sucking in air. Once. And again. I could practically see him closing his eyes, using his steady breathing to calm his nerves the way he'd learned years ago.
Good. This was good. I waited, the clock in my head ticking down as I followed the map on the screen of the rental. I had another few minutes before we were on the plane. Once we took off and rose above the cell towers, I'd lose the connection. I couldn't afford to lose contact until we had a plan.
“How much cash can you get your hands on?” I asked. “I got something from Gates we can use instead of the money in the accounts but adding cash to the deal won't hurt. Just in case he doesn't recognize it.”
“What? What did you get from Gates?” Cooper ground out.
“The Imperial Faberge snuff box,” I said.
A beat of silence and then, “What the fuck? How did she have it?”
“Long story. Not important. I have the box. It's probably enough on its own, but—”
“I'll get the cash. We need to end this shit.”
“We're almost at the airport,” I said. “I tried calling Alice. Twice. I can't get through. I'm almost positive he's got the signals blocked. We need to let her know. There's a safe room in the basement—”
Lily shot a hopeful glance in my direction before her eyes went back to the road and she swung the car into the airport.
“Alice knows where it is,” I went on. “She knows the code, knows how to get into the safe with my weapons. If we can tell her what's going on—”
“What do you have in the house? If there's no cell signal, and he cut the cable so there's no Internet, no phone, what else do you have?”
I'd been racking my brain for the answer to that question since I realized Tsepov had blocked the cellular signals.
“Not much,” I admitted. “There's the wireless network inside the house. It's probably live even if he's cut the Internet.”
“Your alarm has a separate cellular signal, doesn't it? Wired in away from the house?”
All the alarms we installed had an independent cellular line, so they could alert emergency services if the power or phone lines were down. Even if someone was using a device to block a cellular signal. The alarm was hard-wired to a mini cell tower hidden in the woods. Tsepov's men wouldn't know to look for it, and it was far enough away from the house that whatever he was using to block the signal wouldn't affect it.
“It's our standard system,” I said, “so, yeah, it has a cellular line, but it's not connected to the wireless network in the house.”
“But that gives us a live signal going into the house,” Cooper said. “We can't trigger the alarm without risking Tsepov's men panicking and blowing the house. You don't have a speaker system on the alarm, do you?”
“Fucking no. It was just me and I—”
I never thought I'd need one. Never imagined this scenario. For clients? Sure. But for me?
We always tell people the most important thing your system protects is the people inside the house. I'd always been on my own, and I could protect myself just fine. My system, what I had of it, was the best. I'd left off most of the bells and whistles, never thinking I'd need them.
Lilly brought the car to a halt as close to the plane as she could. We were out the second it rolled to a stop, racing for the open door of the plane.
“Boarding now. I'll lose you once we're up. Stay with me.”
“Gotcha. Evers is working on the cash. He's getting Lucas so we can figure out if there's a way to patch the signal going to the alarm into the network in the house.”
I buckled in, Lily beside me, and took her hand in my free one. Closing my eyes, I tilted my head back, trying to picture every square inch of my house, to put the pieces together in a shape we could use.
So much shit connected to the Internet. Fucking everything, from the smart speakers to the refrigerator. The goddamn coffee maker had an app so I could start a pot from my fucking phone, and the printer—
I sat up with a jerk. The fucking printer.
I didn't have a home office per se. I lived five minutes from work. If I needed a desk, I went to the office. Every once in a while, I worked from home, spreading out any paperwork on the big farmhouse table in the kitchen.
We tried to stick with electronic files versus hardcopy for anything sensitive, but some of the admin shit we printed out old school.
While I hadn't succumbed to the trend for a home office, I did have a printer in the utility room by the kitchen. A multifunction copy/scan/fax/printer device, its connection to the phone line would be useless, but it was on the wireless network.
“The printer,” I said. “In the utility room. It's not that loud, but it's fucking stocked with paper. Alice will hear it. If Lucas can get can patch the alarm to the network, maybe—”
In the background, I heard Lucas grumble, “It's fucking designed so it doesn't connect with the fucking network.”
The plane lurched forward as its wheels left the ground. Cooper pulled his phone from his face, his voice distant as if from the other end of a long hallway. “I don't give a fuck. Make it connect.”
Doing the same with my own phone I called to the cockpit, “How long till we land?”
“Forty-five minutes,” came the answer.
“We'll be there in for
ty-five minutes.”
The plane gained altitude, cutting through the blue sky into the clouds. Any second, we'd leave the reach of cell towers and the phone would cut off. No Wi-Fi on the Sinclair Security plane, which meant no cellular calls. I'd always liked that before.
The private plane was a hefty expense, one we'd decided was worthwhile. Adding Wi-Fi? That ran a cool quarter-million, and for a number of reasons, we'd decided to skip it.
Cursing myself as a cheap bastard, I told Coop, “Anything happens, call the sat phone. I'm about to lose you. I'll call the second we land.”
Cooper disconnected before the call dropped. From beside me, Lily said, “You have a safe room?”
“In the basement. It's basic, but it's bombproof and bulletproof.”
“Do you think Lucas can hack into the network? Will Alice hear the printer?”
More than anything I wished I knew the answers to those questions. “I hope so. I fucking hope so.”
Lily fell silent. I'd always loved that we didn't need to talk, but never like I did then. Every nerve in my body was strung tight. I didn't think I could have handled words, handled having to reassure and calm. I could barely keep myself together.
My grip on Lily's hand was too tight. Her fingers dug into mine. She was my lifeline, and I was hers. We held on with everything we had as each excruciatingly slow second ticked by.
Lucas was the best. He would figure it out. Evers would get the money. Cooper would somehow keep himself from burning the world to the ground to get to Alice. The plane would land, we'd give Tsepov his fucking box and his money. We'd end this once and for all. With everyone safe.
I had to believe that. I had to believe I was going to hear Adam's infectious giggle again. I had to believe he would be all right because there was no alternative.
Not for Lily and not for me. I wanted my family—Lily and Adam and me. Together.
Without Adam, it would all fall apart. Lily would fall apart. And I would go right with her.
This was not my fault. I knew that. This train wreck had been set in motion by my father, by Lily's husband, long before we'd met.
It was not my fault.
And yet Adam was trapped in my house under my watch, his fate balanced in the hands of a man who so far had proven to be a fucking moron. A dangerous fucking moron.