“Let’s get down to things,” Jess said. “You don’t know who the shooter is, hiding out front? We need to take him out. You’re alone there, so if this thing goes sideways and we don’t get Stefan out, we need a plan B.”
Ryan was right in front of him now.
“We’ve been in worse situations,” Luke said. “In the meantime, see what you can find out about Stefan’s family, what they do. That will give us a heads-up on what we’re up against. I’m going to get the rest of my family taken care of.”
Then he hung up, taking in Ryan and seeing the Feds talking with Harold, headed right his way.
“Spill it, Luke,” Ryan said. “I don’t care about this being classified. What’s really going on?”
The Feds were moving closer.
“Look, this is what I do,” Luke said. “If the guy inside doesn’t get what he wants, he’s going to kill Mom and Eva. Marcus isn’t going to let it happen, but there’s little he can do to stop it. Right now, I need you to get Jenny, Alison, Suzanne, Karen, Jack, and Owen in one spot. Charlotte is at the station, so get them over there. Stay there. Don’t let anyone in. This is personal, and let’s just say that these are the kinds of people who will shoot to get what they want. They won’t hesitate to hurt anyone in our family. That’s all I can say.”
His brother’s face paled just as two Feds approached, one man, one woman, Harold with them.
“Sergeant First Class Luke O’Connell,” the man said, holding up his notebook as if reading his name from it.
“Yes, and you are?” Luke said. He wondered who’d given his name, the story they were to follow. Likely the colonel or Sienna, but maybe someone else.
“Special Agents Anderson and McLeod. We understand there’s a criminal inside and one hiding outside. We’ve been told this is a military operation, that we’re to provide backup, and deadly force is to be applied.”
He didn’t have to look Ryan’s way to see he was already in his pickup, driving away, his phone to his ear. At least he was doing what Luke couldn’t for the rest of the family. Harold was staring at him in a way that told him he’d figured out there was way more going on in this situation than he was saying.
“There’s one shooter hiding out front, yeah,” Luke said. “He has cover, and I need to take him out, but not until my family inside are safe. So until I give the word, no one does anything.” He gestured to Harold and rested his hand on his forearm. “I’m going back in, but I need you to make sure these guys don’t do anything. How are your shooting skills?” He hoped better than most.
“I hit what I aim for,” Harold said.
Luke gestured to the Feds. “You stay back here and man the scene. I’m going back in, and Harold is coming with me. He’ll find the guy out front, but don’t do anything until you hear from me, until I get the gun away from my family and get them out of the house to safety. Until then, no one is risking their life to do anything.”
Chapter Fourteen
“Ben, it’s Luke. I’m coming back inside. I’ve got the scene squared away out here. The Feds have arrived and everyone is cooling their heels,” he called out as he stepped in the back door.
He didn’t have to look back to know that both Harold and Agent McLeod were out there, staying out of sight. The agent had insisted on tagging along and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Luke stepped into the kitchen, and the floor squeaked. His hands were up as he walked into the living room, taking in the closed curtains, very aware of the Beretta pressing into his back, tucked under his belt. Marcus was sitting and holding Eva in his lap, but his mom was still on the floor, looking tired. The expression on her face was a mix of fear and anger.
He nodded to them, then to Ben, who was sitting in a chair behind his mom.
“Well, well, what’s the news, Luke? You don’t mind if I call you Luke, do you? Seems formality is rather a moot point here as I get to know your family. Maybe we should talk about how well you got to know my sister?” The way he said it sounded cruel, crude.
Luke didn’t want his family knowing. It was just the kind of thing one didn’t talk about in polite society. “I liked your sister, but that’s not why we’re here. My team has located your dad, and they’ll get him out. The Bolivia flight is going to be tricky—”
“Which is a task I’m sure you’re up to,” Ben finished for him, cutting him off, then shrugged, making a face. “Should be much easier finding a way out of this country than in a country at war, where you’re hunted by the foreign armies you’re fighting. You can virtually disappear here if you know how, which I know you do, so you’ll get him on a plane, private, with a secret identity. Time is ticking. We’re down to two hours, twenty-eight minutes, so your team had better hurry. Just so I know you’re not screwing me, this is how it’s going to work: You’ll get my dad on the phone so I know it’s him.”
Luke knew this man wasn’t ready to negotiate, not yet. “Seems you’re the one making all the demands here. You want your father out, I get it, but you holding my family this way, we need to make some changes. My team will have him, but I’m not so inclined to get him on a plane to Bolivia to disappear while you’re still here with a gun to my family. And what about your guy out front? Who is it?”
Ben rested his gun on his lap and tapped Iris’s shoulder. “You have to be getting stiff,” he said. “Can I get you a cushion?”
His mom hesitated, then swallowed. “Yes, that would be nice, thank you—and please let Eva go, and Marcus. You don’t need them. I already told you to shoot me if you’re going to, but leave her be. She’s just a child. Let her and her father go.”
Luke was surprised by how strong she sounded.
As his phoned dinged, Ben handed a cushion to his mom and then glanced back to him. “Well, check and see what they have. Come on, I’m sure you’re dying to look at that phone.” He turned to Iris, who settled the cushion under her butt on the floor. “No, I’m sorry, but the only concession I made was letting the little girl go to her father. No one’s leaving. I’m so sorry.”
The way he said it, Luke was convinced he’d apologize right after he pulled the trigger and put a bullet in one of them.
He stared at Jess’s message: Stefan has five children, all Americans. One’s a Marine, Ben. The chick you picked up owns a cybersecurity start-up. Joel is married, a Florida cop. Liam is a farmer, and Martin is a carpenter. Their mother is dead. They were raised by Stefan. He’s in Richmond, heavy security. Just hopping a plane now. Help’s coming to you.
“Well, read it off,” Ben said. “Come on, I’m sure they’ve done some digging on my family as well, right? Let’s see here. You probably already know I’m with the Marines, Sergeant Ben Schwartz, and yes, Rosemary is really good at what she does. She found you and your family.”
He nodded. “Yes, you know we found that out. We found your dad. Did you want to know where he’s being held? Just for the record, none of us agrees with how this went down and who’s being protected. Your dad was trying to do the right thing and got screwed. They’ll have your dad out, but you need to let my mom, Eva, and Marcus go. I’m here. I’m staying. You’ve got me, and when I say my team is on it, they’re on it.”
Ben stood up, gun still in hand. Luke was very aware of the locked front door. Marcus was perched on the arm of the easy chair, and he could see how tight he was holding Eva. Getting her out was first priority. Then Luke would let his brother kill him for allowing this kind of thing to touch his family.
As he stepped closer, in front of his brother, then another step, still holding his phone in his hand, his mom was too far away for him to reach. Ben was holding the gun right there.
“I see,” Ben said. “So what you’re looking for is for me to let everyone walk out, and then you put a bullet in me? I think not. Even though I’m a Marine and I’m good at what I do, I’m very aware you special forces guys are that much better. You’re trained killers, really—but then, aren’t we all?”
Luke glanced at his mom. “Ben, you e
ver play games with your family when you were kids?”
Ben shrugged, confusion on his face, not moving his gun. “Of course. All kids do, right? What is this? I need you to move back away from your brother.”
Luke gave everything to his mom, who was giving him everything back. “Remember, Mom, all the games you played with us as kids, you and me, like duck, duck, goose?”
He took in the expression on his mom’s face. She seemed to get what he was saying.
“What is this about kids’ games? I asked you to move,” Ben said.
Luke stayed where he was. There was another ding on his phone: On three.
He let his phone drop to the floor, grabbing his gun from behind him. “Duck!” he yelled, and his mom moved fast, down on the floor, as he fired one bullet dead center in Ben’s head.
Just then, the front door crashed open, and he watched as the man who’d threatened his family dropped to the ground, dead.
Chapter Fifteen
Things weren’t supposed to happen this way in his small hometown.
This was his home, a place so removed from his world, untouched and safe, that he came back there to try to forget the horrors of the outside. Now he couldn’t shake the fact that he had brought the horrors of what he did, the bad, the deceitful, the horrible, right to the doorstep of his family, who had never signed up for this.
A large dark hand gripped his shoulder. “You okay?” said Shaun, who was dressed in faded blue jeans and a white and black T-shirt, his pistol holstered by his side. He was carrying his long-range sniper rifle and wearing his ballcap turned backwards. He had about an inch on Luke.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Ask me next week after this sinks in.”
He took in the scene, standing outside his brother’s house by the lilac bush he knew Charlotte loved, next to the body of the second man, whom they’d just ID-ed. He was all in black, dark haired with a beard, a friend and fellow Marine of Ben’s, with a bullet in his head courtesy of Shaun.
There were flashing lights everywhere, and he needed another minute as the adrenaline pumped inside him. His hands were shaking, his legs. He was very aware of how badly this could have gone for his family, for him.
“So how did you know?” he said. “Jess couldn’t get a hold of you.”
He still couldn’t believe Shaun had come through the door after sending him that last text. It was something he and his team did, knowing each other’s moves and thoughts because of how hard they had trained, side by side, over and over, so much so that they were synchronized and had each other’s backs.
“Just had a feeling, you know, from the minute this op went down,” Shaun said. “There was something off about it. Then, getting home, I never shook that feeling that had me looking over my shoulder at every street corner. Then I saw someone following me. After I led him on an obstacle course and he lost me, I followed him and cornered him on a dead-end road, knocked him out, dumped him in my trunk, and took him home to my garage. It was Martin Schwartz, a carpenter who didn’t even know how to hold a gun, scared shitless. He told me everything. I didn’t have to push that hard. I had a day’s notice and drove all night. Saw Jess’s message, but as I drove, I knew the element of surprise was on my side if no one knew where I was, so I went dark.”
Something about Shaun seemed so steady. He knew his comrade didn’t miss how shaken he was, especially considering Luke never got rattled. There was something about the adrenaline from this kill, especially when his family had been in the line of fire, that had him on edge in a way he’d never been.
“They’ll be fine,” Shaun said, resting a hand on Luke’s shoulder again. “Just give them some time. They’re alive.”
Luke took in the Feds and a team of spooks, as well, cleaning up the scene. An ambulance that wasn’t local and two paramedics he’d never seen before wheeled in a gurney with a body bag to clean up the mess in the front yard, and he watched as they took out the body bag carrying Ben Schwartz. The media circus was being held back, but the cameras would be flashing. His mom was sitting in the back of an ambulance, and Marcus was there too, holding Eva. Luke didn’t think he would let her go.
Shaun’s phone rang, and he answered and stepped away. Luke was still having a hard time figuring out what to say as Harold strode over to him, leaving Agent McLeod to walk back out the front gate to his partner.
Harold ran his hand over his face as he took in the body and then Luke. “This is quite the shitshow,” he said. “You should go talk to your mom, to Marcus, check in with your family. Dare I ask who all these agency people are? CIA, FBI, and what other obscure agencies are they from?”
They both stepped away as the two paramedics moved in and picked up the body, then zipped him in the body bag. He turned away with Harold, taking in Shaun. Whomever he was talking to, he didn’t have a clue.
“How about you don’t ask, since I can’t say?” Luke said.
“So what kind of spin are they going to give this in the media?” Harold said. He was a smart man, so of course he knew the truth would never get out.
“Not sure, but it will be downplayed. A gas leak or a burglary gone wrong or something.”
Harold just nodded and ran his hand over his face again. He was a strong, solid cop, and Luke was glad his brother had him. He was good for his sister, too.
“You should check on Suzanne and the rest of the family,” Luke said.
Harold just nodded and then gestured with his chin over to where Marcus was talking to his mom, a paramedic, and one of the Feds, he thought. “You should, as well. Finish up here and go talk to your family. Have you thought of what you’re going to tell them? I don’t know how to explain this.”
Yeah, he’d be peppered with questions. Karen and Suzanne wouldn’t buy any of the front-page story that would come out. “I’ll figure something out,” he said, then rested his hand on Harold’s shoulder. Shaun had started back to him. “Give me a minute here.”
Harold must have understood, as he didn’t say anything else, just started walking, following the two agency guys posing as paramedics as they wheeled the body to a second ambulance. He nodded to Shaun and made his way out into the street where Marcus was.
Luke needed to get over there, but it was killing him inside to think of what that little girl had just endured yet again. Then there was his mom, whom he’d been giving the third degree just that morning.
“That was Jess,” Shaun said, looking around as if waiting for something or someone else to spring out from around the corner. It was just something they did. “Stefan is now in the wind.”
Luke wasn’t sure he’d heard him right. “What do you mean, in the wind?”
“You need me to spell it out? He’s on a small private plane to Bolivia. Rex, Matthew, and Jess secured Stefan, but at the same time, we can’t stand for anyone putting the gun to the heads of our families, your family. You know that. The siblings, Liam and Joel, they’re tracking each of them down. They’ll either walk away or have the same fate as Ben. Martin—who is still tied up in my garage, by the way—said Ben was the one who outlined the plan and masterminded this whole ‘Free Daddy’ thing. He organized them, but it was always about their dad. As for the woman, Rosemary, that one’s your call. As far as Jess said, she did her part and passed along the information from your phone.”
He pulled in another breath, considering, as he took in his family. “She’s in the wind?” he finally said. He shouldn’t have cared, but there was something about all of it that didn’t sit right. She’d betrayed him, just as he’d betrayed her father.
“Nope, right where she’s supposed to be,” Shaun said. Then he slapped his shoulder and stepped away. “You let me know if you want some help there.”
Luke just nodded, knowing he needed to figure out what to say to his family. “Thanks, but right now, she’s way down on my list of priorities,” he said. Then he started across the small front yard of his brother’s house, not knowing how they’d be able to spend a night
there. The cleanup would happen inside, but the memories would linger.
He dug into each step, taking in his mom, who had a paramedic taking her blood pressure, and Marcus, who was holding Eva. She hadn’t lifted her head from Marcus’s shoulder.
“Hey, how’s she doing?” Luke said. He stopped in front of Marcus just as Harold started walking away, over to his cruiser, parked along with the media circus.
“Scared, shaken…” Marcus started, and Luke didn’t know what to say to him, feeling ashamed and responsible for this entire nightmare.
“I’m sorry this happened,” he started.
Marcus didn’t nod, and for a second, Luke felt the anger his brother was entirely justified in feeling toward him. “You know what? Let’s not do this right now. I need to get Eva settled, and Mom, too. I’ll take them back to the house. We’ll talk later.”
The way his brother said it, Luke knew Marcus needed a minute to get past what had happened. He could feel the rift between them and the blame he couldn’t fault him for. He stepped away and over to his mom, who was spattered in the blood of the man who’d held a gun to her head. He took in her spooked eyes. Shock, fear, completely shaken.
He stopped in front of her and gestured to the paramedic he recognized, who used to work with Suzanne. He must have understood, as he stepped away, giving them some space.
“Are you okay?” It was the only thing he could think to ask. “I am so sorry, Mom, for all of this. I took quite the gamble in assuming you’d remember that game you and I used to play…”
She reached out and grabbed his forearm, her grip strong. The blanket around her slipped off her shoulders. “How could I forget? You boys would insist on dragging me into the dirt on the ground, drop and run. And none of this is your fault, Luke. You saved us. If it hadn’t been for you and Marcus showing up, I don’t want to think of what would’ve happened…”
He could hear the emotion in his mom’s voice that he knew she was doing her best to hold on to. Then she cleared her throat, and when she lifted her gaze to him, her blue eyes weren’t filled with the same teasing that was often there with her kids.
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