And then an explosion rocked them. Isobel dove for the space on the floor between the toilet and the bath, holding Jack’s hand and keeping Sophie pressed tightly to her. Sophie woke and started crying. Another explosion. Shouting. Another explosion, smaller this time.
And then the gunfire started.
They came through in three areas. A blast took out a section of the ceiling above the kitchen area, another the ceiling in one of the bedrooms and a third came from the tunnel. Callum was positioned behind the kitchen counter and fired up into the hole above him. Shots came back, but it was hard to tell if he hit anything.
He heard Dimitri rushing into the bedroom, and more shots were fired.
“We’re going to die,” Ryan said as he crouched beside Callum and fired at the tunnel. “And we’re running out of ammo.”
They heard a grunt from the bedroom, and a man came flying out into the living area, followed by Dimitri. He launched himself at the militia guy, taking him out with a kick to the head. He grabbed the guy’s ammunition belt, tossed his gun to Callum and strode back into the bedroom. A few seconds later, there was another explosion.
Ryan fired into the hole that had been blown through the tunnel barricade. “Building that barricade was a waste of bloody time.”
Dimitri came running back in and headed straight for the kitchen. “Cover me.”
Callum aimed into the hole above the kitchen and fired rapidly. Dimitri ran to a spot under it and lobbed a grenade through the hole.
The explosion brought down more of the ceiling. There was a scream. A gunshot. Silence.
“They’re killing their wounded,” Ryan said.
At the other end of the room, the rubble shifted and the muzzle of an automatic weapon poked through the debris blocking the tunnel entrance.
“Take cover!” Callum ordered.
The men dove for the floor as bullets sprayed the room.
They heard a thud, and someone landed on the floor beside Ryan. Ryan was on his feet in a second, knocking the gun away from the militia guy and kneeing him in the stomach. Ryan shoved him back into the living area and followed.
“Dimitri, the automatic,” Callum called.
“On it.”
Callum aimed for the hole in the ceiling and pulled the trigger as soon as he saw something. There was a grunt, and a man fell into the basement, landing in front of Callum. He was dead. Callum helped himself to his gun. Ammo wasn’t going to be a problem after all.
Ryan was fighting hard with the other militia man.
“Get it done,” Callum said.
Dimitri had snuck up beside the hole into the tunnel. The automatic weapon poked through again.
“Down!” Dimitri shouted as he lunged at the gun, shoving the muzzle upwards so that it sprayed the ceiling. His other hand thrust his gun into the space the automatic had poked through, and fired several shots. He yanked the automatic from the dead man’s grip, turned it and fired into the tunnel.
Ryan took the guy he was fighting to the ground, yanked his knife from his belt and twisted it into the man’s side.
“What took you so long?” Callum asked.
“Dickhead was hard to kill.” Ryan got to his feet, taking the dead man’s weapon with him.
There was a thud, and Callum turned in time to see a grenade land about a foot from him.
“Fire in the hole!”
He threw himself over the kitchen counter just as the blast went off.
Two more men dropped through the hole in the ceiling following the blast. Callum rolled to his back and shot at them. Another blast rocked the house above them. A militia guy ran into the living area from the bedroom. He aimed at Dimitri. Ryan was on him instantly, taking the man down. Gunfire rang out in the house above them. There was shouting. Running.
Dimitri covered the tunnel while Ryan covered the hole in the bedroom ceiling. Callum got into a better position to fire at anything he saw through the gap that used to be the floor of his kitchen upstairs.
More gunfire. This time farther away.
“I think our boys are here,” Ryan said.
There was a noise from above.
“Don’t shoot,” someone called. “This is the Strathclyde armed response unit. Put down your guns.”
Callum wasn’t taking any chances. “This is Callum McKay of Benson Security. I’d rather you show yourself first, and then I’ll put down my gun.”
“Callum,” someone he recognised called. “It’s clear up here.” Lake Benson peered through the gap in the ceiling. “Casualties?”
“One. Jack Sinclair. Sixteen years old. Stab wound to the abdomen.”
Lake stood back and spoke to someone else. Ryan and Dimitri came into the room, guns in hand. Dimitri held out a hand to help Callum to his feet. His right leg didn’t work properly and the knee wouldn’t bend.
“That’s seventy thousand pounds down the drain,” Callum said.
“Seriously,” Ryan said, “you don’t have insurance?”
“I don’t think gunfire is covered.”
Lake’s face appeared again. “Get the door unblocked. The stairs are still functional. We have an ambulance on its way, ten minutes out. We’ll get the boy to Campbeltown hospital.”
Ryan and Dimitri started clearing rubbish from the door as Callum limped to the bathroom.
“Megan, don’t shoot,” Callum shouted. “It’s safe to come out. Do you hear me?”
“About time,” Megan shouted back.
He leaned against the wall, listening to the women clear the door. It flew open with a bang, and Isobel rushed out to him. She launched herself at him, and he caught her. Elle followed with Sophie, who watched everything with wide, red-rimmed eyes. Callum wrapped his arms around Isobel. She pressed her face to him and sobbed.
“It’s okay. It’s over.” He stroked her hair and held out an arm for Sophie. His heart turned over when she held her arms out and leaned towards him. He gathered her to him. “It’s okay,” he told them. “I’ve got you now.”
Ryan opened the steel-plated door, and Lake walked in. As usual, the Englishman looked like he’d been to the country club instead of in a gunfight.
“About time you got here,” Callum said.
Lake’s mouth twitched into his approximation of a smile. “We managed to hitch a copter ride from Glasgow, otherwise you’d still be waiting for your rescue.”
“Rescue.” Callum scoffed. “We were handling it.”
“Yeah,” Ryan said. “We didn’t need no rescue.”
Lake’s lip twitched again as he signalled to two members of his team, whom Callum hadn’t met, and they rushed into the bathroom. “We’ll get the boy upstairs. The ambulance should be here any minute.”
Isobel pulled back from him and made to rush into the bathroom after Lake’s men. Callum held her in place. “Let them get him out. We’ll go with them.”
“Be careful going up the stairs,” Lake said. “You’re missing some of the steps. And your house is rubble.”
“Figures.” Callum didn’t care. He was holding the woman he loved, and that was all that mattered.
“Does this mean you’re coming back to Benson Security?” Lake said as the men carried Jack past him on the closet door.
“Arsehole, you never let me go.”
Lake gave him a real smile and followed Jack up the stairs. Callum looked down at Isobel, whose worried eyes were on her son.
“He’s safe.”
“I know. He’s safe now.” She turned to him. “But only because of you.”
“Don’t forget the rest of us,” Ryan grumbled.
“All of you,” Isobel said with a hiccup.
“You need help getting up the stairs?” Ryan asked, and the rest of his team stilled.
There was a time when even insinuating that Callum needed help would have gotten a man shot.
“Aye,” Callum said. “Dimitri, take Sophie. Isobel, you follow them up. Ryan has to help me because my leg is stuffed.”
She peeled herself
from him reluctantly. Callum understood; he had to force himself to let her go. As he watched her disappear into the stairwell, Ryan came up and swung an arm around his waist.
“Lean on me, boss,” he said.
With a growl, Callum put his arm around Ryan’s shoulder, and they started towards the door.
“Does this new attitude mean I can start making leg jokes?” Ryan said.
“No.”
“Are you sure? It seems to me that your argument for keeping me quiet is moot.” Ryan grinned. “In fact, some might say you don’t have a leg to stand on.”
“When we get out of here, I’m going to shoot you.”
“Well, we’d better hop to it, then.”
“Moron.”
Ryan just laughed.
CHAPTER 28
JACK HAD BEEN IN GLASGOW’S Royal Infirmary hospital for three days. They’d had to operate on him to fix the internal damage caused by the knife. Isobel had been assured that nothing major had been hit and he would make a full recovery. He’d always have a scar, but it would be small. Sometimes, when she was alone and no one was looking, she had to hold on to the nearest wall to stop herself passing out at the thought of her son having a knife scar.
Callum had gone with her to the hospital, making sure that she and Sophie were looked over and given the all clear. They were physically fine, although Isobel expected there would be many nightmares in her future. She looked up from Jack’s bedside in the small private room Callum had finagled for them, to see him stride in. The fix for his leg had been simple—all it needed was a part swapped out—and Isobel had been relieved about that.
“How’s he doing?” Callum put a plastic bag on the end of the bed and glanced at the kid’s bed that had been set up in the corner for Sophie. He smiled when he saw she was cuddling the hippo he’d given her to keep the giraffe company.
“Good.” Isobel smoothed back Jack’s hair. It needed a cut. Something else to add to the list of things she had to do when they eventually got out of the hospital.
“I cleared everything up with the police,” he said. “They don’t plan on charging you with anything.”
Part of the tension coiled inside her released. “That’s great.”
He nodded. “They’re over the moon about the information we were able to give them on the ACAB Militia. They’re tracing money from that account in the Caymans and they’ve found several threads to follow from that dark web address. The militia site had been closed down, but there’s still enough to go on.”
There was an awkward silence as the two feet between them seemed to stretch to miles. Isobel badly wanted him to close the gap and hold her, to tell her things would be fine, in that convincing voice of his. At the same time, she knew she had to stand alone and figure things out for herself. She’d made so many mistakes, and she was terrified of rushing into yet another.
“I saw on the news that the police had foiled an attack on the Scottish Parliament,” she said.
“Aye, that’s what they were planning.” He looked around awkwardly. “That was your doing, Isobel. If you hadn’t been so nosy, they would never have found out about the planned militia attack. In fact, they would never have known who was behind it. That’s how the militia work. Someone else always takes the credit for their work. That’s what they’re being paid for.”
There was another uncomfortable silence. “I’m sorry about your granddad’s house,” she said at last.
“I was only hiding there. It’s time to rejoin civilisation.” His eyes captured hers. “What are you going to do?”
She looked up at him. So tall and strong and indestructible. “I don’t know.”
She still had the three thousand he’d gotten for her. It was enough to start again.
He cleared his throat. “I want you to come to London with me. The three of you.”
Isobel’s breath left her in a rush. Part of her wanted to run to him, screaming yes at the top of her lungs. She fought that part of her under control and made the sensible choice. The painful choice.
“I don’t think I can.”
His head jerked back slightly before his jaw clenched. “You want to tell me why? We have something between us. Something important. The kind of thing that only happens once, maybe twice, in a lifetime.”
“I don’t trust what I feel. I’ve made so many mistakes. Twice I thought I loved a man, and twice I was used and cast aside. I can’t keep risking myself or my kids.”
“And you think I’d use you and cast you aside?” The vein in his corner of his jaw throbbed harder.
“No, I don’t, but I don’t know if what I feel for you is real. We had an intense week together. But it was still only a week. Do you really want me in your life knowing that reality will be far different from what we experienced? Everyday life with two kids is boring and repetitive and stressful. You really want that?”
“Aye.” There was no hesitation.
Isobel blinked back tears. It seemed that all she did these days was cry. She couldn’t do it any longer. She had to be strong. For her kids. For herself.
“I can never repay you for what you’ve done for my family,” Isobel said, wanting to give him something. Wanting him to know how important he was to her, even if she couldn’t go any further along the road he wanted her to.
“I don’t want your thanks, or your repayment. You don’t owe me anything.” He took a step towards her. “I want you and the kids to live with me. I want a lifetime with you. I want to wake up in the morning and have you as the first thing I see. I want to teach Jack how to be a man and scare off every boy that dares sniff around Sophie. I want to be the man you lean on when you need it. I want a life with you.”
Isobel sniffed, feeling her throat close up. “I can’t. Not right now. I need time.”
He nodded, taking a step back again. “I love you, Isobel Sinclair. Take what time you need to figure out what I already know, that you love me too.” He strode towards the door. “Let me know if there’s a baby.”
And then he was gone.
Isobel sank back into the chair beside Jack’s bed and put her face in her hands. Silent sobs racked her until she felt like she was going to die. A soft hand settled on her shoulder, and she looked up to see her sisters. Each face filled with love and sympathy.
“Oh, Izzy,” Donna said. “What have you gone and done?”
“I sent him away.” Isobel threw herself into Agnes’ arms and felt her other sisters pat her back.
“Why on earth would you do that?” Agnes asked, but there was no censure in her voice, only sympathy.
“The Sinclair curse!” Isobel wailed. “I don’t know what’s real anymore. I can’t tell if he’s a good man or if I just want him to be. I can’t think straight. I need time to figure out what’s happening and if this whole thing is real. I can’t make another mistake just because I fall fast and hard. I can’t do that to my kids.”
“You’re scared,” Donna said. “We all are. But you have more reason to be than the rest of us. You saw Dad make Mum’s life a misery for years, then you got pregnant and Darren ran out on you, then your marriage failed. Of course you don’t trust that Callum is real. It’s okay, we understand.”
“Take all the time you need, honey,” Agnes said. “If he loves you, he’ll wait for you.”
“I can’t make another mistake,” Isobel said as she clung to her sisters.
“We understand,” Donna said.
“I don’t,” Mairi said. “The guy almost died protecting you. He saved Jack’s life. He took you in and strong-armed the pawnbroker for you. What makes you think he’s anything like the losers you’ve chosen before? This is the Sinclair curse. It isn’t that we choose badly, it’s that we can’t recognise a good man when one bites us on the backside.”
“Mairi!” Donna said. “Have some sympathy. Isobel has been through hell this past week.”
Isobel sat back and looked up at her sisters. Donna and Agnes were sympathetic and annoyed with Mairi
. Mairi was annoyed with Isobel.
Isobel faced her youngest sister. “Did I screw up?”
The sisters looked at each other.
“Maybe a little,” Donna said.
“What do I do now?” Isobel asked. “Do you want me to run after him?”
“No,” Mairi said firmly. “Take your time. Sort yourself out. And then go get him. Otherwise he won’t know you mean it when you do.”
“Where is this coming from?” Agnes said. “None of this sounds like you.”
Mairi waved a hand. “Cosmo.”
There was a pause before the sisters burst out laughing. Isobel smiled through her tears and her eyes strayed to Jack. He was awake and staring at her.
“Jack,” she whispered, and reached for him. “You okay, baby?”
“Yeah.” He licked his lips, and she reached for the glass of water beside his bed and put the straw against his lips. He sipped while Isobel and her sisters stared at him. All of them kept a hand on him somewhere, as though touch was the only way to assure themselves that he was still alive.
“You’re going to be fine,” Isobel told him.
“I know.” He motioned for her to take away the straw. “Where’s Callum?”
“He’s gone back to London, I think.” Isobel forced a smile.
Jack frowned. “That doesn’t sound like him. What did you do?”
“See?” Mairi said. “Even the kid knows Callum is a good guy.”
“Do you think that?” Isobel asked him.
“Mum, he took a bullet for you. He had a chance to run away and he didn’t. He didn’t run. He’s the only one who hasn’t run from us.” His eyes drifted closed.
“I’ll sort this out,” Isobel said, but Jack was already asleep. She looked up at her sisters. “I just need some time.”
There was nothing in Arness to go back to. Callum’s grandfather’s house was a crime scene, and the police had promised to call once he was allowed back in to see what was salvageable. Callum didn’t care. There wasn’t anything in the house that he was that attached to. Everything that meant anything to him was in the hospital behind him.
The strange thing was that he understood Isobel. She’d been damaged and didn’t trust what was staring her in the face. She said she needed time, and he’d give it to her. But he wasn’t going away. She’d learn that he wasn’t like the guys she’d known before. He didn’t run when things got tough. And he didn’t walk away from the woman he loved. Not ever. So he’d give her time, and then, if she didn’t come calling, he’d go looking for her.
Rage Page 24