Burned Hearts (36 page)

A heartbeat later the moonlight was shrouded and shadows covered the wall we faced. Everything happened at once. I heard the ominous sound of helicopter blades and then the
pop, pop, pop
of automatic weapons and the shattering of glass as the doors and windows comprising the far wall exploded.

Dane shoved me out of bed and I hit the area rug covering the stone floor, his body shielding mine.

“Amsel!” I cried out in terror.

Kyle dove through the opened doorway and crawled over to the bassinet to collect my now-screaming child.

Dane yanked open the nightstand and grabbed his gun.

“You okay?” he asked me, his voice tight.

“Yes. Keep our baby safe.”

On his belly, Dane maneuvered to the end of the bed and partially rounded the corner to take aim. He quickly emptied the magazine, and the gunfire from the other side ceased.

Kyle handed the baby to me and pulled his own gun from the waist of his jeans, at the small of his back.

Dane stood in a fluid move and shoved his feet into his shoes. He'd put on a pair of black drawstring pants before we'd curled in bed. I still wore my nightgown. He took me by the arm and helped me up before we rushed from the room. We heard Amano toward the front of the house, yelling for Rosa.

Then another round blew out all the glass in the great room, from the sound of it.

Kyle said, “They're all over the damn place. Like fucking cockroaches.” He flashed his iPad mini, with various surveillance camera angles on-screen at once.

“Not for long,” Dane said. He stormed into the great room, Amano at his side.

“Dane!” Fear seized me.

A steady barrage followed. Amsel wailed in distress. Rosa came running into the hallway in her bathrobe and slippers, swearing up a blue streak in Spanish.

Seconds later a chilling silence filled the house. Though my heart hammered in my ears and my breath lodged in my throat.

Dane and Amano stalked back into the corridor.

“Goddamn it!” Dane roared.

Kyle flicked his thumb over the screen of the mini, checking more camera angles. Then ground out, “Fuck!” All eyes landed on him. “They're inside.”

I gaped. Held Amsel even tighter.

“How many and where?” Dane demanded.

“Three through the kitchen. Two through the laundry room.”

On opposite ends of the house.

Kyle added, “One at the front door.”

Panic sliced through me. “They're surrounding us.”

“No,” Kyle said. “The one barreling through the front door right now is Agent Price.”

I would have breathed a sigh of relief he was still alive … if I could actually breathe.

Amano gestured for Price to follow him into the kitchen. Dane marched toward the laundry room.

Kyle stayed with Rosa, Amsel, and me in the center of the house.

“Where do you think the helicopters went?” I asked, finding the silence bone-chillingly eerie. I tried hard not to squeeze Amsel so firmly to my chest.

“Your guess is as good as mine. I haven't gotten around to satellite monitoring of our airspace.”

“Jesus Christ.” Even his sarcasm couldn't lessen the terror gripping me. I handed the baby to Rosa before I suffocated him, and then searched one of the hallway tables for a suitable weapon, settling on a silver letter opener with a sharp tip.

More gunshots made me jump.

Kyle said, “Laundry room is secure.” He kept scrolling. “I don't see anyone else invading us. Just—oh, shit!”

More of the sharp, ear-piercing popping and then Kyle erupted again with the profanity. Dane crept back into the hallway, checking rooms as he made his way toward us.

Kyle called out, “Price and Amano are down. There are four—
four!
—in the kitchen, moving … Goddamn it!”

His head whipped around. Our gazes followed. Ethan and three others rounded the corner from the kitchen, guns drawn.

Dane raised his arm, taking aim at Ethan.

“Dane, no!” I screamed.

Ethan carried one of those rifles with the scopes on top I'd hoped to never see again in my lifetime. And the infrared dot settled on the baby's forehead.

My heart launched into my throat.

“Not Amsel,” I said to Ethan as hot tears rolled down my cheeks. “
Not
our son.”

 

chapter 19

“Don't
even
fucking think about pulling that trigger, Ethan.” Dane's tone was deathly serious.

“What choice do I have?” Ethan demanded. “You couldn't leave well enough alone, Dane. I had everything under control once I got my hands on that hard drive. I destroyed all the evidence against me. I was in the clear. But you had to go to Philadelphia, didn't you?”

Shock reverberated through me. How the hell did he know? We'd just gotten back!

With a challenging look, Dane asked, “You know what I found there?”

“You never had a need to delve into your father's records or files. If you just would have left it be, if you just would have let it all lie—”

“How the fuck was I supposed to do that?” Dane bellowed. “I saw the photo of you with my father. Of course I was going to start piecing this all together.”

“That's always been your problem,” Ethan said irritably. “You can't overlook anything. You can't just turn a blind eye.”

“To everything the society did to ruin lives while making a profit? I was supposed to
pretend
that wasn't happening?”

“You're just like your father.”

My eyes squeezed shut. So we'd been right all along. Bradley had taken the same stance with the society as Dane had, only thirty years before him.

When I opened my eyes, Dane still had his gun trained on Ethan. The red dot still flashed against Amsel's forehead. My insides were still a mangled mess.

Amano and Agent Price had been shot and were either dead or bleeding to death in our kitchen. And we were all at an impasse.

“What good will any of this do?” I somehow managed to ask Ethan.

“Well, Mrs. Bax, I could have easily brought down your private jet on your return flight from Pennsylvania. Leaving your son to suffer the same fate as Dane did right around the same age. I could have let history repeat itself.”

I felt an insidious ripple along my spine.

Ethan continued. “That, however, would mean I'd have to start from scratch, since your husband felt compelled to do everything in his power to ensure my colleagues were incarcerated.”

“You were working with them,” I hissed out. “
All
of them?”

“Not Qadir and Nik,” he said. “I recognized from the beginning they'd be impossible to sway, like Dane. But that was okay. I didn't need them. I had the other five—it's a majority rules society, so I never even had to cast a swing vote, never had to risk the smallest hint of where my allegiance lies.”

“You just reaped all the benefit,” Dane said in disgust.

“I understand you're upset,” Ethan told him. “I wasn't exactly thrilled to have to go behind your back, Dane, but once you got your feet under you at Harvard I could see I wasn't going to win you over to my plight any more than I did your father.”

“So you killed my parents.”

“Yes.”

“And you think you're going to kill my son?”

“That depends on you and your wife.”

I swallowed down a lump of emotion—and horror.

I knew how all of this had started.

I knew how it would end.

“You want 10,000 Lux,” I said.

“Sign it over and your son lives. So do the two of you.”

My blood turned to ice. “And Kyle and Rosa?” I didn't even want to think of Amano at the moment. For all I knew, he was lying lifeless on my kitchen floor, and that possibility nearly crippled me.

“No.” Ethan gave a slight shake of his head in answer to my question. “Witnesses. You know I can't leave loose ends like that.”

“You son of a bitch,” Kyle spat.

“Sorry, kid. I like you and all—you've demonstrated a lot of potential. Unfortunately, you aligned yourself with the wrong side of the faction.”

“There's no way I'll let you get away with this,” Dane said.

“There's no way you're going to beat me this time, Dane. It's all very simple. Don't complicate it. You, your pretty wife, and your baby live. I get the Lux. It's really that easy.”

“You're forgetting one thing,” Kyle said.

Ethan gave him a sinister smile. “What's that?”

“It's not so much what, but …
who
.”

Ethan's brow dipped.

Kyle grinned. “Amano.”

My gaze flashed toward the direction of the kitchen. Amano was in the corridor, bleeding from the shoulder and leg. My stomach wrenched.

His first shot was to the head of the soldier at Ethan's side while Kyle simultaneously tackled Rosa—with the baby in her arms—as Ethan took his own shot at them.

I cried out.

Kyle's quick reaction saved all three of them, though Amsel wailed in distress.

Ethan jerked out of the way as Dane took aim, and Ethan caught the bullet in his arm. Blood splattered everywhere and continued to as one of Ethan's other guys shot at Amano, who dove behind a massive credenza. Kyle shot the other soldier flanking Ethan. Dane took out the final one.

But Ethan was a step ahead of them.

He pointed his gun at me.

And pulled the trigger.

A searing pain like nothing I'd ever known tore through me. A dozen scorpion stings all at once couldn't compare to the fire that lanced my leg. I screamed again and crumpled to the floor.

“Ari!” Dane was instantly at my side, dropping to his knees.

I watched, petrified and in sheer agony, as Ethan leapt forward, ripped the baby from Rosa's arms, and bolted for the door.

“Kyle!” I yelled.

A second later he was on his feet and racing after Ethan.

My attention snapped to Dane. “Go!”

“Ari—”

“Go!”

He tried to press his cell into my palm, but I couldn't grip it. He leapt up and chased after the others.

Rosa joined me, whipped off the robe she'd tied over her nightgown, and pressed the material to my leg. I was suddenly woozy but said, “Take care of Amano. I'll be fine.”

She left me and I kept the pressure of the thick terry cloth against my wound. As best as I could, at any rate, because my body trembled violenty.

“Ari.”

My unsteady gaze flitted down the hallway, in the direction of Rosa's voice. She shook her head slowly.

My breath caught. “No,” I whispered. “Amano.” Everything inside me seized up. Tears threatened my eyes. I closed them tightly, but the drops leaked from the corners.

Amano was…?

No, no.

No!

“Fuck!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.

Then tried to focus, to think clearly.

What would Dane do?

My lids flew open. I reached for the phone, my shaky fingers dropping it twice before I was able to hold it steady enough to hit the speed dial number for Dr. Forrester. I relayed, as best as I could, as quickly as I could, what had happened. He promised he was on his way.

I fought body-racking sobs, choking them back. They weren't even related to my leg. The grief was purely about Amano and the fact that Ethan had my son.

Mustering all of my strength, since I had determined the day I'd confronted Wayne Horton that there was no way I'd cower in a corner, I partially crawled, partially dragged, myself toward the credenza.

Rosa's head popped up from the end of the enormous piece of furniture.

“
Chica,
” she barked. “Stay.”

“I'm not a dog, Rosa.”

“You're going to make it worse.”

“It can't get much worse than this!”

“He's breathing,” she said.

“Oh, God!” I burst into tears. “Oh,
thank God!
”

“Barely.”

“Urg!” I could kill Ethan myself. I was certain of it.

“This is bad,” Rosa said. Her hands were covered with Amano's blood. “He's got lots of holes in him.”

“Jesus. Amano, just hang in there. Dr. Forrester is on his way.”

“Ari,” Rosa said. “You don't look so good, either. You are much too pale.”

I was afraid I might pass out. Or throw up. And the burning sensation didn't abate.

Amano mumbled something. I stared at Rosa.

“What did he say?”

“I don't know.” She shook her head. “‘Go…' something.”

“‘Go…'?” I waded through the haze in my mind. “Go where? What the hell?” I cried with sufficient anguish. Then suddenly I said, “GoPro!”

“What?” She had no clue what I meant.

“Kyle's mini—can you grab it, please?”

It was on the floor where he'd tackled Rosa and Amsel. She wiped her crimson-colored hands on her white nightgown, then rushed over, snatched the device, and gave it to me.

I employed last night's lesson from Amano and was immediately streaming the video and audio feed from Dane's McLaren. “Kyle, can you hear me?”

“Yeah!”

“What's happening?” I couldn't remain focused on the video with Kyle weaving in and out of traffic. It made me dizzy and nauseous.

“Ethan is several cars ahead of me.”

“Where's Dane?”

“On his motorcycle behind me. Are you okay?”

“Been better.”

“What about Amano?”

“Swell,” came the bodyguard's response.

“Don't let him fool you,” I said. “He's in bad shape. Dr. Forrester is on his way. Is there a GoPro on the bike?”

“No, the helmet.”

I pulled up that video. “Dane!”

“What the fuck?” he roared.

“It's me! I'm in your head—your helmet,” I corrected. “GoPro. Amano and Kyle installed it.”