Firethorn (Discarded Heroes) (7 page)

CHAPTER 4

Log Cabin, Blue Ridge Mountains

P
hone clutched in her hand, Sydney Jacobs turned and stared over the large living area of the log cabin. On the thick Oriental rug, McKenna Neeley played with her new best friend, Tala Metcalfe. Their mothers sat on the sofa, both holding infants and talking casually. Sydney had invited them up for the weekend to celebrate the birth of Owen Metcalfe, the newest Nightshade offspring. And now…she might have just killed them all.

Whatever happened, whatever forced Max to make the call and give her that code, it was really bad.

Oh Max…
Would she ever see him again? She squeezed off the thought and strangled it. Of course she would. But not if she stood around, frozen stupid.

“Okay,” she said, her voice cracking. Sydney cleared her throat. “Okay, listen.” She swept her fingers over her forehead, thinking. “Something’s wrong. I…I don’t know what, but I know we need to move fast.”

“Hey, dude, what’s wrong?” Three-year-old Dillon came barreling toward her and threw himself into her legs.

Sydney caught him. Any other day, she would’ve laughed, but today the move made her cry. It’d been the way he greeted Max every time his father came through the door. The boy had twice the amount of energy and intensity as his father. She honestly wasn’t sure she’d survive parenting him. And now…

“What do we need to do?” Danielle crossed the room with Piper, cupped little Owen’s mop of white-blond hair, and angled him away, bringing herself closer.

“PIG—it was Max’s code that I’m to destroy anything that can be tracked.”

“Tracked?” Rel Dighton, sister to one of the newer Nightshade members, had joined them for the weekend after taking time off at the hospital where she put her superior nursing skills to work. “Who would be tracking us?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Dani hurried away as did Piper. Sydney retrieved her beloved iPad. “Dillon, come here. I’ve got a job for you, little man.”

Her son climbed up onto a bar stool and stood on his knees.

She pulled a wooden mallet from the drawer, handed it to him, then set her phone and the others on the counter. “It’s a game, Dillon. I need all these broken into tiny pieces so nobody can tell what they were.”

Coal black eyes held hers fast. “Break them? Daddy will be mad!”

“No, not this time.” She leaned closer. “Guess what? Daddy told me to break them!”

“No way!”

“Here ya go.”

He hesitated, eyes wide.

Sydney knew he was grappling with being allowed to be destructive.

“We want to help,” McKenna said as she stood hand in hand with Tala. Danielle and Piper returned quickly with phones and MP3 players.

Then with Rel, they dumped their devices on the table.

“Have fun,” Dani said.

“Okay, while they’re doing that, let’s get the cars loaded.”

“Wait,” Dani said. “Can’t they be tracked?”

“Max disabled anything that could be tracked on mine.”

“I have no idea on mine,” Piper said.

“We can use my rental.” Rel stuffed her hands in her back pockets. “Nobody knows who I am, right?”

“I seriously doubt they don’t know, but it’s our best choice. Let’s hurry. I don’t know what our timetable is, and I’d like to be on the road to the safe house soon!”

“What safe house?”

“Less said, the better.” Sydney met each woman’s gaze and was relieved when they all nodded.

As she closed the rear hatch, a sound stilled her. Hands on the white SUV, she cocked her head. Listened. Then braved a look over her shoulder. Ice dumped down her spine. A helicopter loomed in the distance, heading straight toward them.

Sydney sprinted up the steps. “Move, let’s go. Now! There’s a chopper coming.” She lifted Dakota in his carrier, caught Dillon’s hand, and all but dragged him toward the front door, her gaze sweeping the living room. Piper had her son bundled up and reached for McKenna’s hand, who sat playing with Tala, the Filipino beauty-of-a-child.

“Tala, come on, sweetie. Time to go.” Dani rushed toward Sydney with her newborn son.

As Sydney hurried toward the door, she realized kids outnumbered available seat belts. She hesitated.

“What’s wrong?” Dani cupped her hand around Tala’s silky black hair. If anyone hadn’t met the two before Dani married Canyon, nobody would know Tala wasn’t her biological daughter.

What would she do? Sydney couldn’t ask Dani to separate from one of her kids, especially if the vehicles got separated. “I only have five seats.”

“Tala can ride with us,” Piper said.

Dani’s hesitation screamed through the seconds. She squatted next to the little one. “Tala, go with McKenna, okay?”

Tala’s pale-blue eyes widened, and slowly she nodded.

Sydney cringed. The girl had a very rough early childhood and now suffered separation anxiety. Only recently had she begun to trust Canyon and Dani.

The drone of the chopper grew louder. “We have to go.” Her own fear was mirrored in their worried expressions. But right now, she had one goal: get to the rendezvous site.

Dani scooped up the little girl in her free arm and stood.

They hurried out the door, armed with kids and terror.

Boom! Crack!
The ground vibrated beneath her feet. The small blue sedan Piper had driven flipped into the air and landed, upside down, engulfed in flames.

Sydney shielded her face. The children screamed. The chopper hovered over them, wind, smoke, and fire whipping into a frantic frenzy. She lifted the carrier closer and pulled Dillon to her leg as she looked into the sky at the big black bird. Was someone leaning out of the side?

She sucked in a breath as he aimed a weapon at them.

Dublin, Ireland One Week Later

Kazi stood at the pub counter, her fingers stroking the glass.
Squeak. Squeak.
Tina was gone. Really gone. All because of Kazi, because Carrick wanted her to remember all he had done for her. That he could reach her anywhere, anytime, force her will to his. To remind her that she owed him everything. Even the very breath she breathed. For saving her.

And he had. Plucking her, a then homeless girl, off the streets after two years of living as one of Boucher’s girls.
Thanks to Roman.

Laughter, smoke, and bodies pressed in around her. Kazi stared at the foam head of her Guinness.

“It’s got more head than Carrick,” Tina said.

A smile pulled back the gray clouds that had formed over Kazi’s mind as the infectious, annoying laughter once again filled her thoughts. Then, swift and deadly, like a trip wire, memories killed that ray of sunshine.

Tina’s dead. Murdered by Carrick.

I’ll make him pay.

She didn’t have a plan yet, but she’d struck gold yesterday in a rendezvous with an American general. She would locate and retrieve four missing men. Her prize? Millions. She could vanish. That would do more damage and create more pain to Carrick than she could do any other way. She’d amassed significant proof that could put him away in a dozen EU countries and bury him beneath the White House’s ever-green lawns. The information she had, nobody would want made public. And lording this over Carrick would force him to stay away from her.

“She wouldn’t want you to do it, you know.”

Kazi blinked and glanced to the side, to the hand cupping a tall glass of golden beer. “Leave me alone, Mick.” She dumped some of the warm stout into her mouth and braced herself. While it was a good drink, she wasn’t one for alcohol or the buzz that fried the synapses afterward.

“Now, that I won’t.” He shifted on the stool, his hazel eyes peering beneath a mop of curly brown hair. “She always wanted me to take care of you, help you find your family.” One leg propped on the bar, one on the floor, he caught her fingers.

She shook them free. Stabbed him with a fierce glare for the comment about her family.

“Tina wanted you to be happy,” he said, his brogue thick and quiet. “She wanted both of you to find fellas and start families.” No doubt he’d volunteer for that. Mick had never been quiet about his attraction for her. “She wanted you free—“

“Tina was idealistic and naive.” The venom was bitter on her tongue. When the shock registered on Mick’s face, Kazi glanced down, ashamed for speaking ill of her only friend. “Sorry.” She gulped more stout, pushed several euros into the tip jar, then patted Tina’s brother on the shoulder. “Good-bye, Mick.”

She spun on her boots and stalked toward the door with the stained-glass panes. Out in the cool evening, Kazi stalked down the hedgerow-lined path, bound by guilt and pushed by remorse. But even as she crossed the street clogged with small whining cars and strode up the slight hill toward the future, she heard steps behind her.

“Kacie, please. Wait.”

“Forget me, Mick.” Forget that Kacie Whitcomb exists, because she doesn’t—not really. But she couldn’t say that to him without giving things away. “Go back to your girl, profess your love to her, and live happily ever after.” Stuffing her hands in the pockets of her jacket, she continued. Puffs of icy air swirled before her nose. The bitter weather matched the condition of her heart.

He hooked her arm and swung her around.

As he did, she swept her hand up and broke his hold. “You know better than to do that.”

“Come back to the pub, sit and talk. Let’s get things sorted.”

The way he said that, the pleading in a voice that had always been strong and confident, tugged at the wrong strings on her heart. Kazi lowered her head. “Mick…please.”

Surprisingly warm fingers traced her cheek, chapped by the cold. “Kacie.”

Her eyes slid closed. Then she popped them open and stared him in the eye. “You know I can’t do this.”

He leaned in and pressed his lips against hers.

She let him kiss her again. And again. Then she leaned into the kiss and returned it. But only because she knew this could never happen again. She jerked and took a step back, gaze on her boots.

“Kacie, stay here. With me. He won’t find you.”

“You’re talking without a brain now, Mick Kelley.” That kind of stupidity put everyone’s life in danger. “He’s already found me, or have you forgotten who’s lying up in Shanganagh now?”

“Her death was an accident.” He reached out to touch her again. “Please—“

She slapped his hand away. “You’re a bigger fool than I thought if you believe that.”

“I don’t want to be losing me sister and me lady in the same week.” Mick’s voice rose on the cold, bitter wind. “You’re butchering me here, Kacie.”

Irony plied a sad smile from her unwilling face. “No Mick. I’m saving you.” She tiptoed up and kissed him again. “Good-bye, Mick.”

Forever.

Somewhere in the Blue Ridge Mountains

The explosion shoved Sydney back into the house.
Not good.
Trapped within the house, they wouldn’t survive if the chopper sent a missile through the roof. Shrieks from the children shuddered through her.

“What’s that noise?” Danielle shouted over the children.

Sydney stared at her. What did she mean? The thunder of the chopper? The wails of the children? The roar of the fire? “I—“