Scorch (The MacKenzie Family Book 17) (16 page)

L
acey knew
what fear smelled like. What it tasted like.

She stared into the frigid blue eyes of Maxim Petrovich and saw pure evil there. She knew she’d be sore and bruised later, but for now the adrenaline was pumping through her veins. She didn’t glance at the gun in his hand. Everything she needed to see was right there in his eyes.

“You’re a worthy adversary,” he said. “It’ll be my greatest pleasure to watch you break. Doctor Hughes had great plans for you as a test subject for his…adjustments to your suit. With your mind and skill, and the right amount of psychological influence, you’d be one of the greatest soldiers ever created. Virtually unstoppable.”

“I’ll die first,” she said. “I’ll never be anyone’s puppet. And your game is up,” she told him. “You’re outmatched and outnumbered. Your men are dead and reinforcements are on the way.”

“Do you think this will stop with me? The Mackenzie’s are marked. They have too much power. Too many resources. And too much money. They’ll always be a target. And because you associate yourself with them, so will you. Is that the kind of life you wish to live?”

“Since I’ve already heard your alternative, yeah, I’ll to stay with the Mackenzie’s.” The electrical current on her suit was still on high, but power was running low. She’d have to do something soon or find another way to take him out. He was crazy, and the person in the black bag was her priority.

She increased the voltage on the suit to full currency and swept out her leg, taking him down. A shot went off and the felt the impact in her arm, but it didn’t slow her progress. He squeezed the trigger again, but this time the shot went wild. She came down on top of him with a vengeance, the flat of her hand slapping against his chest and delivering a current directly to his heart.

She rolled off of him and went flat to the ground, gasping for breath as the computer in her face mask did a diagnostic of all the damage she’d sustained. She heard him wheeze and looked over at him. He was staring at her as he struggled to breathe.

“Already…dead,” he said, pointing to the bag. His laugh rattled in his chest. “Knew you’d try to attack. We will bring down the Mackenzie’s…one by one.” He took a final, shuddering breath and the life went out of his eyes.

Lacey ripped off the helmet and face mask and tossed them aside, holding in a sob as she crawled over to the body in the bag. Then she heard the rustle of branches from somewhere behind the house and she pulled the weapon from her holster, waiting for whoever was coming toward her, and praying it was Shane.

She heard the uneven gait of his run and her relief was so great tears flooded her eyes.

“Oh, thank God,” he said. “All I could hear was the gunfire, and I just started praying that the suit could do everything you told me it could. You’re alive.” He stumbled down across from her and touched her tear streaked face with his hand. “We’re alive.”

“Shane,” she said, shaking her head.

“It’s okay,” he said. “We’re all going to be fine. I love you.” He reached for the zipper on the bag and she caught his hand before he could open it.

“Baby, wait,” she said. “Please.” The tears were falling faster and she couldn’t seem to help it. She heard the sound of cars coming up the steep incline, but her gaze never left his. “Before you open the bag, you have to know that Petrovich said whoever is in the bag is already dead. He said war has been declared on your family, and that it was always in the plans to destroy all of you.”

His hand squeezed hers in a death grip and he looked down at the bag with such heartache and grief that she could feel it pressing down on both of them.

“I’m so sorry, baby. So sorry,” she said. “I don’t know who it is. He didn’t say.”

Shane nodded and released her hand, and then he went back to the zipper. Her tears came faster and she realized she hadn’t let herself cry in years. That nothing had mattered that much. Or maybe she hadn’t let herself be vulnerable enough. Not since that fourteen-year-old girl had thought death would be better than living.

Car doors slammed and footsteps sound behind them, but she didn’t look back to see who was there. She
couldn’t
look to see who was missing. She watched as Shane slowly undid the zipper, his hands shaking uncontrollably.

“What’s going on?”

She thought she recognized the voice as belonging to Brady, but she couldn’t be sure since the blood was rushing in her ears so hard.

No one answered him. There was only silence and the rasp of the zipper. The crisp rustle of the Gortex bag as he pulled back the cover to see the face below. The low groan that escaped his lips was animalistic in its grief and sent chills across her body as she looked at the still and peaceful face of Mary MacKenzie.

The others gathered around. Declan, Cade, Brant, and Brady. This woman was the core of who these men—
great men
—had become. And now she was gone.

Lacey watched as the strongest and bravest men she’d ever known knelt on the ground beside her.

And wept.

O
ne Week Later
…

Rain was made for funerals, and every drop made it seem as if the tears came directly from heaven.

They were going to bury his mother today. He’d been to funerals in his life—more than most, it seemed—but never had he prepared himself for this day. In Shane’s mind, it was decades down the road. His mother would’ve live to a ripe old age with all of her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren surrounding her. It would’ve been peaceful and in her time.

But it hadn’t been in her time. Her death hadn’t been in
any
of their times, and all they could hope was that it had been peaceful. Lacey had told him it had been very quick and she’d have felt no pain. He had to believe that.

They were a family that rallied around each other in times of both heartache and joy. But no one seemed to know what to do next. Not when the one who’d always been at the center was gone. He knew they’d rally because that’s what they did. But everyone was in shock, most especially his father.

Shane couldn’t imagine the devastation of losing the woman he’d loved his entire lifetime. Of waking up in the mornings without her beside him, and feeling the cold, empty sheets. His father was a strong man, but to see him broken, kneeling next to his mother, and staying with her until they placed her in the coffin, had broken him in ways that the loss of a limb never could. Nothing compared to that kind of pain.

He hated wearing suits, but he sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the tips of the shiny black shoes that pinched his foot. He heard her footsteps from the bathroom where she’d been getting ready and he felt his heart clutch in his chest.

Lacey sat beside him on the bed, her stockinged feet tiny next to his, and she placed her hand on his knee. The last week had been rough, but there was one thing he’d never lost sight of.

“I love you, Lacey.” His voice was harsh and raspy with emotion. She squeezed his knee and nodded, unable to speak. “Don’t ever leave me. I need you more than I’ve ever needed anyone. You make me a better man. You make me whole.”

She dropped her head to his shoulder and he put his arm around her holding her close. “I’ll never leave,” she said. “My place is here with you. My home is with you.”

“I know my mother is smiling down on us right now and probably telling all of her new friends that it’s about damned time her son settled down. And that I just had to wait for the right woman to come along. The only woman who was put on this earth for me, because that’s how MacKenzie’s fall in love. It only comes once.”

“I love you too, Shane MacKenzie. I need you too. We’re both more together than we ever were apart. And I know she’s so very proud of you. She told me so. She’ll always be here with us. She built a family that was meant to last generations, and she did her job well. Just like the generations before her. Her legacy lives in you.”

Shane nodded and felt himself choke up, but he held back the tears. There would be time for that later. “Let’s go be with the family. They’re waiting on us to celebrate the life of a remarkable woman.”

“Then let’s do it.”

Shane stood and held out his hand, waiting for her to take it. The day would be hard. Maybe the hardest he’d ever experienced. But they’d get through it together, heal together, and start their lives together. A MacKenzie had one soulmate in life, and once they found each other they were together forever. His mother had taught them that. And he’d never been more grateful that he’d honored that legacy and waited for Lacey. She was his. Forever.

L
iliana Hart
 is
a 
New York Times, USA Today, and Publisher's Weekly 
Bestselling Author of more than 40 titles. After starting her first novel her freshman year of college, she immediately became addicted to writing and knew she'd found what she was meant to do with her life. She has no idea why she majored in music.
 
Since self-publishing in June of 2011, Liliana has sold more than 4 million ebooks. She's appeared at #1 on lists all over the world and all three of her series have appeared on the 
New York Times
 list. Liliana is a sought after speaker and she's given keynote speeches and self-publishing workshops to standing-room-only crowds from California to New York to London. 

Liliana can almost always be found at her computer writing or on the road giving workshops for
SilverHart International
, a company she founded with her husband,
Scott Silverii
, where they provide law enforcement, military, and fire resources for writers so they can write it right. When Liliana and her husband aren’t spending time with their children, they’re living the life of nomads, traveling wherever interests them most.

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Scorch
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