Halina was already twenty feet beyond the house. Panic churned in his stomach and made him want to puke. He pushed off the wall, lunged for the door. But came up short. Quaid caught him by the shoulders and jerked him aside just as a bullet slammed through the foyer.
“Anyone who exits the house,” Abernathy reminded with a bellow, “will die.”
Breathing hard, vision spinning, Mitch peered around the edge of the open door frame where icy night air whipped into the house. He couldn’t pick out Halina on the horizon and his chest constricted even further.
“Where . . . ?” He pushed to his feet, his voice rising with terror. “Was she hit?”
No. He wouldn’t shoot her. That doesn’t make sense. Like any of this made sense? He couldn’t think straight.
Quaid’s hand remained on Mitch’s shoulder, clearly as much for restraint as support. “She’s crouched near the ground. You just can’t pick her out from the—”
A floodlight clicked on and drenched Halina in a circle of white light. Crouching just as Quaid described, she turned her head away from the beam and lifted her arm in front of her face. Seeing her out there, completely exposed and helpless, made every muscle in Mitch’s body sing with tension. Made his stomach swim with nausea. He’d never felt more utterly helpless. So completely vulnerable.
“Walk toward the light, Beloi,” Abernathy bellowed. “The faster you move, the safer the others will be.”
His implied meaning straightened Mitch’s spine and cleared his head with the crispness of the night air. “He’s going to blow this place as soon as he has her.”
Mitch turned to Quaid. “We have to get everyone out.” Then he turned to the others scattered throughout the front rooms of the house with weapons. “Out. Everyone out.”
“Where?” Luke said. “We don’t know how many guys he’s got—”
“Just two.” This came from Keira in that distant, dark tone she used when she’d been reading photographs. “He’s only got himself and . . . Owen. Owen is the shooter.”
The implications of that statement made Mitch fall back a step. His brain churned, picking at his interactions with Owen, but couldn’t find anything that pegged the man clearly as friend or enemy.
But something else Owen said came back to Mitch. “I have just a little bit of pretty metal on my chest.”
With Owen’s skill, they would all be dead if he’d wanted them dead. “Luke. He knows you’re bulletproof?”
“Definitely.”
“Abernathy’s one-hundred-percent focused on Halina,” Kai said, standing in the doorway of the room he’d retreated into to sync with Abernathy’s emotions. “Not an ounce of interest in any of us and already high on victory. If we’re going to slam him, now would be the time. He’ll be completely blindsided.”
“What about Owen?” Mitch asked.
“Furious. Trapped. Belligerent.”
“Ransom.” Mitch swung toward Luke. “Up to being a shield?”
“You know it,” Luke said.
“What kind of shield,” Keira asked.
“A people-mover, from here to the in-law unit. There is a secure basement beneath.”
Keira’s concern reflected even in the dim light. She looked at Luke. “That’s a lot of trips. A lot of exposure.”
While Luke was bulletproof, he was not immune to pain, which was why Mitch hadn’t just come out and ordered Luke to do it—not that he had any authority or power over the man, but . . .
“Owen’s on our side,” Mitch said. “He doesn’t want Schaeffer or Abernathy in power. He’s trapped. He wants you to get everyone out. If Abernathy’s ordered him to shoot anyone who comes out the front door, he’ll do it, but he’ll do it his way.”
“That doesn’t ease my mind, but yeah, I’m doing it. I’m taking the kids first.”
Luke crossed the room to Keira, wrapped her in a fierce hug, murmured a few words, and disappeared. His boots clomped down into the basement.
Cash came running down the stairs. “I’ve got a vent in the attic. It’s small. Will need work to fit any of us out.”
“Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Mitch jammed both hands into his hair and fisted the strands, but the sting along his scalp didn’t help him think. When he opened his eyes, he was looking out the door, watching Halina, who was almost translucent in the glare of the high-powered light. She stumbled across the open land, so totally vulnerable. So totally willing to give up her freedom, her life, for him. For all of them. Because he loved them. Because they were his family.
Mitch wanted nothing more than to run out there and take her place, but that wouldn’t solve the problem of what Schaeffer had started. What Schaeffer would continue to drive once recovered and free of the hospital, or once the next Abernathy came along to take over. Besides, he didn’t have what Abernathy wanted. Only Halina—
His mind zipped to the papers scattered in the upstairs bedroom. To the ones spread all around the family room where everyone had been working. To the disks.
Movement caught his eye and his gaze cut to a window in the dining room looking out onto the front yard. Dex’s pointed ears and long snout were sharply silhouetted against the floodlight outside.
“Luke,” Mitch yelled.
“I’m right here,” he snapped.
He stepped up beside Mitch carrying a bundled, whimpering child. Mitch could tell from the size and sound it was Kat, and his whole chest seized with an overwhelming sense of impending loss and responsibility.
Mitch released a breath, pressed a hand to Kat’s back and felt her flinch. He gritted his teeth against the guilt, leaned close. “Kitty Kat, it’s me.”
“Uncle Miiiiitch,” she whined in a plea to make it all go away like she did when she woke from a nightmare.
He pulled the blanket back only enough to clear her cheek and dropped a kiss there. Then caught a whiff of an unmistakable sweet, soft scent and his stomach tightened. “Is Brady in here with you?”
“Y-y-yeah.”
Ah, fuck. His whole world in one little bundle.
“Wow, that’s a big responsibility. Your mom’s put a lot of trust in you. You sure you can take care of Brady while Uncle Luke comes back for Mateo?”
“O-of c-course.”
The response was so filled with reproach for his question, Mitch couldn’t help but smile. “That’s my girl. Stay strong. We’ll all be there real soon, okay baby?”
“H-hurry.” She sniffled and laid her head against Luke’s shoulder again. “B-Brady gets so c-cranky when he’s h-hungry.”
Mitch kissed her cheek again and covered her head. To Luke he murmured, “Go.”
Luke kissed Keira at the door, backed onto the front porch, and was immediately struck in the back with a double tap. Mitch’s heart stopped. Only when Luke grunted and took off running, his body twisted to cover the kids with his torso, did Mitch’s lifeline start beating again. Trying to cover an adult would be far less successful. Mitch could only hope his intuition about Young was accurate.
Though Mitch tried to avoid it, he couldn’t help the pull of his gaze out the door. Halina had gotten to her feet and stumbled across the grass. He doubted she was injured from her earlier fall, more likely stalling for time. Struggling for one of those miraculous moves of hers to escape.
The difference was, this time she was trying to get back to Mitch, not away from him.
“Dex,” Mitch called. The dog immediately shot to his side, those golden eyes staring up at him, bright and alert.
“Kai,” Mitch yelled. “What did Abernathy throw through the window?”
“A rock.”
“Find it, but don’t touch it.”