As she did, all three of them went to their husbands.
“I’m so scared,” Lorna said, her stunning emerald eyes staring up at me.
I couldn’t not reach out and hold her. As I lifted my hands to her waist, Lorna’s arms came up around my neck and I pulled her against me. A thought came to mind and grinning, I went with it. “Do you remember when we had to sneak around?”
Lorna nodded.
“I was never a rule breaker until your bad influence.”
A tear slid down her cheek. “You’re a good man, Reid, the best. I love you and I don’t want to lose you. You promised me fifty or sixty more years and I want every minute.”
“I also promised to ravage you until neither of us could move.”
Her closed-lip smile grew and her green gaze glistened. “I want that too. I want it all.”
It was what I’d said about Morehead.
“I’ll spend every minute,” I said, “of my life making sure you have it all.”
“Make sure you have lots of minutes.”
The elevator returned. Over Lorna’s head, I saw as Sparrow walked Araneae and Mason walked Laurel to the threshold.
Lorna’s small hand came to my cheek. “I have it, you know? I have it all. You have given me everything I never knew I wanted. Please let me continue to share it with you.”
I reached for her hand and walked her toward the elevator. Handing her the strap to the bag she’d packed, I let her walk away. “Lorna.” She turned back. “Fifty years.”
“I want sixty.”
The doors closed.
After the elevator had deposited all of our loved ones to the garage, it came back with nothing but shoes. It was a strange and unnerving feeling to take each woman’s shoes to their own residence. For a moment, I recalled the heels Lorna had worn the night we met. If I looked, I believed I’d find them in our closet.
My heart wouldn’t let me look. Not yet.
Mason looked up from his phone as I continued to monitor multiple fronts.
“Patrick said they’re all on board. He, Garrett, and Romero will wait until Marianne completes the checklist and the bird takes flight.”
After his announcement, Mason also went back to his computer screens. Together we were not only watching the systematic attack on the power grid, we were running backup programs we’d installed but never imagined needing. All of our information was secure from the world, but not from here. If this floor of the tower was infiltrated, someone with Morehead’s skills could quite possibly access data that was better left hidden.
Sparrow’s books at Sparrow Enterprises were spotless. Last night, the feds had announced that they would conclude their probe—the term they used. The media called it a raid—later today. That was his legitimate business. It would be another story altogether if our information that we had here was to become known, either by the feds or media or anyone. We’d begun the process sometime during the night.
Slowly, but surely, we were backing everything up to a securer new cloud and deleting the original from our files. It would be a pain in the ass to recover. Nevertheless, the risk of exposure would harm more than what would remain of the Sparrow world.
We had information on both friends and enemies of the Sparrows, a significant amount dating back to when Allister Sparrow shared the reign of this city with Rubio McFadden. There was intel on government officials, elected and appointed, local and federal, as well as judges on all levels of the courts. Name a branch of government and we had something. Move beyond that to local, county, city, and state personnel. Leave the acceptable world and enter that of the counterparts Sparrow mentioned to Walters: kingpins, dons, godfathers, cartel bosses, and mob bosses to name a few of the titles.
Our fortress held secrets belonging to people around this state, country, continent, hemisphere, and globe. As Mason, Patrick, and I worked on moving information, it became a real possibility that accessing our network and files would benefit Morehead and propel her as a controlling player if she were to overthrow the Sparrow world.
“I believe Top wasn’t completely correct in Morehead’s goals,” Mason said as the clock continued to tick.
“What do you think he missed?”
“World domination.”
It made me grin. “That’s Sparrow’s goal.”
Sparrow had left the tower to make an appearance at his Michigan Avenue offices. In different times, that wouldn’t have been necessary. With a half dozen FBI agents going through his networks, it was essential.