I have cops in my place of business threatening me, I can’t help but think you,” he stabbed a stubby finger at Brady, “are a liability.”
“With enough information to see you both buried!”
“This is your mess,” Manny argued. “Tidy it up before I have to call in my cleaners to take care of you.”
The third in their group spoke up again, this time with a weary finality. “No one is taking out cops when the real problem goes around on both two and four legs. We need a distraction for them to focus on until we wash our dirty linen.”
“A distraction.” Brady tapped fingertips together. “I think I can manage that.” Time to use the weapon he’d been hoarding like a decadent dessert all for himself.
His slow smile promised hell was about to rain down upon his enemies, beginning with the one who’d stolen his freedom and his daughter.
They’d regret betraying him.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Chris. Chris!”
Kip Terriot forced eyelids apart for a glance at the clock. Three a.m.? He squinted at his brother’s silhouette. “Simon? Wassup?” He kept his voice to a whisper so as not to wake his mate.
“Someone’s in the house.”
Alarm spiked, waking him fully. “You sure?”
A quick nod. “I was going to the kitchen and saw someone moving in the hall down there.”
“Sure it wasn’t Carl?” Their middle brother slept in the guest room on the main floor.
The boy’s expression clenched. “I’m sure.”
Ophelia stirred beneath the covers. “What is it?” Before he could answer, she sat up with a gasp. “Something dark is close.”
Kip never doubted her intuitive visions. “Can you tell what? Or who?” His first thought was Olivia, but Phe’s quick headshake said no. One sister could always tell when the other was near.
Kip slipped from the king bed and into gym shorts he’d tossed to the floor in his hurry to get between those sheets and his wife’s knees earlier that evening. “You check the others?” he asked his younger sibling.
“Still asleep from what I could tell. Don’t know about Carl.”
He grabbed up a tee shirt, tugging it over his head as thoughts sharpened. “Don’t come down.” Before the boy could protest, he added, “Gather the others, quietly, and help Phe keep them safe in here until I get back.”
“But you might need me.”
“I do. Here, to protect them.”
“Christopher—”
Kip cut off whatever else Phe meant to say with a quick, fierce kiss, refusing to believe it would be their last. Moving quickly into the large dark room Ophelia’s grandfather had used as an office, he palmed a silver letter opener by its leather-wrapped handle as the closest weapon at hand then ran out into the hall where the other bedroom doors stood slightly ajar. His sisters Cassie and Merry shared one, their shapes visible beneath the covers. His grandmother snored lustily in the other, but the spot beside her where Lydia should have been was empty.
His heart revved as worse case scenarios raced for a long second. Could she have been taken? Or was Lydia their mysterious visitor and their panic for nothing? Wishing for the second but fearing the first, he closed off thought to act on instinct.
Protect.
Bare feet fell swift and silent down the hallway runner to the graceful curve of the open staircase. The massive foyer of the big house lay dark beneath him. If Lydia had come this way, she’d head to the kitchen for a forbidden treat.
Please let it just be the child Simon had heard.
He’d started toward the family areas when a faint scuffle drew him to the rarely used formal dining room. The large table with its bordering parade of stuffy chairs stood in unwelcoming shadow, offering no haven. Unless one was a small girl.
“Lydie.”
His soft whisper encouraged a scramble of movement. He bent just in time to receive the catapulting figure. Trembling arms collared his neck as he straightened, crushing her close. A whisper brushed his ear as her shivers grew convulsive.
“In the kitchen. There’s a monster. It has sharp teeth and red eyes.”
Ordinarily, he’d have called her claim the product of a lingering nightmare. But these weren’t ordinary times.
“Did it see you?”
Wisps of baby fine hair grazed his cheek as her head shook.
Kip eased back into the hallway, senses on full alert. All he had was a letter opener to defend women and children against an elite killer. Only a highly skilled Tracker could have breached the estate’s security. Or Olivia Brady about her father’s . . . or real mother’s . . . business.
Bare feet made