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“We can only hope,” Quaid muttered.
Did Quaid think she meant Hays would kill Peter? Didn’t Quaid remember how unbeatable their father’s guards were? Hays was a SEAL, but he didn’t have a mean, underhanded bone in his body. There was no way he would beat Peter.
Her brother stepped in front of her and his wife. Elizabeth’s throat was thick with fear. Hays fighting for her and Quaid protecting her were touching moves. She had to stop this fight, but it meant everything to her that these two most important men to her would care deeply enough to attempt to fight for her and shield her.
“Peter,” she commanded in the ‘ice queen’ voice she’d learned by heart. “Stop. Now.”
He didn’t respond. Chills ran along her skin. It was clear her father had commanded him to hurt or kill Hays to make a point.
“Quaid. You have to stop them.” She tried to get around him.
Quaid only shook his head and held her back with one arm.
The men were vague shadows on the rocks above the headlights, wraiths in the night trading punches and kicks. They hardly grunted when they took a hit, and nobody else made a sound as the battle continued. The rhythmic striking of fist, elbow, knee, or foot against flesh, the slight breeze through the trees, crickets in the night shadows, and the gentle lapping of the water against the rocks below combined to an unsettling cacophony.
Hays was holding his own. That was impressive, but Peter would do something underhanded and kill Hays if she didn’t intervene.
Hays launched himself at Peter and the two men tumbled off the ledge and down to the dirt and rocks below. Elizabeth, Jacey, and Anna all cried out.
She couldn’t let this continue.
Pushing to Quaid’s side, she grabbed his arm. “Please stop them.”
“No.” Quaid’s voice was low and urgent. “Look.”
She looked, and she saw Hays clearly, but it was the beast version of him as he drove Peter back with vicious hits to the face. Hays picked Peter up, threw him over his shoulder, and slammed him to the ground.
Elizabeth held on to Quaid to steady herself. Hays flipped Peter facedown and wrenched her guard’s arm behind his back. Hays’s knee dug in between the man’s shoulder blades. Peter struggled and bucked but couldn’t break Hays’s grip.
What in the world? She’d known Hays was tough yet kind. She hadn’t known he was the perfect specimen—an unbeatable warrior with a heart of gold.
Her other guards surged forward, and the hard clicks of metal against metal made her stomach turn over. She knew that sound. Pistols being cocked. She’d heard it many times before these very men shot someone under her father’s command.
Horror raced through her. They would shoot Hays.
“No!” she cried out. “Stop. Please!”
“Lizzy?” Jacey questioned.
Quaid turned to her, glaring with significant force. “Your guard made the first move, Elizabeth. What did you expect us to do?”
“My guard?” She focused on the group below them again. Hays was staring at her, his gaze full of frustration. Then she peered at the rest of her guards. Their weapons were either held loosely or not even out. They were all stiff, some with both hands held up. All six of them had at least two pistols or rifles pointed at them from Aiden’s guards. Aiden Porter himself backed up Hays.
“I … I thought my guards were going to shoot Hays,” she whispered to Quaid, praying whatever listening device was on her couldn’t pick up her words.
Quaid didn’t look convinced. She was still trying to wrap her mind around Hays truly being Superman and beating and subduing Peter, plus all of her guards immobilized. How soon would her father send more guards or put out a request for a contingent of mercenaries to get men here quicker?
“What should we do with them, Elizabeth?” Quaid asked.
She eased in close to her brother, and he flinched as if she’d stick a knife in him. Her life was not her own, and she hated what she’d been forced to do and what her father hoped to use her for, but knowing that her younger brother not only loathed her but thought she’d hurt him was an awful feeling.
Ignoring the hurt, she tried to make him understand in a whisper that hopefully only Quaid could hear, “If Father discovers they are restrained, he will send more, many more, and they will be instructed to torture and kill you … and those you love.”
She eased back, hoping he’d believe her and listen. Peter and his men incapacitated was an incredible sight, but there were mercenaries around the nation who would take the money father would pay through shadow corporations on the dark web to come and annihilate everyone in this valley. Everyone she loved.
Quaid didn’t respond, and she didn’t know that he believed her. Finally, he said in a loud voice, “It should be obvious that we have the upper hand—more manpower, better fighting skills, and we haven’t sold our souls to a murderous she-devil.”
Elizabeth thought he was referring to their mother, but he may have meant her.
