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“Don’t worry about me.” She pushes ineffectually at my chest, her voice wavering slightly. “Get the children.”
Cecelia is already out of her chair, running towards me. She wraps her arms around my waist, and I pick her up, one hand cupped behind her head as I press her face into my shoulder and hold her. She’s shaking and crying, and I smooth her hair with my hand, crooning words to her that I don’t even realize I’m saying. Trying to calm her.
“Bella—” She sniffles. “Is Bella going to be okay?”
I swallow hard, glancing over at Danny, who is still balled up on the chair, his arms wrapped around his knees and forehead pressed hard against them, as if he can hide from everything happening around him. As if not seeing it will make it all go away. My heart wrenches in my chest, seeing my son like this, and I go to him, gently putting a hand on his shoulder as I hold Cecelia with my other arm.
Danny jumps, crying out.
“It’s alright. It’s just me.” I rub a circle on his back with my hand, glancing over at Agnes, who is slowly getting up.
“Dad. Is Bella going to be okay?” Cecelia asks again, more stridently, and I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to lie to my daughter, and yet—I can’t begin to process the idea of telling her the truth. That Bella will almost certainly not be okay. That, if she survives whatever Igor has planned for her, she very well might wish that she hadn’t.
That I don’t know if I can save her, without putting my family in danger.
“I don’t know,” I say quietly, choosing something in between. Not a lie, but not wholly the truth, either. “But I need to leave you here with Agnes for a little while, okay? She’s going to take you upstairs and get you cleaned up. I need to go find Aldo, and check on a few things.”
“No—” Cecelia buries her face in my shoulder again, another sob wracking her narrow shoulders. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“Nothing will,” I promise her, feeling secure in being able to say that, at least. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
Cecelia clings to me, but she lets go when I set her down. Agnes wraps her arms around the girl, holding her as she looks at me.
“Are you going to be alright, here with them?” I ask quietly. I don’t think Agnes sustained any major injuries, but I also don’t know what the shock might have done to her. I’m fairly sure she’s never had to deal with anything like this before.
“I’ll be fine,” Agnes says firmly. “Just—find Aldo, will you?” There’s worry shining in her eyes, the creases around them deeper than usual, and I can tell she’s worried. More than worried, probably, for the husband she adores and who adores her, but she’s trying not to let on, for Cecelia and Danny. “Get him back up here, so I know he’s safe. And I’ll keep them safe, while you’re gone.”
There’s nothing she could do, of course, if the Bratva came back. But I feel sure that they won’t, now that Igor has Bella. She’s what he wanted, and there’s no reason for him to return to do further violence to my family. Not unless I were to go after her.
Don’t think about that right now. I can do nothing about Bella at this moment. So I wait until I see Agnes and the children make it to the stairs, and then I head out of the back door, out to the property to track down my security.
I find Aldo in the old landscaping shed, further back. He’s sitting on a stool in the back corner, white-faced, his hands knotted in his lap. He nearly jumps out of his skin when I push the door open, looking at me with alarm, the moment before he realizes that it’s me.
“Gabriel.” He breathes my name, relief coloring the word. “Where’s Agnes? Is she safe? I heard gunfire, saw men going past, and I wasn’t sure I could get up to the house. Not without?—”
I see shame in the back of his eyes, behind his worry, and I give him a reassuring look. “You did the right thing,” I tell him. “Agnes is safe. The Bratva have left. And I’m going to get you both, and my family, out of here. I just need to find out where the rest of my men are, first.”
Aldo nods, swallowing hard. I know what he’s thinking—that he should have done something. That he should have gone after those men, or up to the house. But I meant it when I said he made the right choice. Aldo is an old man, a groundskeeper, not a fighter. If I was outmatched by the number of men Igor brought with him, Aldo certainly would be. He would have been in danger, or killed.
“Agnes will be glad you’re safe,” I tell him. “She’s worried about you. If you go on up to the house, she should be upstairs with the children. Go let her know you’re alright.”
Aldo nods again, walking past me slowly, almost haltingly, as if the past hour has aged him. I feel as if it’s aged me. As if I can feel the anger and fear and that horrible sense of helplessness eating away at me, down to my bones.
I step out of the shed, continuing further down the path through the estate.
It’s not long before I find my security. I find the first body sprawled out, the bloody grass still wet around him. Another is nearby. And I find the other three, dead as well. All shot, all with Bratva bullets riddling their bodies. Rage courses through me, my hands curling into fists as I stare at them.
The desire to make the Bratva pay throbs through my veins, ceaseless and demanding. The desire to go after Bella is mixed up in it, the knowledge that even one night under Igor’s control might mean things happening to her that she should never have to endure, that she’ll never recover from.
But I have to make sure my family is safe, first.
I have contacts that I’ve never needed to call before, favors that I’ve never needed to use. I call in one of them now, needing a cleaner to come and deal with the bodies on my property. It’s not something I have experience in, but I know people who do. And right now, more than anything, I need to get back to my children.
Agnes and Aldo are at the foot of the stairs when I walk back in, talking quietly with each other. They look up as I walk in, and I can see that Agnes is still pale, her face more pinched than usual. She looks frail, and my chest contracts, the need to protect her—to protect all of them welling up in me.
She’s been with my family my whole life. They both have. I have to get them, and my children, to safety before I do anything else.
“Go collect whatever you need for a long trip.” I glance between the two of them. “I’m getting all of us out of here.”
