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I walked into the hallway with my arms raised, and half a dozen familiar faces marched toward me, led by the motherfucker who’d knocked me out the day before. I swallowed when I remembered what he’d hit me with and glanced down to see a matte-black machine gun poised in both fists.
Fuck me.
Red lights splashed across their serious faces as I prayed that Jack would know to take the leader out first. I’d already been shot twice. I could probably take a third or a fourth, but not a fucking spray. That machine gun was a game changer.
I could see her in my periphery, preparing to jump out and open fire, and Paul was right behind her, poor cunt. He stood with his shoulder against the entryway wall, still obviously bell rung, but we needed all the help we could get.
Then, with a nod of Jack’s head, everything shifted into slow motion.
I dropped to my knees, pulling the Russian’s handgun out of my waistband as a hail of gunfire tore through the air just above my head. Aiming for the fucker front and center, I squeezed the trigger, but Jack beat me to it. My bullet sailed over his falling body and clipped the lad standing behind him. I winced as I braced for the wrath of the other four, but their guns had already clattered to the floor, bodies jerking and convulsing as exit wounds burst through camouflage and flesh.
Within seconds, all six Russians were in a bloody heap on the floor, and four grinning, ski mask–wearing vigilantes were hugging and thrusting their guns into the air behind them.
Turning to Jack, who was propped up on her elbows beside me, I let out a laugh and helped her up. “Nice friends ya got there,” I shouted over the alarm. “Where’d you find ’em?”
“Special Ops Force.” She beamed with pride. “Not bad for a bunch of retirees, huh?”
CHAPTER 45
CLOVER
Ipaced the length of St. Patrick’s Cathedral for the millionth time, crushing a sea of rotten rose petals into the white satin aisle runner under my feet.
The entire gothic chapel smelled like death. There must have been a wedding there on the night of the invasion because every pew and pedestal was draped in white tulle and dead flowers. Every candelabra dripped with melted wax. And every time I reached the altar and turned around, the sun streaming in through the stained-glass windows was a little lower in the sky.
“They’re taking too long,” I muttered with my thumbnail between my teeth.
“They’ll be here soon,” Kate replied automatically, never once looking up from the front pew, where she was busily prepping for dinner.
While Jack and I had been coming up with a plan and contacting her military mates, Kate had been working just as hard to make sure that everyone had bedding and food and water for the night. Blankets and sleeping bags and pillows had been set up throughout the cathedral, giving each person plenty of privacy, and meat pies had been made ahead of time and packed in insulated delivery bags from the bakery.
I’d felt useful before the mission began, but once Jack and the lads left through the Poddle—an underground river that ran below the cathedral and would allow them to travel to the hospital unseen—there was nothing left to do but try not to have a panic attack. I probably could have offered to help Kate, but she needed something to do just as badly as I did. I didn’t want to take that away from her.
I was just about to turn around again when the sound of squeaky boots on a tile floor echoed through the massive, marble space. Spinning around, I watched as a band of camouflaged men—and one woman—filed in through an arched doorway next to the altar. Their ski masks had been pushed up to reveal their grinning faces, their arms were draped around one another’s neck, and their attention seemed to be on a particularly wet member of their crew—a bald man called Finn, I believe.
“Fucker fell in!” Jack chuckled as Kate rushed over and hugged her wife.
“Bah! I was pushed, and ya know it.” Finn laughed—or maybe he was Oscar and the bearded one was Finn. I’d only met them briefly before they changed into their tactical gear and disappeared into the Poddle through a manhole outside.
The team had worn black wellies to wade through the underground stream to the hospital, but the man at the back of the group, wearing hospital clothes tucked into Kellen’s old combat boots, was wet up to his knees.
“Damien!” I sprinted down the center aisle, satin sliding and rose petals scattering in my wake, and the moment our eyes locked, tears filled mine.
He had his arm around the back of a man called Paul. I remembered him because he seemed to be Jack’s favorite, but as soon as Damien saw me, he let go and leaped over the ornate railing separating the pews from the pulpit. He was on me in two bounds, lifting me off my feet and claiming my mouth in a kiss that tasted like tears I hadn’t known I was crying.
Eons passed in the span of that kiss, seasons and lifetimes merged and diverged, but not one of them could touch us. Because in that moment, we were timeless. There was no Kellen or Darby or Damien or Clover—those people were tiny fractals of who we truly were—like panes of glass in the ornate windows that were currently bathing our skin in rainbows. We weren’t the individual colors. We were the sun shining through all of it.
“You found me,” Damien whispered, wrapping my legs around his waist and pressing his forehead to mine.
“I’ll always find you.” I smiled. “I found your ma too.”
Damien’s eyebrows pulled together as my grin widened.
“Kate.” I nodded toward the pew where dinner was being served. “She was Kellen’s ma.” Reaching into my jacket pocket, I pulled out the photo and showed it to Damien. “That’s why Jack agreed to help. Kate couldn’t bear to lose you twice.”
I lowered my voice. “Neither could I.”
I realized as I watched Damien’s eyes roam over the image that he’d never seen a picture of Kellen before.
