Yield (32 page)

“By the time we get there, you’ll have agreed with me.”

With my knuckle to my forehead, I bowed my head a moment. “No. You have to see that I cannot go there.”

“Why?”

I choked up. “I
can’t
. He is there. No matter how much you say you will guard me, I can’t. I just can’t. Not yet.”

I watched him take that in. He shifted on the seat, sighed, looking a perfect gentleman in his suit, with a silver tie and silver cufflinks.

“No, I don’t want to kidnap you, my dear. You know that.” For the only time ever, I think I saw tears in his eyes. “I want you away from him, from here. If you need to go to a different country I will arrange that. Just don’t stay with him. He isn’t a safe individual.”

Glass? I was growing to love that man but somehow I doubted Hugh was going to see the light. The strain of this on top of everything else was telling on me. I drew a shaky breath.

“He, Glass, was there for me. Yes, he made a mistake in letting me get kidnapped, but he was there. I know he came back, stayed in Australia, even though it was dangerous for him. He was there again even two weeks ago.”

“Rubbish.”

I shrugged. “Jurgen let it slip. His hair color is still dark. That disguise was for me. It’s only washing out now.” I quipped, needing to make light of this, “Any man who will dye his hair for me has my heart.”

The car was pulling to a halt. Past a row of cars and trucks, I could see the tail of a big commercial plane taxiing off the runway.

“I didn’t know that. I missed it. The trust took me off you, your security, a month ago, since you seemed gone.” He tilted his head, looking morose, with his mouth downturned. “I’m sorry, Wren. I should’ve been there too.”

“Then you can sympathize with Glass. Hugh...” I took a breath to pace myself, my voice trembling. “I think, I may, be coming to love Glass. I know that’s outside your realm of –”

“Stop.” He held out a hand. “No need. I understand now, in a way. Now that I see you, and have heard you speak. Your emotions are in your voice and how you react. You always were a little wild. The man appeals to that side of you.” He put his hand to the side of the door and opened it. “So. You’re not going to leave?”

I shook my head, firmly. “No.”

“Okay. I will sort this out for you, as best I can.” He ran a hand over his close-shorn hair. “I will.”

“Thank you, Hugh.”

“No need. It is my job. We’ll return to the lawyer’s, meet Glass there. However, before I forget to say this, Wren. I’ve always been proud to be your man. Proud to guard you, no matter what ups and downs we faced and I hope to do so in the future. Thank you.”

Wow.
I smiled.

“No. Thank you.” I reached over and gave him a brief half hug.

As he went to climb out, I recalled that Glass had told me to tell him about the child. “Wait.”

“Yes?” He leaned in.

“I’m not sure this is the best time but Glass said it might be important to you, and I know it will be, just maybe not in the way he thinks.” Shit, how did I tell him news I was still struggling with?

“Go ahead.”

“Hugh. I’m pregnant. With that man’s child. Five weeks.” As he blinked at me, clearly shocked, I went on. “I’m going to keep the baby. I’ve decided.”

“That’s. Damn. That’s... There are ramifications to this.”

Hugh swearing? I had hoped for more sympathy than
ramifications
. While he said something more, two men in suits approaching the car caught my attention. His? I opened my mouth to ask but what Hugh had said made me stop.

“What? Say again?”

“This changes everything. If he’s still watching you, and discovers this, you’re in a hundred times the danger.”

He meant the DNA? Really? Why? I hadn’t connected that with increased danger. I had no logic to my terrors about
him
coming to get me. He was like the bogey man or Freddy from
Nightmare on Elm Street
.

“We need to go. You’re not as safe as I thought.” He twisted to slip back into the car.

One of the men beyond raised a weapon and shot Hugh, twice.

From the sound, one bullet hit Hugh’s back, the second hit the side of his neck and sprayed blood at me, splattering on the seat and across my dress, my face. He crumpled and slid from the car but somehow managed to slam the door.

Despite my vision blurring, my training kicked in.

Where were Hugh’s other men, other cars? I ripped the Beretta from my bag. I had a universal lock control in the back and I slapped the button, heard the locks click down. The attackers had been joined by others on all sides, but if we gunned the engine we could leave them behind.

I had to go.
Fuck the world.
I had to leave him behind. Dread thumped through my head in big nasty boots. The guard in the front of the car had his gun out. The driver had pressed the accelerator and we jerked forward then stopped as another vehicle crossed in front and blocked us.

“Reverse!” I screamed.

The guard in front raised his weapon and put a bullet in the driver’s head. More blood, this time spattered across the driver’s window.

Ohmigod.

I wrenched open the partition an inch and shot the guard twice while he was turning. Blood sprayed the windscreen, one shot went straight through his head and pocked the glass. It held. Bulletproof, of course.

The world cracked. My heart seemed to pause. Hugh was out there but he’d have a vest on so maybe he’d be okay...and I...I...

No, he wouldn’t be okay.
Don’t panic. Do.

Plan: get to the driver seat and accelerate out of here.
But as I pushed the partition all the way open, someone held Hugh up to the back window, slammed him there, really. His face bloody, there were new wounds on his head from being assaulted, I guessed. Seconds before, they hadn’t existed. He was dazed, out of it, his eyes mostly shut, blood pulsing from the main hole in his neck. He needed aid, fast, or he’d die. I could hear the scream of words from the man holding him.

“Open the fucking door or I kill him. Open it now!”

I counted five men on that side of the car and the man in the front was somehow still functioning, though I couldn’t see him, only hear his moans and the scrabble of his hands on the upholstery.

I shrank into the seat, my hands shaking, though they gripped my pistol. My jaw and my head ached. Everything, all the death, all the blood, the violence, seemed to pour into my head and make it pulse. From the way darkness encroached, people crowded the car behind me. Could I hear sirens? I wasn’t sure. If I could hold out, they couldn’t get me.

These men were his. They had to be. They would take me back to
him
if I let them get hold of me.

I looked to Hugh for some answer, but there was nothing. I wasn’t sure he was alive anymore. The blood smearing the window, the red trails bubbling down the glass, made it difficult to see him.

“Decide!” the man screamed. He ground a gun into Hugh’s head. “Come out or he dies!”

There are two endings to this story. From here, the reader may choose to read the darker
Thorn Path
or continue on and read the next chapter of the Blade Path.

Though some of the words are the same, the decisions are not.

“...The flutter of a butterfly's wing can cause a typhoon halfway around the world” - Chaos Theory.

Wren

The man was bluffing but would Hugh forgive me, if he wasn’t ? If he could, Hugh would tell me to do this. He mightn’t even be alive. I might give myself up for nothing. He’d tell me to do this. I just needed time. The airport security or the police would be here soon.

Unable to speak at first, I shook my head while staring into the angry face of the man holding the gun to Hugh.

“Last chance!”

I couldn’t do this, could I? I wavered, first one side, then the other. These men were determined and I could hear no sounds of rescue, no sirens. The gun was so close to the back windscreen that I could see his finger on the trigger and it was blanched white. A vignette of death and I was the pivot. I was the decider.

If I said no, and he fired,
god
, I put my hand to my stomach. It wasn’t just me anymore. I had my baby to keep safe. Yet, what sort of person would I be if I put Hugh in more danger? He was much more than a guy who helped guard me. Giving myself up didn’t mean death for me or my child. There was hope for me, but for Hugh, if I said the wrong words?

I didn’t know anything for certain. If I could flip a coin to do this...

It was me though, only my decision.

I couldn’t condemn him. “Don’t shoot! Don’t. Shoot. Please. I’ll do it.”

I was giving myself to these men. A terrible decision, but morally it was surely the right one? Funny, but I prayed they were
his
. At least then, I knew where I was going, and that he valued me as a person. If they were merely terrorists or random criminals, I was only a pawn or a money source to them. I bowed my head and moved along the seat until I was near enough to reach for the door. My hand seemed unconnected to me, and a million miles away.

“Stop! The gun! Put it on the floor.”

The Beretta shook while I stared at it. By putting it down, I was sealing my fate. I listened again for sirens, for any sign of help coming.

“You have three seconds! Three...”

I didn’t look at him, but I placed the gun on the floor then unlocked the door. A man hauled me out.

At the bang of the gun, I jerked and turned.

No. He wouldn’t have. No. I refused to believe, clinging to hope.

But he had. Hugh slid down the smeared window, boneless, then off the trunk, and flopped onto the road.

My hand was at my mouth and I choked on sobs, my nose running with tears. He didn’t move at all, or breathe, but his blood meandered down the glass and dripped from the car’s bumper.

*****

“She’s gone, man.” Jurgen’s words made me angry enough to punch him, but I didn’t.

I leaned forward, staring through the windscreen and down the street to the car park entry.

The police swarmed over the ambush site, lights flashing, uniformed officers checking for evidence. An ambulance had taken away one man but the rest of the bodies had been left, clearly dead. Most of the casualties seemed to be Hugh’s men. I had no idea how the attackers had managed it.

Outnumbered? Out planned? Maybe betrayed?

Who had diverted us? Hugh, or whoever our enemy was? Wren was gone and, from snatches of overheard conversations from onlookers, she’d been their goal. For some reason, Vetrov had let her go, then come back for her.

“She’s not gone, Jurgen, just missing. This time I’ll find her.”

“Sure. We will. I want to get these guys too.” His quiet assurance helped. He looked up from where he’d been reading something on his phone. “Remember how you told me to give Pieter the notes with all the answers Wren gave us?”

I waited, frowning.

“Well, Pieter texted me before we started this, as we were rolling out the gate. The name Chris, he remembers it from when he was working for Vetrov in North Queensland.”

“And? We need more than just that.”

“I think we have that more. Jazmine has seen the notes too. He asked her about the name and it triggered a memory. Chris helped her and Pieter escape. She thought he was a good guy, in a way. The other guards at the time said he was supposed to be an accountant on Magnetic Island. Pieter’s found an accountant who works there with that first name. It has to be him. He dug, found out when he graduated from university, found an old picture on the net. Jazmine says it’s him. And Zoe, the other name Wren heard Chris say, that was one of the other girls held with Jazmine.”

I sat back. “Shit. We can do this. I can be in Australia tomorrow. At the island the day after. I can pay this Chris a visit. He knows Vetrov. He has to.”

“Yes. And we’re coming with you. Me, Pieter, Sam, anyone else I can convince, along with all the weapons we need to take out this bastard.”

I stared. “You’ll be fucked if the cops find you.”

“You think that’s going to stop us? We have to get Wren back. Shut the fuck up and plan shit like you always do.”

“Huh.” I sucked in a breath then grinned. “Doing it. Get us back to the compound. We’re going hunting for bear and Goldilocks.”

“Now you’re talking.” He started the engine. “I always wanted a bearskin rug.”

Think positive. Planning was the key. I was getting her back, no matter what I had to do.