Authors: Kristen Ashley
This thought
was made moot when Douglas saw Nick’s car careened off the road a
quarter of a mile away from the house, slammed into another car,
Nick’s interior light blazing and its driver’s side door hanging
open.
“Fucking
hell,” Douglas bit out.
It took every
bit of willpower not to gun the motor but he knew he couldn’t go
charging in, he couldn’t warn them of his approach. He needed
surprise on his side.
He slid
forward, his teeth clenched, his hands biting into the steering
wheel, his eyes vigilantly scanning the landscape and was assaulted
by visions of Julia’s dead body lying in a pool of blood, a pool
of
his
making
because
he
wanted a
bigger challenge.
He
had been
bored with his life.
He
needed a more interesting way to pass the damned
time.
He rolled
passed the silent and dark Groundskeeper’s Cottage, hoping that
meant the Kilpatricks had already taken the children to the curry
house. Then he slid slowly down the slope and around the chapel. He
stopped before he got to the gravelled drive, pulling the emergency
brake and turning off the car, the Jag on the gravel would make too
much noise. He exited the car, fleet of foot and silent as a cat.
He crouched low, keeping to the edges of the wide arc of light
illuminating the outside of the house coming from both the lights
from Julia’s rooms (the drapes, disturbingly, not drawn) and the
outside light.
He stayed
close to the side of the house, inching forward and, chancing a
glance around the corner of the portico, finally seeing the front
door slightly ajar.
Ready for
him.
Waiting for
him.
He knew a trap
lay inside.
He didn’t
hesitate because inside, hopefully still alive, was Julia. And he’d
rather get his brains blown out than allow her to experience
another minute of the terror she was undoubtedly experiencing.
The moment he
quietly slipped into his lifelong home, he knew something was
wrong. Not just the danger that lurked there but the house.
Something was
very wrong with the whole, damned house.
He’d taken
three strides forward, ignoring the alien feeling of Sommersgate,
when a voice speaking in Russian told him to stop.
The cold steel
of a gun was pointed to his temple.
Without
hesitation, and quick as lightning, Douglas’s head jerked back. His
left hand shot up, grabbing the gunman’s wrist in a powerful grip.
The man fired a reactionary shot but it went wide.
Swinging
around with all his bodyweight and using instinct and years of
practice to guide him, he slammed the palm of his hand into the
man’s septum, forcing it into the back of his brain, causing him to
die instantly.
Douglas felt
no remorse. He knew who these men were and what they did. That
swift a death was an act of mercy. He deserved far worse for the
devastation he caused to hundreds of lives.
The Russian
fell to the ground; Douglas took his gun, strangely a six shooter
revolver rather than a semi-automatic, and swiftly checked its
load. Three shots had already been fired which made Douglas’s chest
clutch painfully. Forcing himself to remain focused, he felt the
dead man’s body for any further weapons and discovered a knife
strapped to his ankle. He removed it and tucked it in the back of
his belt.
Julia would
not be pleased about the knife but he’d deal with that later.
If, pray God,
he had the chance.
He quickly
divested himself of his suit jacket, throwing it aside and did the
same with his tie. He moved forward, unbuttoning the buttons at his
throat and saw that a light was shining into the stairwell from the
drawing room. It barely illuminated a prone human form that was
lying at the side of the hall.
With a vague
sense of concern he wouldn’t allow to form fully, Douglas moved
silently forward then crouched beside who he recognised as Nick.
Noticing the blood on his back, Douglas put out his fingers to
check and found his friend had a strong pulse.
But Nick was
out cold.
Douglas didn’t
have time to pay his friend more attention. Hoping the pulse would
remain steady; Douglas straightened and walked slowly forward,
listening carefully.
The house was
utterly silent but somehow he felt almost as if it was alert and
watching him take each step.
As he entered
the grand stairwell, the drawing room came into view.
And so did
Julia.
She stood at
the back of a couch facing the door and there was a man standing
beside her holding a gun to her temple. She was wearing, as usual,
a stylishly sexy dress.
She looked
magnificent.
He forced
himself to walk slowly, even casually, toward the door, his
footsteps sounding preternaturally loud on the stone.
The Russian
had seen him and started talking. It was one of the men, as Douglas
guessed, who’d been after Veronika. He knew at the time he should
have never shown himself to them.
He had his
orders, he was too public a figure, it wasn’t his job. His job was
that he gathered (in a variety of ways) information but he was not
to make contact with the criminals.
But he
couldn’t stand by and watch them beating Ronnie nor could he allow
them to force her into a life that was no life at all.
Now, he’d pay
for that mistake.
God,
Ronnie
. He hoped
they hadn’t found her first.
As he came
forward, he sought to allay Julia’s fears with his eyes but as the
Russian talked on, making grandiose and threatening statements
about taking something that wasn’t his, Douglas finally took in
Julia’s face.
And he was
stunned at what he saw.
Julia, his
bride-to-be, looked annoyed.
Not frightened
as he assumed she’d be, or, more accurately, terrified out of her
mind.
No, she
looked
annoyed
.
She
looked like he’d kept her waiting and they were going to miss their
booking at a restaurant she particularly wished to sample.
Not
like she was being held at
gunpoint in the drawing room of her own home by a vile Russian who
dealt in white slavery.
If she had
checked her watch and tapped her toe, Douglas wouldn’t have been
surprised.
And in that
moment, he knew.
She
trusted him. She
believed
in him.
She
knew
, without
any doubt, that he would know what to do, that he would save her,
make their home safe again.
All she had to
do was wait.
He felt this
knowledge hit him like a physical blow.
Tamsin had
believed in him, but she was his sister.
No one else
had. Not anyone in his life.
No one.
Except
Julia.
Memories of
her slid by in seconds, her blowing in his ear at the snooker
table; telling him of Sean’s abuse in the study; giving him her
Christmas present at dinner; wriggling her engagement ring at Nick
proudly; wrapping her legs around Douglas’s waist passionately,
protectively, lovingly while he was inside her.
“
What am I going to do with you?”
he’d asked.
“
Whatever you want,”
was her reply.
Bloody hell,
he loved her.
He came to
within a foot of the doorway and her eyes shifted quickly and
meaningfully to the side of it, telling him there was another man
behind it.
Douglas didn’t
react.
He just
smiled.
The Russian
was still talking, threatening, his voice getting panicky because
Douglas hadn’t dropped his gun as asked.
Douglas
ignored him.
In an even,
calm voice he said simply, “I love you, Julia.”
Her face
changed, even from across the expanse he saw her eyes darken and
that raw, tender look came about her and he knew what it meant.
Finally he
understood.
“Oh Douglas,”
she replied, her sweet, husky voice shaking, not with fear but with
feeling. “Sweetheart, I love you too.”
And then it
all happened at once.
The house
rumbled, the windows flexed in dangerously then out like the house
was about to implode.
Julia jerked
her head back at the same time she jammed her elbow into her
attacker’s ribs, drawing a confused yowl from the man. She threw
herself over the back of the couch and the last Douglas saw of her
was a flash of black netting and her legs ending in two high-heeled
black sandals disappearing behind the couch.
Douglas wasted
no time; he aimed at her attacker, fired and cursed.
He caught the
man in the shoulder but didn’t bring him down.
The door flew
toward him and he was ready for it. He caught it with his forearm,
violently throwing it back with all his weight and strength. He
heard an “oomph” of pain come from behind the door but ignored
it.
The lights
flashed, off and on, then again and again. The chandeliers were
swaying dangerously, their crystals tinkling.
A shot was
fired at Douglas by the Russian that held Julia but it was wide and
Douglas aimed another shot at him and caught him in the thigh but,
before the man dropped to the floor, Julia had re-emerged from her
position, holding aloft a Waterford vase that Douglas knew was one
of his mother and father’s wedding presents. She hurled it at the
Russian and it smashed against the side of his head causing him to
grunt and hit the floor with a heavy thud.
The lights
were still flashing, not only in the drawing room but behind him as
well and likely everywhere in the house. The walls were creaking as
if Sommersgate was about to crumble in on itself.
Douglas had no
time to worry about the bizarre disintegration of his ancestral
home. The other man stepped wide from the door, his gun raised but
Douglas caught his wrist, needing to drop his own gun to do so. The
man managed to squeeze off a shot which caught Douglas, stinging
his upper, left arm.
As Douglas
grappled with the man, an otherworldly moan drifted ominously
through the house and then another missile, this time a heavy glass
paperweight, flew through the air, hitting his opponent on the side
of the neck, making him squawk in angry pain.
“
Stop
throwing things!” Douglas ordered Julia, his hands full with the
man who was fighting both a terror of Douglas, the unknown of Julia
and her priceless glass bombs and a house gone mad. “You could
hit
me
.”
“I’m not going
to hit you! I played softball for seven years!” she retorted, as if
that meant anything in a death match.
He noted
out of the corner of his eye she was standing there with her hands
on her hips as if to say,
Get on with it, I’m hungry
.
He would have
laughed if he hadn’t noticed her original attacker slowly pulling
himself to his feet, still armed.
“
Julia,
down!
” Douglas
barked.
His clever
soon-to-be wife noticed the Russian too and disappeared behind the
couch in an instant.
A flame of
fire shot out of the fireplace at this point even though no fire
had been blazing in its grate the moment before. The moan was still
howling through the house, the windows flexing, the chandeliers
veering crazily side-to-side.
Douglas
whirled, gaining position on the gun, he used his attacker’s weapon
and aimed at the other Russian who had already fired, this time
toward the spot where Julia had been.
Douglas’s shot
went wild as did his mind.
If he hit
Julia, Douglas would rip him apart.
He let out a
roar of rage and used his newfound fury to plant his feet and throw
his attacker over his shoulder onto his back on the floor. Without
hesitation, Douglas wrested the man’s gun away, calmly aimed and
fired two rounds into him, one in each kneecap.
The man’s
howls joined the unearthly thunder of the house and Douglas turned
again to the other man who had decided against shooting him to give
way to the crazed violence that blazed in his eyes. Charging toward
him like a bull, Douglas braced for impact when two things happened
at once.
First, the
blast of a shotgun unloaded itself into the ceiling by the side
doors that led toward the greenhouse.
This
happened thanks to a wild-eyed Roddy Kilpatrick who followed the
blast with an outcry of, “What the
bloody hell
is going on here?” and yet stood calmly as plaster
rained down on him.
Second,
another paperweight, this one bigger than the last, flew with
alarming accuracy at Douglas’s assailant, knocking him with a
sickening thump on his head and succeeding in dropping him like a
stone three feet away from Douglas.
Julia stood
behind the couch heaving angry breaths and smartly yanking up the
neckline of her strapless dress. Douglas stood amongst the carnage,
one man unconscious at his feet, the other writhing in (now
whimpering) agony.
The battle
against the Russians won, Sommersgate still had a battle of its
own.
“Are you all
right?” Douglas asked Julia.
“
You
took your
own damned time coming home!” she accused hotly.
He guessed, by
that response, she was all right.
“Jesus, Doug.
You made a mess. I’m always telling you, not the kneecaps. Christ,
the man will never walk again.”
Nick was in
the room, staggering a bit, a huge lump had formed on his temple
and the bruising had already begun.