Considering we just divided our parents’ worldly possessions among ourselves, we’re all in a pretty good mood as we make our way to our respective cars. I didn’t say anything this morning when Everett and Storm were talking about it but knowing that everyone I care about is out in the open right now has wave after wave of nausea rolling over me.
I had hoped once we got here that it would settle, but the longer we’ve been exposed, the more anxious I’m feeling. The Russo family is ruthless, and Elijah Russo is the worst of them. He doesn’t get involved in a lot of the politics within the city, but he’s a stone-cold psycho, and he’s set his sights on us. On me.
Security stand around each of the cars and the moment Everett moves away from me I feel the loss immediately. I don’t know when, or how, it happened, but he’s quickly become my security blanket again, the only thing that can make me feel safe as we weather the storm the Russos are bringing down on us.
The door is opened for me and I thank the guard quietly as I take my seat, and the moment I do I hear a click as my weight settles. My stomach drops through the floor as tears spring to my eyes, horror washing through my entire body.
I’ve seen enough movies and read enough books to know what that sound is, and somehow the Russos have delivered their next move before we could even think of our own, before we could wade through our grief and come up with the best way to bring them down once and for all.
Before the meaning of that click can process, I call for Everett, needing him with me, needing him to tell me everything is going to be okay when we both know that’s the complete opposite of the truth.
Thomas, one of the security guards, looks at me with panic in his hazel eyes. If I remember correctly from when he’s guarded me in the past, he was in the marines before he signed on with my family, so he knows exactly what that sound was and his face reflects exactly what I’m feeling.
“What’s wrong?” Everett bounds toward us and I put both hands up.
“Stop,” I shout. “You can’t touch me, you have to stay a few feet away.”
“What? Why? What’s going on?”
The rest of my family gathers behind him flicking from me to Thomas and back again.
“You all need to leave. It might be a trap.”
“What might be a trap? What the fuck is going on?” Everett yells and I take deep breaths so I don’t move suddenly.
“When I sat down, I heard and felt a click beneath my seat. Thomas heard it too,” I tell them calmly. “There’s a pressure bomb under me, and if I move, if my weight shifts, we’re all going up in flames.” The calm that settles over me is eerie. Surely I should be panicking.
Everett’s face drains of all color as his eyes flick from my face to the seat I’m sitting on and back again, but he doesn’t say anything, he just stares, and I don’t entirely blame him. Behind him the rest of my family stands with the same look of horror on their faces, the fear in Snow’s eyes, the anger in Storm’s, the rage in Rayne’s, and the terror in Emerson’s.
“Go,” I whisper.
“No way.” Storm shakes his head as he takes a few steps forward until he’s standing next to Everett. “Who do we know that can diffuse a bomb?”
He shakes his head, as if clearing the fog and turns to my brother for a moment. “It depends what kind of bomb it is. I need to get close enough to check if it has a timer, and then if it’s military grade or homemade.”
“What difference will that make?” Rayne asks as he steps forward as well. Every moment they stay is another moment my heart is lodged in my throat, and I can barely breathe around it.
“If it’s homemade, we’re in trouble because we don’t know how stable the explosive is, and they may have built it to be difficult to diffuse,” Everett explains.
“Like the one you designed a couple of years ago?” Storm wonders aloud.
Everett nods. “Exactly. I designed that to make whoever was diffusing it second guess themselves. But we face another set of issues if it’s military grade because that means the number of people we can call on is limited without raising questions of our own involvement in illegal weapons and it will be very touchy. If Wynter moves even slightly it could go off because that’s what they’re designed for.”
“Fuck,” Storm roars as he starts pacing back and forth.
“You need to go. All of you. They could wipe out every Saint James and every succession plan we have and our whole company would be left in the hands of Tommy. Could you imagine?” I hear the hysterics in my own voice, even as the calm settles over my perfectly still body.
“I don’t fucking care, Wynter,” Everett snaps. “Do you think anyone in this fucking parking garage gives a fuck about succession plans right now when you’re sitting on a goddamn bomb?”
“I care,” I growl. “I will not be the reason our entire family goes down before we can even make a move.”
Storm looks behind him and takes an unsteady breath before turning to Rayne. “I want you to take Snow and Emerson home. Go in one car, sweep the whole thing before any of you think about getting in. When you get back to the estate I want you all to go to the panic room and wait there until you hear from us.”
“I’m not leaving you here,” Rayne argues.
“Yes, you are. Wynter is right. Everett and I will stay with her and get this sorted, but until then I need you to take our sister and your wife and get them to safety. I don’t trust anyone right now because somehow this was planted with all of these fuckers standing here. Drive yourself, use the emergency failsafe system in the house to lock down every door and window, and go to the panic room.” Listening to Storm’s quiet instruction gives me something to focus on as the gravity of my situation finally settles over me.
I’m going to die.
The startling reality should have dread seeping into my veins, but instead I can’t take my eyes off Everett. He probably doesn’t realize how much he affects me. How even though I’m sitting on a bomb, I feel safe because he’s near.
There are so many things I haven’t had a chance to say, so many things I wish we had time for, but our time is being cut short. All those years we wasted, all the time we spent apart, none of it matters anymore, not as I look death in the face.
All that matters is the stolen moments we have left.
Rayne hesitantly takes Emerson and Snow toward the car closest to the exit, but it’s clear none of them want to leave me. Storm made the right call. We don’t know who we can trust anymore, and it’s becoming more and more clear we have a rat somewhere in our organization.
“Ev?” I whisper.
His eyes shoot up to mine before he takes a few careful steps toward me. “What is it, dove?” he asks gently.
I close my eyes to tamp down the tears that rise to the surface. Fuck. I didn’t think saying goodbye would be so hard, but I guess it’s not often you get the chance. Usually your life is torn from you and there’s no opportunity to say the things that would remain unsaid. “I think you and Storm should go and evacuate the building in case this goes up, and then you should go home and bunker down with the others.”
“No fucking way, Wynter,” he snaps.
I squeeze my eyes shut. “I don’t want you to die because of me,” I whisper.
“Don’t you get it, Wynter. If you die, my life isn’t worth living,” he hisses.
“So we should let Russo blow all three of us up?”
“No, because you’re not getting blown up, I’m going to figure out how to get you out of here, and then you’re never leaving the fucking estate again.”
I huff out a small laugh, trying to stop my body from shaking. “I’m surprised you were able to stay away for so many years with the level of caveman you’ve got going on.”
“It’s only because he always had eyes on you. If not for that, he wouldn’t have lasted the first year.” Storm chuckles as he pulls his phone out of his pocket.
I stare at Everett for a moment before he too cracks a smile. “He’s right, you know. It never felt like I was away because I could always see what you were up to. Sometimes when you were on the phone, I would imagine you were talking to me, it was one of the ways I could stay sane during that time.”
I shake my head and hold the giggle that threatens in. “I should be really creeped out right now.”
“But you’re not?” Everett quirks a brow.
“No, I’m not.” Because the idea that he was never far makes some of the tension in my gut ease. Maybe he’s right. Maybe this isn’t it for me. If there’s anyone that can get me out of this, it’s him, and I have a feeling he’ll stop at nothing to be able to take me home when this is all over.
