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I pulled Daniel in for a bro hug and clapped him on the back.

“Glowacki will be fine. If anyone can survive being shot, it’s that cantankerous old bastard,” I said affectionately.

He nodded.

I climbed into one of our vehicles and nodded to the driver to take us home. I’d managed to give Gracie a quick call earlier when I’d had a spare moment. It had been a relief to hear her voice. I couldn’t wait to get back to her. I had missed her and planned on showing her just how much as soon as she was back in my arms.

In the meantime, I lay back against the headrest, closed my eyes and let the tension drain from my body. Thank God that was over.

CHAPTER 37

GRACIE

LATE FRIDAY NIGHT - THE AFTERMATH

My phone rang, and I answered immediately, recognising Ash’s ringtone. I knew he was okay, but I was glad to hear his voice.

“Sweetheart how are you?” he asked.

“Fine, now I can hear your voice,” I told him, and I finally was.

The churning in my stomach settled as soon as he spoke.

I sighed as the tension drained from my body, and I couldn’t stop smiling as he told me how much he had missed me.

“I love you, Gracie,” he said.

“Love you too, Ash,” I replied shyly.

Wow, we just confessed our love! Yeh! My inner devil was delighted. I knew it was early days for something like that, but it just felt right, and so I refused to second guess it.

He gave me a brief rundown of what had happened at the lab. It seemed to have been a much fiercer battle than we’d had here. I was so glad Ash, Miki, and Daniel were okay. I worried about Janusz, but at least he was still alive, and the Doctor was operating on him. That had to be a good thing. I just prayed that Glowacki had the strength to recover, but having met him, I had a feeling it would take more than a bullet to stop that man.

I felt lighter after our phone call, and with the wounded, all tended to, Sonia and I went to help with the clean-up operation that was underway. It would be some time before Ash got home, so in the meantime, I was happy to keep busy.

Romi and the other men were doing a great job clearing things up quickly. The bodies from the Estate grounds had already been transported to the C for disposal.

Derrick and his boyfriend were cleaning blood up from the porch and rinsing it off the gravel driveway. Men were moving around outside, picking up discarded weapons and debris from the fireworks and the traps that had been set and loading them into bags. Romi told me they would be taken somewhere to be crushed.

None of the enemy had got close enough to the house to do any damage, but there were traces of blood throughout the hall and down to the basement. It was the blood of our own men when they came to be treated, but nevertheless, it needed to be cleaned up.

Sonia and I grabbed some mops and got to work.

While we did that, Romi had the men go around the grounds again to ensure nothing was missed.

They had taken a lot of precautions when they prepared for this mini-war, and they were taking the same amount of precautions during the clean-up. I was glad. I had no doubt that Ash and the others would be involved in a number of dangerous situations in the future, and it made me feel better to know that they had taken their lessons in caution from Ash’s dad so seriously.

I was startled from my thoughts by Dariusz Glowacki shouting into his mobile as he hurried along the hall. His face was flushed with anger. Romi asked what was wrong.

“They bombed our fucking home,” he spat out, then yelled something else in Polish before hanging up.

He gave us a quick rundown of the situation. Apparently, someone had left a bag in Magdalena’s room. Worried that Magdalena had left behind something she might need, one of the guards who had stayed to protect the Glowacki home opened it. He had radioed to his colleagues that there was a bomb and that it had a timer, but he hadn’t been able to get away before it went off. He was tragically blown up along with part of the house, but thankfully, he was the only casualty.

We were all shocked. Thank goodness Miki had taken the precaution of having the Glowackis come to the Estate while the attacks against the Bratva took place. There had been no intel that anything had been planned against the Polish, but Miki had felt that it was a strong possibility under the circumstances, and Glowacki had agreed.

I didn’t want to think about what would have happened if Magdalena and Sebastian had stayed home. Of course, the enemy wouldn’t have known they weren’t there. The fact that the bomb had been placed in Magdalena’s room suggested she was the target. Glowacki would go off his head when he found out, and rightly so.

After filling us in, Dariusz called someone else and fired off instructions in Polish to whoever was on the other end of the call before hanging up.