Page 96 of Master of Secrets

The phone’s screen went black, and a cackling shriek of canned laughter assaulted our ears. Wicked-witch-in-a-cartoon type laughter. Suddenly, a countdown appeared on the black screen. Ten…nine…eight…seven.Fuck!

I grabbed the phone from Freya’s hand, hurled it away from us. “Get down!” I yelled, flinging myself on top of Freya.

Boom.The phone exploded, several yards away from us.

We looked up. Sickening, sulfurous fumes were heavy in the air.

Everybody looked okay. Freya was wiggling beneath me, making protesting sounds. I rolled off her, and got up, my knees weak and wobbling.

“Holy shit,” I ground out, my voice shaking. “That was close.”

“Yes,” Amos agreed, as he got to his feet. “But they’re just fucking with us.”

“Meaning?” I asked.

“That wasn’t a big enough explosion to kill us,” Amos said thoughtfully, staring at the blackened spot on the floor, the bluish smoke cloud that hung in the beams of light from the windows. “It was just a message. They still don’t want you dead.”

“Scared the shit out of me,” Jed said, hugging his wife.

“Kat was right,” Freya whispered. “The bastards are playing with us. It was a trap. They lured us here…but for what?”

“I say, let’s get the fuck out of here and ponder it elsewhere,” Darius said.

Sounded like a great idea. We hauled ass without another word. I was so unnerved, I pulled out my phone for one of my check-ups with Mick. I was early, and he was going to give me shit for being paranoid and micromanaging, but hey. Indulging myself when I fucking felt like it was one of the perks of being the boss.

The phone rang…and went to voicemail.

My guts dropped straight down. Mick never missed a call. I tried Ryder, then Trey. Cade. Dale. No response.

“No one’s answering their phones at the Mountain House,” I announced.

Their heads all whipped around as we loped toward the downed fence.

“The fuck?” Amos asked, yanking out his own phone.

I pulled up the app that monitored the security feeds. Jed, Freya, and the Drakes were all doing the same. I shuffled through the images. They looked tranquil enough. Front view, gate view, front terrace, breezeway, just like they always were, no broken glass, no bullet holes. But I didn’t see anyone there. Looking through the picture windows into the TV room, I didn’t see Kat and Holly on the couch, either. Then again, they could be in the kitchen, or Holly’s room—

“Oh shit,” Jed muttered. “Security room. Helipad.”

I flicked immediately to those images. The computers were unmanned, and I saw Cade, lying full length on the floor, unconscious. I saw the booted feet of some other man, disappearing into the other side of the camera’s view. At the helipad, Mick was sprawled on his side by the stone wall. I couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead.

As we took off running, I heard Nicole’s mocking laughter in my mind. We were executing her plan exactly as she had wanted us to.

We were just a bunch of kittens, playing with her fucking laser pointer.

CHAPTER35

Kat

Holly and I dove deep into Harry Potter, until Holly finally dropped off, her head in my lap. I probably could have wiggled away, tucked a pillow where my leg had been, but I couldn’t bring myself to move away from her warm weight.

I stared down at the two chicken salad wraps I’d taken off the platter in the kitchen while the story continued to run on the TV. Neither I nor Holly could eat, not so much as a nibble. A brick wall blocked my appetite. Mick had asked me to take the rest of the chicken wraps to the guys in the security room, so at least they hadn’t gone to waste.

The intimacy felt good. Having an innocent child trust me enough to fall asleep on me, ahhh. Like being kissed by an angel. Who knew I was so damn sentimental. I’d spent all my energy supercharging my defenses for so long, never sparing a thought for what was inside that barbed-wire perimeter. My tender, undefended heart.

I stared blankly at the TV, stroking Holly’s hair and remembering Gabri and Raffi so intensely, I could practically feel them. I remembered the smell of their shampoo, the sound of their voices, the freckles on Gabri’s nose, the way Raffi’s mascara smeared.

My attention was caught by the sound of a helicopter approaching. My first thought was Ethan and the rest, but they had taken the van, to keep a low profile.