“The cops are on their way,” Brennan replied smoothly, and once again, I recognized just how like his father he was.
It took a psychopath to register another’s terror and to sound as if we were talking through our takeout order for a Friday night.
I closed my eyes, praying that the cops would make it here fast, but I knew, from my past experience, that luck was rarely on my side.
And that was only confirmed when I heard the tinkling sound of glass breaking.
My heart almost stopped at that, and when I turned to Seamus and I saw the outright terror in his eyes, I wanted to weep.
I’d done this.
Me.
I’d hurt my boy, I’d made him look like this.
I sucked in a breath, determined that if anything happened to him, I’d rather die, so I grabbed him by the back of his shirt and started hauling him toward my bedroom. He began to struggle, but that whole ‘a woman can pick up a car if it means saving her child’ stuff was, I realized, true.
One hundred percent true.
I didn’t care that he was like a brawling cat that was trying to scratch and hiss at me. I just needed to make sure he was out of here and in a safe place.
Dragging him back down the corridor to my bedroom, I was grateful for the thickly woven rug that dampened our footsteps. My door was wide open because I had a thing about never closing them, much to Seamus’s horror, because I’d inadvertently flashed him a few times, and I didn’t stop hauling him in until we were in my room.
“You stay there,” I snarled at him, shoving him into the cupboard that acted as a safe room. “You stay small, and you stay in the corner. You have your gun aimed at the door, and if anyone opens it, you shoot. You shoot straight in the chest, remember like I taught you? Bang in the middle of the torso. But don’t waste bullets,” I hissed at him. “They’re not going to kill you, Seamus. You’re too valuable.” The words annihilated me, but it was vital he was aware of that. “You’re an O’Donnelly, and that means you’re too important. So they won’t kill you, but they will incapacitate you. You make sure that doesn’t happen. The cops will be here soon, and once they are, your uncle will be here next.”
He gulped. “Not my father?”
“No, sweetheart. Remember, he’s in the hospital. He’s too sick right now.” I hadn’t told him about the extent of Declan’s injuries, had just said he was resting up in a clinic. Now I regretted that because it figured Seamus would paint a pretty picture of his father, and instead of Declan being the one to come storming in to the rescue, it would be Brennan.
Of course, it wouldn’t actually be any O’Donnelly. It would be me. I’d be the one who made sure that no one hurt my son.
The thought had me grinding my teeth as I rasped, “Here’s my cell. Stay on the line with your uncle.”
“No,” Brennan replied, his tone modulated. “I want to talk with you.”
I narrowed my eyes, but I wasn’t about to argue, not when I had things to do. I triggered the security alert on the alarmed door, then turned to Seamus and whispered, “Remember the code?” His swift nod had me continuing, “You make sure you fire calmly. Methodically. Don’t waste bullets. But do not—do you hear me?—allow yourself to be moved to another location. They shouldn’t break through the door, but do as I say, okay?”
Seamus nodded, and because he registered my tone, the severity of it, his face turned from pure white with fear to a staunch resolve that told me he was ready for whatever might come his way.
Of course, that might involve listening to me being shot or…
I blew out a breath.
Raped.
Fuck.
I sent up a quick prayer to a God I’d stopped believing in a long time ago, promising, ‘I promise I’ll attend church again if you just make sure Seamus doesn’t have to hear that.’
When there was no answer, no miracle that made things better, I just heaved a sigh, closed the closet door that was part of a safe room I’d had installed before we moved in, and heard the locks click into place.
Rushing around the bed, I turned off the speaker and put the phone to my ear even as I opened the nightstand drawer to pull out a revolver.
It dwarfed my hand, and looked a little ridiculous in my grasp, but it could look stupid all the way to the bank. I didn’t give a damn so long as the fucker worked.
“How long until the cops get here, Brennan?”
“They’re saying four minutes ETA.”
I gulped. “A lot can happen in four minutes.”
“You’ll be fine,” he told me, his tone almost soothing.
In a previous life, Brennan had either been Sigmund Freud or a hypnotist. I wasn’t sure which.
I checked that the gun was loaded—even though I knew it was—and when I found it packed with ammo, I sucked in a breath and settled myself at the side of the bed, my back to the nightstand, my arm on the mattress for support.
With my butt on the ground, I listened to the reassuring sound of Brennan breathing—slow and deep, no panic to it. No rush. And I forced my heart to stop pounding, forced myself to calm down and to emulate his breathing.
“You did good, Aela. You taught him well.”
“Had to. He’s one of you even if I tried to protect him from all this. Would be like sending a baby chick into a fox’s den and expecting him not to get bitten.”
Brennan’s snort said it all. “Maybe, but I never expected you to instruct him the way you did. You did good.”
Because I didn’t live for any man’s approval, I said nothing and just rolled my eyes. I was a mom, for God’s sake. What did he expect me to do? Leave my baby unprotected?
Of course, I apparently had. Somehow my security system had been bypassed. That was a half a million down the drain, but more than that, Seamus wasn’t safe.
God help me.
Tuning my ear into the silence of the house, I had to wonder if I was overreacting, if I’d even heard the glass breaking, the sound reminiscent of someone messing with the back door to gain access to the handle. If it had happened, why hadn’t that tripped the alarm? I didn’t get it. Unless…
I’d set the alarm, hadn’t I?
In the mayhem, had I forgotten?
Christ, I couldn’t remember.
And when I couldn’t hear a single footstep, didn’t hear a squeak that indicated where they were, it merely made me question if I’d heard right in the first place, but then I figured that it would make sense for there to be no noise. After all, if the carpets I had down in all the rooms protected us from making random sounds, why wouldn’t it help our intruders?
A gentle hushing noise, so soft that I almost missed it, and would have if Brennan’s breathing hadn’t calmed me down, ricocheted outside in the hall.
I tensed, preparing myself for anything, and when the door opened, gliding inward, panic filled me because my senses hadn’t failed me, but I forced myself to calm down as the door carried on moving inward gently, as if the person was trying to make sure that the hinges didn’t squeak. I waited until a shadow hovered in the open space, then I sucked in a breath, aimed my gun, and fired.
The explosion triggered the intruder’s weapon, but even though I heard the whistle of the bullet, it missed.