Page 6 of Iron Crown

Jericho yanked me away from her, his hand on my chest, his eyes dark with promised violence.

Aoibheann clutched at his elbow, pulling him back to her. “I’ll make sure nothing happens to them.”

Jericho Vasiliev might be the fighter, but Aoibheann was the crown that rested on his head. He would do nothing to disappoint her.

“Trust me, Eoghan,” her whispery voice soothed me, “I will care for Kira and Cillian as though they were my own.”

With that, she tugged Jericho to the master bedroom, where Kira had disappeared.

It was hard to remember, sometimes, that she knew this house just as well as I did. She had left it less than three years ago,but seemed to have left no mark on this haunted place. She had never belonged here.

I opened the drawer of one of the end tables that lined the black board and batten, the varnished wood a match for the painted tan wall and ceiling. Since my father’s demise, I had re-decorated, then added certain security features for the conflict I hoped would never reach these walls.

I unceremoniously dumped out the contents of the drawer, letting it crash to the floor. I tapped a corner of the false bottom, then retrieved a loaded Glock.

I heard the pounding of familiar footsteps, and without even looking, I knew who they belonged to.

“What do you know, Shiny?” I asked, as she stopped at another drawer, pulling out her own loaded weapon.

“I heard shots, but the cameras picked up nothing.” She handed me a small comms device, which I fit into my ear.

That meant that whoever was attacking us had infiltrated our security, somehow.

“We’ll get to the bottom of that later,” I said, feeling my lips pull back in a snarl, frustrated that for all my work, and all my planning, the damn security still failed.

“Right,” Shiny said, as she followed me down the stairs, the two of us moving as a unit towards the kitchen. “Kill first, investigate later.”

“Damn right,” I said.

I didn’t need to tell her to have my back. She just had it. We had trained for this.

But no amount of training would be adequate for when mychildwas in the bloody house.

The feel of vengeance burned through my veins like acid.Who the hell was attacking my home?

I would do more than paint with their blood, I vowed. If I had the wherewithal to keep them alive, I would bathe in their blood like Countess Bathory.

“Say the last thing again,” Shiny called over the radio.

“No one came through the wall, or the gate. None of our men are in the house shooting. Do you want us to flood the house with our troops?” That was Kieran O’Malley’s voice on the radio, no doubt running to the command room, where the camera feeds were displayed on multiple screens.

Cameras dominated the entire outer wall of the property, as well as in the woods,and the outside of the house. They alerted in the event of movement, even if it was just a roaming herd of deer, or the wild turkey that procreated in these parts.

“How the hell did they get in?” I snarled through my teeth, though I did not transmit that to the boys on the radio.

There’d be no point, when the threat was here, right now.

“Start clearing the place from the outside in,” Shiny ordered. She knew the protocols we had put in place. She was following themnow. “We heard shots in the kitchen, and we’re moving there now.”

“Good copy,” said O’Malley in reply. “I’m starting from the garage, and moving to you.”

Shiny and I were in the hallway that ran between the dining room and the kitchen. We were barely through the open double doors when the butler door burst open and men in gray tactical gear pushed forward. I got off one shot, striking one in the chest.

Shiny shot the second man, who fell with a groaned yelp. He fired on his way down, shooting high, dislodging plaster from the ceiling that rained down on us like snow. Five other bodies pushed through, and in seconds, I was staring down the barrel of a gun.

“Knock it off,” one of them commanded, his face covered in a gray balaclava. Why? I wasn’t sure, because he had the distinct accent of a New York City Italian—Mafia. I’d bet my left nut on it.

Three pistols were aimed at my head, and two were pointed at Shiny.

---