CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
He could use more Sunday mornings like this, waking up to sunshine streaming through the windows and the woman he loved curled against him. Maddie was sleeping soundly after a wonderful day of celebration and great company, before they’d seen Ros and Simon off on their honeymoon. Watching his fiancée play with Charlotte had made his heart ache with pain and wonder. She’d have been an incredible mother to their daughter.
“What time is it?”
The muffled words, preceded by a groan, vibrated across his chest. Nope, some things didn’t change. His woman was still at the owl end of the spectrum. He adjusted his arm around her. “There’s plenty of time before breakfast. Go back to sleep.”
“Uh? ’kay.” She snuggled into his side and draped a long, silken leg over him. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to picture those legs wrapped around his hips in the throes of passion. The image brought a smile to his face and a vow to make it happen in the not-too-distant future. For now, though, he was content to enjoy the peace and quiet.
The enjoyment didn’t last long. The entire hotel rocked under the force of an ear-shattering blast, or so it seemed. Within seconds, both Guy and Maddie were out of bed and dragging on their clothes.
“Guy?”
“I don’t know.” He made a grab for his jacket. “I only hope it’s a gas leak, because if it isn’t…”
A flash of silent understanding passed between them. When another explosion came moments later, shaking the building to its foundations for a second time, he realised it was a forlorn hope. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
“You’re not the only one. I have to help with the evacuation.” Maddie twisted her hair up and clamped it into place.
Guy grabbed her hand. “We both will.”
Making their way through clusters of confused, panicking guests and members of staff who were trying to help them, Guy and Maddie sprinted through the hotel. Their destination was the wing where the Spectrum Security group were located.
Their friends were already dressed and ready for action. Guy sent up a silent prayer of thanks for Maddie’s foresight when she booked the block of rooms together, especially when Alex and Beth appeared with their baby daughter.
“What the hell is going on?” Alex cradled his daughter while his wife pulled on a jacket.
“I’ve put you all in danger. I’m sorry.”
“Maddie, we don’t know that for sure.”
The way she looked at him broke Guy’s heart, but they didn’t have time to argue. He turned back to Alex. Although the other man was the CEO of Spectrum Security and the person to whom they all looked for leadership, in these circumstances he was husband and father first. With the ease of too many years of experience, Guy slipped into command mode.
“Alex, take Beth and Charlotte, and get out of here. Stacie, Fiona, you go with them. Get everyone you can find out of the hotel—”
The sound of rapid gunfire and blood-curdling screaming stopped Guy in his tracks. He turned to the others. “You need to get help fast.”
“I can’t get a signal.” Cam Fraser held up his phone.
“Neither can I.” Ryan stuffed his back in his pocket, as Alex gathered the women together.
More phones came out—all of them were useless. Guy cursed. “They must be using a jammer.”
Stacie ducked away from the group and dashed back into her room. She emerged seconds later with more bad news. “The land line’s dead, too.”
The sound of shouting cut through the hysterical yelling. The words were foreign and indistinct, but the accent drove Guy to face Maddie. She looked as if someone had just handed down a death sentence.
“It’s them.”
The bleakness behind the words tore through him.
“You know who’s behind this?”
Maddie answered Alex’s question. “It has to be the Bratva. They’re here because of me. You have to get everyone out of here now. If they manage to take hostages…”
Guy knew with grim certainty there was no if about it. The layout of the hotel, and the level of panic and confusion amongst the guests would ensure some of them would run straight into the enemy’s path. “What’s the safest route?”
“The kitchen. There’s a tunnel—it comes out at the old ice house. It’s not an approved evacuation route, but it’s going to be the best way to get everyone to safety.”
“You know the way? All the way to the ice house?” Guy prayed that she did—it would give him the perfect reason to insist she went with the others.
“Yes, but—”
“Good. I want you to go with Alex. Get to safety, and get help.”
“I can help more here.”
“Don’t argue—not about this. They need you to show them the way.”
“What about you?”
Guy gazed at the face looking at him with such a crazy amount of love and worry. Christ, he loved that face so much. He shot a questioning look at Cam and Ryan. Each man nodded.
“Maddie, listen to me. I need to know you’re out of harm’s way. If it is the Bratva, and they are after you, you can’t be here. Go with Alex.”
“But I can help you. I haven’t forgotten—”
With absolutely no sense of shame or logic, Guy went Dom on her and played on her weakness for the Lombards’ baby. “If you stay, who’s going to make sure Charlotte and her parents are safe? Go. Get out of here and get help.”
For a moment he thought she’d carry on arguing, but then, with mixed feelings, he watched her lead the women away, with Alex bringing up the rear.
“Okay, so what’s the plan?”
His expression grim, Guy turned to the remaining two men. He couldn’t give Cam a specific answer, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have an objective. “We buy them the time they need to get away, and stop whoever’s behind this hurting anyone else. Let’s go.”
Keeping low and moving fast, Guy led the way to the devastated lobby but stopped short, before they were seen. The sight that greeted them could hardly be worse. Upwards of thirty hostages, a mix of staff and guests, some of them attendees at the wedding, were being held at gunpoint.
Black-clad hitmen, armed to the teeth with a fearsome array of semi-automatic weapons, knives and explosives, prowled among them. The lack of respect for the broken bodies, lying where they’d fallen, fuelled Guy’s rage even further. People like him, like Cam and Ryan, they knew what the risks were when they signed up to face threats like this, but these people had no idea and weren’t equipped to deal with this situation.
The leader shouted out some orders in Russian, leaving Guy in no doubt about who they were, and why they’d attacked the hotel.
They were the Bratva. They’d come for Maddie, and were prepared to kill to take her.
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She’d been trained by the best. In spite of the intervening years, every trick she’d ever known came back as fresh as if she’d learned it yesterday.
Using the behind-the-scenes staff areas, Maddie led the way to the kitchen. On the way, they picked up another half-dozen terrified guests and members of staff. As the group progressed through the hotel, the sounds of gunfire and conflict—thankfully without any further bomb blasts—waxed and waned, but the screaming never seemed to vary.
This was all her fault. Now, though, was not the time to wallow in guilt or worry about how they’d found her. Guy had given her a job to do, and once it was done, then she could go back to him.
No one else was going to die because of her.
She looked back at the three women she knew in the party. She was most concerned for Beth, who was trying to keep her daughter as quiet as possible. Thank God Alex was with them.
“It’s not much further. There’s a large storeroom at the back of the kitchen, by the walk-in freezer. Go into the storeroom, and straight ahead, you’ll see another door. It’s kept locked, but the key is on a hook to the right of it.”
“Why are you telling us this?”
Maddie swallowed hard. Alex was a Dom, not to mention a former officer in the SAS, and he’d take a very dim view of what she was about to do. “You have to know in case something happens to me.”
“Nothing’s happening to you. Keep going.”
They made it to the kitchen without encountering any of the enemy, and once inside the store room, Maddie unlocked the door to the passageway.
She turned to Alex. “Be careful. There are no lights, but if you use the torch on your phone, you’ll be able to see enough. It’ll take you about five minutes to get to the other end. The door there’s bolted on this side, but not otherwise locked. When you go through, the ice house is on the right. If you’re out of range of the jammer, you should be able to get a signal, but if not, keep going past the ice house. Take the first path on the left, and when you hit the road, turn right, and keep checking for a signal.”
“You’re coming with us, right?” Fiona said.
Maddie bit her lower lip. The submissive in her found it difficult to refuse the frowning Domme, but she had no other choice. “I can’t.”
“Guy will give you shit if you don’t, and rightly so,” Alex weighed in.
As if she didn’t know. “I can’t leave him, or the others. I know this place better than any of them, and like it or not, he needs me to cover his back.”
Puzzled expressions met her gaze, but Beth was the one who asked the question. “Who are you, Maddie? Really?”
Maddie glanced at Beth’s husband. Alex was studying her carefully, making Maddie painfully aware that she hadn’t yet given him her answer regarding his job offer. She turned back to Beth. “I haven’t always been an events manager. I used to work for the intelligence services, and I can still handle myself in a fight.
“Look, we’re wasting time. Just go, all of you, and get help. I’m staying. Besides, someone has to be on this side of the door to make it look as if no one’s gone this way, just in case they find their way down here. It’ll be fine. Go.”
Maddie ushered her charges through the door and locked it again. She tossed the key in the corner, behind a pile of supplies. Now to find Guy, Cam and Ryan.
She retraced her steps until she reached the door to the public areas of the hotel. What would Guy have done? He’d want to find out as much as possible about the enemy, their numbers and weapons. It could be useful to know how many remained outside the hotel. She ran up the stairs to the next floor, so she could take a look at the car park.
The nearest of the menacing black Land Rovers was parked close enough for her to make out the features of the man standing by it and dishing out orders. Recognition triggered an overwhelming wave of nausea. Though he didn’t deserve it, the years had treated Dmitry Kuznetsov well since she’d last seen him in Moscow.
Things had just got a whole lot more personal. Kuznetsov himself had overseen the torture sessions aimed at extracting the names of her contacts in Moscow. The man was an expert in brutality. The news that his boss had been sent to take over the London operation had almost made her physically sick. Kuznetsov’s presence now could mean only one thing—he remained Viktor Srenko’s brigadier, a fact that spoke of a lethal combination of loyalty and ruthlessness that chilled her to the bone.
She had to find Guy. The first body, dressed in black like Kuznetsov, confirmed she was heading in the right direction. She recognised the signs of an expertly snapped neck. Any of the three men she’d left behind could have done it. A lack of weapons on the body gave her hope they at least had a means of shooting back now.
But one dead thug didn’t mean this was over. The price of freedom and survival for the innocent might still be her life. Thank God she’d taken the precaution of leaving instructions on how to contact Yana back at Stonehaven.
The main entrance and reception area was the obvious place to head for, and as she made her way in that direction, Maddie became aware of the silence. Tempting though it was to interpret that as the end of the attack, realistically it was unlikely to be the case. Her back to the wall, she inched towards the corner where the corridor ended and the lobby began. As she did so, she heard the heart-breaking sound of muted sobbing from multiple sources.
Just as she was about to drop to the floor to commando-crawl to the shelter of the concierge desk, a masculine hand clamped over her mouth. Adrenaline flooded her body. She thrashed and struggled, but it was no good. An arm with the strength of steel dragged her back against a rock-hard body, and without ceremony, she was manhandled back into the corridor.