Candy stood in the doorway, watching the men pile into vehicles and head off at breakneck speed down the drive. As the last vehicle stopped at the gate, the security guards appeared, wearing Kevlar vests, and hopped in the back of the last car. Her husband was taking no chances and taking every able soul with him.
Since all of the security they employed had military backgrounds, this would be almost a routine mission for all of them.
Tuck had given her a quick kiss and a tight hug before he’d run out the door, and she knew that he’d meant the last glance back at her and his smile to be reassuring, but…
Something tight was constricting her chest, and she suddenly had a terrible sense of foreboding. What if something went wrong? What if someone got hurt? What if…?
Candy wouldn’t have been nearly so worried if she’d been going in with them, shoulder to shoulder with her husband and friends. This staying at home shit really sucked!
As the last vehicle shot through the gate and out of sight, Candy turned and closed the door behind her.
Hannah would keep tabs on what was going on everywhere, so she was going to have to listen to all of it through a speaker in her husband’s office, as there hadn’t been time to set them up with body-cameras.
“Candy? Is everything alright?” Tulli’s voice made her jump.
She spun around to see Tulli in the doorway to the sunroom.
“Umm, yes.” She tried to smile but failed miserably. “Well, not really.”
Candy stepped forward, knowing she was going to have to explain what was going on to Tulli.
“Where are your sisters?” She asked.
Tulli nodded back to the sunroom.
“They just finished breakfast with Joel, and are in the sunroom, watching the rabbits on the lawn.” Tulli glanced back and pulled the door shut behind her. “What’s going on?”
“We think Gregor’s place is about to come under attack from Lucky and her men.” Candy said quietly. “Tuck and all the guys have gone over there to provide reinforcements.”
She watched Tulli visibly pale, but the woman held it together well.
“And the police?” Her voice barely trembled.
“Are on their way, as are the Feds.” Candy nodded. “And don’t forget, Gregor has a good security team around him. He’s going to be fine.”
Tulli nodded automatically.
“Of course, he is.” She murmured.
“Come into the office. Hannah is following progress over the communications devices the guys wear.”
“I’ll join you.” Sara was slowly coming down the stairs. “Sorry I wasn’t here to see you off, but Marcus hid my hearing aids to slow me down. The asshole thought I was intending to jump in the car and go with them!”
“Weren’t you?” Candy smiled.
“Maybe? If you could have found Kevlar to go around the baby I might have.” She patted her tummy.
“Well, I’m glad we couldn’t.” Candy grinned. “We’re better off with you here.”
“I’ll let Lara know where I am.” Tulli turned to the door.
“Don’t mention what’s going on in front of Joel.” Candy instructed. “Charlie has gone with them.”
“I’ll make sure he doesn’t hear me.” Tulli nodded.
Candy headed towards the office, to where Hannah was playing with her satellites.
“Can you get a live feed?” Candy glanced up at the fuzzy TV screen.
“I’m working on it.” Hannah nodded, not looking up from her laptop. “I just spoke to the General, and he might have a helicopter or two in the area of Gregor’s house in around ten minutes.”
“Might have?” Candy frowned. “Doesn’t he know where his helicopters are?”
“Of course, he does, but they haven’t taken off yet.” Hannah smiled. “And by the time they do, he has to have logged a flight plan for a training flight which will take them right over Gregor’s house.”
“Erm, why would that be?” Sara asked.
“Because they can’t be seen to be going out to start anything.” Hannah explained. “Of course, if someone were to fire on them as they flew overhead, then they are at liberty to return fire to defend themselves.”
“I see.” Sara smiled. “He’s a good bloke, that General.”
“Yes, he is.” Candy smiled, picking up some earphones, and handing off two others to Sara and Tulli. “He’s also a good friend of Tuck’s, so I know he’ll come through in any way he can.”
“Yes, well, once we get the satellite…. And there it is!” Hannah clapped her hands in triumph.
The picture cleared, and they were looking down from space onto an area over a thousand miles wide.
“And we just have to put in the coordinates and zoom in just a little… or a lot, maybe?” She tapped her laptop keys at a ridiculous speed, and all of a sudden, they were staring at the Gregor’s house and gardens. “And voila!”
Candy stepped closer to the screen to try and identify what they were looking at.
They stood in silence while they figured out that the large gate was lying flat on the driveway, and three vehicles were parked in a row in front of the house.
They watched as men slid out of the vehicles, and using them for cover, began firing at the house.
At the top of the screen, Sara pointed to where another convoy had broken through the wall and were racing across the grass.
Hannah tapped her earpiece.
“Tuck, can you hear me?” She said clearly.
Candy heard her husband’s voice mumble an affirmative through the earpiece, glad that she couldn’t communicate two-way and distract him.
“Two teams have broken through, one through the main gate and the other through the wall as expected. They’re firing on the house as we speak, but by the looks of it, they’re also under fire from inside, so the security team must be doing their job. How far out are you?” Hannah didn’t pause for breath.
“Five or six minutes if we don’t hit any traffic.” Tuck replied without hesitation.
“It’s pretty much rush hour, Tuck.” Hannah pointed out. “How are you gonna avoid hitting traffic?”
“Well, apparently, your husband thinks that the sidewalk is the new fast lane.” Candy wasn’t sure if that was humour or terror in her husband’s voice.
“Empty sidewalk!” Danny growled. “With the emphasis on the word ‘empty’.”
“That’s true.” Tuck admitted. “So far, at least.”
“Well, it looks like it’s gonna be close which one of you arrives first. You guys may be around sixty seconds ahead of the police and Feds, but the General’s chopper may beat you all by a minute.” Hannah grinned.
“General Nichol is sending a chopper?” Tuck sounded surprised. “I didn’t think that would be allowed, what with operating on US soil, and all the red tape.”
“Well, apparently, if someone so much as pops a cap-gun at them, they’re allowed to defend themselves.” Hannah explained. “Obviously with all the gun fire going on down on the ground, it would be easy for them to assume they were being shot at.”
“Obviously.” This time Candy knew Tuck was grinning.
“So, what’s going on right now?” Danny asked. “Do I take it the gunfight has already started?”
“Yeah, there’s a lot of gunfire, front and back of the property. It looks like two of Lucky’s men in the front are down, and a couple more at least at the back, but there are plenty more.” Hannah confirmed. “I don’t know how many security people Gregor has on his team, but they’re certainly keeping Lucky’s people busy.”
“The longer they can hold out, the better chance we’ll have of getting there and providing back-up.”
“Whoa! Hold up! What are they doing?” Sara walked closer to the screen. “Are those what I think they are?”
“Tuck? They’ve pulled a couple of rocket launchers out of the back of the first vehicle.” Hannah explained. “Oh, shit! They’re firing at the house.”
“Ok, don’t panic.” Tuck was calmness personified. “Gregor has a completely secure basement. If the house comes under a major attack, they were going to retreat down there to wait it out.”
Candy watched as a chunk of roof blew out.
“Oh, double shit.” Hannah whispered. “Tuck, they’ve got more rocket launchers at the back of the house.”
“Like I said, ladies, Gregor has this covered.” Tuck reassured them. “We’re not more than two or three minutes out. We’ll be there in plenty of time, just like the cavalry.”
“Oh, holy mother of God!” Tulli’s hand covered her mouth in shock, as the four women stared on in horror.
“Tuck, they just blew out the front wall.” Hannah was more than agitated now.
“Tuck, did you hear me?” She repeated.
Candy tapped her earpiece.
“I can’t hear anything.” She whispered. “Has the line gone dead?”
“Tuck? Danny? Can anybody hear me?” Hannah was officially panicked now.
“It’s like all the comms have been cut.” Sara observed, pulling her phone from her pocket. “I don’t even have a cell-phone signal.”
“Shit!” Hannah stared at the blank screens on her laptops.
“Umm, Candy?” Tulli pointed at something on the wall. “Is that box supposed to be flashing like that?”
Candy’s head spun around.
“That’s the alarm for the grounds. Somebody must have breached the perimeter somehow.”
Hannah stared at her in shock.
“They’ve come here, too?” She whispered.
Candy shuddered in fear and then shook it off.
“We have to assume the worst.” She nodded.
“Sara, you and Tulli grab Joel, Lara and Mischa and hide out of sight.” Hannah instructed. “Candy and I will try and hold them off.”
“But, you can’t…” Sara argued.
“This isn’t open for discussion, Sara.” Candy barked. “Tell Joel it’s hide and seek. He knows the house better than I do.”
Candy watched as Sara and Tulli reluctantly ran for the sunroom to get the others to safety.
“Guns?” Hannah whispered.
“Tuck all but cleared out the gun-room.” Candy admitted. “We have a few side-arms we use for personal security.”
“Better than nothing.” Hannah shrugged.
They ran for the hallway to get to the weapons just as the front door blew off it’s hinges, throwing Candy against the wall, and Hannah back through the doorway she’d just run through.
The ringing in her ears, and the booming echoing through her head left Candy feeling nauseous.
She turned and scrambled to her knees, but as she tried to get to her feet, the world tilted, and she collapsed onto her side again.
As she tried to regain her senses, she opened her eyes to see the blurry image of a woman staring down at her.
The woman had long black hair, and dark eyes, and was wearing a strangely comforting smile.
“Hello Candy.” She said politely. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve wanted to meet you.”
As Candy’s vision cleared, she realised that the smile she had thought of as comforting, was actually anything but.
“Luciana Vega, I presume.” She managed to whisper.
Luciana smiled again, and Candy could see the father in the daughter in front of her.
“Nice that you know who you’re talking to, even if you weren’t exactly expecting me.” Luciana shrugged as she stood upright.
She glanced left and right, finally spotting the dining room.
“Bring her in here.” She barked at one of her men. “The other one too. As a bit of insurance.”
Candy was grabbed by the hair and yanked from the floor. From the corner of her eye she watched a man pick Hannah up by the arms and drag her unconscious body into the dining room.
“Tie her to the chair.” Luciana pulled a dining chair into the middle of the room, and the men pushed Candy down onto it. Her hands were roughly pulled behind her back, and she felt thin straps applied to her wrists, as they pulled them tight together.
Luciana stood directly in front of her.
“I doubt that I’ll have time to do to you everything you deserve.” She smiled. “Unfortunately, we’re very low on time, as I don’t really want to still be here when your husband and his friends come rushing back to save the day! I just wanted to show you a few of the Castille family tricks, spiced up with a little of the Vega influence. I have a penchant for the spectacular, you see. I do hope that’s Ok with you?”
Candy stared up at the woman defiantly.
“Sure, whatever you like.” She shrugged. “And when you’re done, maybe I can describe to you how I blew your old man’s face off.”
She didn’t even see the first punch coming.