Chapter Five
Bile stung the back of Danny’s throat, champagne and caviar threatening a reappearance, as Jamie shoved him through the swinging door to the bridge. Danny automatically reached for the light switch, and Jamie slapped his hand away.
“Lights off,” Jamie whispered low. “And keep your head down.”
Crouching, they snuck to the center of the bridge, neither of them needing light, familiar as they were with The Ellen. Reaching up an arm, Danny ran a hand over the control panel and pressed the button to open the speakers, allowing them to hear the commotion below.
Jamie tapped his shoulder and held up a single digit, then two, silently asking one way or two.
“Just receiving,” Danny confirmed.
Through the speakers, Sonja shouted orders over panicked cries, directing her hired guns.
“Reel in the gangways.”
“Close all the doors.”
“Block any exit.”
“No one in or out.”
To Danny’s further astonishment, the orders were relayed down the line by Mitch. He’d know that deep, rumbly voice anywhere, having heard it since childhood.
Party guests shouted “Sonja!” or “Mitch!” together with some variety of “What the fuck is going on?”
Danny filtered out the anger, betrayal and fear roaring in his ears and listened closely. None of the panicked voices belonged to his family. Were they silenced by the guards—being dragged onstage as he hid—or were they following Cam’s orders and lying low in the crowd? He prayed for the latter.
Beside him, Jamie opened a door beneath the control panel and began connecting wires directly to his phone.
“What are you doing?” Danny asked.
“Hacking the system and locking down the computers,” he answered, not looking up from his phone. “Better question, what the hell is Lynch doing? And why is Mitch helping her?”
“I have no idea. Mitch has been with TE for twenty years, and I’ve only ever seen Sonja in the boardroom.” He hesitated on the cusp of full disclosure, but given the circumstances... “And the bedroom.”
Jamie glanced up, brow raised. “How long ago?”
“Business school,” Danny answered.
“How’d it end?”
“With a bottle of Dom and a spectacular goodbye fuck. She was headed to the family office in London. She was still in London, as far as I knew, running the operation from there.”
“So you have no idea—”
Before Jamie finished, Sonja’s voice rang out, calling the crowd to attention and giving them the last explanation Danny expected.
“We’re here for the Talleys, or I should say the IRA is.”
Sonja Lynch was IRA? Since when? Danny’s head spun as she railed on.
“They’ve lived and prospered here, with the blood of our brothers on their hands. The Talleys owe us a price, and that price is blood.”
Three decades had passed and now the IRA wanted revenge?
No, this could not be happening. The IRA had killed Sean, and Danny’s family had run, been granted asylum, and started a new life and empire in the US. The IRA couldn’t come back for them. Not now. Not here. Not on his father’s, his family’s, big night.
“Danny! Danny!” Jamie waved a big hand in front of his face, snapping him out of his spiral. “Did you know she was IRA?”
He blinked, focusing. “Fuck, no. She was born and raised here.”
“Family, then, or some other connection?”
“Her last name is Irish, but I thought that was as far as it went.” Sonja didn’t have any trace of an accent, nor did any of her family members he’d met.
“You said they had a London office?” Jamie said.
“Yes, but the company was founded in the US. It never existed in Ireland like TE. Sonja took them overseas, when she opened London.”
Jamie set his phone on the floor, lines of code streaming across the screen, and held out a hand. “Give me yours.”
“Who are you calling?”
“Our only outside line at the moment.” He hit speaker and the ringing dial tone filled the bridge, albeit quieted as Jamie lowered the volume.
Nic answered on the second ring. “Price.”
“Put us on speaker,” Jamie said. “I’ve got Danny with me.”
“And I’ve got Mel,” Nic said.
She added a “Jamie,” then “Daniel,” the second a touch softer, and Danny’s heart took a break from hammering in fear, thumping with longing instead.
Until Jamie carried on. “We’ve got a situation here. How far out are you?”
“Bay Bridge,” Mel answered. “A chopper just flew overhead. That wasn’t on the program tonight.”
Danny found his voice again. “Neither was the IRA.”
“The what?” Mel and Nic said together.
Jamie filled them in on the last few chaotic minutes while Danny racked his brain for any Lynch-IRA connections, trying and failing to wrap his brain around the situation. Sure, Sonja was a shark, but she’d never been a militant one, nor an ideological one, as far as he knew. Profit was the bottom line. Had she been recruited in London? Was there some deeper connection he didn’t know about?
Worse than answering the swirling questions, though, was battling his every instinct that screamed for him to make a break for the door, to get out there and rescue his family.
“Where are the rest of the Talleys?” Mel said, as if hearing his inner torment.
Jamie clasped his arm, also anticipating his escape. “On deck, with Cam.”
Two sharp inhales on the other end of the line. “What about Mitch?” Mel asked, recovering first. “The security teams?”
“The team members who weren’t taken out by Lynch’s mercs are paired up with Talleys in the crowd,” Jamie said. “Cam’s hiding and guarding them.”
“And Mitch is standing next to Sonja onstage,” Danny said, answering the rest of her question, not hiding the betrayal and disgust in his voice.
Jamie waited for Mel’s string of Spanish curses to end, then asked, “What’s the plan?”
Even though she wasn’t a fed anymore, Mel went into full SAC mode, dishing out orders. “Jamie, you’re my eyes and ears. Nic, add Lynch and Mitch to the list for deep background checks. Daniel, you stay with Jamie.”
Danny wrenched his arm free. “That’s my family, my company, out there.”
“It’s mine too,” Mel replied, and some of the fight went out of him. As much as it killed him to sit here in the bridge, at least he had eyes and ears on the situation. He could only imagine Mel’s frustration and impatience at not being on the scene. She’d risked life and job for his family, worked for this company, and considered both her own. As they were.
And God help them all once Aidan learned what was going on.
“I won’t lose you,” Mel said, and Danny hung his head, adrenaline rushing out, the weight of it all slamming into his gut.
“Danny,” Mel called, and he glanced back at the screen, as if he could see her there. “I need you to be smart and stay out of sight.”
He shook his head, not that she could see him either. “Don’t fucking sideline me, chica.”
“I know better than that. I need you out of sight, for now, so you’re still in play later when I need you.”
“Need me for what?”
“To do what you do best. Unlock some doors for me.”
Danny’s heart leaped, pounding his ribs, an equal mix of anticipation and fear. He laid a hand over it, and over the brand-new lock-pick set in his coat pocket. Mel wasn’t sidelining him. She needed him.
“We’re going to save them,” she said.
Anticipation and hope eclipsed fear and Danny couldn’t help but smile.
Sonja Lynch had no idea what she was in for.