Midnight Shadows (29 page)

Already prepared, Robert fired three shots into the traitor’s chest. An expression of anguish passed over Marsh’s face before he fell, thudding like thunder to the floor.

Robert allowed himself a quiet moment of joy. The traitor was dead.
 

And now he had one more thing to handle before he left the country. One more small but important task to see to…tie up one last loose end before he disappeared completely.

They would never see him coming.

Midnight

Ian sat across from Sabrina and watched as she consumed a decent if skimpy meal. One scrambled egg and a half slice of toast wasn’t much, but it was more than he’d seen her eat in the last two days so he decided to call this progress and move on. He had agreed to talk to her, but only if she ate. The forceful way she was shoveling food into her mouth wasn’t from her enjoyment of the meal. She had an agenda and wanted to get on with it.
 

She washed down the small meal with the last of her orange juice and slammed the glass onto the table so hard Ian was surprised it didn’t crack.

“Now can we talk?”

He nodded. “Of course.”

“You had no right to tell them about my nightmares.”

He cocked his head questioningly. “You’ve got a maniac who wants to kidnap, torture, and murder you. A town that’s on edge. And your primary concern is that your sisters found out you still have nightmares about your parents? Why? What is it about your nightmares you don’t want your sisters to know? Do you not think they’d understand?”

“They don’t need anything else to worry about.”

“Contrary to what you may believe, I don’t think your nightmares are near as concerning to them as is your need to hide them.” He grasped her hand in his and squeezed gently. “What is it you’re hiding, sweetheart? Tell me. Let me help you.”

She pulled her hand from his and stood. “I think we need a break, Ian.”

Blowing out a frustrated breath, Ian went to his feet. “Fine. Let’s go for a walk. It’ll be good to get some sun on your face. We’ve got watch in a couple of hours. We can—”
 

Ian cut off his words when Sabrina started shaking her head. “What?”

“I mean a break from each other. When this is over, I think it’d be a good idea if we didn’t see each other for a while.”

He had underestimated her fear. Not only did she not want her sisters to know about her nightmares, she feared Ian digging deeper into them.

“I see.”
 

“You deserve someone who can offer you more. I’m not that person.”

“So we’re breaking up?”

She raised that stubborn chin of hers, hid her thoughts behind the familiar belligerent façade. “Yes.”

Ian had a lot he wanted to say, could say, but damned if he wasn’t tired of trying. Instead of challenging her, he turned and walked away.

Sabrina gripped the back of her chair. She couldn’t breathe. The ache in her chest was too great. Everything within her told her to call out his name, tell him she didn’t mean what she said. Do or say anything to fix what she had broken. Frozen in place, unable to act, she watched as he strode out of the room without another word.

Tears blurred her vision. Blinking rapidly, she fisted her hands and willed the moisture away. Crying didn’t solve one damned thing. She might be a coward, but she was no crybaby. Did crying bring her mother and father back? Erase her sins? Hell no.

Ian deserved someone who could commit. Someone not screwed up from the past. Someone who would love and appreciate him for the amazing man he was. That person couldn’t be her. She might want that happiness with all her heart but she couldn’t grab it…didn’t deserve it. A girl who’d caused her parents deaths didn’t deserve happiness.

“Bri…come quick.”

Sabrina whirled around to see both Sammie and Savvy standing at the doorway. The worry in their eyes pushed her grief aside.

She followed as they went into the living room where Zach, Quinn, Brody, and Logan stood in the middle of the room as if frozen in place.
 

“What’s wrong?”

“Listen,” Zach whispered. “You hear that?”

Sabrina held her breath and strained to hear. A whirring noise. Sounded like a… “Helicopter,” she said softly.
 

Zach’s radio sputtered and crackled a warning. “Chief?” Bart Odom’s voice, pitched high with excitement, came through slightly garbled. “We got trouble coming. It’s headed to your house.”

A roaring noise boomed outside, above the house. What the hell? Was Silva brazen enough to land a helicopter in their front yard? Was he that crazy?

The whirring noise ended and the sounds of men shouting out orders followed.

Hell yes, he was that crazy. They were under siege.
 

Sabrina ran to the window. Like a giant prehistoric bird, the helicopter sat in the middle of their peaceful, beautiful yard. Only last week, they’d played tag football in the very spot where a half dozen men, armed to the teeth, swarmed around the helicopter. And in the midst of that lethal swarm was Robert Silva.

“Listen up,” Zach called out from behind her, “they’ve jammed the cellphones. I got a call into my office before I got cut off. An emergency broadcast will instruct folks to stay in their homes. We’ll have some help coming from surrounding towns, but until reinforcements arrive, we're on our own.” He held up a box. “I’ve got five walkie-talkies. Frequency’s too low for the jammers to mess with them. Grab one and your weapons. Cover the house, front and back. Don’t shoot until absolutely necessary or on my say so. Got it?”

Everyone else went into action while Sabrina’s eyes frantically searched the room. One very important person was missing from their group. “Where’s Ian?”

Chapter Twenty-nine

There was a fine line between having balls of steel and being stupid-assed crazy. Robert Silva had taken a giant leap across that line today.
 

Just how the hell did Silva expect to get away with this? Flying in a helicopter full of armed men as if he could just massacre an entire town? Marsh had said Silva was losing it…gone off the deep-end. In Ian’s opinion, the man was well beyond deep-end and was head over ass bat shit crazy.
 

Crouched behind a giant Juniper, Ian pulled out his cellphone and hit Zach’s speed-dial number. Nothing happened. He checked the read out. Shit. No signal. Silva had likely brought jammers to the party.
   

Had Zach been able to get a call off before the phones went down? Was help on the way or were they on their own? If Zach had gotten a call out, every law enforcement agency within a hundreds miles was probably on their way. Should he take Silva down now or hope that the cavalry arrived before somebody did something even more insane?
 

Could he take that chance? Sabrina was in that house, along with a lot of good people he cared about. The answer was a no brainer. No way in hell was he going to wait. Silva was going down.

The asshole was easy enough to spot. Not too many men showed up in an Italian suit and silk tie to commit kidnapping or mass murder. With his dark hair slicked back and thousand dollar shoes on his no doubt manicured feet, he looked like he was going to some kind of freaking business meeting. He obviously believed his men would protect him.

Six men armed with military grade weapons surrounded Silva. Ian counted three…no four with MP5s. Looked like the other two had AK-47s. Silva was an anomaly with a Glock in one hand and a bullhorn in the other.

They all stared at the house without moving, as if they were waiting for something.

Dammit, the bigger guys were in the back, covering Silva’s ass. Ian didn’t have a clear shot from here. Staying low, he ran a few yards to the right. It was summertime and the yard was filled with all kinds of leafy bushes and trees. A man could stay hidden and take his time till he was ready to engage.

Halfway to his destination, Ian came to a screeching halt. Another man occupied the same place Ian had been heading. And he was most definitely not one of Silva’s men. If he wasn't mistaken, it was Neal Benfield, the pharmacist from Tatum’s Drug Store.
 

Not wanting to startle the man since he was holding a shotgun, he said in a quiet whisper, “Benfield, what are you doing here?”
 

With his white beard, round glasses, and rotund belly, the pharmacist looked like he should be dressed in red and ho-ho-hoing, not expertly holding a shotgun on seven armed and dangerous criminals.

“Heard about the trouble here. Damned idiot thinks he can come to our town and shoot people willy-nilly? He's got another thing coming.” He jerked his head toward a large bush only a few feet away. “There are more of us.”
 

“How many?”

“Twenty...maybe thirty by now. We came on foot.”
 

Ian couldn’t contain his smile. Silva was in for some major surprises. Bastard hadn’t counted on having to fight an entire town, most of whom could shoot a gun a helluva lot better than he or his men. On the other hand, neither Silva nor his men would hesitate to put a bullet through any of these people.
 

Ian needed to get to Silva and end this before the bloodshed began.

“I'm going to neutralize the main asshole. Can you cover me?”

“Sure thing. Which one is he?”

“The man in the middle. You can barely see him because of the goons surrounding him.”
 

Benfield stretched his neck to see. “Yeah…yeah. I see him. I—Wait, is he wearing a suit and tie? Is he crazy or what?”

“I vote crazy.” Ian said and took off.
 

He came across several more Midnight residents, five men and two women, before he made it to the other side of the yard. None of them surprised him more than Faye Grissom who was holding a semi-automatic shotgun like a pro and looking as though she could bring down the entire group by herself.
 

Crouching behind another large bush, Ian had no trouble getting a bead on the back of Silva's head. He would only get one opportunity to take him down. It was fifty-fifty what would happen after that. The men would either fire back or they’d surrender. Just how loyal were they? From what he knew about the man, Silva didn’t exactly sound like the kind of leader who inspired loyalty. Would they give up to keep from being killed?

Either way, he had—

Silva raised his bullhorn. “Send out Sabrina Wilde and no one has to get hurt.”
 

“Get the hell out of here while you’re still breathing, Silva!” Zach shouted.

One of the goons moved, blocking Ian’s clear shot. Shit.

 
A gun blasted. The living room window shattered.
 

Ian waited…waited. Not moving his eyes from his target. A clear shot would come again. He ignored the thudding of his heart. That was one shot. No one would’ve been at the window. No one was hurt. Sabrina was safe. Concentrate. Focus. Wait.

One of the goons moved, Ian squeezed the trigger.
 

Silva’s men dispersed. A volley of shots rang out. Windows shattered, wood splintered. An unearthly noise erupted. The entire grounds became a battlefield as Silva’s men fired at the house. Bullets whizzed from all angles. The citizens of Midnight shot at Silva’s men from behind. Sabrina and the rest of the mansion’s residents returned fire from the front.
 

Dammit, the hired guns didn’t know their boss was down. They would continue to shoot until they were told to stop or they were dead. Ian ran to Silva who was flopping around on the ground like a landed fish.
 

Though a huge part of Ian wished he’d killed the bastard, Silva was alive on purpose. Imagining him in prison for the rest of his life was too tempting an image to pass up.

Grabbing Silva by an arm, Ian jerked him to his feet and pressed his gun to the man’s head. “Tell your men to back off or you're a dead man.”
 

Showing that he wasn’t completely insane, Silva shouted, “Stop!”
 

It took several seconds before the firing finally ended. The quiet after the storm was almost as powerful as gunfire, a shock to the senses.
 

It took every bit of his control not to fire a bullet into Silva’s head as Ian took in the devastation. The mansion was riddled with bullet holes. All the windows were shattered. The hanging baskets on the porch looked as though they’d exploded, leaving dirt and broken flowers scattered everywhere.

Material things, they could be fixed. But if anyone was hurt?
 

“If Sabrina or anyone in that house has one scratch on them, you’re a dead man.”

“So what do you intend to do?” Silva asked. “One man against my army? Your odds suck.”

“One man?” Ian barked out a laugh. “Try an entire town, asshole. Okay guys, let's show them what Midnight, Alabama is made of.”
 

One by one, men and several women came out from behind trees and bushes. Benfield had been wrong about the number. There were at least fifty people here and all loaded for bear.