...His sentences were brief and clipped, matter of fact, delivered in the manner of someone used to ripping band-aids off wounds quickly and efficiently.
Lily blinked rapidly. “Um …?” she could feel his words attempting to penetrate into her brain and not making it. “Please say that again,” she said, drawing in a deep breath.
Bryan did the same and speaking more softly said, “Your parents have found you.” He paused for a brief moment, cleared his throat and then continued, “I don’t know what Emmett intends to do. I think we’re gonna have to move you again. I know it’s not optimal but at least its safer…For everyone.”
This time Lily heard his words, but still couldn’t process them immediately or completely and she swayed on her feet as momentary dizziness made her head spin. She gripped the edge of the sink, hard, with both hands, so hard she could feel the chill of the porcelain sinking into the pads of her fingertips and she stared at herself in the bathroom mirror, green eyes wide and horrified her, her face pale and without color. Emmett and Evelyn had found her? Really? Could this be true?
“Lily? Lily?” Bryan repeated her name, sounding concerned, “are you there? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” He paused, “Well, not intentionally anyway.”
Lily shook her head forgetting that he couldn’t see her, forgetting about the receiver, still tucked against her shoulder. It fell, and she scrambled for it, bringing it back to her ear. “Did you say they’d found me? How? And how do you know?” She shuddered. Sweet Mother of God, nobody could put the fear of all the Heavens and Hell into her like her own father. Or mother for that matter.
“Well, the truth is,” Bryan said, sounding more than a little wary, as if reluctant to tell her, “late last night my guy on the inside escaped Emmett’s compound. Your father did quite a number on him, so we think that’s how he found out. Long story short, they know where you are. I guess you’ve been their primary target for…well since you left. Anyway, like I said, we have to move you.”
Lily reached over and tapped off the running water before moving away from the mirror and out of the bathroom. Thoughts raced through her mind, disorganized, without direction, as she tried to make sense of this unexpected news. “Ok wait…wait…wait. Let’s back up,” she said, crossing the broad hallway and pulling the phone with her into her bedroom. “First, what do you mean ‘guy on the inside’? You told me that you were just going to watch Emmett from a distance. I told you what he was like, I told you everything I knew. And you sent someone in any way? You are the little guy, Bryan. Unless you’ve grown drastically in the last three years. What were you thinking?”
Bryan let out a frustrated sigh. “Well, I saw an opportunity to insert someone so I took it. If I could capture Emmett Allen and put him away it would…” He stopped, and Lily shook her head as she plopped herself on her bed placing the cradle of the phone at her feet and straightening up to stare out her window.
“It would what Bryan? Be great for your company? For you?”
“No. Well, yeah but for the town, too, Lily, you know that. Emmett’s been doing a number on this place for decades and he needs to be stopped.”
Lily pushed a strand of long, dark hair behind one ear and rolled her eyes. “So, you thought you’d take it upon yourself and your security company to take care of the biggest bully in town? Not a great idea.”
Bryan said nothing though Lily heard him sigh and she felt a momentary stab of guilt. She knew that Bryan and his team had been after her father for years, ever since Bryan’s stint in security at Allen Warehouses. Lily was pretty sure he’d seen lots of things out there that he’d wished he hadn’t, but what he had seen had given him the drive to start his own company and to start collecting evidence on Lily’s father, his corruption and crimes. Up until today, Lily had assumed that the biggest thing Bryan’s company had ever accomplished was to spirit her away three years ago right out from under Emmett’s very nose. No mean feat that. Afterward, Bryan had promised to lay low for a while and Lily thought he’d understood just exactly how dangerous Emmett Allen really was.
“Is your guy ok? I told you that Emmett could smell a rat from a mile away… no offense to you or your people of course. He’s still alive you said?”
Bryan chuckled, regaining his sense of humor. “No offense taken. And yes, he is still alive. But for your information, Miss Allen…. sorry, Miss Ashford, that guy of mine lasted in your father’s organization for…well, since you’ve been gone. He’s good. He knows what guys like Emmett Allen are like, he knows how their organizations function. Or he did until yesterday. Fortunately, we got to him in time before they killed him. Sadly, several of your father’s men did not make it.”
Lily sucked a breath in through her teeth. “Well that’ll put you on Emmett’s hunt-down-and-kill list,” she said dryly, “if you weren’t there already. Doesn’t like being made to look foolish or stupid, my father. Which kinda sounds like what happened.”
Bryan exhaled wearily like maybe he hadn’t slept in several days. “Lily that’s why we have to move you. We’re pretty sure your father didn’t get much information from our man. He still doesn’t know for certain who he was or who he worked for. But he did get enough to discover that he’d been in there since you left. It did not take long for your father to connect your disappearance with our arrival in his org. It’s a good bet that he’s now convinced that you had a hand in the whole thing and that you have given away state secrets. As you love to point out to me, Emmett is not dumb.”
“No,” Lily agreed, “no he’s not.”
She gnawed at a corner of her lower lip as she thought about Emmett piecing together that his own daughter had betrayed him because Lily knew that was how he’d take it – as a betrayal. Which, technically it was since she’d turned family and company secrets over to a firm whose primary goal it was to put Emmett Allen behind bars forever. Add to that the fact that she had just up and disappeared one day and, well, she was sure that it was all more than Emmett and Evelyn could deal with. Having a daughter choose to leave the family circle in such an underhanded way most likely had not played well in the Allen’s social circle, and Emmett would surely define sneaking away in the dead of night with no previous warnings as underhanded.
Lily rolled her eyes again, she didn’t have to work too hard to imagine her parents’ individual and collective rages, she’d been a witness to those many times during her childhood. And beyond. The thought made her chest ache and she pressed at her sternum with her free hand, ignoring the panicked spinning in her head.
“I am not going to let them get to me, I’m not,” she muttered and forced herself to take several slow deep breaths. I am not going to let Emmett and Evelyn scare me or make me fold to their demands, I am not going to let them make me move again. She kept these thoughts running through her head as she considered the last three years of her life. Finally safe here in this relatively unknown German city – unknown to Emmett anyway, at least until today – safe with the American Army, safe in her job. Her assumed name was close enough to her old one that she’d barely noticed the change. She’d made friends, built herself a life and now…now it was all over? No way.
If truth be told, it hadn’t occurred to her that Emmett might still be looking for her. Oh sure, she’d expected that he would at first, at least right after she’d escaped his clutches. As she had noted to Bryan, her father did not like being made to look foolish and that’s exactly what she had done. But after three years?! Really? It made no sense! For the love of all that was holy, she was 29, an adult and should have been able to live her own life any way she saw fit, without fear. Clearly, she’d been mistaken.
Rage burned in her belly, warming her extremities and coloring her cheeks, and Lily shot up from her seat on the bed, unable to sit still. She paced back and forth in front of her closet and the window, not really seeing through the lace curtains that hung there, or past the beam of afternoon sunlight filtering through the pattern.
“I’m not leaving, Bryan,” she said softly, anger clogging her throat, preventing her from speaking any louder. “I won’t.”
“What?! Lily are you even listening to what I am saying?” he asked, sounding truly exasperated now. “I am not sure you understand the gravity of the situation. It would be foolish of us both not to consider that your father sent someone out to bring you back the moment he discovered your location, so- “
“No!” she cut him off. “No, I am not moving. When I left my parents’ compound that night I swore to myself that I would not allow Emmett to push me around, frighten me, and I am not giving into him or whatever scare tactics he might decide to use. I am just not. I will take my chances. Look, Emmett might be capable of many things, but he won’t hurt his own daughter. Maybe he will even just leave me alone. Why shouldn’t he after all these years?”
“For God’s sake are you hearing yourself?! That’s ridiculous. Don’t ever make assumptions about a man like your father. You’ve told me that yourself, a thousand times! He is more than capable of killing, clearly, and I don’t think it will matter one whit to him that you are his daughter.”
His words turned Lily’s blood to ice, and she swallowed hard. She knew Bryan was not wrong, she’d grown up with Emmett, and he was nothing if not cold and ruthless. But still, the idea of leaving Bamberg, her job, this house…well it was untenable, not to be considered. The very thought of it almost made her feel physically sick.
“Bryan, I like my life here! I have friends, a house, I love my job! You guys GOT me this job! And now you want me to leave it?”
“Of course I do not want you to leave that job, Lily. I don’t want any of this to be happening. But this is for your own safety, never mind that my firm has spent a lot of money getting you where you are and keeping you safe. You are an asset, Lily, an important part of this investigation. You are moving and that’s that. We have no more time to argue about this.”
Lily’s eyes widened in surprise at Bryan’s words. He’d never spoken like that to her before. She narrowed her eyes, excess emotion beginning to make her head throb painfully. “No, I am not moving, Bryan,” she finally said making sure her own tone sounded just as definitive as his had, “And here’s why…” She paused to take a breath, the connection of the long-distance call crackling in her ear. “I gave you evidence against Emmett, Bryan. Lots of it, though clearly you don’t or didn’t feel it was enough. Since, ya know, you put a guy in there anyway, despite everything I told you about my father, despite everything you saw when you worked at his warehouse. And now because of your guy, Emmett knows where I am, so thanks for that. In my book that makes us quits and I get to do what I want no matter how much you spent on me, no matter what kind of ‘asset’ you consider me to be. Frankly, I don’t feel I owe you, and so now I am telling you, not asking but telling you. I am not moving again. Let Emmett come and get me if that is what he wants to do. I don’t really care. I’d like to think he’s got better things to do.”
These were bold words that made her knees quake, but she held her ground. Like she said, surely after all this time Emmett and Evelyn had moved on, forgotten her. So what if they had found out where she was, it wasn’t like her departure or her telling tales to Bryan’s little security company had had any effect on them anyway. They had no reason to be concerned with her at all. In Lily’s mind she was as quits with them as she was with Bryan. “Honestly, I think maybe you are totally overreacting about all of this, and well maybe being a little selfish.”
Bryan groaned. “Jesus, Lily, this is ridiculous.” He was close to shouting at her now and she held the receiver away from her ear, “You are acting like a stubborn, spoiled child. Emmett is completely capable of doing exactly what you think he cannot. Have you forgotten what he’s like…like in the last five seconds?”
“Of course not! How could I? I-”
“Hang on,” Bryan cut her off, his tone sharp and annoyed. She could hear his voice, muffled now, speaking to someone else, probably in his office. Bryan didn’t seem to have any other place. Lily waited, pacing then stopping to tap her foot impatiently on the carpet, and then pacing again, the hand holding the phone cradle swinging vigorously at her side. The movement whipped its long black cord back and forth until it managed, without her really noticing, to snake itself around her feet, tangling her up. She swore and, sitting down hard, bent to untangle the cord, once again tucking the receiver between ear and shoulder. As she worked to free her feet from the cord she marshaled more reasons why she wasn’t going to move. After a few moments, Bryan returned.
“OK, I’m back,” he said, not explaining what he’d been doing, “and I talked to the people I had working on this case and they all agree. Emmett’s going to come after you and he’ll be there sooner than you think. We are out of options-”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Lily cut him off, still sitting on her floor. “What are you talking about? We are not out of options, I don’t care what your ‘folks on the case’ say. There are always options. Though in this case moving is not one of them. I am staying here. You can guard me here, that is an option, but I am not moving. I am sure you have time to get guys here. There’s no way Emmett is going to move that quickly, I’m like 5,000 miles away.”
Bryan said nothing, and Lily climbed to her feet again just as a sudden sweep of black, like a flourished cape flashed by her bedroom window, then swirled out of view.
“What the…???” She stepped closer to the glass, pressing her nose against it so she could see through the curtains and around the edge of her window. She gasped and ducked so fast that she sat hard on her rear again, awkwardly rolling and scooting herself into the corner between the window and her closet, her heart pounding hard.
Oh my god, oh my god. She could barely breathe. Calm down Lily, calm down.
On the phone, Bryan was speaking again, and Lily had to work hard to hear him.
“Lily, I get that you are pissed about having to move again and I’m sorry,” he sounded like he was talking through clenched teeth and a tense jaw. “You may think that Emmett is willing to let you go, but you have to trust me when I say he’s not. So, as I tried to say before, I’m sending someone over to your house right now to get you. Please be ready to go.”
“It’s too late,” Lily said, surprised at how steady her voice sounded when her gut was twisting with a nauseating combination of chagrin and fear. Bryan had been right, she had let her emotions get away from her and now she owed Bryan an apology that she literally had no time for.
“What are you talking about?” he demanded warily. “What do you mean it’s too late? Lily, what did you do?”
“Nothing! I just mean it’s too late,” she said again. “Lucien is here, he’s outside my flat. I just saw him.”
Bryan sucked in a breath and swore. “Did he see you? What’s he doing?”
Lily shook her head, rolling it side to side against the wall. “No, I don’t think so. I was sitting on the floor and there are lace curtains over my window and now I’m huddled in a corner out of sight. He can’t see me, and I have no idea what he’s doing. I think he was heading for my front door, though I doubt he’s gonna knock.”
“Is your door locked?”
Lily’s eyes widened and she frantically tried to remember if she had locked both doors when she got home. She was supposed to but sometimes she forgot. “I think so...wait, hang on a minute…let me listen.”
“Lily, wait…don’t expose yourself, stay hidden, stay put…” His warnings sounded frantic. Lily ignored him and pressed the receiver against her stomach muffling the sound of his voice in the material of her bulky sweatshirt and strained to listen. Silence reigned, nobody rattled a door or knocked, though Lily thought she could hear several masculine voices outside. Which meant Lucien had company. Frogs and Coffee! She put the receiver back to her ear.
“He’s not trying to get in, but I think he brought friends. I am gonna see, at least if I can see where he is I might be able to figure out what he’s going to do.”
“Lily be careful! Don’t do anything rash, help is on the way!”
“I won’t, I will be,” She promised, and then placing the cradle of the phone behind her back on the floor listened again for any sounds that might give her a clue as to where Lucien was. They were still out in the back but the masculine voices were fading, moving, as far as she could tell, away from her front door and around the other side of her house. She doubted that meant that Lucien was giving up and leaving. She wasn’t that lucky, Lucien wasn’t that easily deterred.
Lily considered her next move. The idea of leaving her room made her feel vulnerable and exposed but better to know what Lucien might be up to than to be surprised and all that much more defenseless. She pressed her back against the wall and slowly pushed herself upwards, leaning over just long enough to get a glimpse out of the window, letting out an explosive breath when she saw nothing lurking beyond the lace curtains. The coast was clear. Feeling a bit safer, she moved out of her corner, nervously looking back over her shoulder with almost every step as she made for her bedroom door. If Lucien and his buddies still lingered anywhere on the path outside the house’s entryway door, she would be much safer in the hallway. They could decide to backtrack and peer in at any moment and see her and that would be disastrous.
Moving quickly, Lily tucked around the corner of her bedroom door into the hallway, leaning back against the wall and catching her breath. She’d been holding it in like she was afraid that Lucien might hear her if she allowed herself the luxury of oxygen. Light from the windows of the two bedrooms across the hallway illuminated the broad space but she wasn’t too worried. Those windows were high up off the ground, so unless Lucien could scale the side of the house or had a ladder, she didn’t think they posed any danger. What was dangerous was lingering too long where she stood. If she looked left she could see directly down the hall and through the set of glass doors that sat behind her dining room table. And the curtains at those windows were sheer and see-through. With her dark hair and brilliantly red sweatshirt, she stood out like a bright red flower in a bed of white blooms, not good. Briefly Lily considered peeling herself out of her sweatshirt but the t-shirt she wore beneath was also red.
“Who knew clothes were going to be dangerous today,” she muttered, following her own instinct to make herself as small as possible and crouching down to the floor again. If someone passed by that dining room door they’d still see her, Lily knew, but this position made her feel a bit better nonetheless. She skittered diagonally across the hallway as quickly as she could on all fours, the tile floor hard against her knees, coming to a stop at the edge of the wall on the opposite side. From here the bulky shape of her sofa, which sat directly in front of her in her living room, partially hid her from view and that was a good thing. Lily allowed herself to pause again for just a brief second before peeking around the corner of the hallway into the large square main room of her flat.
The room itself, brightly lit despite the fading afternoon, was empty except for furniture. Through the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows that took up almost the entire front wall of her flat, Lily saw four men gathered in a tight circle, talking and loitering on her front patio, a big octagonal-shaped slab of concrete that looked out over her street and the village beyond. Over the summer a small table and four chairs had occupied that space, but now Lucien and three other men stood there deep in conversation, no doubt discussing exactly how they were going to kill her...
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