Gazing down at it dazedly, my brain registered that there was quite a bit of blood seeping from the wound. Almost too much. Had the bullet nicked something important? I sure hoped the fuck not.
“It’s a coup,” I spat to Rhodes who looked worse than I felt as he knelt on my other side. I could feel their raging panic down the bond even as I tried to shut my own end off so that they wouldn’t have to feel the sheer amount of pain I was in. “These fuckers decided to have their own coup before I could have mine.”
I’d seemingly avoided one war with the five families only to be right in the middle of a civil one with the men who were supposed to support me.
Fuck, at least I knew I was right in trying to oust them.
Turning to Rhodes, I made sure his dark eyes met mine before I spoke again. “You know what you need to do now.”
“No,” the other man rasped, his eyes going from me to Perrie who was still trying to stanch my bleeding wound with the cardigan she’d been wearing.
We’d discussed a lot of contingency plans when I first decided it was time to take control. I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but now as bullets continued to rain down on my study and I could hear shouting in the hallway, I knew that this needed to happen. It wasn’t safe for Perrie to be here anymore.
“Rho. You promised me,” I reminded him, reaching up to grip him roughly by the front of his shirt.
“I know but—”
I cut him off. “You promised.”
Rhodes’ lips twisted into a tight frown before his shoulders finally dropped in surrender. “Fuck, okay. But you better follow through on your end.”
“I will,” I lied, not knowing how the rest of this night was about to go.
Finally, the bullets stopped and all I could hear was gunfire in the distance.
Rhodes crawled over my legs and wrapped an arm around Perrie’s waist lifting her up off of her feet.
“Rhodes?” Perrie asked, glancing between the two of us with confusion as she tried to hold onto my hand.
“Go with him, Perrie,” I told her, fighting against the desire to hang onto her for dear life.
But being with me right now wouldn’t save her.
“No!” Perrie cried, her grip on me tightening as Rhodes reached out to pry her fingers from mine. “Rhodes, knock it off. He needs to go with us.”
Rhodes said nothing as he finally managed to break her hold and started to carry her away.
“Edison!” Her voice cracked as she reached for me again, but this time her hands only caught air as Rhodes carried her over to the bookshelf and pressed a secret button that would lead into a passageway.
Vladimir Volkov wasn’t the only one who liked a good secret tunnel.
“I’ll find you,” I promised in yet another lie, offering her a weak smile as she gaped at me before the bookcase door closed behind them, cutting them off from me.
The door to my study burst open and for a heart stopping moment I was sure that it would be Liam Flannagan coming in guns blazing and finally ready to end me. But instead it was just Oona.
“Oh, Master Edison,” she gasped. “Look at the state of you! Those old men are outside trying to take the mansion by force, how dare they!”
Oona’s fluttering was enough to center me again and I held a hand out for her to help me up. “How many?”
“Collum says about half of the branch heads are here, and it looks like they’ve got Rory in some pretty rough shape too,” she explained, putting my arm over her shoulder as she helped me limp from the room.
I snorted at that. Leave it to those cowards to only send half of their men into a gun fight while holding someone hostage.
It meant I would have to spend weeks smoking the rest of them out of whatever fucking places they decided to hole themselves up in once I was done with their comrades here.
“How many of our men are in residence right now?” I asked as we passed into the dining room where the rest of the household staff was waiting for us.
“About thirteen men, but my girls are ready whenever you need us.”
One of the maids, a sweet-faced younger woman who looked as if she couldn’t hurt a fly, lifted up a shotgun and pumped it.
“Ready when you are, sir,” she said in a thick Irish accent.
That was the difference between my household and that of my father and the rest of the old heads.
Here everyone was trained to fight, from my men all the way to the maids and cooks.
Even old Darragh, the butler who’d been around since my grandfather’s time, was cleaning his old revolver with a stoney expression.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” I assured the young woman who looked almost deflated at not being on the front line.
“Where is the miss?” one of the other maids asked, glancing around with worried blue eyes. “Is she safe? I do hope so.”
The staff had grown very fond of my wife over the past four months and it showed as the rest of them murmured to each other, echoing the maid’s question.
“She’s safe. She’s with Rhodes.”
“Then she’s safer than the rest of us,” Oona said before clapping her hands together. “All right ladies, let’s get those weapons hidden. We wouldn’t want to give ourselves away too early.”
