Royal Rescue

chapter Four

Was he too late?

As the elevator doors slid open, a shot rang out. But the bullet ricocheted off the back of the car near his head. Both men faced him with their guns raised. Maybe this had nothing to do with Josie.

Maybe the woman wasn’t even really her and the boy not really even his son. Maybe it had all been an elaborate trap to lure him here—to his death. Plenty of people wanted him dead. That was why he usually had backup within gunshot range. But he hadn’t wanted anyone to be aware of his visit to the bedside of a man he didn’t really know but with whom he’d thought he’d shared a tragedy: Josie’s death.

So nobody had known he was coming here. These men weren’t after him, because the suspects he knew wouldn’t have gone to such extremes to take him out; they wouldn’t have had to. Whenever they dared to try to take him out, as they had his father, they knew where to find him—at O’Hannigan’s. Inside the family tavern was where Josie had found him. He’d thought the little rich girl had just wandered into the wrong place with the wrong clientele, and he’d rescued her before any of his rough customers could accost her.

Just as he had intended to rescue her now. But both times he was the one who wound up needing to be rescued. Maybe he should have had backup even for this uncomfortable visit. With the elevator doors wide open, Brendan was a damn sitting duck, more so even than the woman and the boy. They might be able to escape. Seeing the fear on their faces, pale and stark in the light spilling out of the elevator, it was clear that they were in real danger and they knew it.

“Run!” he yelled at them.

She sprinted away, either in reaction to his command or in fear of him as well as the armed men. With her and the kid out of the line of fire, he raised the gun he’d taken off their co-conspirator.

But the men had divided their attention now. Standing back-to-back, one fired at him while the other turned his gun toward Josie.

The boy clutched tightly in her arms, she ran, disappearing into the shadows before any bullets struck her. But maybe running wasn’t a good thing, given that the farther away she went, the thicker the shadows grew. The light from the elevator illuminated only a small circle of the rooftop around the open doors. The farther she ran, the harder it would be for her to see where the roof ended and the black abyss twenty stories above the ground began.

He ducked back into the elevator and flattened himself against the panel beside the doors. He could have closed those doors to protect himself. But then he couldn’t protect Josie and the child. His son...

These men weren’t just trying to kill the woman who was supposed to already be dead. They were trying to kill a helpless child.

An O’Hannigan.

His father would be turning over in his grave.

Despite his occasional violent behavior toward them, Dennis O’Hannigan had never really wanted his family harmed—at least not by anyone but him. Brendan didn’t want his family harmed at all. He kept one finger on the button to hold open the doors. Then he leaned out and aimed the gun. And squeezed the trigger.

His shots drew all the attention to him. Bullets pinged off the brass handrail and shattered the smoky glass of the elevator car. The glass splintered and ricocheted like the bullets, biting into his skin like a swarm of bees.

His finger jerked off the button, and the doors began to close. But he couldn’t leave Josie and the child alone up here with no protection. Despite the other man’s warning, he had to play the hero. But it had been nearly four years since he’d been anything but the villain.

Had he gotten rusty? Would he be able to protect them? Or had his arrival put them in even more danger?

* * *

“THEY’RE ALL BAD men,” CJ said, his voice high and squeaky with fear and panic. “They’re bad! Bad!”

He was too young to have learned just how evil some people were. As his mother, Josie was supposed to protect him, but she’d endangered his life and his innocence. She had to do her best to keep her little boy a little boy until he had the time to grow into a man.

“Shh...” Josie cautioned him. “We need to be very quiet.”

“So they don’t find us?”

“First we have to find a hiding place.” Which wouldn’t be easy in a darkness so enveloping she could barely see the child she held tightly against her.

She had been able to see the shots—those brief flashes of gunpowder. She’d run from those flashes, desperate to keep her son safe. But now those shots were redirected toward Brendan, and running wouldn’t keep CJ safe since she couldn’t see where she was going. She moved quickly but carefully, testing her footing before she stepped forward.

“Are they shooting real bullets?” he asked.

To preserve that innocence she was afraid he was losing, she could have lied. But that lie could risk his life.

“They’re real,” she replied, aware that they’d come all too close to her and CJ. “That’s why we need to find a place to hide until the police come.”

Someone must have heard the shots and reported them by now. Help had to be on the way. Hopefully it would arrive in time to save her and her son. But what about Brendan? He had stepped into the middle of an attempted murder—a double homicide, actually. And he hadn’t done it accidentally. He had tracked her to the roof, maybe to kill her himself. But perhaps he’d be the one to lose his life, since the men were now entirely focused on him.

She shuddered, the thought chilling her nearly as much as the cold wind that whipped around the unprotected rooftop.

“Let’s go back there, Mommy,” CJ said, lifting his hand, which caught her attention only because she felt the movement more than saw it.

“Where?” she asked.

“Behind those big metal things.”

She peered in the direction he was pointing and finally noted the glint of some stray starlight off steel vents, probably exhaust pipes for the hospital’s heating or cooling system. If only they could escape inside them...

But she could barely move around them, let alone find a way inside them. The openings were too high above the rooftop, towering over her. As she tried to squeeze around them, her hip struck the metal. She winced and swallowed a groan of pain. And hoped the men hadn’t heard the telltale metallic clink.

“Shh, Mommy,” CJ cautioned her. “We don’t want the bad men to hear us.”

“No, we don’t,” she agreed.

“They might find our hiding place.”

“I’m not sure we can hide here,” she whispered. She couldn’t wedge them both between the massive pipes. The metal caught at her clothes and scraped her arms. “We can’t fit.”

“Let me try,” he suggested. Before she could agree, he wriggled down from her arms and squeezed through the small space.

She reached through the blackness, trying to clutch at him, trying to pull him back. What if he’d fallen right off the building?

She had no idea how much space was on the other side of the pipes. A tiny ledge? None?

A scream burned in her throat, but she was too scared to utter it—too horrified that in trying to protect her son she may have lost him forever.

But then chubby fingers caught hers. He tugged on her hand. “Come on, Mommy. There’s room.”

“You’re not at the edge of the roof?” she asked, worried that he might be in more danger where he was.

“Nooo,” he murmured, his voice sounding as if he’d turned away from her. “There’s a little wall right behind me.”

“Don’t go over that wall,” she advised. It was probably the edge of the roof, a small ledge to separate the rooftop from the ground far below. A curious little boy might want to figure out what was on the other side of that wall.

“Okay, Mommy,” he murmured again, his voice still muffled. Was he trying to peer over the side?

She needed to get to him, needed to protect him, from the men and from himself. She turned sideways and pushed herself against the space where CJ had so effortlessly disappeared. But her breasts and hips—curves she’d barely had until her pregnancy with him—caught. She sucked in her stomach, but it made no difference. She couldn’t suck in her breasts or hips. “I can’t fit.”

CJ tugged harder on her hand. “C’mon, Mommy, it’s a good hiding place.”

“No, honey,” she corrected him, her pulse tripping with fear that he’d go over the wall, “you need to come back out. We’ll find another one.”

But then she heard it. She tilted her head and listened harder. And still it was all she heard: silence. The shooting had stopped.

What did that mean?

Was Brendan dead? Were the men? Whoever had survived would be searching for her next—for her and her son. The silence broke, shattered by the scrape of a shoe against the asphalt roofing.

She sucked in a breath now—of fear. But it didn’t make it any easier for her to squeeze through the small space. And maybe pulling CJ out wasn’t the best idea, not when he was safe from the men.

She dropped his fingers. “You stay here,” she said. “In the best hiding place.”

“I wanna hide with you.”

“I’ll find a bigger hiding place,” she said. “You need to stay here and play statue for me.”

She had played the game as a kid when she’d pretended to be a statue, completely still and silent. On those mornings that CJ had woken her up at five, she’d taught him to play statue so she could sleep just a little longer. Now acting lifeless was perhaps the only way for CJ to stay alive.

The footfalls grew louder as someone drew closer. She had to get out of here, had to distract whoever it was from CJ’s hiding place. But first she had to utter one more warning. “Don’t come out for anyone but me.”

Her son was such a good boy. So smart and so obedient. She didn’t have to worry that anyone else would lure him out of hiding. She just had to make sure that she stayed alive, so that he would come out when it was safe. So she drew in a deep breath and headed off, moving as fast as she dared in the darkness. She glanced back, but night had swallowed those metal vent pipes and had swallowed her son. Would she be able to find him again, even if she eluded whoever had survived the earlier gun battle?

She would worry about finding him after she found a hiding spot for herself. But it was so dark she could barely see where she was going. So she wasn’t surprised when she collided with a wall.

But this wasn’t a short brick wall like the one CJ had found behind the pipes. This wall was broad and muscular and warm. Her hands tingled in reaction to the chest she touched, her palms pressed against the lapels of a suit. The other men had been wearing scrubs, which would have been scratchy and flat.

And she wouldn’t have reacted this way to them. Her skin wouldn’t tingle; her pulse wouldn’t leap. And she wouldn’t feel something very much like relief that he was alive. No matter what threat he posed to her, she hadn’t wanted him dead.

“Brendan...?”

* * *

IT WAS HER. Despite her physical transformation, he’d recognized her. But now he had not even a fraction of a doubt. That voice in the darkness...

Her touch...

He recognized all that about her, too.

But more importantly, she had recognized him. If she was truly a stranger that he had mistaken for his former lover and betrayer, she wouldn’t know his name. Or, if by some chance, she had just recognized him as the son of a notorious mobster, she wouldn’t have been comfortable and familiar enough to call him by his first name.

“Yes, Josie, it’s me,” he assured her.

She shuddered and her hands began to tremble against his chest. “You—you,” she stammered. “You’re...”

He was shaking a little himself in reaction to what had nearly happened. Adrenaline and fear coursed through him, pumping his blood fast and hard through his veins. “You know who I am. You just said my name,” he pointed out. “And I damn well know who you are. So let’s cut the bullshit. We don’t have time for it. We need to get the hell out of here!”

She expelled a ragged sigh of resignation, as if she had finally given up trying to deny her true identity. Her palms patted his chest as if checking for bullet holes. “You didn’t get shot?”

“No.” But he suspected he had come uncomfortably close. If either of the gunmen, who were probably hired assassins, had been a better shot than he was, Josie would be in an entirely different situation right now.

As if she sensed that, she asked, “And those men?”

Brendan flinched with a pang of regret. But he had had no choice. If he hadn’t shot the men, they would have killed him. And then they would have found Josie and the boy and killed them, too.

“They’re not a threat. But the guy I left on the floor by your father’s room could be.”

Her breath audibly caught in a gasp of fear. “You left him there? He could hurt my father.”

The assailant was in no condition to hurt anyone. Unless he’d regained consciousness...

“I don’t think your father is their target,” Brendan pointed out.

“They hurt him already,” she said, reminding him of the reason the media mogul was in the hospital in the first place. Because he’d been attacked.

“That must have been just to lure you out of hiding.” Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to track her down, and that someone was obviously very determined to do what Brendan had thought had been done almost four years ago. Kill Josie Jessup. If only he had had more time to interrogate the man downstairs, to find out who had hired him.

“They have no reason to hurt your father now,” Brendan assured her before adding the obvious. “It’s you they’re after.”

“And my son,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “They were going to hurt him, too.”

“Where is he?” he asked. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough to see her before him now. “Where’s my son?”

She shuddered again. “He’s not your son.”

“Stop,” he impatiently advised her. “Just stop with the lies.” She’d told him too many four years ago. “You need to get the boy and we need to get the hell out of here.”

Because the bad men weren’t the only threat.

Sirens wailed in the distance. Maybe just an ambulance on its way to the emergency room. Or maybe police cars on their way to secure a crime scene. He couldn’t risk the latter. He couldn’t be brought in for questioning or, worse, arrested. The local police wouldn’t care that it had been self-defense; they were determined to arrest him for something. Anything. That was why Brendan had used the other fake orderly’s gun. No bullets could be traced back to him. He’d wiped his prints off the weapon and left it on the roof.

“I’m not leaving with you,” she said. “And neither is my son.”

“You’re in danger,” he needlessly pointed out. “And you’ve put him in danger.”

She sucked in a breath, either offended or feeling guilty. “And leaving with you would put us both in even more danger.”

Now he drew in a sharp breath of pure offense. “If I wanted you gone, Josie, I could have just let those men shoot you.”

“But they weren’t going to shoot just me.”

He flinched again at the thought of his child in so much danger. Reaching out, he grasped her shoulders. “Where is my son?” he repeated, resisting the urge to shake the truth out of her. “Someone wants you both dead. You can’t let him out of your sight.” And he couldn’t let either of them out of his.

“I—I...”

“I won’t hurt you,” he assured her. “And I sure as hell won’t hurt him.”

Her head jerked in a sharp nod as if she believed him. He felt the motion more than saw it as her silky hair brushed his chin. She stepped back and turned around and then around again in a complete circle, as if trying to remember where she’d been.

“Where did you hide him?” he asked, hoping like hell that she had hidden him and hadn’t just lost him.

“It was behind some exhaust pipes,” she said. “I couldn’t fit but he squeezed behind them. I—I just don’t remember where they were.”

“What’s his name?”

She hesitated a moment before replying, as if his knowing his name would make the boy more real for Brendan. “CJ.”

Maybe she was right—knowing the boy’s name did make him more real to Brendan. His heart pounded and his pulse raced as he reeled from all the sudden realizations. He had a son. He was a father. He was continuing the “family” of which he had never wanted to be part.

“CJ,” he repeated, then raised his voice and shouted, “CJ!”

“Shh.” Josie cautioned him.

“He might not hear me if I don’t yell,” he pointed out. And Brendan needed to see his boy, to assure himself that his child was real and that he was all right.

“He won’t come out if he hears you,” she explained. “He thinks you’re a bad man.”

Brendan flinched. It didn’t matter that everyone else thought so; he didn’t want his son to believe the lie, too.

“Is that what you told him?” he asked. It must have been what she’d believed all these years, because no matter how determined a reporter she’d been, she hadn’t learned the truth about him.

“It’s what you showed him,” she said, “when you grabbed me by the elevator.”

Dread and regret clenched his stomach muscles. His own son was afraid of him. How would he ever get close to the boy, ever form a relationship with him, if the kid feared him?

He flashed back so many years ago to his own heart pounding hard with fear as he cowered from his father, from the boom of his harsh voice and the sting of his big hand. Brendan hadn’t just feared Dennis O’Hannigan. He’d been terrified of the man. But then so had everyone else.

“I’ll be quiet,” he whispered his promise. “You find him.”

She called for the boy, her voice rising higher with panic each time she said his name. “CJ? CJ?” Then she sucked in a breath and her voice was steadier as she yelled, in a mother’s no-nonsense tone, what must have been his full name, “Charles Jesse Brandt!”

Brandt? The boy’s last name should have been O’Hannigan. But maybe it was better that it wasn’t. Being an O’Hannigan carried with it so many dangers.

But then danger had found the boy no matter what his mother called him. CJ didn’t respond to that maternal command only the rare child dared to disobey. Brendan certainly never would have disobeyed.

Panic clutched at his chest as worst-case scenarios began to play out in his mind. He had seen so many horrible things in his life that the possibilities kept coming. Had the man from the sixth floor somehow joined them on the roof without Brendan noticing? Had he found the boy already?

Another scenario played through his head, of Josie lying to him again. Still. Had she hidden the child and told him not to come out for Brendan? She’d hidden his son from him for three years—a few more minutes weren’t going to bother her.

“Where is he?” he asked, shoving his hands in his pockets so that he wouldn’t reach for her again. He had already frightened her, which was probably why she’d hidden their son from him.

She shook her head. “I don’t know.” The panic was in her voice, too.

Brendan almost preferred to think that she was lying to him and knew where the boy was, having made certain he was safe.

Her hand slapped against a metal pipe. “I thought he was behind here. CJ! CJ!”

“Then why isn’t he coming out?” Brendan had stayed quiet and now kept his voice to a whisper despite the panic clutching at him.

“No, it can’t be...” she murmured, her voice cracking with fear and dread.

“What?” He demanded to know the thought that occurred to her, that had her trembling now with fear.

“He’s at the edge of the roof,” she said. “He told me there was a short wall behind him. I—I told him not to go over it...”

Because there would have been nothing but the ground, twenty stories below, on the other side. If the boy was still on the roof with them, he would answer his mother. Even if he heard Brendan, he would come out to protect her, as he did before.

Oh, God!

Had Brendan lost his son only moments after finally finding him?