Cayenne turned her head, one arm around the porch column. “Happy is good, Zara, but we’re never safe. You have to always remember that. If Gino tells you that you need an escort somewhere, you have to believe him.”
A dog barked in the distance as if punctuating Cayenne’s words. A frog croaked and several took up the chorus. The frog croaked again very loudly, trying to outsing the others. Zara found herself smiling. Of course she believed Gino, and she really didn’t care if he wanted to watch over her when she went out with the others, but she needed to know that Bellisia and the others would be okay with it too, if they were there. Clearly, they were already used to the protection of the men.
Nonny stood up and walked down the steps of the porch to knock her pipe clean against the thick trunk of a tree before walking toward the pier.
“She takes a walk every single night,” Pepper said. “She never seems to slow down. I hope she never does. It isn’t just this place that’s magic, so is Nonny.”
Cayenne turned her head to smile at Pepper. “I have to agree. She’s amazing. I still can’t cook very well, but she hasn’t given up on me, and she never would. I didn’t know it was possible, but she taught me how to let others in. I really love her.”
Zara kept her eyes on the older woman as she walked along the river and then out along the pier. A fish jumped and plopped back into the water. Nonny appeared to be a black silhouette along with the trees and the pier itself. Around her was that fiery backdrop, making her the center of a beautiful painting. Zara wished she had a camera. It was all so beautiful. As many times as she’d been allowed out of the compound growing up, she’d never experienced anything like this. The quiet, sitting surrounded by others, just watching the sunset and the woman who was the glue that held a very large, extended family together.
She wanted to be like Nonny. Not the same person, of course, but a woman others would feel comfortable around. A woman dedicated to her family. She knew Nonny was fiercely protective of all of them. Her shotgun was leaning right against the house, beside her rocking chair where it always was.
There was another splash in the water. Something larger moved. Zara narrowed her eyes and leaned forward, trying to get a better look. Alligator eyes appeared red at night. Around her, the women talked, but Zara no longer heard what they said, intent on the water surrounding the pier.
“Nonny.” She raised her voice to carry across the yard to the long dock. Wyatt’s grandmother had walked out onto the wooden landing as she did every night. “Come back.”
Zara was on her feet, heedless of the pain. She caught up the shotgun as she began her dash, and actually leapt off the porch, running. She’d always been fast. That was one of the advantages of her long legs and she’d always had the ability to sprint, covering distance faster than anyone else in the compound. Her cat DNA probably helped.
Nonny spun around toward her just as something big and black, the fiery glow behind it, heaved itself out of the water onto the pier, reaching for the older woman.
“Drop!” Zara screamed it. “Drop, Nonny!”
Nonny did as she was told, and Zara pulled the trigger just as her feet hit the wood of the pier. The kick in the gun drove the butt into her shoulder hard, but she didn’t feel that either. She threw herself over Nonny’s body and fired again as a man dressed in a black wet suit came at them. The slug drove him back, but he didn’t go down.
“Run,” she hissed at Nonny.
Nonny got up slowly to face the big man who had stumbled nearly to the end of the pier. He straightened. Time slowed down as he looked over their shoulders, a smirk on his face. Bellisia slipped into the water as three more men in wet suits came up on either side of the pier. Calmly, Nonny took the shotgun from Zara.
“This was a present from my grandson,” Nonny said softly. “Never knew why that boy wanted me to have a shotgun with the capability of shooting so many rounds. Never needed such a thing. Thought it was overkill.” She lifted the barrel and shot the same soldier point-blank, this time in his throat.
The man’s eyes widened and he toppled over backward. His body hit the end of the pier, rocked there for a macabre moment and then fell into the water. Wyatt, Gino, Trap and Ezekiel hit the dock running. Ezekiel went into the air, knees to chest. He shot his feet out and both hit the soldier just coming out of the water. The man flew backward into the river. Bellisia was on him instantly, her poisonous injection paralyzing him immediately and then killing him as he floated away.
Gino sliced the throat of the third man, one cut, the laceration so deep it nearly severed his head. He spun toward the fourth man, but Trap had him down into the water, holding him for Bellisia. The three GhostWalkers went into the water, going under as the last of the fiery sunset sank, leaving them in the inky light.
Wyatt reached down to help Zara up. She could feel her feet now. Every bruised and mangled inch, the torn, mangled tendons. It hurt like hell. She wasn’t positive she could run as fast getting back to the porch as she had getting to Nonny. She glanced at the pier. There were bloody footprints she knew were hers. She forced herself not to wince as she took that first step. Wyatt had his arm around Nonny as he started her in the direction of the house.
Cayenne was there, one arm around her. “Can you get on my back?”
Cayenne wasn’t the tallest woman in the world. Zara would feel ridiculous climbing on her back. She shook her head.
“I’m really strong. Get on and let’s get back to the safety of the house. It’s you they’re after,” Cayenne reminded.
Zara stepped close to her, closing her eyes, forcing her feet to work as Cayenne turned around to allow her to climb up like a child getting a piggyback ride. She put her hand on Cayenne’s shoulder and something wrapped around her ankle like a vise and she was jerked backward off the pier. She hit the water hard and was yanked under before she had time to really take a breath.
Whoever had her by the ankle swam fast, propelling both of them through the water at a rapid rate of speed. It was so dark beneath the surface that Zara couldn’t even see the soldier taking her away from safety. Her lungs were already burning, feeling raw, and panic began to set in. She fought, trying to get the fingers from around her, trying to indicate that she was going to drown if he didn’t take her to the surface. She would have used the venom, but she couldn’t get to his hand with her fingernails. The soldier swimming with her ignored her. She realized his orders were to bring her back dead or alive. Whitney didn’t need her alive, he only needed her dead body, or more precisely, her head.
Something small shot past her, brushing her body, streaking toward the soldier. An arm slid around her waist. Gino swam with her, not at all dragging so the soldier setting such a frantic, fast pace would have no idea Gino was swimming with her. He caught her face and then his mouth was over hers and he was pushing air into her lungs. His eyes looked directly into hers and she could feel his calm. Instantly, the panic in her subsided.
He signaled that he was going up for air, and she nodded. The little rocket that had brushed against her arm had been Bellisia and she knew the soldier hauling her through the water so fast was going to be dead very soon. No one was as good underwater as Bellisia. She stopped fighting, stopped thrashing and just let the soldier drag her dead weight, as if she had drowned.