Blood and Vows
The travel from a secure safehouse beneath the Ashford estate’s winery to a derelict shipping warehouse near the eastern docks consumed the next hour. Headlights cut cold through the gathering dusk.
Inside the sedan, Evangeline sat rigid in the passenger seat, her fingers laced so tightly that the knuckles had gone white. Rowan drove with one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the tactical holster strapped beneath his jacket. In the back, Reid checked the magazine of a compact pistol, the metallic clicks filling the silence.
“Grant’s timeline,” Reid said, voice low. “He wants the exchange at the manor by nine. That gives us forty minutes to get into position.”
“He won’t wait.” Rowan’s eyes never left the road. “He’ll use the clock to rattle us. Make us sloppy.”
Evangeline turned her head, watching the industrial skeletons of the docks slide past. “The warehouse—what’s there?”
“A staging point. Silas’s old smuggling route runs underneath the manor through a maintenance tunnel. I mapped it from the files you gave me.” Reid slid the magazine home with a decisive slap. “We go in quiet, pull the boy out before Grant knows we’ve breached the perimeter.”
“And if the tunnel’s monitored?” Evangeline asked.
“Then we make noise on purpose,” Rowan said. “Create a diversion. Grant wants a showdown—he’ll come to the main hall. That’s where I want him.”
The sedan pulled into the shadow of the warehouse, its corrugated roof pitted with rust. They moved quickly, the three of them crossing the gravel lot to a roll-up door that Reid had jimmied earlier. Inside, the air smelled of salt and machine oil. A single bare bulb swung from a wire, casting a jaundiced circle on a workbench covered in maps and equipment.
Evangeline picked up a photograph—Jace, taken from a school yearbook, his eighth birthday party. Grant had sent it as a threat, with the words *Come alone* scrawled across the bottom in red ink. She pressed her thumb over the ink, as if she could erase it by will alone.
“We’re not going to let him keep him,” Rowan said, stepping beside her. He didn’t touch her, but his presence was a solid wall of heat. “I swear it.”
“I know.” She folded the photograph and tucked it into her coat pocket. “I’m not here to watch. I’m here to bring him home.”
Reid unrolled a blueprint across the workbench. “The tunnel entrance is behind a false wall in the wine cellar below the manor’s east wing. That wing is mostly storage and staff quarters—light patrol, four guards on rotation. Silas usually runs the security desk from the main hall. If he’s there, we’ll have to neutralize him before he triggers the lockdown.”
“Leave Silas to me,” Rowan said. “You get Evangeline to Jace’s room. The hostage location is the south turret—Grant’s grandfather used it as a study. Locked door, but standard deadbolt. You can pick it in under a minute.”
Reid nodded. “And Grant?”
“He’ll find me.” Rowan’s voice was flat, the calm of a man who had already decided the outcome.
Evangeline studied the map, memorizing the route. She had never fired a weapon, never thrown a punch. But she knew the manor’s layout better than anyone alive—she had grown up in those halls as a guest of the Blackthorn family, before the Ashfords’ ruin. Every servant’s passage, every hidden alcove, lay mapped in her memory.
“There’s a secondary spiral staircase behind the portrait gallery,” she said, tapping the blueprint. “It leads to an attic that connects to the south turret from above. If the door is locked, we come from the ceiling. Grant won’t expect a vertical breach.”
Reid looked up, a flicker of respect in his eyes. “That changes the timeline. We can insert you there first.”
“Then let’s move,” Rowan said.
They left the warehouse in a second vehicle—a nondescript black van with stolen plates. The drive to Blackthorn Manor took twelve minutes through back roads, the estate’s perimeter wall rising out of the twilight like the spine of a sleeping beast. Reid cut the headlights a quarter mile out and coasted to a stop behind a hedgerow.
The manor was three stories of Gothic limestone, its windows dark except for a single blaze of light from the grand hall on the ground floor. Grant wanted the scene set, the stage lit. He would be waiting.
Reid slipped out first, a shadow in tactical gear, and moved along the wall to a service entrance. A soft click, a brief pause, and the door swung inward. They followed in a single file, Evangeline’s heart hammering against her ribs.
Inside, the air was still and cold, tasting of old stone and beeswax. They descended a narrow stairwell to the wine cellar, where the false wall stood behind a rack of dusty bottles. Reid found the latch, and the wall pivoted soundlessly on hidden hinges, revealing a low tunnel—brick-lined, cobwebbed, the floor slick with damp.
Rowan took point, his flashlight cutting a cone of white. The tunnel slanted upward, then branched. He followed the map’s markings, his footsteps precise, unhurried. Evangeline counted her breaths—in four, hold four, out four—to keep her hands from shaking.
They emerged into a closet in the east wing. Reid cracked the door, listened, then motioned them forward. They moved through a corridor lined with hunting trophies—deer heads, a stuffed boar, the taxidermied snout of a wolf—their glass eyes reflecting the dim light.
Gunfire erupted from the grand hall. Three shots, a pause, then a fourth.
Rowan’s jaw set. “He’s not patient.”
“That’s the diversion,” Reid said. “Silas knows we’re here, or he’s testing the perimeter. We stay on plan.”
They reached the south turret stairwell. The door to Jace’s room was solid oak, reinforced with a steel plate. Reid knelt, produced a set of picks, and began to work the lock. Fifteen seconds. Twenty. A click, and the door swung open.
The room was sparsely furnished—a bed, a desk, a single lamp. Jace sat cross-legged on the floor, a book open in his lap. He looked up as they entered, his eyes wide, then filling with recognition and relief.
“Mom?”
Evangeline crossed the room in three strides and dropped to her knees, pulling him into her arms. He was trembling, but he held on tight, his small fingers digging into her coat.
“I knew you’d come,” he whispered.
Rowan moved past them to the window, checking the grounds below. “Reid, secure the corridor. We have maybe three minutes before Grant realizes his hostage room is empty.”
“On it.” Reid stepped out, closing the door behind him.
Evangeline helped Jace to his feet. “We’re going out the way we came in—the attic stair, then out through the wine cellar. Can you stay quiet?”
Jace nodded. “I can be quiet, like you taught me.”
“Good boy.” She brushed his hair from his forehead. “Stay right behind me. Don’t let go of my hand.”
A crash from downstairs—wood splintering, a man shouting.
“He’s burning through the house,” Rowan said. “He’ll be at the turret in two minutes. We need to move.”
They climbed the spiral staircase to the attic, the steps creaking under their weight. The ceiling was low, forcing them to crouch. Evangeline kept Jace’s hand tight in hers, her other palm bracing against the sloped walls.
From below, they heard Reid’s voice—curt, commanding. “Two guards down the west corridor. Silas is in the grand hall. Grant’s heading your way, Rowan.”
“Copy.” Rowan drew his pistol, the grip worn smooth from years of use. He turned to Evangeline. “Get to the wine cellar. Reid will meet you there. I’ll hold him off.”
“No.” The word came out before she could stop it. “I’m not leaving you to face him alone.”
“Evangeline—”
“He has Jace’s drawing. The one Jace did for his birthday. Grant sent it to me. I saw it on the study desk.” Her voice was steady now, the tremor gone. “I need to get it back. And I need to look him in the eye.”
Rowan held her gaze for a long moment, then nodded once. “Stay behind me. If I say run, you run.”
They descended from the attic into the second-floor gallery, the portraits of Blackthorn ancestors lining the walls. The grand hall’s chandelier light spilled through the open doors below, casting long shadows. Grant stood at the center, a revolver in his hand, the barrel pointed at the floor. Silas was slumped in a chair by the fireplace, a bloody handkerchief pressed to his arm.
Grant looked up as they entered. His smile was thin, predatory.
“Rowan. I knew you’d come without the police. You’re too proud, always have been.” His gaze shifted to Evangeline, and the smile widened. “And you brought the Ashford girl. How sentimental.”
“Let my son go, Grant. This is between us.” Rowan kept his pistol at his side, finger outside the guard.
“Your son? That boy is leverage. He’s the only reason you’re still breathing.” Grant raised the revolver, aiming at Jace.
Evangeline stepped in front of her son, her arms spread. The action was pure instinct, a wall of flesh and bone.
Rowan fired.
The shot hit Grant’s revolver hand, spinning the weapon from his grip. Grant howled, clutching his wrist. Rowan crossed the floor in three quick strides, grabbed Grant by the collar, and slammed him against the marble mantelpiece. The impact rattled the ornaments on the shelf.
“You don’t get to touch him,” Rowan said, his voice low and grinding. “You don’t get to breathe the same air.”
Grant laughed, blood spilling from his lips. “You think this ends here? The Blackthorn name is older than your family’s money. I have allies you haven’t even—“
Rowan headbutted him. Grant’s head snapped back, and he crumpled to the floor, dazed.
From above, a groan of stressed metal. Evangeline looked up. The chandelier—a massive iron and crystal fixture—swayed on its chain, one of the anchor bolts pulling free from the ceiling. The gunfire and the slam against the mantel had loosened it.
“Rowan, look out!”
She lunged forward, shoving Jace toward the hallway as the chain snapped. The chandelier plummeted, a shower of glass raining down. Evangeline turned, raising her arms to shield her son, but Rowan was already there, grabbing her by the waist and pulling her clear. The chandelier crashed onto the marble floor where she had stood, shattering into a thousand pieces.
Grant lay motionless near the fireplace, blood pooling beneath his head. The chandelier’s impact had missed him by inches, splintering the floorboards where he’d fallen.
Silas stirred, shaking off his stupor. His hand slid beneath his jacket, searching for a hidden blade.
Reid stepped through the broken doors, his boot already descending. He stomped on Silas’s wrist before the blade could clear the sheath. A crack, a muffled scream, and the knife skittered across the tiles.
Rowan pulled Evangeline and Jace into his arms, his breath ragged against her hair. The three of them stood in the center of the wreckage, the dust settling around them like snow.
“It’s over,” Rowan breathed. “Finally over.”
Grant lies unconscious; the chandelier crashes inches away. Rowan pulls Evangeline and Jace into his arms. Silas stirs on the floor, reaching for a hidden blade. But Reid’s boot stomps his wrist first. “It’s over,” Rowan breathes. “Finally over.”