Page 46 of The Captive
I rose from the chair, muscles screaming in protest. One of Coyne's men handed me a spare set of tactical pants and a shirt, which I pulled on quickly.
"How did you find us?" I asked, accepting a handgun.
"Tracking chip in your watch," Coyne explained. "Standard protocol for all high-ranking Flanagan personnel. You went dark for several hours. We triangulated your position and moved in."
I turned to Aoife huddled in the blanket, her face drawn with exhaustion but her eyes still burning with life.
"Take her back to the house," I instructed Coyne. "Get the doctor to check her over—dehydration, possible infection from those cuts. Keep security tight."
"And you?" Coyne asked, though he likely already knew the answer.
"I'm going after Beatrice."
Aoife's voice called me back as I reached the doorway. "Alexander."
I turned, meeting those changeable green eyes.
"Don't die," she said simply.
Something twisted in my chest—an unfamiliar sensation I had no time to examine. "I'll join you once this is finished."
I moved through the darkness on familiar grounds. The woods around the barn were swarming with men—Coyne's people. They acknowledged me with respectful nods, providing status updates.
"No sign of a female matching her description, sir," reported one agent. "We've secured three male suspects—hired guns by the look of them."
"Keep looking," I ordered. "Expand the search perimeter. Check all access roads, outbuildings, anywhere she could hide or escape through."
But as the hours passed and the search expanded, a sinking realization began to take hold. Beatrice had vanished like smoke. Professional, thorough—she'd planned her escape route as carefully as the capture.
Dawn was breaking when I finally called off the active search.
"Keep patrols running," I instructed Coyne over the radio. "Monitor all roads leading away from the property. She's out there somewhere."
"Yes, sir," Coyne replied. "And Miss O'Malley has been brought to the house as ordered. Doctor's finished his examination—dehydration, exhaustion, lacerations to the wrists, but nothing life-threatening. She's... responsive."
"Set up a rotating security detail," I added. "I don't trust that this is over."
I returned to the mansion as morning light spilled across the grounds. The familiar façade of Ashford House loomed ahead, its windows dark except for a single light in what I recognized as Eleanor's old bedroom—the room I'd instructed Coyne to prepare for Aoife.
Every muscle in my body protested as I climbed the grand staircase. When I reached the bedroom door, I paused, suddenly uncertain. What exactly was I doing, bringing Connor O'Malley's daughter into my home? The woman who had been systematically undermining Flanagan operations for months?
I knocked lightly, then pushed the door open without waiting for a response.
Aoife stood by the window, wrapped in a thick robe that swallowed her slender frame. Her auburn hair hung damp around her shoulders, freshly washed. She turned at my entrance, her face showing the strain of her ordeal despite what must have been a thorough scrubbing. The bruises on her wrists had darkened to angry purples and blues, visible beneath the too-long sleeves of the robe.
"You look like hell," she observed, her voice stronger than I'd expected.
"You're one to talk," I replied, closing the door behind me. "Though at least you're clean."
Her lips quirked in what might have been the ghost of a smile. "Your man Coyne is surprisingly considerate. He had someone fetch clothes, arranged for a bath to be drawn."
I moved into the room, maintaining a careful distance. "The clothes fit?"
"Close enough," she replied with a shrug. "Though I don't think Eleanor and I share the same taste."
The casual mention of my brother's estranged wife brought reality crashing back. This woman was not a guest. She was Connor O'Malley's daughter. A prisoner, an enemy, a threat to everything I represented.
Yet she'd also become something else during our shared trial—an ally, however temporary. And something more dictated by our past…
