Page 51 of The Square

Only two people have that number. And one of them is on the open phone line, so it’s not her.

Jesus Christ.

And just as that happens, I hear Christine whisper into my earbud, “We’re going up now. Are we good?”

But the twins are deep in their current distraction routine—

“It’s right here on the manifest, mate! Thirteen hundred pounds of prime rib to be delivered today. Just give us your Hancock and we’s off!”

—and there’s no way to relay this new piece of information to them, or Christine, without giving myself away and getting our heads blown off.

The merc at the gate pulls up the walkie clipped to his shirt and says, “Does anyone know anything about a truck of prime rib that was to be delivered today?” He puts his hand to his own earpiece and listens. “I don’t know, man, two giant fokken chops who say they’re here for us.”

“What’d that geezer call us?” shouts Brenden.

“Oy! Watch who you’s calling a ‘chop,’ my china,” says Charlie, pointing his finger in the guy’s face and half-mocking his accent with that last phrase. (Which is one that at least I know.)

And that’s when the asshole at the gate gets fed up and grabs Charlie by the coat collar and tries to drag him out of the truck via the open window.

CHAPTER TWENTY - CHRISTINE

We’re as preparedas we can be for a plan this big brought to life in under three hours. Theo is manning the now-hacked security system, talking to us via earpieces, and the whole time I can hear mini-Alec, back at her perfect country estate, talking about how Danny is gonna hopscotch with her when he gets home from work and what time is that gonna be? Seventy-one thirty?

Seventy is her thing. Everything that has to do with numbers with this child comes in seventies. They are gonna jump rope seventy-two times. And eat seventy-nine biscuits as they drink seventy-four pots of tea. And that little hopscotch grid on that dark-slate path all had various numbers between seventy and seventy-nine. Some repeated more than once.

This makes Russell chuckle, but I’m just annoyed. And I hate that I’m annoyed because it is cute, but for fuck’s sake. I’m on a goddamn mission to save one of the men I love—even if I did try to kill him, which makes it all the more important, if you ask me—and I do not need a reminder in my fucking ear that he has a child with another woman, OK? I just don’t.

Meanwhile, we’re in the woods on other side of an electrified gate, waiting on Theo to confirm that he’s got the voltage turned off, when up ahead, we hear the mercenary closest to us radioing the gate guard to “just shoot the fokkers and hide their bodies.”

It’s not looking good. Because A, the fence is still hot, and B, it doesn’t appear that this asshole is gonna go help out his friend.

And that’s when luck intervenes. Because the asshole starts asking his front-gate friend things like, “What? What’s going on? What the fok is happening?” and takes off at a hard run toward the front of the property.

Several guards are now running across the property toward the gate. And for sure, this plan is shit and it’s never gonna work, but at least things are now going our way.

And that’s when Theo says, “Go!”

So there’s no time to think, or wonder if Danny will be alive when this is all over, let alone Alec, because Theo can only turn the fence off for nine seconds without triggering another alarm. So we jump up, grab the fence, and hurl ourselves over. Dropping to our feet and running across the lawn in the same instant.

Theo says, “And we’re back online. No one got fried, I hope.”

And mini-Alec says, “Seventy-six thirty? Uncle Theo? Or seventy-four thirty?”

But there’s no time to be annoyed about that just now, because we’ve reached the side of the house and Russell makes one of those stirrup things with his hands, Eliza puts her foot in it, and he flings her upward. She latches on to a window ledge and is already climbing her way up when I put my foot in Russell’s stirrup hands and get flung up as well.

I’m good at this parkour shit, but these Watson siblings—this is their main routine. So, two seconds later I’m still climbing up, grabbing on to things that don’t qualify as handholds, when both Eliza and Russell pull themselves up and over the edge of the roof.

Russell reaches down, grabs my forearm, and drags me up the rest of the way while Eliza looks at me like I’m an amateur.

I decide right then and there I’m going to kill her one day.