Page 60 of The Unlikely Spare (Unlikely Dilemmas #3)

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Nicholas

The lake that seemed so vast when we saw it from a distance now feels like a bathtub with three sharks circling the drain. Our stolen runabout bounces across the water, the engine screaming a protest that matches the hammering in my chest.

“They’re herding us,” Eoin shouts over the wind, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. “Trying to box us in against the Eastern Shore.”

I twist to look behind us. The three boats move in practiced formation. Two are flanking wide while the third hangs back, ready to cut off any escape attempt. It’s professional. Coordinated.

“Pierce’s people?” I ask, though I already suspect the answer.

“Probably.” Eoin’s jaw clenches in that way that usually means someone’s about to have a very bad day.

Unfortunately, that someone appears to be us.

“They know exactly what they’re doing.”

I watch the three boats’ coordination with the sort of detached admiration one might feel for a well-executed ballet, if ballet involved high-powered engines and the implicit promise of violence.

The flanking boats maintain perfect spacing, adjusting to every move Eoin makes before he’s even finished making it.

They’re forcing us toward the shore. And unless the boat has wheels that magically come out and mean it can venture onto land, we’re going to run out of places to go very fast.

The lead boat is close enough now that I can make out details. Two men, both dressed in black tactical vests.

A crack splits the air, followed by a splash inches from Eoin’s side of the boat. My blood doesn’t so much freeze as turn into something thick and sluggish, like treacle in January.

It’s a bullet

The sound is oddly delicate for something so lethal, like an angry wasp, if it were made of lead and homicidal intent.

My stomach drops. I turn to see one of the men on the lead boat holding a rifle, his legs spread wide for balance, tracking us with a scope.

They’re not shooting at me. They need me alive for whatever delightful purpose they have in mind. But Eoin…

“They’re trying to take you out,” I shout.

“Noticed that,” he replies grimly, hunching lower as another shot whines past. “Makes sense. Easier to grab you if I’m not in the picture.”

The knowledge that they’re actively trying to kill Eoin adds a sick twist to this chase. Ice crystallizes in my chest, sharp and cutting.

But I can’t panic now.

Instead, I force my mind to focus, taking inventory of our surroundings.

“That marina.” I point toward a cluster of moored boats about two hundred meters ahead. “Can you make it?”

Eoin doesn’t question, just floors it. The engine coughs like a lifelong smoker attempting opera, whines pitifully, then somehow surges forward.

Another shot—closer this time, still seeming to be aimed at Eoin. I instinctively lean toward him, trying to shield him, but he shoves me back with his elbow.

“Don’t be an idiot,” he growls.

“They won’t shoot me,” I say.

“No.”

“Don’t be so stubborn.”

“Stop trying to save me.”

“You started it.”

I don’t know what it says about Eoin and me that it feels rather natural for us to be having a domestic argument while being shot at.

We’re fifty meters from the marina when I spot what I need—a fuel dock with boats rafted three deep, creating a maze of fiberglass and rope. My mind immediately starts calculating angles and momentum like this is some particularly violent physics exam.

“Cut right between those yachts,” I instruct. “Then cut the throttle.”

Eoin executes the maneuver perfectly because, of course, he does. We shoot between two moored vessels, their anchor lines scraping our sides. He cuts the throttle as I grab the boat hook from its clips, the aluminum cold in my grip.

Momentum carries us forward. I lean out, hook extended, and snag a fuel dock piling. Physics does its work, and we pivot hard around the piling like the world’s most dangerous fairground ride. My shoulder screams in protest, but it works.

Our pursuers roar past, but one shooter has a clear line on Eoin for just a moment. Time does that thing where it stretches like taffy, each second an eternity. I see the gunman raise his weapon, see Eoin focused on steering, see the trajectory of what’s about to happen with horrible clarity.

I don’t think. I just move, throwing myself across Eoin as the shot cracks out. The bullet whines past where his head was a heartbeat ago, punching through the fiberglass behind us.

“Jaysus, Nicholas!” Eoin’s already got the engine started again, maneuvering us deeper into the floating maze. “What did I just say about being an eejit?”

“Apparently, I’m a slow learner.”

“You’re a complete header,” he breathes, but there’s something like awe mixed with the exasperation.

“I’m assuming that’s not a compliment?” I manage between breaths.

“Means you’re mental. Absolutely mental.” But his hand briefly squeezes my shoulder before returning to the wheel.

A gap opens—clear water leading toward shore. We have to take it.

We shoot out from the marina’s protection, engine screaming. Behind us, the boats converge. More shots, all aimed at Eoin. One clips the windscreen, showering us with plexiglass.

“Beach it,” I shout, pointing to a small cove ahead and trying not to think about how this is going to hurt.

Eoin yanks the tilt switch an instant before the hull slams onto the stones of the beach. The impact throws me forward, ribs meeting the dashboard in a reunion nobody wanted.

But we’re over the side immediately and across the beach. Eoin grabs my hand.

Behind us, shouts and the sound of boats beaching mix with my harsh breathing and the drum of blood in my ears.

We run. The undergrowth tears at us with thorny fingers, leaving signatures in blood and torn fabric. My lungs burn like I’m breathing fire, but we keep moving through.

We scramble up a ridge, using roots as handholds.

My palms are raw, nails torn, and I’m fairly certain I’ve left skin on every third tree.

Behind us, people crash through undergrowth.

They’re gaining, and why wouldn’t they be?

They’re probably used to doing exercise beyond simply lifting champagne flutes at charity galas.

At the top of the ridge, we stumble across a walking track that follows the spine. Steep drops on both sides, nowhere to go but forward. My legs burn, muscles screaming complaints in languages I didn’t know my body spoke. But Eoin urges me on, and I follow because the alternative is unthinkable.

Suddenly, the track descends via rough steps cut into the hillside. We half-fall down them, and then find ourselves at a dead end—a viewing platform on a cliff face, a safety rail the only thing between us and a forty-foot drop to the lake.

“We’re trapped,” I gasp because apparently wasting my limited oxygen supply on stating the obvious is a good idea.

There are footsteps above us. Eoin draws his weapon, pushing me behind him. The gesture is protective and infuriating and makes something twist in my chest.

The first of our pursuers appears. He’s dressed in black. What’s with all the bad guys being dressed in black? Did they all get the same villainous dress code memo? Evil attire: business casual black, no exceptions .

Eoin fires—not to kill, just to force him back. But I know he must be almost out of ammunition. The crease on his forehead tells me he’s very aware of this fact.

More figures appear, spreading out with tactical precision. One calls down: “Stand down, O’Connell. You know how this ends.”

“The only way this ends,” Eoin shouts back, “is with me dead before you touch him.”

The certainty in his voice makes my throat constrict. He means it. He’ll die here, on this tourist platform, for me.

The thought is unbearable.

I’ve been so afraid of being hurt again, of giving someone the power to destroy me the way Daniel did.

But now, seeing the look on Eoin’s face, all my careful walls, my protective cynicism, my fear of being fooled again…none of it matters anymore.

He lied to me, yes. But he also chose me over his career, his duty, and his safety.

Daniel sold me out for money.

Eoin is prepared to die for me.

And whilst any protection officer would do that, I’m sure most protection officers’ voices wouldn’t break when they said those words. They wouldn’t have the same desperate fury in their stance.

This isn’t duty. It’s more than that.

And I realize I’ve already given him the power to hurt me again. The only question has been whether I’m brave enough to admit it.

There’s nothing like having a rather excellent chance of dying to remind you that you’ve got to be brave while living.

But I don’t have time to process my emotional revelation because our attackers are advancing. Eoin fires again desperately, but then stops. The measured approach of Pierce’s men tells me they know he’s running out of ammunition, the confidence of predators who know their prey is cornered.

A distinguished man with silver hair appears at the top of the stairs. He looks like someone’s benevolent grandfather.

“Eoin,” the man says conversationally, as if we’re simply having a casual chat over canapés at a fundraiser. “This has gone far enough.”

“Fuck off, Pierce,” Eoin snarls.

Pierce. The name hits me like cold water. This is him—Eoin’s mentor, the mastermind behind everything.

Pierce sighs. “I had hoped you’d see reason.”

He makes a gesture to his men, and they fan out even farther through the bush. Eoin’s gun wavers between targets like he’s conducting the world’s deadliest orchestra, but there are too many instruments for one conductor to control.

“Take them,” Pierce orders simply. “The prince unharmed. I’d prefer not to kill anyone, but O’Connell is expendable if he resists too much.”

Everything happens at once. They rush us from multiple angles. Eoin tries to shield me, firing his last rounds to force them back, but there are too many. I see one of them raising his gun toward Eoin’s unprotected side, and time slows to honey.

No. Not him. Not like this.

There—a fallen branch near my feet, thick as my wrist, knocked loose by our scrambling descent. Without thinking, I snatch it up and swing wildly at the man targeting Eoin. It connects with his arm, sending his shot wildly off-target.

“Run!” I scream at Eoin, already spinning to face the others with my laughably inadequate weapon.

Years of fencing lessons kick in. I’m not going for choreographed movements.

I use the basic underlying principles of keep moving, make yourself unpredictable.

I feint left, swing right, using the branch like the world’s most inadequate épée.

If I can just create enough chaos, maybe he can?—

But Eoin doesn’t run. Of course he doesn’t. Instead, when an attacker sidesteps my wild swing and moves closer, Eoin lunges forward, grabbing my wrist to pull me behind him.

For a heartbeat, our eyes lock, and there’s something fierce in his expression, a savage pride mixed with absolute refusal to allow me to sacrifice myself.

And that’s when they overwhelm us.

Someone tackles me from the side, the branch flying from my hands as we hit the platform hard. The impact drives all the air from my lungs, leaving me gasping.

Stones bite into my palms and blood fills my mouth from where I’ve bitten my tongue. But all I can see is Eoin.

Through the chaos, Eoin’s fighting to get to me, but they bring him down with brutal efficiency. The sound he makes when they wrench his shoulder?—

“Get off him!” The words tear from my throat as I thrash against my captors. “Don’t you fucking touch him!”

I hardly notice what they’re doing to me, my hands being wrenched behind my back. I’m too focused on what’s happening to Eoin.

They’re binding Eoin’s hands now, and one of them kicks him when he tries to rise. He falls back to the ground with a thud. Something breaks in me. Red floods my vision, pure incandescent rage unlike anything I’ve ever felt.

“If you hurt a single hair on his head, I will hunt you down to the ends of this earth and make sure you suffer.” I’ve never heard my voice like this.

It comes from somewhere deeper than my chest, deeper than training or breeding.

It’s violent and hard, stripped of all polish and pretense, raw as an exposed nerve.

Unflinching and unyielding. This is what exists under the prince act—something primal and dangerous that would burn down kingdoms for the people I love.

“And I will hunt you into the afterlife as well. Understood?”

A few of the men actually pause. The one who kicked Eoin takes a step back from him. When I glance up at Pierce, his eyes are narrow, studying me with new interest.

“Well, how unexpectedly fascinating,” Pierce says. “The pampered prince reveals his claws.”

I meet his gaze steadily, channeling every ounce of royal hauteur I possess. My knees are screaming from kneeling on the forest floor, sticks digging into my flesh, but I don’t let it show.

“You haven’t the faintest fucking idea what I’ll do to you if you hurt him.

I will learn your names. Your faces. Where you sleep.

” My voice drops even lower. “And I will dedicate every moment I have left on this planet to making you regret this day. Your names will become cautionary tales whispered in the dark.” My eyes find the one who kicked him. “Starting with you.”

Pierce’s smile shifts. “You’d actually follow through, wouldn’t you? All that pretty threatening.”

“I assure you, testing me would be inadvisable.” The words come out flat.

Pierce smiles like I’m amusing. But there’s something calculating in his expression now, a reassessment of variables in whatever equation he’s running.

I keep my eyes on him even as I track Eoin in my peripheral vision.

He’s conscious, breathing steadily despite the blood trickling from his temple.

His fingers flex against his restraints—still fighting, still searching for an advantage.

But he’s also watching me with an expression I can’t quite read.

Pierce’s men seem to be treating Eoin more gently now, though whether from genuine caution or simply to avoid more theatrical vows of eternal vengeance, I can’t tell.

They gag us and then drag us toward waiting vehicles, black SUVs with tinted windows idling on what must be a fire road. The engines purr with quiet menace.

I manage to bump against Eoin, just for a moment, his solid warmth against me. A brief contact that says everything I can’t voice through the gag.

Together. Even now, even captured, even facing whatever Pierce has planned.

Together.