Page 67 of The Devil's Viking

“What time is it?”

“Just past nine o’clock. Most of the Guardians are off-duty, I know, and I took care of these two doing their perimeter walks. I figure we have less than ten minutes before the guys at the gate notice something is up.”

“So Violet will be… ummmm… she irons upstairs every night until bedtime at ten.”

“Lead the way.”

Slowly, quietly, the women crept up the stairs to the laundry room. Elle knew where every single woman should be at this time: Gideon was nothing if not a methodical son-of-a-bitch, which was now working against him. She knewexactlywhich parts of the building to avoid, which stairs to pass by, which rooms would be occupied and which would be standing empty.

The laundry room door was open. Elle looked in, saw Violet bent over the ironing board, working on a Guardian uniform.

“Violet,” Elle said quietly, trying not to startle her. “Hi.”

Violet gasped and jumped anyway; the iron hissed as she pressed it down hard into the material. She squinted over at Elle. “Iris? Are you here or am I seeing things?”

Elle looked at Violet and her heart dropped right down to her stomach: she was standing there, the iron held aloft and steaming, her pupils huge. If Violet was heavily drugged, they were going to have a hell of a time getting through to her and making her understand what was going on, let alone getting her out of the compound quickly and quietly.

Then Briley appeared beside Elle, and Violet’s vague gaze sharpened, focused. It was like watching a cloudy sky clear completely and the sun come out. She stared at Briley for several seconds, then her face broke into a huge smile.

“You came back,” Violet said to Briley. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

“I’m here,” Briley said. “It took me a while, I know, and I’m sorry. But I’m here now.”

“We’re leaving?” Violet asked, a catch in her voice. “Right now and forever?”

“You’re goddamn right.” Elle extended her hand and Violet came over to her, grasped it hard. “Let’s move our asses.”

“Part two of the plan done and dusted,” Briley said to her in a low voice as they crept down the stairs, turned towards the same door where Elle had made her escape just a few weeks earlier. “Now we’re on to part three.”

“Which is what?” Elle whispered back. She put on a thick pair of socks, then clutched Violet’s hand again.

Briley pulled out a flashlight and opened the door. She waved the light around a bit, then smiled as someone flicked a light on and off over near the woods. “This part is not on us.”

Chapter Twenty-one

Ice flicked the flashlight on and off in response to Briley’s signal that she (hopefully) had Iris, maybe another woman or two, and was ready to get the hell out of the compound. He glanced over at Dux, Drake, and Viking – they weren’t the largest seek and destroy party on the planet, but Ice would take these three guys over a full platoon any day.

Despite his non-stop irritation with the twins in general, when it came to shit like this, there was nobody better. He’d trusted them with his life more times than he could count – and he was going to trust them again tonight. He had no doubts that if he didn’t walk away from this, it would be through no fault of the twins. They’d take a bullet for him if it came to that – Drake had done it once before, and he’d do it again, no hesitation and no regrets.

As for Viking, he’d insisted on flying over to Utah for this storming of the evil castle, arriving a few hours before the van had pulled up with Iris in the back. He was an excellent body man, a great guy to have in your corner during a fight, a swift and lethal shot… and he had a wildly personal reason for being there too. The woman that he cared about deeply was in trouble, so he showed up for her.

He was half-pissed at her too, though: he’d told the guys that as soon as they had Elle back safe and sound and all patched up, he was going to give her the world’s worst talking-to about wandering out of the bar without him. Ice suspected that after he’d donethat, and if she wasn’t hurt, he’d take her to his bed and fuck her senseless.

“OK,” Ice whispered. “Into positions, men. Move.”

Dux stayed where they were, just outside the fence and close to the forest edge, while Drake, Ice and Viking walked around the perimeter, and straight up to the guardhouse. As they’d observed, the guards were unbelievably lazy and uninterested in what was happening around them. They perked up when a woman approached with food, and when a vehicle drove up to the gate.

Besides that, they seemed to be reading books, drinking coffee, chatting, ignoring the monitors, and generally acting like assholes killing time. You’d think that after Iris’ little escape, they’d have learned to be slightly more alert, but clearly all of these Guardian pricks shared a single brain cell, and it was someone else’s turn to have it tonight. All of this meant that the guys could stroll on up behind them and smash in the door before they’d even looked up and clocked their massive physical presence.

“Hiya,” Drake said amiably as the guards stared in shock at the three guns pointed at their heads. “How you guys doing?”

“What –” sputtered one. “What the hell –”

“We’re just gonna open the gate here, if you don’t mind,” Ice said, pressing the button. “We have some people inside that we really, really want to get out. We won’t be a minute. Promise.”

“You can’t –”

“I justdid, idiot,” Ice said. “Jesus.”

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