Jo had a lot of passion in her, a hunger to match his own, and Nicholas was actually considering carrying her off with him after all and fully tasting that passion when a blinding light suddenly hit his eyes. It had the same effect as a bucket of cold water would, and Nicholas and Jo broke apart at once. He turned sharply toward the first beam of light, but before he could even consider making a run for it, a second beam flashed on to his left and then another to his right. The one that suddenly came on at his back was completely superfluous.
"Nicholas."
"Mortimer?" Jo said uncertainly.
Feeling her bump up against his arm, Nicholas glanced down to see that she'd raised a hand to shelter her eyes from the light and instinctively moved closer to him. Frowning, he growled, "You've made your point. I'm surrounded. Now turn off the damned flashlights. You don't need them to see and you're just blinding Jo."
The lights weren't shut off as requested, but all four of them were lowered to point at the ground.
"Are you all right, Jo?" Mortimer asked, moving close enough to catch her arm and draw her away from Nicholas.
"Yes, of course. My head hurts a little, but Nicholas saved me before anything too bad happened."
"Nicholas saved you?" Bricker asked, and Nicholas grimaced at the surprise in the man's voice.
"Yes, from that blond guy." Jo gestured behind Nicholas, and all flashlights and eyes turned to where Ernie Brubaker should have been, but all they found was a bloody knife lying on empty ground.
"Christ," Nicholas muttered with disgust. He'd known he should have checked to be sure he'd hit the heart. Instead he'd—Nicholas caught himself, shook the self-recriminations away, and shifted his thoughts to what was important now. His eyes slid over the four men surrounding him: Mortimer, Bricker, Anders, and Decker. His gaze halted on Decker. "His name is Ernie, he came for your woman and her sister. He's probably fled, but you'd best get inside and stick close to them until you're sure."
Decker nodded and turned away at once, but Mortimer stopped him by saying, "Take Jo with you."
"But I don't want to leave Nic—" The sudden halt to her words and equally abrupt blankness to her expression told Nicholas that one of the men, probably Decker, had taken control of her. He understood the need, but it still bothered him that he did. Nicholas didn't comment, however, but merely watched silently as Decker led Jo Willan away, knowing it was probably the last time he'd ever see her. It was a sad reality to acknowledge, and he felt heartsore and weary when she disappeared around the corner with Decker.
Feeling every one of his five hundred and sixty years, Nicholas turned his gaze to Mortimer. "You need to cut back the trees at least twenty feet from the driveway outside the gate and inside. You need to stop the vehicles between the closed fences for inspection rather than inside both gates, and you need to check under and all around the vehicle instead of just inside before you let them past the second gate. The rogue came in on the undercarriage of the catering truck, slid out, and ran into the trees while Bricker was talking to the driver."
Mortimer didn't look pleased at his lecture, but merely asked, "And you?"
"I had to improvise when I saw that Ernie had got in. Ernie Brubaker," he added. "He's one of Leo's immortal sons. I've been tracking him in the hopes of finding Leo's hideout and followed him here."
"And how did you get in?" Mortimer asked again.
Nicholas shrugged. "Fortunately, the cleaning truck pulled up right after he got in. I rode in on the back bumper of the van and slipped off into the woods inside while Bricker was checking the driver."
Bricker glanced to Mortimer and then back to Nicholas and asked, "Why?"
"Why what?" Nicholas asked quietly.
"Why would you risk coming in here?" he explained.
"Ernie," Nicholas said simply. "I knew you weren't aware he was in here and I thought I'd best run him to ground before he got to one or both of the girls."
"You expect us to believe that you risked coming in here to—"
"Believe what you want," Nicholas interrupted grimly.
"Why not just call?" Mortimer asked.
"I didn't have my phone," he admitted grimly and then glanced toward the house as a small army of enforcers came hurrying around the corner. Eyebrows rising, he asked dryly, "Jesus, is there anybody on the streets tonight?"
Mortimer ignored him and moved to meet the men. He started giving orders. Within moments the enforcers had spread out in all directions, some returning to the house to stand guard there, the rest heading off to begin searching the grounds. Mortimer then turned and made his way back to where Nicholas waited with Anders and Bricker.