I whisper my plans to her, and she nods.
“Remember to do exactly what I say, McKenna.”
She nods, her eyes wide and earnest.
“Yes, of course. I promise you, I’ll do exactly what we’ve planned.”
I kiss her cheek, the burning need to both hold her and protect her overwhelming me. “Please, McKenna. I want you safe and with me when this is all over.”
She swallows a few times, and her eyes are misty. “Aye, Tully.” She kisses my cheek. “Me, too.”
I take a candle from the side table and nod to her. In one swift motion, I whip it at the door. It makes a dull thwack sound, breaking and slumping to the floor, and the men inside leap into action. The door swings open, one of them standing directly in front of me. I quickly sweep his leg, and he falls heavily to the floor as gunshots ring out.
I look to find the other two lunging toward us with their weapons. McKenna swings the heavy candlestick like a club and knocks one of them out, but the second dives at her. She screams when he tackles her to the floor.
I don’t think. I make no actual conscious decision to act, but move on instinct. I dive toward them with the intent to kill.
I don’t want to shoot. I want to kill him with my bare hands.
I tackle him to the floor and McKenna screams. I use everything Malachy’s taught me. Kick one to the floor and immobilize another with an elbow to the neck. A third lunges at me, but I sweep his legs and he falls heavily to the ground. Disarmed, he’s helpless, as I lift him by the front of the shirt, only to slam my palm into his stomach, rending him a useless hump on the floor.
I move as if I were created for this, to feel my fists connect. Someone shoots a weapon, but it wedges itself into a floorboard. The real fight is right here, fist to fist.
“Tully!” McKenna warns me to duck just in time as the man I first attacked has the candlestick in his hand. I lunge at him, and wrestle him to the ground, pummel him over and over until his own are raised in surrender.
Blood spatters onto the carpet.
I’ve got two down, and one more still go to, when I see him reach for McKenna.
* * *
Chapter 17
McKenna
I’ve never seen Tully fight like this, with perfectly orchestrated precision and vicious, unrelenting blows. He doesn’t rely on his weapons but his fists and body, quickly incapacitating one man then the next. My arms ache from striking one for the men with the candlestick, but I don’t bloody care. I pick it up again, rear back, and strike one of the men just as he attacks Tully.
“You bitch!” he howls, grabbing his neck that’s lacerated and bleeding thanks to the heft of my candlestick. I try to back away, but he’s too close, and before I know what’s happening, his hand’s around my throat.
I can’t breathe. I’m shoving him, and he’s holding me straight up in the air, crushing my windpipe. Terror grips me, as I can’t draw breath into my lungs, and his grip is merciless. I kick my legs and slap fruitlessly at his fist.
Maeve screams as gunshots ring out, but Tully’s a man on a mission. With swift, final blows, he sends the men on either side of him toppling to the ground, and in seconds, has the man that’s attacked me in front of him. He knees him with a vicious blow, and the man bends at the waist, dropping me.
The look on Tully’s face is deadly. He punches, elbows, kicks and fights, his movements ruthless.
I hear bone snap, blood spatters the ground, and the man who attacked me slumps to the ground, covering his head with his hands and still, Tully beats him.
“Tully,” I say, reaching for his arm. “Tully, you’ll kill him.”
And I know in my heart if he did it wouldn’t be the first life that he took. I know in my heart that’s precisely what he wants to do. To end him. To take this life, right here in the parsonage of Holy Family.
“You’ll go straight to bloody Hell,” I tell him furiously, and that gets his attention. He blinks, then to my absolute surprise, he grins.
“Never a truer word, lass,” he says, stepping over the bodies of the men to get to me. He wraps a bloodied arm around me, then drags me into the room to get Maeve and Father Finn.
Maeve’s eyes are flashing, and she looks like she could kill the men herself. “Bloody well knew it had to be the Welsh,” she mutters. “I knew they framed the Scots, but I couldn’t prove it. I knew they’d never send Mary as a decoy. Never.”