The Suppressor by Erik Carter (best free novels .txt) 📗

Cecilia stood, slowly placed the book on the table next to the cup of tea. “What is this?”

Burton continued toward her. “Now, we all know about you and Pete Hudson. Everyone does. Even your senile old man recognizes it. And I don’t think I need to tell you that your dad now favors Pete to me, even after all the years I’ve been with the family. But, I digress. This isn’t about me and your dad. It’s about you and me.”

He stepped closer.

Cecilia backed away. “Stay where you are, Lukas.”

He didn’t comply, continued forward.

Eyes on him, she reached down to the table, avoiding the tea, finding the phone. She lifted the receiver to her ear.

And her face turned pallid.

Lips, eyes opening wider.

“Oh, need to make a call, Cecilia? C.C.? Sis?” Burton said affably. “I guess you haven’t heard. For some darn reason the phone lines stopped working half an hour ago. Almost like someone cut them.”

Cecilia shuddered. She turned around, heading for the door in the back. But she stopped in her tracks.

Glover stepped into the doorway. Approached her slowly. Shit-eating grin on his face.

Cecilia looked between Glover and Burton as they closed in. They were within six feet of her on either side.

She backed to the side, to the sofa, and grabbed the mug of tea off the table, both hands. With a quick jerk, she flung the contents into Glover’s face.

In the split second before Glover’s hands when to his eyes, Burton saw a cloud of steam erupt over his head. His skin instantly pinked. That shit must have been scalding hot.

Glover bent in two, hands covering his face, water dripping off his fingers. He screamed.

Burton laughed.

Cecilia ran past Glover, to the doorway where he’d entered.

But Burton didn’t budge. Just watched.

Cecilia made it to the doorway and halted, her shoes screeching on the hardwood, arms flying up.

Two figures casually stepped around either side of the doorway, blocking her path. A white pretty boy with long brown hair and a black pretty boy with big eyes and a square jaw. Cobb and Knox. They slowly entered the room.

Cecilia backpedaled, nearly losing her balance. She looked over her shoulder, eyes meeting Burton’s for a moment.

Burton heard several more sets of footsteps enter from the doorway behind him, the one through which he’d entered. He didn’t turn around.

The men appeared on either side of him, his other troops. Gamble, Hodges, McBride, and Odom.

A video camera mounted on a tripod was in McBride’s fat Irish hands. He went to the back corner of the room, began setting it up.

Cecilia’s eyes met Burton’s again.

“I talked to Pete before he left,” Burton said. “Told him I was going to take my time.”

“Sylvester!”

“Your brother can’t hear you.”

Cecila’s mouth gaped in silent disbelief, gathering Burton’s implication, one that made tears form in her eyes.

Finally.

He’d been waiting on the waterworks, surprised that they hadn’t formed yet. This hippie was gonna be harder to break than he thought.

The troops circled the room, putting on leather gloves, interlacing their fingers to tighten the fits. Odom took a blackjack baton from his pocket.

Cecilia cupped her hand over her mouth. “Saunders!”

Burton tsked. “I’m afraid I sent Saunders on an errand. Won’t be back for at least an hour, probably two.”

The troops closed in on her. She stepped back, her calf smacking into the table, hands quivering.

Burton looked over his shoulder to McBride, in the corner with the camcorder.

“Roll camera,” Burton said.

Chapter Nineteen

Jake checked the time on his cellular phone again.

6:57.

In front of him were the same two cars.

Behind, the alley was open.

Charlie leaned across the center console and looked at the screen on Jake’s cellular. “Three minutes to go, and still none of Burton’s men.”

For several minutes Charlie had prodded himself along with forced enthusiasm, nervous laughs. Now, his brow was knitted. His intertwined fingers skittered over themselves, looking through the rear window, the windshield, back to the rear window, then the windshield again.

Jake took a breath. Held it. Released. C.C. had taught him breathing techniques, ways of centering when he felt the tingle of tension coursing through him, when his heartbeat was unpleasant, almost painful.

He felt the breath at his center, what C.C. called his “core.”

Released it.

Then he looked out the window to the brick wall beside him as he’d been doing every thirty seconds.

This time he noticed something new.

A figure.

Just visible in the darkness of a window.

His eyes flicked to the side, the next window over.

Another figure, this one holding a rifle.

His heart jackhammered.

And an immediate realization came to him.

“Burton…”

“What?” Charlie said.

Jake turned on him. “We gotta get the hell out of here. This is an ambush!”

“What?”

“There are snipers in these buildings, Charlie! Burton set us up.”

Charlie looked out his window, squinted. “I don’t see nobody.”

The cellular phone rang. The number on the screen was Tanner’s.

Jake pushed the END button—the termination of the call was the agreed-upon signal that the message was received.

“Shit!” he said. “The truck’s nearly here.”

Charlie leaned over the steering wheel, looked through the windshield, squinting. “What are you on about, Pete? The truck’s not here yet.”

Jake’s mind flashed on what Burton had said.

You stole from me, so I’m going to steal something from you.

Then Jake’s heart pounded harder as he remembered the next part of Burton’s statement, the ominously cryptic part.

When I do, I want you to remember something—everyone will be involved, and we’ll take our time.

“Back out of the alley!” Jake shouted.

Charlie’s face drooped, his eyes going sad in that childlike manner of his. “Pete ... man, are you going chicken?”

“Charlie, goddamnit, we’re sitting ducks! Go!”

“But…”

Jake pulled his gun, pointed it at Charlie. “I’m a cop! Go! Now!”

Charlie’s face sank even lower. “You’re a ... a cop, Pete?”

Something in Jake’s periphery. He turned. Ahead of them, beyond the other two cars, a tractor trailer pulled into the abandoned school parking lot. Fast. It came to an abrupt halt that smoked the tires and made a screech that sounded all the way across the parking lot, echoing off the walls of the