Garret's Gambit by Dale Mayer (book club books .TXT) 📗

was something Garret couldn’t allow them to complete, but Garret still needed the big guy to start the exchange. So Garret couldn’t take the big guy out just yet.

Garret sent a message to Kano, telling him that he needed backup. Only the one big guy was left, and they needed to move to set up a sting for the people coming to collect his brother. He got an affirmative response and settled in to wait. They would need some distraction in order to get the upper hand here. This guy was no fool now, and he was on high alert and edgy as hell. He would be trigger-happy, and anybody who got in his line of fire would go down. Garret just had to make sure it wasn’t him or any of the people he had with him. Neither woman could handle the kind of damage this guy could inflict, and, if Garret lost Kano, well, this guy would pay in a big way.

Chapter 15

“What’s going on?” Astra murmured. Kano filled her in. “How will you do that?” she asked.

“We need a distraction,” he said, just as they watched the house door thrown open.

He roared, “Send that bitch back in here, or I’ll kill the boyfriend.”

Amy gasped, and Astra froze at that. “Is he likely to?”

“Hell yeah, he’s likely to, but we also have to remember that Garret’s in there.”

“Sure,” Astra said, “but he can fire anytime and not let this guy take out Gregg.”

“Garret could also take several gunshots himself,” he said.

“Right, so the best thing is for me to go in,” Astra said. “It’s me who the gunman’s pissed at.”

He looked at her in shock, and her sister cried out, “No!” she said. “You can’t do that.”

“Yes, I can,” Astra said, hopping to her feet. “And I still have that handgun.”

He thought about it and said, “It could get ugly.”

“It already is ugly,” she said. “The trouble is, I need to know my sister will stay out of this.” She turned to look at Amy, but she was curled up and shuddering in fear. “I mean it, Amy. No more backstabbing, no more lying or telling me that you’ll do one thing and then go sneaking out the door.”

Amy just glared at her. “But you’ll get killed.”

“Yeah, well, in that case, maybe you’ll do a better job raising your child. If I’m not around, maybe it’ll be a reminder to you to do the best you can.” She looked at Kano and said, “I’ll walk across. You take your time setting up, so you know that you’ve got this big guy, so you have Garret covered.”

“Yeah,” he said. “You know what’ll happen when Garret finds out what you’ve done.”

She chuckled. “Yeah, he’ll be pissed. But you can deal with it.”

He just shook his head. “Maybe you don’t know him that well.”

“No, but I understand the kind of guy he is,” she said. “He’ll be pissed.” She got up and walked across the yard, calling out, “Don’t hurt him.”

The big man stood there, his hands on his hips. “Where’s the other one?”

“Lost in the darkness,” she snapped. “She took off on me.”

“Well, it’s betrayal everywhere around here right now,” he said.

“Well, what did you expect me to do?” she sneered. “Not try to escape?”

“Honestly it makes sense that you did,” he said. “But hats off to you for succeeding. Of course it just made me more pissed off than usual, and I’m really looking forward to beating the shit out of you for that.”

Her steps faltered, and he nodded with satisfaction. “You better be afraid, bitch,” he snapped. “You’ll pay for what you just did.”

“I didn’t do anything,” she said. “We just ran out of the kitchen.”

“How the hell did you even get a knife?”

“What are you talking about?” she said. “You left it on the kitchen counter.”

He stopped, nonplussed. Then he shrugged. “Maybe I did,” he said, and, as soon as she got up on the porch, he grabbed her roughly and dragged her into the living room.

She dropped down beside Gregg and checked his pulse. “What did you do to him?” she cried out. But, inside, she was absolutely delighted to see him.

“Doesn’t matter what we did,” he said. “It’s what we’re still doing.”

She glared at him. “Like what?”

“Don’t you worry,” he snarled. “This deal’s finally going down.”

Then she saw the blood on the floor. “Jesus!” she said. “What the hell did you do in here?”

“I didn’t do anything. You remember that.”

“Well, blood’s all over the floor, so obviously you did something,” she snapped.

“One of my team decided to backstab me,” he said, with a growl. “That’s what happens to betrayers.”

“Right,” she said. “Can’t blame you there. I feel the same way.”

He seemed somewhat mollified. “Get him to wake up,” he snapped, “before I come charging in with all kinds of ways to make him wake up.”

She reached over and gently shook Gregg’s shoulder. “Gregg, are you there?” He just moaned. “Jesus,” she said. “Did you guys pistol whip him or something?”

“Or something, but it wasn’t me. He just got here. Remember?”

She glared at him, not sure where the hell Garret was but trusting that the guys had her back. She said, “So now what? You have all the money for yourself?”

“Hell no,” he said. “Two more guys are outside.”

She stared at him in astonishment. “What? I didn’t see any guys outside.”

He nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I’m wondering about too.”

He looked at her intently, but she just shook her head. “I didn’t see anybody,” she said.

He started to swear. “Goddammit, if those two little pissants took off, I’ll come after them and make them darn sorry for leaving me like that.”

“Maybe they saw you kill that guy, the backstabber, and they didn’t want any part of it.”

He stood here, his eyes closed, his hands on his hips, as if thinking it through, and then nodded. “And that’s probably exactly what happened.” He brightened at that. “But then again, I don’t have to pay them, so