Sharks - Matt Rogers (classic books for 11 year olds txt) 📗

and you and your husband have employed the help of two evil men to destroy what I’ve spent my whole life building.’

She cried. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I thought they were protecting us from loan sharks. I didn’t know they were just aiding Teddy’s twisted…’

She trailed off.

He could see the name felt acrid in her mouth.

He wasn’t Teddy.

He was Theodore Walcott.

Dylan said, ‘Teddy’s twisted what?’

Lyla shook her head with her eyes closed. As if it would all go away if she just pretended it wasn’t happening.

‘How did you find out the truth?’ he said.

‘I put a microphone on Jason’s back. Then he and Will went and found Teddy and they got the truth out of him. I heard every word.’

‘Who are Jason and Will?’

‘The men who’ve been terrorising you.’

Dylan’s eyes went black. She could see how badly he wanted to hurt them, to get revenge for what they’d put him through. But the blackness didn’t linger, instead giving way to the questions he still needed answered.

He said, ‘What’s Teddy done?’

Lyla said, ‘I can’t tell you. I know that might make you want to hurt me, but there’s nothing I can do about that. I made a mistake coming here.’

‘You’re free to leave whenever you please,’ Dylan said. ‘You’re not a prisoner.’

That made her think.

She said, ‘I don’t know Teddy anymore. He’s not my husband.’

Dylan didn’t say anything. She was a civilian grandmother, inexperienced in this realm, and she didn’t understand the importance of silence. Whoever speaks first, loses. So he kept his mouth shut and waited for her train of thought to reach its inevitable conclusion.

Finally she said, ‘I’ll tell you everything. I just want you to promise me you won’t let him hurt me.’

‘For what you’re about to share?’

‘For who he is.’

Dylan said, ‘You have my word. I’ll protect you and the boy with my life.’

That sealed it.

He almost laughed at how easy it was.

She opened her mouth and spilled everything, and when she was done he found himself glad that she couldn’t read people very well. He was boiling under the surface, simmering with hot rage, and anyone who operated in his world would see it immediately. He kept it sealed behind a mask, and she seemed to buy it.

He got up. ‘Thank you, Lyla. You did a brave thing coming to me. I’ll make sure you and Caleb stay safe.’

‘And what about Teddy?’

He couldn’t fake an answer this time. He was so goddamn angry he couldn’t pay this conversation a moment’s more consideration. He left her there, walked out the villa’s front door, and pulled one of his men aside.

‘Yes, boss?’

Dylan said, ‘All your brothers you lost over the last two months, all your closest friends … it was my brother who did it. Theodore paid the weakest of you to kill each other off, and he did a mighty fine job of it.’

The ex-military goon bristled with unrestrained anger.

Dylan liked having someone who understood the rage.

Not like that dumb bitch and her oblivious grandson.

Dylan said, ‘I want him dead, and I want his two co-conspirators dead, too. You have complete freedom of action. Do whatever it takes, use whatever resources you need, raze this fucking island to the ground if that’s what needs to happen. Are we clear?’

‘Crystal,’ the guy said through gritted teeth.

Dylan slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Go. Start at their house and work your way outward. I’m sure those two idiots will go racing back to the Barrow homestead.’

‘We already sent a unit there the minute Lyla came to us.’

Dylan smiled. ‘Even better. And fetch my son. There’s some things I need to discuss with him.’

71

Now King pulled his Glock and flattened himself to the wall of the study, right near the doorway.

Slater did the same on the opposite side.

They waited in silence, their heart rates under control, their hands steady. It worked in their favour — whoever was in the hallway was highly trained, which in itself was a weakness waiting to be exploited. There were levels of trained. These guys would come in, listen with heightened senses, and hear nothing. They knew each tiny noise an enemy would make, and in the absence of any sound altogether they’d grow confident and lackadaisical. Not enough for a civilian to notice, but for men like King and Slater…

The first guy did everything right.

The barrel of his gun came through the doorway first, sweeping left to right, clearing corners, leaving no stone unturned. But it’s a simple law of the universe that you can’t see everything at once. There are inevitable blind spots — you just have to hope you’re faster and smarter than anyone burrowed in those blind spots. And the guy didn’t take enough caution. He was probably expecting to find nothing. His face followed the gun — eyes wide, head shaved, skin pale.

King clamped a powerful hand over his mouth, pulled him into his own body to prevent him getting a shot off, and crushed his neck with his free hand.

The guy bit his finger.

King ignored it.

Jerked his forearm to the left, shaking the guy’s brain in his skull, loosening his teeth off King’s skin. King ripped the hand out of his mouth, and blood flowed down his arm, but the guy remained silent. He had perhaps half a second of opportunity to scream for help, but he didn’t. He didn’t even grunt. King clamped the hand back over the guy’s lips and crushed them shut, then tightened the forearm around his throat like a boa constrictor.

The guy only stayed conscious for maybe ten seconds.

Kicking and clawing and struggling, but not making a sound. His fists and feet struck air — not flesh, not furniture, not the wall. Nothing that could alert his buddies to his location.

He went out fast, and King held on for another fifteen seconds, counting them out one by one with his back to the wall again.

When he lowered the body to the rug beneath his feet, it showed no signs of life.

‘Shane,’ a