21. Chapter 20
Bradford watched from the cover of trees as a single SUV parked about a mile from Hope’s place. He and the others were spread out, with him closest to the end of her driveway.
Her family home was a couple miles back from the road, so if she had been home, it was unlikely she’d have heard these guys arriving.
He was in camouflage, up in one of the oak trees, watching through his scope as four assholes got out of the SUV, one by one.
While he wanted to be point on this, Adalyn had very firmly told him to get his head out of his ass. She was right, as always.
He wasn’t going to let his anger at the situation get in the way of clear thinking. So Tiago was tasked with keeping an eye on the main road entrance, Bradford was at the halfway point, and Adalyn, Ezra, and Rowan were at different points closer to the house.
They’d talked about waiting inside the house, but no one wanted to leave any evidence behind if things went south. Much easier to clean up outside as opposed to trying to clean blood off Hope’s kitchen floors or cabinets.
Not that he wanted it to get that far. But they always thought ahead. They had to .
As he sat there watching the suspects pop the hatch then pull out multiple weapons apiece, he had to steady his breathing. He couldn’t think about what would have happened if Hope had been here alone. That way lay madness.
At a buzzing sound in his pocket, he glanced down at the burner he’d brought for this mission. They were all linked by comms, but had decided to go relatively dark in case the enemy had access to their radio channel.
The text message was from Adalyn, telling everyone that she had access to the other guys’ radio channel and to turn to it.
He quickly switched over his feed, but kept himself muted just in case.
“We move in fast, take care of this. It has to look like a robbery,” a dark-haired man with a clean-cut face said.
So he was the one in charge of this. No visible tattoos, looked like a normal guy Bradford wouldn’t glance twice at on the street, except for the vest and tactical gear.
“For whatever reason she didn’t show up to her lawyer’s.
If the husband is here, we take him out too.
We can still pin this on Hall if necessary. ”
Not likely.
“What about a rape if it’s just the woman? That might sell this better.” There was amusement in one of the guys’ voices.
Oh, Asshole Number Two had just signed his death warrant, Bradford thought as he zeroed in on him via his scope. Blond hair, scruffy beard. Some kind of tattoo on his neck. Yeah, he’d remember that face.
It would be so damn easy to pull the trigger. Just a couple pounds of pressure, then boom.
Don’t. Do. It. A text from Adalyn.
He responded with a thumbs-up, because that was about all he had in him at the moment. He might be pissed and want all of these guys dead, but he wouldn’t screw this up.
He couldn’t .
“Man, shut the hell up with that. You know the orders.”
“I’m just playing. Jesus. No one can take a joke anymore about anything.”
The other two were silent, but they all pulled on balaclavas, which told Bradford they had a decent amount of training.
“I hate these stupid things,” Asshole Two muttered.
“Then why don’t you wait in the SUV?” the one who was clearly the leader growled before stalking off.
The mouthy one didn’t say anything, but fell in step with the other three as they hurried down the drive.
“Split up. I’ll take the front, Weezer, you take the back. Blue, Red, you know what to do.”
There were grunts of agreement, but he couldn’t see anyone anymore.
Am I clear? he texted the group.
And got a thumbs-up from Adalyn.
I’m planting a tracker while they break in , Bradford added.
Once he received the go-ahead, he quickly climbed down from the tree, and after another scan from the shadows of the oak, he made his way to the SUV. Instead of just slapping one directly under the carriage, he crawled under and slid one in where it wouldn’t be found easily.
The magnetic tracker was strong enough to withstand almost anything.
“Where the hell is she?” A male voice came over the radio as Bradford rolled out from under the truck. The jerk who’d joked about rape before.
“Quiet.” The leader.
“She’s obviously not here. This is ridiculous.”
“Then we wait a little longer. If we don’t get her, the backup team in town will.”
So they had more than one team in place? He’d made the assumption that when she didn’t show up to her lawyer’s, whoever had been sent to kill her would simply come here. And he’d also assumed that Killeen would send two guys max.
Four men for a single civilian woman seemed like overkill, but Killeen must be factoring in Bradford’s presence too. The guy didn’t seem to know anything about him, based on the audio they’d captured, but they’d likely sent two men for Bradford, two for Hope.
“I don’t like this. Her vehicle is still here but she’s not.” A new, raspier voice. “Something feels off.”
“I’m with Blue on this. I don’t like this at all.”
“God, and you two say I’m a whiner.”
“Someone shut him up,” the raspy voice growled. “Hey…I saw a flash of something. Scope maybe.”
The four men went silent.
Visual? he texted.
Setting sun must have given away my location. On the move , Rowan responded.
Disable their vehicle , Adalyn ordered.
Bradford gave a thumbs-up, then got to work disabling the fuel pump.
He’d done this far too many times on different missions over the years.
He wasn’t sure what the plan was anymore, but since they’d potentially been made, they had to keep these guys here until law enforcement could arrive—if Adalyn made the decision to call the cops.
He was against that, but four guys on Hope’s property in tactical gear, caught on cameras they didn’t know about? That wasn’t going to look good for any of them—and he had a feeling the mouthy one would turn on the others. Maybe even Killeen.
This could be the break they were waiting for.
Bradford heard a gunshot in the distance, cursed. Shit.
Using the woods and the growing shadows from the setting sun surrounding the long drive as cover, he sprinted in the direction of the shot.
As he moved, he spotted one of the masked men racing through the trees right at him. This was not what he’d expected or wanted.
Before he could make a decision, the man went for his holstered weapon.
No other choice.
Bradford raised his rifle, had it against his shoulder in milliseconds, and pulled the trigger before the other man had fully raised his arm. He preferred his SIG, but there’d been no time to pull it out.
The man sprawled on the ground.
Keeping his weapon up, he hurried to the fallen man and kicked away his weapon. He didn’t even have to check his pulse. Not with the hole in the guy’s head.
Suddenly Adalyn’s voice came over the comms. “They’re all down. B, you good?”
He hadn’t heard any shots so the others must have used knives. “Yep. Tango down here too.”
She was silent for a long moment, then said, “Everyone convene at the front of the house. We have to move fast with this.”
“Still keeping watch,” Tiago added. “We’re clear for now.”
Even though it sounded like all four men were down, he kept his weapon up and his senses on alert as he headed to the meeting point.
There was one dead man on the front steps. He couldn’t see the other two, but knew they had to be nearby.
“We have limited options,” Adalyn said as Bradford approached their team.
Everyone’s expression was grim.
“He pulled his weapon on me first,” Bradford said, even though she would already know it.
Adalyn nodded. “Same with everyone else. ”
“Stupid,” Rowan muttered in frustration. “Guy came at me with a knife.”
“Unless anyone objects, I want to take fingerprints, and photographs of their tattoos and faces. Then move the bodies and SUV. We’ll have to disable any tracking on the SUV.”
“Berlin will want to dump their phones,” Ezra added.
“It looks like they’re all burners and I don’t think we should take the chance of them being tracked.
I say we put them in the SUV, move it, then kill all the electronics at once when it’s far away from here.
I want to screw with Killeen now. He won’t know what happened to his guys and no one will be reporting a break-in.
If he is tracking them, he’ll only know that they came here, then left. And that’s it.”
“What are we doing with the bodies?” Bradford asked.
He didn’t love this idea, but it made sense.
They had no idea who to trust in this town, and if they called the local cops on this…
They would all get brought in and have to answer some very awkward questions.
And he didn’t trust the local sheriff anyway.
Nope, they couldn’t get on anyone’s radar. Sure it had been self-defense, but it didn’t matter at this point. Whoever had sent these guys, maybe Killeen’s boss if he had one, would then know Bradford and his team were involved with Hope.
It was an easy decision.
“We’ll store them in a freezer for now. I’ve got…a location in mind.” Adalyn’s voice was dry. “But we’ll have to transport fast.”
He had a feeling he knew where she was talking about. Redemption Harbor Security had various storage units all over the southeast, rented under one shell corporation or another. Nothing that could be tied back to them.
They kept stores of weapons in some, random antiques in others, and freezers in more than a handful of them. Because these were definitely not the first dead bodies they’d dealt with.
“Why don’t you and Rowan transport the bodies and the rest of us will clean up here, make sure there’s no trace of their tire tracks, forensics, anything.
” Not that Bradford thought Killeen would report these guys missing, but they needed to make it look like the men had come and gone.
Or maybe not even arrived at all, depending upon if they had been tracked.
Adalyn nodded and they all got to work. He wasn’t sure how much to tell Hope about this. Berlin was monitoring the interior of her house, but he wasn’t sure what she was letting Hope see.
He shelved all of that for now. They had a job to do, and he wanted to get it done fast in case backup arrived.