29. Reese #2
He’s clearly trying very hard not to give them that opening. “Like I said, I am here on behalf of Caldwell. He wants to ensure that you and your team are aware that you are not to get involved. If you do, you will be charged to the full extent of the law.”
“Who’s going to come arrest us?” Ryker asks as he crosses his arms. “You?”
Agent Jones pales slightly. “Stay in your lane,” he says again. “Or you will be dealt with.” He glances back at the guard standing behind him and nods. The man moves forward and leads him out of the house.
“Hey, Agent Jones.”
He turns to face Weston.
Weston grins. “I’ll be seeing you soon.”
Agent Jones grinds his teeth together, shakes his head, and leaves the house.
As he goes, all the men move into action.
It’s a blur of movement I can barely keep up with.
Ryker and Weston rush out onto the porch after Jones and his men, while Sawyer passes Zane and Garrison each a small handheld device from his bag before taking out something that looks similar to a tablet, but is slightly smaller.
“I’ll take upstairs,” Garrison says as he heads for the stairs.
“I’ll handle out here.” Zane holds up the scanner to a light and presses a button. A little red light follows a beep, and he shakes his head. “Can you hold this?” he asks me as he offers me the device.
“Sure. What—”
But he shakes his head and points to his mouth to signal me to be quiet.
I do as he says, keeping my questions to myself as he drags a chair over and removes a tiny black circle with three wires sticking out from it.
Sawyer rushes over with a black bag, and Zane drops it inside so he can seal it up. Then, he checks his tablet again while Zane takes the device from me and continues scanning.
Was that a listening device? How is this my life? That I have soldiers scanning my house for bugs?
“Finished the laundry,” Garrison says as he comes down the stairs with a black bag just like the one Sawyer had Zane put the other bug in.
“We’re clean down here, too,” Zane says as he finishes moving through the kitchen.
“No more active signals,” Sawyer confirms. “How long were they in here without you?”
“No more than a minute,” Zane says. “I pulled up right as they were going inside.
“So, they each planted one.” Sawyer comments.
The front door opens, and both Ryker and Weston come in. “They’re gone,” Weston says. “We followed them to the end of the drive.”
“Two bugs.” Sawyer points to the bags.
“Won’t they know you disconnected them and come back?” I question.
“Not if they know what’s good for them,” Ryker comments.
“What’s the plan, Cap?” Sawyer plops down on the arm of the couch, and all eyes turn to Zane. It’s not at all difficult for me to see him as a leader. Even when we were kids, he was always so natural at taking the lead.
Honestly, I’ve always wondered if that wasn’t part of what drew Tessa to him when we were young and she’d been determined to avoid attachments. His calm calmed down the storm within her.
“He made it clear that if we go after Brenda on our own, we’ll be prosecuted.
With our backgrounds and Caldwell’s position, that likely means we’ll be tossed in a pit and never breathe air as free men again.
” He looks around at everyone. “I’ll gladly walk into that battle with you, Brothers.
You stood by me when I was on the line, and if we vote, and majority decides we go in, then we go in. ”
His words settle over me like a noose around my neck. They strangle me, removing my ability to draw breath.
Prison sentences?
A pit?
How is that fair?
“She came after Weston and Reese,” Ryker says.
“She threatened everyone here and your families. I don’t see how we don’t handle this.
We’ve seen so-called ‘justice’ like this before.
They get let out on some technicality or the promise of delivering someone worse, and then they manage to slip right through any kind of actual jail time.
Do we really let her get away with this? ”
The room is quiet for a moment as Ryker’s words settle over all of us.
Just the thought of Brenda, Max, and Ash getting away with what they did to Weston sickens me. That image of him, hanging from the ceiling by his arms, beaten, bruised, and bloodied, will haunt me for the rest of my days.
But these men have families.
Weston has me.
What if they do this, and they get caught? What if Brenda manages to kill one or all of them?
Tears prick the corners of my eyes, but I close them tightly, refusing to let those tiny reflections of my internal pain fall. “If you’re considering it on my account, please don’t. It’s not worth it.”
“We have different definitions of what your safety is worth,” Weston says, his tone grave. “But I do think that maybe this is one fight we sit out. Until we can’t.”
“Really?” Sawyer questions, his shock evident in his wide eyes. “You of all people should see the risk letting her walk away holds.”
“It’s not worth risking your families. Look, if she comes here, then we handle her. But otherwise, we need to let Caldwell do his job.”
“And just what happened to you wanting to draw her out?” Ryker crosses his muscled arms.
“Draw her out?” I demand, whirling on Weston. “You wanted to use yourself? Why are you always chasing death?”
“On the contrary,” he replies. “For the first time, I have something to live for. But Jones made it clear what the consequences will be if we take action. What good is living if we’re all doing it from jail cells? You have families to consider,” he says.
“You’re family, too,” Garrison says. Every man here looks torn between duty and love. Between what they know they should do and what they don’t want to lose.
“Like I said, if Brenda comes here, we handle her. They can’t fault us for that. Otherwise, we let Caldwell do his job and hope she gets put back where she belongs before too much damage is done.”