Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 36987 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 185(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36987 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 185(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
“Brad, I need you to drive right up behind that van and block it in so it can’t move,” I ordered him, quickly loading my Glock 19.
Kurt gasped. “Wait, what’s going on?”
“What?” Thom asked, turning to me, her eyes going wide as she saw the gun.
“I don’t— What are you doing?” Brad yelled at me, which was loud in the car.
“Do it now!” I roared, then forced my door open, fell out of the SUV onto the road, and rolled to my feet.
Turning to the Mercedes van as one man got out of the passenger side and pointed a gun at me, I instinctively put two in his chest, dropping him fast. The driver revved the motor instead of driving away, and the car did that thing where it jerked forward and died. I was thinking it was probably a manual transmission and he wasn’t as familiar with that as he would have liked. So because he was scared—I had just killed his buddy, after all—when he tried to restart the car, the engine churned but nothing happened. He tried repeatedly without success, quickly flooding the engine. He then tried to get out of the car, but by then I was too close, right outside his window.
Normally, I would have pulled off my jacket, wrapped my hand, and put my fist through the window, but I didn’t have time. Instead, I angled my gun sideways, away from him, and shot the window. It shattered, and I put an elbow in his face and then followed up with a quick pistol-whip on the forehead. He fell sideways into the passenger seat, out cold.
Turning off the car, taking the keys, I threw them behind me into the brush and ran across the street, noting that Kurt, his sister, and her husband had abandoned the car and run into the house. I checked the parked SUV, saw that the keys were in the ignition but there was no one inside. I turned it off and threw those keys into the bushes in the front yard. Sprinting around the side of the house, I heard Kurt’s Dobermans growling and barking, stuck outside, probably having been playing with the kids and then locked out by the intruders. It was the only thing that made sense.
I climbed up the two flights of stairs to the back deck, and once there, I stood against the wall and called the dogs softly.
Instantly, they both stopped barking and scratching at the sliding glass door and ran to greet me, anxious, shaking, wanting to be inside. They weren’t being allowed to protect Kurt, their human, or anyone else in the house, and it was making them frantic. I petted them both so they’d know I was happy to see them, my touch calming them.
“It’s okay, you’re okay,” I whispered as they whined, and they went silent, both sitting, waiting for my orders.
They were beautiful, enormous dogs, and they had the clipped ears and docked tails only because Kurt had gotten the brothers like that; he would have never mutilated them by choice. They were named after Odin’s wolves, and I had always found that fitting. They had loved me from the start, and more importantly, loved my stupid cat. The best thing about them, though, was that they were crazy smart.
“Geri, Freki,” I said, motioning toward the front door. “Go guard the door.”
They bolted away from me, and I heard them on the stairs, taking them quickly. Just in case there were more bad guys coming, I needed some backup so I wouldn’t be taken unawares. And giving them something to do was important.
Slowly, I leaned sideways just far enough to get a quick view of the living room. Kurt, Brad, and Thom had their hands in the air. A boy was sitting on the couch, shaking, and a guy was standing behind him, a hand on his left shoulder. Another man stood with his back to the glass doors, holding a gun to the head of the other child.
I had to wonder why the kids were left at home alone. And I knew one was nine and the other eleven, so they weren’t too young to be by themselves, but still. They’d been left with the dogs, though, who would keep them safe, but only to a point. What if one of the kids got hurt? I was probably overthinking it, not being a parent myself.
“Where the fuck did the dogs go?” yelled the guy who could see outside, the one with the kid on the couch.
This wasn’t one of those times where the longer something went on, people might calm down, the situation would deescalate, and the intruders would just let the kids go and make a run for it. I wasn’t getting that feeling. Even more importantly, from the guy I could see—as well as based on the ages of the guy I’d killed and the other I’d left unconscious—they were young. This was not some well-oiled kidnap-and-ransom team, but they could still be there on someone’s serious orders. Meaning, this could be one of two things: either this was exactly what it seemed—an idea hastily put together, relying on opportunity—or these guys were here to retrieve the kids, but for whatever reason, decided to rob the place as well, which put them behind schedule and at risk of running into the returning parents. If the former, maybe one of these guys delivered something to the house, then noticed Thom on social media and thought, bingo, we’ll rob the place. And as a bonus, the kids were home to kidnap. If the latter, then they were there for the kids from the jump.