Gauging the door, Reaper took a step back just as he saw Dalton come around the corner.
Using his booted foot, Reaper kicked at the weakest part of the door, and it flew open. When it did, Reaper launch himself inside, taking in the room at a glance. Aiming his gun at the perp, who came running into the room, he hit him in the abdomen just before Reaper landed on his stomach. At the same time, the perp fell to the floor, spilling blood onto the tiles.
He was still getting his knees under him when the second perp came running in. Reaper managed to hit him in the throat.
He was getting to his feet when Dalton came through the broken door.
“I could have saved myself the trouble,” Dalton said, lowering his gun at seeing the prone bodies on the ground.
“How many live here?” Reaper asked, moving toward an open doorway.
“An older couple, man and woman.”
Entering the room that he had seen from the outside, Reaper didn’t see the older couple.
Dalton followed him, both men searching for the couple to make sure they were all right. Rounding the corner, Reaper entered a hallway. Gunshots outside had him wanting to hurry so he could help the brothers.
Seeing a partially opened door down the hallway, Reaper went to the side of the door, using the wall to protect his body; he turned his head slightly to peer inside the room. “You’re safe! I’m here with your neighbor, Dalton,” Reaper called out.
Hearing his voice, they turned from the window to him, the curtains fluttering, revealing the man was holding a gun.
Reaper held up two fingers behind his back to keep Dalton from moving closer. He had only a moment to process that the elderly couple weren’t frightened and they hadn’t only just been looking outside—the man had been firing a gun.
Reaper moved his finger to the trigger. “Damn. I have to give it to the fucker. Allerton is good. He’s been having you watch T.A. since she moved in, hasn’t he?” he yelled out to the couple.
The woman’s gave a quick glance to her partner, her face growing pinched, as if cautioning him to remain silent.
Staring at them closer, Reaper realized they were much younger than he originally assumed. He’d taken a wild guess that they were Allerton’s people, and when neither of them said anything, he figured they knew who he was, proving him right.
“I thought you were fucking nosy. Damn good fucking job. You’re how those fuckers outside knew Ginny was here.”
The man glanced wildly at the woman. When he saw him waver his weapon, Reaper figured out what he was silently telling her.
“Ah … you’re out of bullets? That’s what you trying to tell her?” Reaper gave him a grim smile. “Then I suggest you place the weapon down and take off. Bank the money you earned today. At least you’ll live to see another day.”
Reaper was cutting it close with his own ammo. He was just better at hiding it than the man inside the bedroom. The problem was that he couldn’t tell if the woman had a gun or not with the way she stood partially behind the curtain.
“Put your weapons down,” Reaper ordered.
“You first. I have bullets; you’re the one out of bullets.” The fucker finally grew a set of balls, even though, Reaper knew he was lying.
“I have a couple left; one for each of you.” With his head cocked around the door jam, Reaper nodded at the man while Dalton remained behind him out of sight. “Put it down and step away. Take my advice. It’s the only chance you have.”
A gust of wind had the curtain billowing out, exposing the weapon in the woman’s hand; she had it pointed directly at him.
Reaper froze. His mind went back to the lifeless eyes that he still saw in his nightmares. Then his mind flashed back to the day Rider’s wife had denoted the bomb when they’d been overseas. Rider hadn’t been able to extinguish his wife’s life with her carrying his unborn child.
The split-second he hesitated would have cost him his life … if Dalton hadn’t jerked the door wide open and, in one smooth move, he shot the woman in the heart, then sent her partner to hell with her. A gush of blood coming the man’s chest showed Dalton had placed his bullet in the same spot as the woman’s.
Dalton gave him a hard pat on his shoulder to shake him out of the daze he’d fallen into. “They were shit for neighbors. I’m going to cut down that tree in the backyard before this house gets sold again. I’m fucking sick of having to skim the leaves from my pool.”
“I couldn’t kill her … You saved my life.”
“Brother, you just fucking saved my wife, my child, her sister, and her best friends, who are sisters to her and me. I wouldn’t have gone down without a fight, but I didn’t have enough firepower to take them all down. And just so you fucking know, if I had been here first, I’d be dead now. I would’ve assumed they were protecting themselves from the gunmen outside. You’re the one who figured out they were Allerton’s, providing him information on Trudy.”
When another burst of gunfire sounded from outside, Reaper strode across the room to pick up the woman’s weapon, checking it for ammo.
Dalton raked his eyes over his face. “You good?”
“Yeah, I am.” Reaper gave him a nod before striding down the hallway to make his way back through the house and out the back door.
Edging to the corner of the building, Reaper looked toward the front yard, no longer hearing any gunfire.
Viper and Knox had the men lined up on Dalton’s yard, on their knees with their hands on their heads. The rest of the brothers were guarding them as Knox patted them down one at time then zip-tied their hands.
“We’re good to go,” Reaper told Dalton.
Viper pressed two fingers to his lip to give a shrill whistle before he walked over to them as they approached. “We were starting to get worried. Where did you disappear to?”
“Dalton’s neighbors. They were the ones responsible for this shit show,” Reaper explained.
“Fuck. How many inside?”
“Four. Two in the kitchen, two in the bedroom.”
“They need an ambulance?”
“No, you can call the coroner.”
“He’s already on his way. Three dead across the street, four dead behind the Escalades.”
Knox came over as Viper talked. “None of them are admitting to being Allerton’s hired hitmen.” Running a hand over his bald head, Knox seemed as if he were angry enough to bite a bullet.
“How’s your deputy?”
“In ICU. He’s only been on the force for a year. Usually, Greer was the one working the speed trap.”
“Greer wasn’t working today?” Reaper was glad it wasn’t Greer in ICU. Then he thought better of it, realizing Greer kept enough green on him when he was on duty to take down a tank.
“I fired him the day I got back to town,” Knox answered, as if he had swallowed a bullet.
“He posted two deputies on both ends of the bridge. He was keeping track of anyone coming into town and making them isolate in the hotel for a week. I had over twenty people threatening to sue the town. But, if I left the security posts on the bridge like Greer set up, these assholes wouldn’t have made it into town.”
“The town would have been bankrupt, too.” Viper tried to make Knox feel better about his decision.