“Dylan, when we get out of this mess, I’m going to have a little discussion with you concerning Lucy,” Samantha promised, brushing past him.
“Fine, but can you make sure that Johanna, is there when you have this discussion? I wouldn’t want to return a lesser man to my lovely wife,” Dylan teased.
They all walked down to the cargo bay. Samantha sighed. Much as she hated to admit it, they were strapped for time. The more time they wasted, they increased their chances of losing Tyler to Devlin.
She wanted to get his name cleared and get off of New Monaco. Before she even had to come into contact with Devlin. Once she came into contact with him, she didn’t know if she’d ever want to leave.
Aggie stood ready and waiting for them, and Samantha grabbed her necessary trinkets while Johanna embraced Dylan.
“I should really come with you. Tyler is my brother,” he began, and then quieted when Samantha served him with a stern glare.
“Shouldn’t you stay here, and guard the ship, and access how much damage Crenshaw did to The Excalibur when he greeted us so damn affectionately?” Samantha asked all without taking a breath.
She knew she had turned into a bit of a bitch, but she couldn’t help herself. Dylan and Johanna hadn’t seemed to grasp the seriousness of their situation.
Big V was a dangerous woman, and right now, Tyler was at her mercy. She felt restless.
She was so damn worried about him that she’d already popped half a dozen heartburn lozenges. She needed to get to him. If she didn’t and Devlin got to him first, she’d have to do the unthinkable!
Dylan and Johanna had their happily ever after, and she wanted her second chance at it with Tyler. She had married him, and despite wanting Devlin with all of her being, she couldn’t put him into her dangerous lifestyle. He already walked a fine line with the sort of work he was into. She didn’t have to add to his problems.
This time she wouldn’t screw it up.
The passenger side door into Aggie opened automatically, and she let out a shocked gasp.
“Huh, I see that you’ve already made some adjustments to Aggie, good work, monkey boy,” Samantha said, giving him an appreciative stare. Johanna groaned, and rolled her eyes helplessly.
“Samantha’s in a foul mood, Dylan. Please, don’t provoke her. She’ll need all of that bitchiness when she goes up against Veronica.”
“Excuse me?” Samantha huffed.
She hated how well Johanna read her mind.
Samantha jumped when Aggies’s voice greeted them affectionately. The hover car never failed to annoy her with her chirpy attitude.
“Admit it, Samantha, you’re in a bad mood, and you’ll feel much better when you rescue Tyler,” Johanna pointed out.
Samantha snorted indelicately. Yep, Johanna could freak her out.
“Yeah, then I can kick his sorry ass all the way back to Earth,” she grumbled, reaching to belt herself in. “Are we going today, or are you going to wait until Christmas? I’m aging over here for cripes sake,” she groused.
Johanna heaved another irritated sigh.
“I’m coming. Honestly, Samantha, I don’t know how you survived to get to your present age. You’re so damn annoying at times that I want to strangle you in your sleep.” Johanna rested her gloved hands on the steering wheel. “Take care, love, and remember don’t let anyone on the ship except for us.”
“What do you think I’m planning to do, hold a bloody party?” Dylan demanded as the cargo bay doors opened.
“I’ll see you later, sweetheart,” Johanna called out.
Aggie began moving, and Samantha nearly bounced up and down in her seat. She just wanted to get to Tyler.
“Oh, please, give me a barf bag,” Samantha grumped, slouching back into her seat.
The sooner they reached Tyler, the better. Maybe then her indigestion would finally go away. She had ants in her pants, and she needed to show Veronica what happened when she invaded her territory.
Samantha hated being crossed, and when someone deliberately gunned for her husband, albeit her estranged husband, she took that as a definite call for war. Veronica may have won the current battle, but she was going to win the war.
They flew at the highest legal speed toward York, and Samantha had time to continue her constant complaining.
“When I find Veronica I’m going to…” Johanna cut her off, giving Samantha the inclination to glare at her.
“Yes, sis, I know, you are going to rearrange her face to resemble her scrawny little butt. I’ve heard it all and believe me none of it surprises me.
But right at the moment I have a lot of distractions to deal with and you shouldn’t be one of them. I swear all of these drivers took a tutorial in asshole. I can’t seem to move an inch without having someone right up my ass!” Johanna barked.
Samantha twisted her body around and eyed the car behind them. Soon, they’d be in their backseat.
“We could just hit them with something,” Samantha suggested helpfully.
Aggies’s voice streamed out into the car’s interior. “We could hit them with a disorientation shot or we could hit them with a jolt large enough to render their car’s systems inert.”
“I vote for the rendering their car’s systems useless. That way they’ll be able to do an emergency landing, and the skies will be clear for us.”
“None of that will be necessary, Aggie. Right at the moment, Samantha is out of her freaking mind, I’ll tell you when the real Samantha is back,” Johanna joked.
Samantha resumed reading all of the current information that Lucy had assembled concerning their friendly neighborhood nemesis.
Veronica had a list on her as long as anything that Samantha had seen in a long time. Veronica had just as many bounties under her belt as she and Johanna, and she had been in the game for exactly as long as they had been. All in all, she was their greatest competition.
Not much was listed in her biographical information, and Samantha hated not being able to know her deepest darkest secrets.
“When will we reach York?” Samantha asked, for the hundredth time as if she were an eager child.
“In ten minutes,” Johanna answered irritably, smoothing her hair back with her right hand. “And stop asking me that question. You just asked it two minutes ago.”
“I did not,” Samantha retorted.
“Actually,” Aggie cut in. “You did ask that particular question one minute and fifty-eight seconds ago.”
Yep, that was why she hated computers.
Samantha grumbled, and caught Johanna fixing her hair yet again. She studied her sister and smiled. She couldn’t help herself. Johanna was ever the picture of perfection.
Johanna always looked like she’d just emerged from a day at the spa while Samantha always looked as if she’d been through hell and back. She sighed heavily.
Johanna always strived to maintain her appearance and Samantha normally didn’t give a damn what she looked like. It wasn’t that her sister was vain, she was far from that, but she always wanted to seem neat and tidy.
Samantha inhaled sharply, and took in the breathtaking landscape of York. It looked like something out of a fairy tale, despite the technological marvels that dominated the city.
Oh, how she’d missed this place.
Oh, how she missed Devlin.
“I see Veronica’s vehicle!” Johanna exclaimed.
“Where?” Samantha demanded, scanning the city’s airspace.
“Down there,” Johanna said, as her voice took on an anxious tone.
“Where?” Samantha repeated, feeling like a silly idiot.
For the life of her, she couldn’t find Veronica’s lime green hover mobile, even though it probably stuck out like a sore thumb.
“Down there. Outside of the Sheriff’s office,” Johanna whispered. She sighed, and all colour drained from her heart-shaped face.
“Freaking wonderful!” was all that Samantha managed to say.
Chapter Seven
“S
o, dear sister, what do we do now?” Johanna curiously inquired, rolling her eyes heavenward.
Samantha slammed her hand against the dashboard. “Please, say that you’re kidding me,” Samantha retorted, rolling her eyes at, and then gesturing to the Sheriff’s office, below them. “We walk in and get him out, of course. Seems to me it’ll be easy as one, two, and three.”
Johanna stared at her in stunned amazement. “Excuse me, but maybe you should pull your head out of your ass, and start thinking logically for a minute. You expect us to just saunter in, and politely collect your husband?
Pardon my dirty mouth, but you’ve got to be shitting me.” Again, Johanna rolled her eyes. “So basically, you go in, and break him out while I stay in the getaway car. Guess I’m the wheel woman this time around,” Johanna concluded matter-of-factly.
“Well, in a matter of speaking,” Samantha hedged, tapping her fingernails restlessly against the side of the door.
“Don’t screw with my mind, Samantha. You go in, something goes KA BOOM, and you come racing like a bat out of hell with your beloved Tyler in tow.” Johanna demonstrated the ka boom part with her hand up in the air.
“Minus the explosion,” Samantha said. “And he’s not my beloved, he never was.”
“Oh, get off of it, Samantha. You’re so full of it,” Johanna retorted, gliding the car down so that it hovered just above the cobblestone street.
“Wait a minute…are you serious? Are you going to sit there and tell me that your beloved is the man who put the bounty on Tyler’s head? Because if he is, you know what you have to do. You can go to Devlin and wrap him around your pinkie finger and get Tyler back safely. You can’t run from your emotions forever, you know.”
“I can’t go to Devlin. Can we just drop that for now?”
“You do realize how I found you and saved you from that creep Jarrod, don’t you? It was Devlin…he sent me a message telling me where you were…and he gave me the muscle to get you out alive. You might think I’m your guardian angel, but sister mine, I think Devlin is.”
“I won’t go to him. I can’t,” she said, her voice strained with emotion. “I can’t put him near me, he’s only in danger when we’re together.”
“So we do it the hard way,” Johanna sighed.
“Right,” Samantha said, resting her hand on the door handle.
She had cleverly gotten Johanna off the topic of Devlin. She had to keep her mind off Devlin until she had Tyler back. She had to keep a cool, calm and collected head.
“In case you never noticed, my life hasn’t been easy ever since you were born. You find trouble and trouble finds you, for you it’s an addiction. Just make sure that nothing goes ka boom while you are still inside of it.” Johanna placed a hand on her arm. “I don’t want to tell Mom that you accidentally blew yourself up.”
“Oh, put a sock in it,” Samantha remarked, even though she smiled at Johanna. “Besides, if there is one thing that I’m good at, it’s making all hell break loose.”
“Yes, and then the shit hits the fan. Have you even considered what you are going to do once we get Tyler out of the Sheriff’s custody?”
“We run for it, and try to prove his innocence,” Samantha answered, speaking as if Johanna was a complete and utter idiot.
“That was what I was afraid of. Tell me one thing though, what happens when a team, and they shall remain unnamed, say a duo of bounty hunters, break out a so-called criminal and then run with him?”
“They get a bounty on their heads also?” Samantha gave her an innocent look. “Although to be fair, he might just put one on you, and if he puts one on me, you can bet the bounty will say taken in ALIVE in huge neon letters.
Come to think of it, I’m actually surprised that Devlin hasn’t put on a bounty on me up until now. He said he was a gentleman and I guess that even scoundrels can be gentlemen at heart. So, yeah, he’ll put a bounty on us in a New Monaco minute.”
Johanna gripped the steering wheel even tighter.
“Yup, that was just what I thought. We are so royally screwed.”
“Yes, dearest, but we are royally screwed together. You could sort of say it’s a family affair.” Samantha chuckled.
“I hate it when you make light out of a serious situation,” Johanna grumbled. “Samantha, we have so many enemies among the space-faring community. Bounty hunters, mobsters, serial killers, terrorists, petty criminals, you name it, and they will be out for our blood!”
“I know,” Samantha sighed. “What other choice do we have? I won’t let Tyler get hanged by Devlin, and I’m not going to offer myself up on a platter to Devlin so this is the only option.
Besides, you know that Dylan won’t be happy if we come back empty handed so to speak. Don’t worry, Johanna, it will all turn out the way it’s supposed to turn out. We’ll clear Tyler’s name and we’ll all live happily ever after.”
“Yeah, but for how long? Just never mind I ever questioned rescuing Tyler. I guess the family that runs together stays together.”
Aggie automatically opened the door for Samantha. “Oh, and one more thing,” Johanna began. Sighing, Samantha tilted her head back toward Johanna.
“Yes,” she drawled out, expectation ringing through her voice.
“BE CAREFUL!!!” Johanna nearly shouted, staring at Samantha as if her eyes were going to pop right out of her head.
“Aren’t I always?” Samantha asked sweetly, easily jumping out of the hovering car, and landing like a cat on the sidewalk below.
Samantha took a few steps away from the hover car, and then turned back. She couldn’t resist teasing Johanna. It was way too much fun. Opening their communication link, she smiled. “Just make sure that you’re ready, for when I make everything go KA-BOOM!!!”
“One more white hair, that’s what she’s going to give me, and then another, and another,” Johanna rambled, pulling the car up higher. She went to a secure communication frequency and waited.
Chapter Eight
Samantha slid up against the wall of the building and pulled out her grappling hook. Though she had considered walking through the front door, she knew that she was far too recognizable to take such an asinine chance.
Instead, she was going to drop down from above, catch everyone off guard, and then easily cart her husband’s blasted hide out of his jail cell.
She quickly scanned the structure for any kind of security force field. Damn, the Sheriff here sure was a cocky bastard.
Obviously, he didn’t think that anyone had enough balls to break into a heavily guarded jail. But it was abundantly clear he’d never anticipated someone as daring or stealthy as she.
Discharging her grappling hook, she waited as it securely locked itself to the top of the roof. To make absolutely sure she wouldn’t find herself landing on her ass any time soon, she tugged on the line three times.
Finally satisfied that everything was good to go, she began steadily climbing the wall. The day was unusually hot. She climbed quickly.
“Veronica, I am going to make you rue the day you ever gunned for Tyler!”
Grunting, she reached the ledge of the roof and pulled herself up top. She quickly brushed the dirt off of herself.
Grinning, she softly whistled her favourite tune. The people of New Monaco were so stupid they hadn’t even noticed her climbing the building in broad daylight. Of course, New Monaco was known for its hectic nightlife scene so everyone was more than likely still asleep.
Or, something even worse. They had noticed and Devlin was getting entertained by her antics.
Samantha scanned the rooftop searching for the entrance to the inner building. She let out a triumphant hoot, as she spotted it and pulled the hatch open eagerly. Samantha listened intently.
Finally, she heard the jailor talking to the prisoners. Her ears perked up even further when she heard the constipated voice of Veronica Hutchins.
She easily climbed down the ladder and landed near the men’s toilet. Hearing the voices recedin
g into the distance, she urgently searched the narrow cells for Tyler. She saw him at last, sprawled out on his dinky little cot.
The air in the jail was disturbingly stale. It almost made her want to gag.
“Tyler,” she hissed, watching the door to make sure they didn’t get any visitors.
Samantha expected to see security surveillance and had come prepared for trouble, and yet there didn’t seem to be any evidence of such security precautions.
The grey lump on the bed twitched. She sighed.
“Tyler, get your lazy ass over here!” she hissed again, wincing when her voice came out an octave higher than what she’d wanted.
He moved again, finally bolting upright in bed. “Samantha?” he asked in disbelief.
He threw the wool blanket off of his body and jumped to his feet.
“Well, who the hell do you think it is, your fairy godmother?” she retorted curtly. Narrowing her eyes, she began to manipulate the metal bars.
She was using yet another one of Dylan’s inventions and she prayed that it would burn a hole through the cell bars as quietly as possible. Dylan had assured her time and again that the device would be whisper quiet, but with Dylan one never knew until the device had actually been put to the test.
She didn’t have enough fingers to keep track of all of her misadventures with his gadgets. But when they did work, they worked like a bloody charm.
“You came for me!” Again stunned disbelief rang through his voice.
She really didn’t care for his tone. Did he honestly think she of all people would leave him to swing in the gallows? Didn’t he remember that she was his wife? Estranged maybe, but they were still united in holy matrimony. Even if she didn’t love him the way she should, she would never leave him flapping in the wind. He deserved her loyalty—or at least she thought he did.
They had to get a move on. They still weren’t in the clear yet. She had to keep it together long enough to get them both out.
“Of course I came for you, who do you think I am, the wicked witch of the Rim?” She closed her eyes and sighed.
It really hurt her to think that he had lost faith in her. She had done a lot of questionable things in her past, but she never let her family down. Especially, when they were in a pinch. And when Tyler got into a pinch it turned out to be a monster-sized one.
Reckless Bounty (Intergalactic Justice Book 1) Page 8
