Payback: A Vigilante Justice Novel

by Kristin Harte

  I couldn’t leave him behind like that. “Come with me, please.”

  He shook his head. “Upstairs, in my room. There’s a gun in the nightstand, remember? Go get it. Lock the bedroom door, get the gun, and stay put for me.”

  “Alder, no—”

  “Go!”

  A sob ripped from my chest, but I went. Racing through the shadows of the porch, stopping only for a moment to look back at the man I had to leave behind. Alone. In danger.

  “Go on, honey,” he called, looking way more confident than I felt. “Get upstairs and find the gun.”

  “Alder—”

  “Now, Shye. And be prepared to shoot.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Alder

  The second I heard Shye close my front door, I finally exhaled the breath I’d been holding.

  “Motherfucker. What just happened?”

  How this evening had gone from fucking perfect to fucking FUBAR so fast, I had no idea. Finally—finally—after three long fucking years, I’d gotten Shye Anderson in my bed. And it had been amazing. Every touch, every breath, every little sound of pleasure I’d dragged from her body—totally unforgettable. Until whatever we’d built between us crashed and burned. I needed to get back inside and figure out what the hell had happened, why scars covered her back, why she hid them from me, and who put a fucking brand on her hip. But all that would have to wait. We had company, so my first mission was to keep us both alive.

  Crouching low, I crept through the shadows to my truck, slipping inside and grabbing the shotgun from behind the bench seat as I kept an eye on the barn. No movement, no sign of anyone out in the field beside the barn, but that light wasn’t exactly sensitive. Someone had to have been somewhere around the door for it to turn on. There was no doubt in my mind—the Soul Suckers had come.

  Back in my early days in the Army, I probably would have snuck back to the barn, scoped out the situation, and balls-to-the-walls busted inside. But I’d gone through extensive training to join the Special Forces team and earn my green beret. I’d lived through ambushes and sneak attacks, walked into places and immediately been surrounded by enemy forces. The only reason I’d made it home from a few of those was because I’d had the right training, a damn good team at my side, and men I trusted covering my back. It wasn’t time to lone-gunman this shit—it was time to hunker down in a defendable location and call in reinforcements.

  Keeping my gun trained on the barn, I backed all the way to my front door. I’d been so focused on stopping Shye, I’d only thrown on my sweats before chasing her outside. I hadn’t grabbed my gun or phone or even a pair of goddamned shoes, something I needed to remedy immediately.

  Once inside, I locked the door and shut off all the lights on the first floor. If they were coming for me, they’d have to try to find me in the dark in a house they didn’t know. So long as they didn’t have night vision goggles, the shadows would be an advantage to me, which made me think that maybe we should buy some night vision goggles. Some military surplus. If these guys wanted a war, we’d motherfucking bring one to them. And with Deacon on my side, I had access to some cool fucking toys not many people got to play with.

  But first, I needed to deal with whoever was in my barn.

  I found my phone in the kitchen and sent a quick text to Gage and Bishop.

  I’ve got company.

  Gage replied first.

  Five minutes.

  “Not soon enough.”

  I sent one more text with the words mind the barn at the south end, then I left my phone on the counter and grabbed my work boots from the closet. No more bare feet outside for this job. Once I had the boots on and tied, I headed through the house to the breaker box. My thoughts on the dark had been valid, and I needed every advantage I could get to make sure backup got to us before the Soul Suckers did. I needed to cut the power to the house, the barn, and all the lights outside. Most properties would have had a separate box in the barns and outbuildings, but I’d made sure to install a kill switch in the house. Just in case.

  We were in just in case mode, so I powered everything down. The entire valley plummeted into darkness, the valley I knew inside and out. The house and barns I’d bought before I’d even left the Army to move home. This was my turf—I had the advantage.

  I slipped through the hallway into the bathroom closest to the garage. The one no one ever used. From behind the toilet tank, I pulled out the 9mm Beretta Deacon had given me—the one with the silencer already mounted. A soldier needed to be prepared, and I’d taken that to heart once the Soul Suckers had started poking around town. I had three other guns hidden on the main floor of the house, but this was the cleanest. The one that couldn’t be traced back to me. Between the Beretta and my shotgun, I felt armed enough to make it until Gage and Bishop showed up. I wasn’t planning an attack—I was planning to hold the house.

  Armed and ready to roll, I crept into the den to keep an eye on the barn through the south-facing windows. Soon enough, my eyes adjusted to the darkness, and stars began to shine through the blanket of black above the property. I stayed in the shadows, still as a stone, peering out over the field to the barn. Waiting on the Soul Suckers to show their faces. Waiting for backup to come for me. Waiting for what felt like a long damn time.

  Gage and Bishop slipped inside through the garage entrance, the sound of footsteps and squeak of the floor giving them away. Rex’s nails clicked on the wood floors as he followed his owner, of course. I’d never been more grateful to see those fuckers or that mutt in my life.

  “You stay hidden on your way inside?”

  Bishop took a long look over my shoulder, his eyes on the same barn I’d been staring at. “Definitely. Snuck in on the north side in case they’re still in the barn.”

  “All’s good?” Gage asked, keeping his voice low.

  “So far, but I haven’t gone out there yet. I didn’t want to leave Shye alone.”

  “She upstairs?” asked Bishop, and I nodded. “Good. So what’s the plan?”

  “You stay here with Rex and keep an eye on Shye,” I said, handing him the shotgun. “Me and Gage will scout what the fuck is going on out there. Call Finn to have him come be backup for you. We can use an extra set of eyes.”

  My brother didn’t question me. “On it.”

  “Bishop.” I couldn’t keep the grit out of my voice, the order. The fear. “She’s armed and likely terrified. Don’t go up there unless you absolutely have to, and take care of yourself if you do.”

  “No worries, brother. I’ve got this—I’ll keep your girl safe.” Bishop stayed low as he crossed to the dark landing, his gun pulled and ready.

  “Rex. Follow.” Gage pointed to Bishop, and the dog took off for my brother. The two settled into the deepest, blackest corner and practically disappeared into the shadows. Ready to defend my Shye girl.

  I prayed like hell Bishop lived up to his promise.

  Without a word, Gage and I snuck outside, rounding the house on the north side to stay out of sight of the barn. Once through the woods that practically surrounded my property, we’d have to cross a small, open pasture to get there, but the darkness should cover us well. Still, I gave Gage the hand signal to watch my back, and I went first. My property, my girl…my risk to be at the front.

  Gage followed closely, both of us keeping low and moving fast through the high grasses and fences. We reached the barn without incident, both pressing our backs to the wall with our guns pointing at the sky. Easy. Too easy. Either these fucks had one hell of a setup inside, or they were too green to know what was coming.

  I seriously hoped for the second option.

  A few hand signals thrown, and Gage headed around back while I slipped inside through a side door. The old barn was about as standard as one could be. Built to house horses, it had a large, center aisle and two side aisles divided by rows of stalls. I didn’t use the building except to store some extra lumber from when I’d installed my floors, and the stalls were all empty,
so there weren’t a lot of places to hide. Didn’t mean I could be too cavalier, though. One wrong move and I’d be dead. Shye would be alone, left to handle the Soul Suckers without me looking out for her. Not happening.

  I crept down a row of empty horse stalls, listening for any sign of life. Any movement. For a brief moment, as the silence reigned and made the pounding of my heart seem as loud as a brass band, I thought maybe they’d gotten past me. Maybe we’d screwed up, and Bishop and Shye were in danger. Maybe we’d missed them. A trained crew could have done it, could have beaten me at my own game and slipped through our net. Hell, it’s what I would have planned to do had I been the one staging the attack.

  But then I made it to the end of the stalls, and the middle aisle of the barn opened up. Standing in the center stood a man too small to be Gage, and there was no way Bishop had left Shye alone in the house. This had to be our intruder. He stood with an assault rifle aimed toward the main barn door. Standing, watching, and aiming.

  It took me a full ten seconds to figure out he was waiting for someone to ambush as they came through those giant doors, because the very thought of doing something so brash hadn’t crossed my mind.

  Did he honestly think I was stupid enough to come blasting through the front fucking door?

  Apparently, he did, because he never moved, never even shifted his weight. He simply stared and aimed, reminding me of Deacon from his sniper days. Though Deacon would have known a military man wouldn’t go through the front door if he thought there was a threat. He also wouldn’t have stood out in an open space like that—completely exposed. This Soul Sucker had no clue. I would have called him an idiot, but then a shadow moved along the far wall and my opinion went up a single notch. He’d brought backup. At least he’d done one thing right, though it wouldn’t help him. I’d brought backup too, and mine was way deadlier than anyone they had on their team.

  I caught sight of Gage as he set up directly across from me, the two of us forming the base of a triangle with the village idiot at the tip, his backup just off to the side. I sent Gage the hand signal that I had the idiot, and he nodded. Time to do bad things for good reasons.

  Focused on the backup, Gage moved forward along the wall. Hiding in the shadows, gun raised and ready. Not that he needed it—he didn’t need hardware to be destructive. It took Gage all of four seconds to grab the backup around the throat and secure him in a hold that kept him from yelling for help. The second he had the guy, I stepped into the middle aisle and crossed the open space, quick but silent, sneaking up behind the idiot. He wore a Soul Suckers vest—something I hadn’t been able to see until I was practically on top of him. Definitely not a surprise, though.

  The vest didn’t slow me down, and nothing I did gave my position away. Poor idiot never knew what was coming for him. Striking fast, I elbowed the guy in the back of the neck and yanked his gun out of his hands before turning the butt around against him. Two cracks to the face made him go down. And he stayed down.

  Gage strolled up beside me, looking cocky as fuck as he tossed the unconscious backup next to the idiot. He also dropped a battery-operated lantern by the guys and turned it on, kneeling down to take a good look at our visitors.

  “I would have gotten him in one hit.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you say that now.” I tucked my Beretta into the back of my pants. Not ideal, but it’d have to do since my holster was back at the house. What I needed to do wasn’t a handgun job. The idiot’s assault rifle made a bigger impression. “You secure your side of the barn?”

  Gage rose to his feet. “I’m not a bubblegummer.”

  It took me a second to figure out he meant a new soldier. Jesus, the fucking Navy had some weird slang. I finally nodded, staring down at the two Soul Suckers at my feet. Both had their road names on patches sewn onto the front of their vests. The idiot’s tag said Beaver, the other… Well, well, well.

  “We’ve got Spark here. As in fire, not plug,” I said, pointing the gun at the backup. Gage grunted, knowing where this was going.

  “Cam is going to be pissed he didn’t get to pull the trigger.”

  “He’d be even more pissed if we had the guy who killed Leah and let him get away.”

  “True that. So what now?”

  I nudged Beaver with my boot. “You awake there, kid?”

  Our idiot friend moaned, so I nudged him again. A little harder this time. “C’mon, man. We don’t have all night.”

  Gage squatted beside the guy, using one meaty hand to hold the guy’s head still. “Maybe a kick to the ribs would wake him up.”

  “Fuck,” Beaver spat, pushing Gage off him before rolling up into a sitting position. Looking way too sure of himself considering we’d laid him out on the floor of my fucking barn.

  “Welcome to my home,” I said, keeping the gun pointed at him, evaluating options for extracting the information I wanted. “I’d say make yourself comfortable, but it seems like you already did. So I’m sure you’ll excuse me if I don’t end up behaving like a perfect host.”

  Beaver glowered up at me, looking defiant, but he also made a rookie move. Fucker set his palms flat on the ground as if about to push himself to his feet. Big mistake. I stomped on his right hand, making sure the ball of my boot sat on his fingers, shifting my weight to that leg to make it hurt just enough.

  And then I smiled. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  The guy grimaced and tried to pull his hand away, but I didn’t budge. Instead, I increased the pressure on that foot until I felt the pop of his bones breaking. He bit back the scream I was sure he wanted to let loose, but he couldn’t hide the sweat beading on his forehead or how pale his face turned as I ground down on his hand. Nice and slow always hurt so much worse than fast.

  “I’ll try this again.” I pushed the muzzle of the rifle into his temple. “What the fuck are you doing on my property?”

  Beaver held his tongue for another few seconds, but the next pop from under my foot had him talking. “The girl. I came to collect what’s ours.”

  Shye. The motherfucker talked about Shye as if she were an object, one the Soul Suckers thought they had a claim on. No fucking way.

  “You should have said you’d come for me, son.” I dropped down to get in his face. “I’ll take your crew on all fucking day, but no one threatens my girl. Your so-called ownership of Shye Anderson is done.”

  “Our enforcer won’t go for that.”

  “Too fucking bad.” I kept my eyes on Beaver as I cocked my head toward Spark. “Hey, Gage. Who were the two guys that set Shye’s place on fire?”

  “Spark, for sure. Someone was with him, though. Some weak fucker that Camden knocked the legs out from under.”

  “And who do we have here?” I pointed my gun at Spark.

  “That’d be Spark, boss.”

  “So I assume our friend Beaver here is the one Camden knocked down.” I stood up and pointed the gun in Beaver’s face. “Looks like we’ve got two to take care of.”

  “I didn’t set those fires,” Beaver said, his eyes staring unendingly at the end of my gun. “Spark usually runs with Coyote, but he’s on another job tonight.”

  “A job in Justice?” Because if that was the case, we had a lot more to worry about than these two fuckers. Gage shifted closer, probably thinking the same thing. If this Coyote guy was in Justice, we needed to get this show on the road so we could intercept the fucker.

  Thankfully, Beaver shook his head. “I don’t know where, but not here. Spark and I were the only ones sent to Justice.”

  To steal Shye from me. I shot Gage a look, knowing it was time to make the call as to what to do with our intruders. Well, what to do with Beaver—Spark had sealed his fate the second he chose to light a match in my town.

  But even as I questioned the right choice forward, Parris’ words from the night I’d met him rang through my head. We had to fight like an MC to beat an MC. The Soul Suckers had sent two men to ambush me, one with a motherfucking assault rifle,
and had killed Leah seemingly without a second thought. My Army training told me to send Beaver back to his team with a message.

  This wasn’t an Army job.

  “Gage.” I pulled my Beretta from my waistband, taking note of the way Beaver’s eyes went wide as I pointed it at him just before I fired. Gage followed suit, ending Spark with a single gunshot to the head. Quiet, fast, and as neat as could be hoped for.

  Gage spoke first. “Threat eliminated.”

  I stared down at Spark and Beaver, my gut churning. Not because of the murders—fuck no, those two were direct threats to me and mine. Nothing more than self-defense, even if the law wouldn’t technically see it that way. No, eliminating threats was easy. Knowing there were bigger ones coming our way was a different story. Because they would come looking—once the Soul Suckers figured out these two weren’t coming home, they’d send more men to Justice. And we’d have to deal with them too.

  They wouldn’t find any proof that Beaver and Spark had met their end in my barn, though. By the time Gage and I were done, there’d be no sign that anything had gone down tonight. We’d get rid of the evidence—bodies to guns to bloodstains. In the end, it wouldn’t matter. The cops may never figure out what happened, but the Soul Suckers would, even without proof. We’d definitely started a war, and as much as I hated to admit it, the Soul Suckers would use Shye as a pawn in it.

  I’d thought I was keeping her safe by having her with me. Turned out, I’d put her smack in the middle of the cross hairs.

  “Boss?” Gage stood, watching me, waiting. “Want me to take care of this?”

  Because there was no way I could focus on such an important task right then. “Yeah. I’ll need you to.”

  Gage nodded once, face calm and back straight. All that military training he’d gone through as a SEAL coming back to the forefront. Like riding a fucking bike. “Get on up to the house and send Bishop out,” he said, taking control. “We can handle cleanup. You deal with Shye.”