Page 47 of Lone Star Witness

“While Jericho, Slade, and you go out to confront the sonofabitch,” Marise finished. She sighed again. “I understand that Sonny wants to avenge Bodie’s death and smack me down for confronting him, but is he arrogant enough to go head-to-head with the three of you?”

“Arrogant, yes,” Jericho was quick to confirm. “But he’s not stupid. I figure right now he’s arranging for some help. Maybe hired guns. Maybe fellow assholes who just want to get in on a fight. I also suspect he’ll have a way to scan the vehicle we’re in to make sure all five of us are inside. He’ll want to go into this believing he has us all in one place. And we’ll go in knowing we’re possibly outgunned.”

“But not outsmarted,” Nash volunteered, taking up the explanation. “I drove here in my van. Along with being bullet resistant, it’s loaded with some battle toys. A drone that can be used to pinpoint the locations of Sonny and anyone else he brings with him.”

“It’s stocked with tear gas, smoke bombs, laser lights, Kevlar vests, guns, and ammunition,” Jericho went on. “Of course, I’ll have my slingshot, too.”

Some people wouldn’t consider that much of a weapon, but Slade knew those “some people” were wrong. Jericho had managed to take out assholes and other bad guys, all without risking a kill shot.

Still, Slade didn’t want to rely on a slingshot to put an end to this.

“There’s also a new weapon in the van that one of Ruby’s techs came up with,” Jericho explained. “A hand-held sonar blaster. It looks like something a gamer would use. Nonlethal, but it’ll put a person on their knees.”

That was a lot of info for Slade to take in, but there was a bottom line here. No amount of weapons and info would convince him to put Marise and Caroline in this kind of danger.

“Sonny could launch a grenade at the van,” Slade pointed out. “Or a firebomb. Or put an IED in its path. And if he doesn’t want to go those particular routes, he could have a sizeable group of gunmen, all taking aim at once with armor-piercing bullets.”

“He could,” Jericho admitted. “The idea with the battle toys, though, is to see what Sonny is about to do and stop him before he gets a chance to deploy or launch his own toys.”

Jericho stopped and exchanged glances with Nash.

“Or we do Plan B,” Jericho went on a moment later. “One of the three of us stays with Caroline and Marise in the van, and if things get bad, we drive them the hell out of there. The other two of us will deal with Sonny.”

Slade thought this plan was finally moving in the right direction. Well, right-ish anyway. No plan would actually be good if it involved two women in the McKenna men’s lives being placed in harm’s way.

“Plan C,” Slade threw out there. “Two of us stay with Caroline and Marise, and as soon as the third gets out of the van to go after Sonny, then whoever is driving the van will get the hell out of the field of conflict. It’ll be too late then for Sonny to back out.”

Slade hoped.

He didn’t want to go through all of this only to have the cowardly dipshit turn tail, run and actually escape.

“You and you alone go after Sonny,” Marise said to Slade. She huffed and threw her hands up in the air. “You didn’t come out and say that, but that’s your notion of Plan C.”

Yep, that was Plan C all right, and he added some speculation to his argument. “The odds are Sonny will retreat when he sees the van leave with some of his targets. While he’s retreating, I’ll go after him.”

“Shit,” Nash muttered.

Jericho muttered something much harsher.

Caroline and Marise gave each other sympathetic sighs.

“Why you?” Jericho demanded, speaking to Slade. “And don’t you dare say it’s because you’re better trained, older or some other shit. Sonny wants us all dead, and you going solo will make it easy for him to get one of us.”

Slade gave him a flat look. “Trust me, I won’t make it easy for Sonny to get to me.” And then he held up his hand to silence any protest until he’d finished what he had to say.

He was about to spell out that he didn’t believe Sonny would agree to anything where he wouldn’t have the complete advantage, but before he could get it out, Jericho’s phone dinged.

The sound was soft, barely audible over the rain pelting the windows, but the ding seemed to echo through the house.

Jericho set his bagel and coffee aside, took out his phone and looked at the screen. For a very long time. Slade didn’t have to ask who it was from because he could tell from Jericho’s expression.

“What did Sonny say?” Slade came out and asked.

Jericho drew in a long breath. “He’s offered up a meeting place and says if we don’t agree to it, then there’ll be no meeting at all. He’ll start picking us off one at a time until we’re all dead.”

Slade continued to study his brother. Sonny’s threat wasn’t a newsflash. Neither was the My way or the highway attitude toward a showdown gathering. So, what had put that look in Jericho’s eyes?

Jericho turned his phone screen so Slade could read it for himself. And Slade immediately cursed.

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