Page 22 of Sully

“Oh, no. It’s okay. I’m fine,” she said, not wanting to be any sort of inconvenience.

“It’s not. So, what do you want, love?”

“If you guys just have, like, a snack in the cabinets or something, that would work.”

“Okay,” I said, walking around her to sit my ass down on the edge of the tub, a move that made our knees touch. “Let’s try this again, honey. I am going to order you food. What are you in the mood for? Something sweet like waffles or French toast? A sub? Italian? Chinese? Sushi? I’m gonna keep naming things until you pick something,” I added with a smile.

“Italian,” she finally decided. “I can literally always go for pasta or potatoes.”

I sussed out what kind of pasta she wanted, then talked her into getting on the bed instead of the chair, hooked her up with my remote and a charger for her phone, then left her to ‘go get the food.’

In reality, I was having someone else grab the food. I just needed some time to talk to Chris, Janie, and the other bomb experts.

“How’s she doing?” Layna asked, unfolding her long body from the couch as I emerged.

“She’s alright, considering. She’s kind of… shy. I figured she might want some women around. But I think, for right now, she just needs a few minutes to decompress.”

“Look at you, being all protective,” Layna said, her eyes brightening. “Is she pretty? She’s gotta be pretty.”

“What? I wouldn’t be protective if she wasn’t?” I asked, a little offended.

“Of course you would,” she said, moving close, then pressing a hand to my chest as she leaned in, “but don’t think I didn’t see you adjusting when you walked out of that room.”

With that, and nothing more—as was often Layna’s style—she walked off.

I followed the crowd I saw gathered out back by the picnic table. As I approached, there it was, sitting on the surface, being inspected by no fewer than five experts.

“Chris,” I said, nodding toward the blonde-haired leader of Hailstorm—a survivalist-type compound that consisted mostly of ex-military and hackers who used their particular skills to do jobs that brought money into their group.

“Sully. First impressions are you were right in thinking it looks a lot more complicated than it actually is.”

“Honestly, it’s probably the most amateur bomb I’ve ever seen,” Janie, one of the wives of the retired members, said, shrugging one of her dainty shoulders. “He probably found some super basic plans online and followed them without doing any further research.”

“It’s live, though?” I asked, pointing toward the little pockets full of what should be explosive material.

“Yeah, it’s live,” one of the guys from Hailstorm said, carefully opening one and dumping the contents onto the top of the table. “We already removed the tubes with the nitro. Got that shit out of here. These are just the projectiles left.”

“See? Basic shit,” Janie said, waving toward the nails and ball bearings. “Honestly, they’re not even very full.”

“What about the timer and detonator?”

“Standard,” the Hailstorm guy said. “There was no secondary trigger or anything. So long as you figured out the wire leading from the battery, this thing wasn’t going to explode. Most of this shit was for show,” he added, waving toward the wires.

“So, I guess the question is,” Reign, the former club president, Fallon’s father, said as he approached, his keen eyes on me, “who the fuck wants you dead?”

CHAPTER SIX

Bonnie

There was a soft knock at the door a while later, just when I’d managed to slip away into an old comfort show.

But it didn’t sound like Sully. The knock had been too soft, too tentative.

“Yeah?” I called, just as unsure.

The door creaked open.

Then there was a woman holding a to-go bag.

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