Page 46 of Fallout

“You don’t know anything about me and Tessa,” Jasper pointed out.

“So tell us,” Blake said. “You’ve never explained it.”

“Because I didn’t think I needed to justify myself to the people I work with.”

Blake flinched. Jasper knew that sounded rude, and he didn’t like it any more than Blake did.

Gage said, “That’s all we are to you?”

No, but it wasn’t the point. “You know what I mean. We’re brothers. But that’s my life, and you wouldn’t understand.” And he had zero desire to get into it right now.

“You realize how long we’ve been waiting for you to actually explain it?” Blake asked.

“This isn’t the time.” Jasper headed for the front door and looked out. “Transport is here.”

The officers on hand escorted the shooters outside. Four gangbangers who had come here to throw their weight around, terrify George Anderson, and what? Scare him into not telling the police what he knew?

George was one of the few people in Benson who knew what the kingpin looked like. He still hadn’t provided that information to the police. There was no paper trail from the plastic surgery he’d done years ago to hide the man’s real identity. All that had been destroyed, if it ever existed in the first place.

Their only shot—aside from getting someone close to the kingpin to betray him—was buried in George Anderson’s memory. And he wasn’t talking.

Yet.

Jasper stepped out. George Anderson came up behind him. “I’m not staying here.”

Jasper’s instincts were all firing.

What was going on?

Something was not right here. Things were too quiet and it was setting his nerves on edge. “Hang on.” Better to be cautious than to get them moving and end up with a disaster.

A bullet slammed into Jasper’s vest. Then another shot zipped past him. And several more. Who knew how many. He stumbled back, slammed into George, and the two of them tumbled into the house. Gage and Blake were yelling. Jasper could only hear a rush in his ears.

He tried to breathe.

Fire burst in his chest.I’ve been shot.

He stared down at the bullet embedded in the front of his vest. Spots flashed before his eyes. He leaned his head back, and it hit the floor.

“Shots fired! Shots fired!”

“Officer down!”

Jasper closed his eyes. As if doing so could cut down some of the noise and stop his head pounding. He got his hands around his weapon. Lifted his shoulders and looked out the door, gun up barely half a foot off his body.

Breathed.

Someone moved behind him. Jasper twisted around—which hurt enough he cried out. George Anderson lay on the ground. An officer dragged him out from under Jasper, streaking blood across the floor.

Jasper tried to say, “Ambulance.”

“On the way.” The officer kept his head low while behind him the other three held the cuffed gangbangers in place in the hallway. “Stay where you are.”

Jasper didn’t like that idea.

Gage and Blake came back into the entryway. Blake asked, “George?”

Good question.Gage grabbed the sides of Jasper’s vest and hauled him up to sit with his back to the wall and said, “Tuck your feet. EMTs need to get to George.”

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