Page 154 of Beware of Dog

Tenny had disabled the Blackmons’ cameras and set up their own. Reese was watching the feeds on his phone, perched on a kitchen barstool like a gargoyle. Shep kept peeking over his shoulder as he paced, waiting for some sign of movement in the alley.

There was a back den off the kitchen, one that let out onto a sunroom, and they’d left the TV and a lamp on back there, so the house didn’t look empty; no sense tipping the Diablos off before they got in the door. Shep’s pacing led him there, and he glanced at the TV a moment. The evening news was playing, more politics and global unrest. The world was worried about the world, about big problems; and his world consisted of these rooms, and the adrenaline surging uselessly in his veins, and the young woman laid up in a hospital bed back in Albany.

He went to the window and gapped the blinds, searching the tiny patch of lawn, its iron fence, and the alley beyond. He saw the flash of silver raindrops in the security floodlights, the humpbacked shapes of trash cans lined up on the other side of the fence. No movement. No headlights.

“Hey.”

He dropped the blinds and turned.

Mercy stood in the threshold between den and sunroom, one big shoulder propped against the doorjamb, arms folded loosely. “How you holdin’ up?”

Shep cracked his knuckles, realized he was doing it, and shoved his hands in his pockets instead. “I’d be a lot better if these assholes would go ahead and show up.”

Mercy grinned, part amusement, part something that reminded him disconcertingly of Maverick. Of the smiles Devin had been shooting him the past twelve hours. Thankfully, Mercy didn’t call him “son,” but he did say, “Yeah, but that’s not what I asked.” He angled his head so he glanced up from under his dark brows. “You feeling okay?”

“How do you think I feel?” he shot back.

Mercy’s smile didn’t waver. “Like you want to tear someone’s throat out with your fingernails. Like you wanna knock a man down and start hitting him, and keep hitting him until your hand shatters. Then you wanna swap hands and keep going.”

Shep had been prepared to argue, but Mercy’s blunt words soothed him instead. He swallowed, and it hurt, like he had a ball of unshed tears lodged in his throat. “Yeah.”

Mercy nodded, and his gaze said he understood; that he knew that feeling better than anyone. Shep had watched him work on guys he didn’t have a personal vendetta against, and couldn’t decide if the idea of watching him wreak personal vengeance would be thrilling or the stuff of nightmares. Bit of both, maybe.

“You’ll get your chance,” Mercy said. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Someone whistled in the other room, one short, sharp blast. “Heads up,” Reese called.

Mercy rolled off the doorjamb and Shep followed.

Over Reese’s shoulders, they watched him cycle through security feeds on his phone. Cars pulled up in the alley, and on the street out front. Multiple cars at each location. Doors flew open and men spilled out, dressed in dark clothes, stocking caps pulled low.

“Oh ho, boys,” Mercy said, and picked up the sledgehammer he’d left propped against the kitchen island. “This isn’t a meeting, it’s araid.”

“Lights,” Fox snapped from the living room.

Reese clicked off his phone, and someone turned off the lantern in the next room, and the house was plunged in darkness save the soft lamp glow and TV flickers from the den and sunroom. Shep had the sense of people moving in the living room, but their feet made no sound over the floorboards.

Mercy tapped Shep on the arm. “You wanna stick here with me? Be the welcoming committee?”

“Yeah.”

They’d talked at length, back at the apartment, about this scenario, should it unfold. “It’ll be dark,” Fox had said, “and close quarters. Don’t shoot anyone unless you know for a fact he’s a hostile. Don’t get into a wrestling match. Stick and move. Head on the swivel.”

Shep had known those instructions were for him, mostly. Everyone else involved was either a trained assassin, or Mercy.

Shep pulled his gun with his right hand, and the KA-BAR on his hip with the left. His heart had been hammering for hours, but now, as man-shaped shadows reared up against the sunroom blinds, it settled. Steadied. His breath came easier, the knots in his lungs turning loose on one big, much-needed inhale. He’d been so helpless, hovering at Cass’s bedside, stroking her hair, and worrying about how long it would take her to recover, if she would recover; worrying that her life was as damaged as hershoulder, that she’d come out the other side of this fearful and withdrawn, a shadow of the girl she’d always been.

Buthere—he could do something here. He didn’t feel even a little bit helpless, and all his anger, all his frustration, turned him calm, and capable, andready.

He heard Mercy take a deep breath on the other side of the threshold.

Somewhere behind him, Reese’s blades left their sheathes with quicksnick-snicksounds.

The doorbell rang out front.

Then the door splintered.

The back door exploded a split second later, and Shep saw the matte black of handguns in the grip of the men who came boiling into the sunroom, shouting, and running, and clearly setting out to terrify and intimidate the Blackmons.

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