Page 203 of Reaper
I’m brought out of my thoughts as Odin slows down and I realize he’s just pulled onto the street Sara lives on. As we go past her house, I frown when I realize the shades have all been drawn, though you can still tell that the lights are all on.
Odin pulls up behind Drake’s truck and parks. I check my gun one more time before slipping it back into my holster. Silently, we get out of the truck and stick to the shadows as we walk down the street. Drake spots us as we get closer and waves us over. I squat down next to him and look at him expectantly.
“This is one of the windows to Sara’s office, which she’s still in there working by the way. The window that’s cracked is along the backside of the house. She either must like working late hours or she has clients who work during this time in another time zone. Or she’s just trying to keep occupied while those assholes are here. As for the assholes themselves, they headed upstairs about half an hour ago. You can see the stairs through this window which is why I’ve been perched here. Unfortunately, she shut the door right before you guys got here.”
I curse at losing the line of sight. “The curtains in the living room have been drawn, so we don’t have that angle,” I tell him and he nods.
“I’m betting Sara did that after they all went upstairs. They’ve been drinking pretty heavily since they got here, so hopefully, they’re passed out by now.”
“So, how are we getting in? Picking the locks? Or do we see if your woman will let us in?” Odin asks and my breath catches in my throat at the thought of Saraactuallybeing my woman.
Fuck, I hope that’s what she wants.Instead of answering him right away, I turn back to Drake. “Is it still just the five of them inside? Or has Daniel come home yet?”
“Still just the five of them. Python texted me a picture of Daniel so I could be on the lookout, but I haven’t seen him.”
I look down at the picture he shows me, memorizing what he looks like in case he makes an appearance tonight.
“Is there a back door or just the sliding door?”
“Just the sliding door.”
Taking a deep breath, I turn toward Smithy and Beast. “We don’t know how Sara’s going to react to me after all this time, or all of us, and we can’t risk having her alert Justin and the others. Pick the locks, both of them. We’ll split up into teams of three. The goal is to get them subdued. I’ll be the one to approach Sara afterward.”
Odin gives me a pleased nod, and I breathe a sigh of relief internally at his approval. For the longest time, he was like a father figure to me since Reaper, Punisher, and I all ran in the same crowd. Later, Beast and Python joined our group, and he stepped into that roll with them too. Then my mom married my stepdad, Raphael, whom I now call ‘Dad’ and I gained another father figure who, surprisingly, at least for my seventeen-year-old self, accepted me for me. Hell, he even supported the fact that I wanted to join the club.
Shaking my head, I refocus on our task at hand and wait silently while Smithy works.
A few minutes later, he gives us a hand signal and I turn toward Drake. “I’m trusting you to stand guard at Sara’s office door. If things go sideways, get her safely out of here.”
He frowns. “If she fights, is there anything I can tell her that might calm her down?”
I hesitate, and then nod. “Tell her, her handsome Devil’s taking care of the trash and will be with his Honey Bee again soon.”
His lips quirk a bit at that, but thankfully, he doesn’t give me any shit about it. It’s not my fault my nickname got started by people telling me I was a ‘handsome devil’ when I was a teenager. Though, my temper does lean into the ‘devil’ part ofthe nickname pretty heavily as well. Then again, I am Irish, so my short fuse or temper shouldn’t be much of a surprise.
I turn, intent to creep out of our hiding spot, but then I turn back to Drake as a thought hits me.
“Oh, and watch your junk. She’s short and has a nasty right hook if you piss her off.”
Drake winces slightly but nods. “Right. Beware the honey bee’s stinger. Gotcha.”
I bite my lip to keep from laughing, because that is an accurate description of my woman.
We creep out of the shadows and I look up and down the street, relieved that no one seems to be out and about. I join Smithy and Odin. On my signal, Smithy opens the door, and we slip into the house. A second later, I hear the quiet snick of the door closing behind us as well as the lock sliding into place behind Beast, Timber, and Doc.
I put my hand up, waiting a moment to listen, but it doesn’t seem like anyone heard us. As we head upstairs, I look back down at Drake giving him a chin lift of thanks at seeing him already standing guard at the door that must lead to Sara’s office.
The stairs creak softly under our feet, and I strain to listen for any changes, but all I hear is someone’s loud snores. Hmm. Maybe more than one person. At the top of the stairs, I take in our surroundings. There are four doors up here, with the first one easily recognized as a bathroom since the door is slightly ajar. Loud snores come from the room opposite the bathroom and as I creep further down the hallway, I can hear more snoring coming from the room beside the first one. As for the last door, there’s no sound coming from inside when I press my ear to it. I’m assuming that’s Sara’s room, but I’m not taking any chances.
The need to put my hands on Justin for hurting Sara has me stepping across the hallway to the room opposite Sara’s. Myguess is that he wouldn’t take the first available room, so my money’s on him being in here. We split up, two of us per room, and on my signal, we open our respective doors.
I wait a moment after opening the door about an inch or two, but whoever is in this room is still snoring loudly. I open the door wider and grin when I see Justin and Dane each laying sprawled out on their respective twin beds.
Lady Luck must be smiling down on us tonight because these two are making our job way too easy right now.
Both Justin and Dane appear to have flopped down on their beds while still fully dressed. Fuck, they even still have their boots on. Then again, judging by the near empty bottle ofJack Danielssitting on the floor, I’m betting they were too drunk to do much of anything else. At least their bodies are mostly on the beds. It’d be a bit trickier if they were half laying off the bed.
Glancing over my shoulder at Odin, he gives me a chin lift and pulls out his second handgun, training it on Justin while the other is still trained on Dane. I holster my gun and pull out a couple of zip ties. Careful not to jostle Justin too much, I zip tie his ankles together and then do the same to Dane. I step up by Justin’s torso and Odin does the same to Dane as he holsters his guns. In unison, we each grab their wrists while at the same time, pressing a knee into their backs.
