Page 32 of Her Keeper
Iskidded to a stop a block down from the address Joseph had given me and paused, trying very hard to get my emotions under control. It had taken me an hour to get here, courtesy of how far away I’d been, and I’d spent the entire drive getting more and more worked up.
I was about to confront the woman who’d blackmailed Penny into working for me and stealing information. The woman who’d threatened her with exposure and then violence. I felt awful for having pulled Penny into my world but this was the woman who’d started the whole thing.
If she hadn’t threatened Penny, Penny wouldn’t be on the run from my father right now.
But going in there with guns blazing wasn’t going to fix anything. I could kill Monica Hart with my own two hands and smile while I did it. But that was something Joseph would do, not me.
And it wouldn’t get me the information I needed to save Penny from the men currently searching for her.
When Joseph got there—somehow later than me, even though he’d had a shorter drive—I slid out of my car and headed for his. He looked nearly as serious as I felt, his bright blue eyes—the only feature we shared—looking like they were filled with cold, furious fire.
My brother, I remembered, had known Penny for even longer than I had. And he’d spent that whole time protecting her. Monica wasn’t just threatening the girl I’d grown attached to. She was threatening a girl that my entire family cared about.
Well, everyone except my father.
But Joseph and I had stopped worrying about what Dad cared about a long time ago, when we realized the family was better off with us heading it up than him.
“What’s the plan?” I asked quickly. A quick scan of the house in question had told me that the place was guarded by at least three guys, none of whom I recognized. There were also enough cars in front of the house to make me think there were more guards on the inside.
This wasn’t going to be an easy job for just the two of us.
Of course that had never stopped us before.
Joseph had spent the last thirty seconds coming to the same conclusions as me, evidently, because he shook his head. “That’s too many guards for us to get through unscathed, and there’ll be more on the inside.”
“I had the same thought.”
He cast a sideways glance at me. “Sneak through the back?”
I grinned. Joseph was a lot of things. Hotheaded, emotional, and incapable of hiding his emotions. But he was also very practical when it came to saving the people he cared about. And he’d perfected his ability to get into buildings through back entrances to avoid the people who might be watching the front.
We’d also spent quite a few nights getting back into our house through the back door, to avoid whichever parent was waiting for us in the front room.
“Sneak in through the back,” I agreed. “Any idea where they might be?”
“Given the hour, I’m guessing they’re still in bed.”
“That would be convenient.” I slid my gun out of its holster and checked it again to make sure it was loaded. It was, of course, and I knew I had two more magazines in the holster on my ankle.
Just like I always did.
“Ready?” I asked.
Joseph didn’t hesitate. “For you? Always.”
We slid into the yard we were standing next to and crept down to the alley that led behind the houses, our steps quiet and our guns up and at the ready. When we got to the alley, I paused and looked down toward the house we wanted.
“I don’t see any guards back here,” I murmured.
Joseph snorted behind me. “Of course you don’t. This is Tony Caruso we’re talking about, here. He’s too stupid to have guards in the back.”
“And too stupid to realize that people might be able to find him,” I agreed. “Did I tell you I talked to him earlier?”
I stepped out into the alley, pressed my shoulder to the wall on the same side as the house we were going to, and started walking quickly forward.
“That must have been illuminating,” he replied.
“It wasn’t. But he and Monica are definitely working together. And not just in bed.”
