Page 67 of Special Agent Jennie

Chapter Forty-eight

Kane couldn’t believe his eyes when three people stepped into the cabin after the others left. He recognized the warning on Lance’s face and somehow his instincts kicked in. When Jennie showed next, he’d been somewhat prepared. But he didn’t expect the man following them. What made his legs weak was seeing the gun held in Jennie’s back and the sudden hate that flared over his stepbrother’s face.

Jesus help me…

The gun-toting dipshit stood there in all his dysfunctional glory, his shock as great as Kane’s. Suddenly, Kane felt like all the whack-a-moles in the game stayed down at the same time. Everything fell into place. Here stood the Commander, the jerk-off whose hate-filled heart felt no compassion for anyone.

“Hey, bro. Long time no see.” Kane played it as cool as he could with his nerves beating a drum message of danger to his brain.

Lee pushed Jennie ahead of him into the room but kept control with his hand tightly gripping her arm. Though he’d paled, he didn’t flinch.

“Kane? Hey, dude, fancy meeting you here.”

Before Kane could answer, Gordie stepped forward and started taking control of the room. “You took your time showing up, boss. Your text came minutes ago, and we three held back to wait for you. This here’s Ham,” he pointed at the skinny figure next to him. Then he walked closer to Kane so he could wrap an arm over his shoulder. “This here’s my newest recruit. He’s a real find for the group… smart as a whip. And I’m Gordie, the voice on the other end of our phone conversations.”

Kane couldn’t believe that Gordie intended to pretend there weren’t two other people in the room being held there by the gun in Lee’s hand. Seems he wanted the big boss to have confidence that he could deal with any situation.

“So… who’s this you have here?” He approached Lance and flinched. “Hey, what’s going on? This guy is Kane’s buddy who just got released from jail. Why’s he here?” Gordy swung around to face Kane for an answer.

Kane didn’t hesitate. “I put him outside to guard the place. It seemed stupid not to have a man watching to be sure we didn’t get any surprise visitors from the law. Plus, I didn’t want him to know exactly what we were doing. The less folks know the better. Right?”

Gordie nodded but before he could speak, Ham interrupted. “Good going, Kane. We should have thought of that, Gordie. This place always seems so isolated.”

“Shut up, Ham.” Gordie must have seen the disparaging frown on Lee’s face before he turned on Ham with his mean streak fully apparent.

Too stupid to see the signs, Ham stumbled further into his own pit of doom. “Well…you don’t have-ta be like that. I was just saying—”

Voice filled with sudden anger; Gordie yelled, “You talk too much. I’ve told you that a million times.” He swung around, his gun in his hand, and before Kane could move, he shot Ham in the heart. The man flew backward and hit the wall, dead before his eyes closed. No feeling at all appeared on Gord’s face. Kane had no doubt he wanted the Commander to see how strong and in control he was. And he’d sensed the man was pissed at him because of Lance and Jennie suddenly being in the picture.

Before the tension had lightened, Gordie swung his gun to Lance. That’s when Kane stepped in his face. “You shoot that mother and, buddy, I’ll have to take you down.”

Lee broke into the conversation, his ire evident. “This here’s an FBI agent I caught prowling around. And she’s friends with your so-called guard. I caught them schmoozing out back, friendly as all get out. How do you explain that bullshit?”

Kane went to Lance, a warning lighting up his eyes. His backhand came fast and hard. “You messin’ with me, Lance? I caught you more times than I want to remember with your pants down rather than paying attention to the job at hand.”

Lance stumbled backward, picked up the cue, and began to whine. “Hey, man, she’s my girl’s old lady. I might have mentioned I’d be on a dangerous job tonight… you know how I brag when I’m drunk? I guess the princess got worried and thought her FBI mom might keep me safe.” Lance wasn’t sure how much Lee had overheard and wanted to stay on point as much as possible. “She don’t know nothing, so maybe let her go before she gets hurt, and we have the whole fucking FBI on our backs.”

“That’s a hard no.” Lee spoke up, his voice gritty with disgust. With his gun still pressed to Jennie’s back, he motioned for Gordie to stand down and looked over at Kane. “Still can’t figure out what you’re doing with this bunch, bro? I’da put money on you turning out different. You always were a self-righteous prick from what I remember.”

Kane sauntered closer, careful not to make the other man nervous. He refused to look at Jennie because if he saw any fear at all, he’d melt and do something stupid. “Guess you and the old man made more of an impact than you figured. All those beatings taught me the weak don’t win. A person can’t listen to all that racist shaming without the truth of it sinking in.”

Lee’s eyes narrowed. His mouth formed a thin line. A grunt broke through before he slowly let a grin appear. “Well, son of a bitch. The old fucker would be proud.”

With his head thrown back, Kane’s fake laugh allowed him to lose eye contact so Lee wouldn’t see the utter disgust he felt all the way to his soul. Then he made a move to Jennie. “Hey, this one isn’t too hard on the eyes. I might want some time alone with her.”

Before Kane could stop it from happening, Lee slammed the gun into the back of her head and down she went… out cold. Lance moved fast, pushing Kane aside before he did something crazy and crouched down beside her. “What’d you hit her for? She didn’t do nuthin’.”

Lee began putting his gun behind him in the waistband of his pants. “Shut up you dumb fuck, or I’ll let Gordie loose on you too.”

Kane’s eyes lifted to see the sicko’s unhidden glee for being noticed. He’d never realized how twisted Gordie became when violence happened. Giving him a push, needing an outlet for his fury, Kane commented, “Back off, Gordie. We got no more time to be stupid.”

Lance’s quick nod let him know that Jennie wasn’t hurt badly. Thinking to get the evil away from her, he swore loud enough to get their attention. “Jesus H. Christ. Forget the bitch already. There’s an army of men who’ll be waiting at my place to celebrate with both of you. Let’s go and check up on how the guys distributing the baskets made out. If we want the big news splash tomorrow, we better be sure there were no hang-ups tonight.” Secretly hoping that’s exactly what occurred… that the task force had picked up the guys before they could make contact with Gord, Kane wanted these evil scum-suckers away from Jennie.

Heading for the door, praying the others would follow and ignore the woman still sprawled in a heap, he stepped right up to Lee and wrapped an arm over his shoulder. “Let’s go. You come in your own vehicle, bro? I’ll ride with you. We can catch up on old times along the way.”

Lance held back, not sure what was expected. Finally, Gordie put the weapon away that he’d held cradled in his arm. “Got room for us too, boss?”

Lee grinned. “Nope. Got me a fancy truck with room for two. We’ll see you at Kane’s place.”

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