Page 36 of Summer's Edge

It’s not exactly desert, but it’s all very arid and Ruin and I didn’t pass any inhabited buildings for miles after turning onto the road that led us here.

“And there’s a bunch more desert, as you put it, between here and the house we’re hitting,” Hunter says. “Didn’t Ruin explain the job to you?”

“He told me some, but mostly he just kept tiring me with other nonsense,” I say and give Ruin a dark look.

He doesn’t look cowed. “I would’ve just confused him. You know how I’m no good at explaining plans.”

Ruin’s not wrong in his self-assessment, so Hunter shrugs and tells me to follow him into the building. He’s our president Cross’ son and will make a fine replacement as our president one day, even though they’re nothing alike. Where Cross likes to play things close to the heart, keeping the rest of us on a need-to-know basis, Hunter is all about including everyone in everything. Or maybe it just seems that way to me because we’re good friends, and I respect Cross too much to assume that kind of familiarity with him.

“So, the thing is, this guy Clive Krueger messed with Trixie and is still messing with some friends of mine now,” Hunter explains as we walk. “He also took Trixie’s engagement ring.”

“The thing you’ve been carrying around for the past ten years?” I ask before thinking better of it. But they’re married now, the guy’s gotta have some sense of humor about their turbulent past by now.

He proves me right by grinning at me over his shoulder. “Good, so you see my point that it’d be too much of a waste to let the thing stay lost. Chance, for example, doesn’t.”

“I never said that,” Chance grumbles since he was meant to overhear. “I just think that maybe we need more guys for this job, and that looking for a ring is a side quest we don’t need to go on right now.”

He’s our VP Tank’s son and a loose cannon on the best of days. Hearing him say we need more backup is practically unheard of, so I’m thinking we should maybe listen to him.

He’s standing next to our newest hacker recruit, Gene, who is busy typing something into his computer. All I see on the screen is an endless line of code though, so I have no idea what he’s actually doing.

“Can you bring up the photos and plans so we can go over the plan again?” Hunter asks Gene, but the guy shakes his head.

“Gotta let this program run so we’ll have eyes inside the place,” he says.

“Aright,” Hunter says and turns to me. “It’s not that complicated anyway. We’re hitting a large house about two miles down this road. The plan is to go in, take out all the bodyguards and kill the man living there.”

“This Clive guy?”

Hunter nods.

“Don’t forget we gotta make him give us the ring first,” Chance chimes in.

“Sounds like a pretty straightforward job,” I cut in before Hunter can reply to Chance. “Unless we’re talking like fifty bodyguards.”

Chance and Hunter exchange a look. The kind that doesn’t mean anything good.

“We counted thirty,” Gene says when neither of them replies. “And once I hack into the security cams on the premises we should know where all of them are at all times.”

“OK, that sounds good,” I say eyeing Hunter and Chance who are still not saying anything. Jax and Ruin have joined us now too.

“What’s not so good is that these bodyguards are heavily armed, well-trained and they’re gonna try and keep Clive alive at all costs,” Hunter explains. “He owes them a shitload of money.”

“And while I don’t doubt we can take them, I still think we need a bigger force,” Chance adds.

“We ain’t gonna get it,” Hunter says. “They’re needed up north.”

Asking what’s happening up north is on the tip of my tongue, but I don’t want to sound disloyal. Hunter needs me. He’s always been there for me, he just helped get me out of prison, for one thing, and he doesn’t need me second guessing him now.

“If we’ll have eyes on the inside, it should be straight forward,” I say instead. “So you wanna move tonight?”

“It has to be tonight,” Hunter says. “As soon as Gene gets us access to the cameras. Because who knows how long that will last.”

“I’m good at this shit so they won’t notice for a while,” Gene says. “But I can’t promise you more than four hours. Five tops. They’re pros.”

“All right, so we go in tonight,” I say. “I’m gonna need some weapons.”

I could also use a change of clothes and I really want my bike, but that’s not in the cards for me right now.

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