The fire burned high, much higher than I’d expected. I laughed as I watched, this overwhelming sense of glee rushing through me.

We were on a small hill overlooking the farmhouse where Smythe headquartered his Guardians. Matthew told us that he originally moved the meeting place from home to home, taking over the houses belonging to church members at a moment’s notice. But then he invaded this particular home and decided he liked it. He took it over from the family who had owned it, pushing them into a much smaller home in town, telling them it was for the church that they had to forfeit their belongings. And, apparently, the family bought it.

The house was of moderate size, situated between a large pasture where a dozen cows were currently slumbering and this hill. There were dozens of cars parked out front of varying sizes and makes. The Kia was there, parked between a couple of pickups. I recognized a few of the other vehicles, too, mostly cars that had been parked behind my warehouse the night of the brawl.

This was definitely where the Guardians were hiding out. Matthew’s information was proving to be accurate up to this point.

Men came pouring out of the house in response to the burning bonfire in their front yard. They apparently hadn’t heard the sound of the grenade firing into the back of the car, but they’d for sure heard the explosion that followed.

I gestured for my men to move back, leading the way to where our own vehicles waited. There was laughter as we drove back to the warehouse.

It didn’t take long for them to retaliate. They arrived in a rush of tires squealing and dust flying. But we were waiting for them.

“Only six?” I asked as Quentin and Patrick walked up behind the men, guns pressed into a few backs. “Smythe must really have underestimated me.”

Six out of the way. Only some ninety-four to go.

The next fire was set in the farmhouse’s barn. Burned the dry hay until the entire barn was ignited. It was Willis who showed up at the warehouse after that.

“You’re making a mistake,” he said to me. “You can’t pick a fight with these people and expect them to just back off.”

“Are you here to arrest me?”

Willis’ eyes narrowed. “I’m here to warn you, Mr. Stone.”

I nodded slowly as I studied him. “Why aren’t you arresting me? Isn’t that what a sheriff does when someone commits arson? Doesn’t he arrest the offending party?” I tilted my head slightly as though something had just occurred to me. “Unless, of course, the local sheriff is married to the Guardians’ leader’s sister. And he can’t cover up the multiple complaints me and my friends have made against the Guardians before this particular little bit of arson.”

“Back off, Stone,” Willis grunted.

Sullivan came out of the warehouse behind us, backed up by Patrick. “This is private property, John,” he said. “You should probably move on.”

“Crispin,” Willis said, clearly shocked. “I should have known.”

“Go tell the sheriff that we’re coming for the Guardians, and if he doesn’t stay out of the way, we’ll take him down, too.”

Willis tried to appear unrattled, but he clearly was.

“Sheriff Donally isn’t afraid of you!” But he backed up and got in his car, tearing out of there in a rush of squealing tires.

“Okay,” I said. “On to the next phase of the plan.”

 

 

Charging into the farmhouse had seemed like a bad idea when we first kicked it around, but now that we had the Guardians on edge, it seemed like an even worse idea. I stood a yard from the back door, whispering a quick prayer under my breath as I prepared to charge through. I knew exactly who was in the building, had a good idea where each person was within the floor plan. I knew the kinds of weapons they had in there. I knew which rooms had to be cleared first. And I trusted every single man on my team. It was a much better plan than many of the raids I’d been part of when I was with the DEA. But I was still terrified at all the little things that could potentially go wrong.

I closed my eyes, counted to ten, and gave the signal over the comms we’d borrowed from Stone Security back in Memphis.

Time to go.

Quentin ran low to the ground in front of me, his gun at the ready by his side. If I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn he had some police training. He paused outside the back door of the farmhouse, glancing back at me. I raised the door ram and slammed into the thin wood door. It shattered into dozens of pieces, making a space large enough for Quentin to shove his wide shoulders through. I followed, the sound of other doors and windows breaking all around us. Someone yelled, “Get down! Get down!”

Quentin and I were in a kitchen. I ran low like he’d done outside and made my way to the narrow hallway that ran from this room to the living room. Chaos was the rule of the moment, people running every which way as my people came bursting through every opening dressed in riot gear belonging to Stone Security. Our logo was clear on the chest and back of each flak jacket, informing the Guardians of who exactly was coming at them.

That was important to me. I wanted them to know whom they were up against.

Four, five people were already rounded up by the time Quentin and I made it to the base of the stairs, their arms tied behind their backs with generic zip ties. We took the stairs two at a time, our guns raised, rushing toward the top landing. Doors were opening, men peeking their heads out into the hallway and then disappearing again the moment they spotted us. Much to my surprise—though I supposed I shouldn’t have been surprised—there were quite a few scantily clad women in these upstairs rooms as well.

“Take the left. I’ll take the right.”

Quentin nodded. We crossed paths, and each went about his task of clearing out these rooms. The first door I tried was locked. I raised my foot and broke the flimsy lock just in time to catch a half-naked man trying to climb out the window. I walked over and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, yanking him back into the room.

“I don’t think so. No one gets to skip out on my invitation to this particular party.”

The man looked up at me, a mixture of hatred and shame on his face. I looked from him to the blond in his bed and asked, “Your wife know what you do on these nights?”

“He owes me a hundred bucks,” the woman announced.

I almost told her she was out of luck, but then I spotted a wallet on the dresser. I grabbed it and tossed it at her. “Take whatever you want and get out of here, sweetheart. You aren’t going to want to be around for this.”

She smiled greedily, taking a stack of bills from the wallet before climbing out of the bed and quickly dressing. She was gone before I had the zip ties tightened on the man’s wrists.

“Where’s Tyler Sanders?” I asked as I dragged him out into the hall.

“With Smythe. Where else?”

I moved to the next door, repeating the same procedure there. I found myself wondering what the good people in town would think if they could see this little display of sin. Some of these women would look really pretty on one of my flyers.

We cleared the bedrooms, calling down for someone to come drag the men downstairs. I followed, pleased to see that the lower floor had been easily cleared. More than a dozen men sat in chairs, their hands and feet tied. We’d intentionally picked a night when we knew most of the Guardians would be at home with their families as these men should have been. We wanted a good number of men, but not so many that we couldn’t handle the numbers. And we wanted to be sure the three men we wanted the most would be around.

I walked between the chairs, lifting heads, studying faces. William Adams and Curtis Daniels were there, just as I’d hoped. We had more than a few clips from the security cameras at Alli’s shop to prove that these gentlemen were the ones who most often vandalized her shop. We knew they started the fire out in the parking lot and had pretty stills of their faces in the store itself the night someone decided to crush the product and defecate on her counters. These two were two of the men I desperately wanted to take down.

The other was on his way.

“A smooth operation, brother,” Brent said, coming to stand beside me.

“Smoother than the night we rescued Dane from the Mad Dog clubhouse.”

Brent rolled his eyes. “Don’t pat yourself on the back too hard.”

Gentry came up to stand on my other side. “Now what?”

“Now we wait for Smythe and Sanders to join the party.”

“Are you really sure that’s what you want, Jack?” Gentry asked.

“It’s the only way.” I chewed on my bottom lip a little. “Bo and Aidan have them under surveillance. If something goes wrong, they’ll be there.”

“They will,” Brent agreed, slapping me on the shoulder. “This will end everything.”

“I hope so.”

I watched as Quentin and Patrick moved around the circle of men, checking their restraints, making sure everyone was secured. Sullivan was there, too, leaning against a distant wall, watching everything like it was some show put on just for his benefit. His eyes were dark, distant, unreadable. I wondered what he thought of this whole thing. He was vocal before when Quentin had wanted to attack the farmhouse blind. But he hadn’t had much to say since we outlined this new plan.

Sullivan was an odd one. He was older than everyone else by at least twenty years. I knew he’d been with the local sheriff’s office for twenty years, only three of those years under the current sheriff. Before that, he worked for the Tucson police department. He had a good record, nothing in his past to make me think I couldn’t trust him. And I knew his wife had died five years ago from cancer. He had a son, but the boy lived in Chicago and didn’t appear to visit often. Watching him now, I thought of my father. Sullivan survived his wife’s death. He didn’t give up on his child or life in general. Why couldn’t my father have done that?

One of the hostages leaned over and retched on the floor. Quentin cursed, walking over and raising his gun over the guy’s head.

“No,” I said.

But Sullivan was there before any of us saw him move. He grabbed Quentin’s arm, whispered something in his ear, and stepped back. Quentin immediately lowered his arm and walked away.

A father. That’s what Sullivan was.

“How long do you suppose we’ll have to wait?” Brent asked.

“Not too long. Smythe was making his move right before I gave the order to come in. They should be here soon.”

Almost as though he was responding to my words, bright lights flashed over the front of the house, and a large truck stopped right in front of the porch.

“Stone!” a familiar voice bellowed. “I’ve got something here you might want!”

And so it began.