Into the Fury (BOSS, Inc. #1)(99)

Val forced herself to concentrate. “Did they catch them?”

Ethan shook his head. “No.”

Val gripped his hand. “While you were busy trying to keep the bike on the trail, I recognized one of the men. Not at first. He was out of place, you know? I didn’t put it together until a few minutes ago.”

His eyebrows went up. “You recognized one of the bastards who was shooting at us?”

She nodded. “Bick Gallagher. You shot him in the leg. At the time, all I could think of was getting out of there alive.”

“Yeah, me too.”





Tucker arrived carrying a tray with two mugs of beer, a glass of water, and a shot of brandy. Val watched as Ethan pulled out his phone.

“Sadie, beautiful, it’s Ethan. Thanks for saving my ass today. Mine and Val’s. Dirk’s, too.” He chuckled at something the woman said. “Yeah, yeah, I hear ya. Listen, I need you to go in, take another look at a guy named Bick Gallagher. He’s second in command at La Belle security. Val says he was one of the men shooting at us. While you’re at it, you might as well run Beau Desmond again.”

He nodded. “I know. You’ll have to go deep. Nothing shows up on the surface.” Sadie said something, and Ethan hung up the phone.

“She’s taking a second look. If there’s another Trojan horse, she’ll know how to get around it.”

Val looked at the men sitting at the table. “What are we going to do? We don’t have any clothes, nowhere to stay.”

Luke grinned. “Leave it to a woman to worry about the luxuries. Doesn’t matter if a horde of cutthroats are trying to gun her down—she wants to look good while she’s running for her life.”

Val laughed, reached over and punched him in the arm. At least he’d made her laugh when she felt more like crying.

Luke kept grinning. “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. We’ll go to my place. It doesn’t have all the comforts Dirk’s place has, but—”

“Make that had,” Ethan interrupted darkly. “Bastards burned the place down.”

“What? Jesus, I liked that house.”

“Yeah, so did Dirk. Add to that, my Jeep was in the garage.”

“Fuck. Like I said, my place might not have all the comforts, but it’s secure.”

“Luke’s got a cabin up in the hills above Gold Bar. It’s on the side of a mountain, looks down over the town. Perimeter alarms, security cameras, chain-link fence. Damn thing’s a fortress. Probably should have gone there in the first place.”

“We didn’t think they’d find us,” Val said.

Ethan shook his head. “These guys have been one step ahead of us from the start. I’m tired of it. It’s time we stepped up our game.”

Luke set his beer mug down on the table. “You’re thinking instead of waiting for them to come at us again, we go after them.” Luke grinned, more relaxed, blue eyes sparkling, looking more like the Luke she had met in the office. “Good idea” was all he said.





Chapter Thirty-Seven



“Loser stays with Val.”

“Wait a minute,” Val said, pinning Dirk with a glare. Ethan chuckled. They were in the living room of Luke’s rustic one-bedroom log cabin. The place had a galley kitchen with an old freestanding white stove, a propane fridge, and a counter with a sink. There was a small bedroom with a queen-size bed, a tiny bathroom with a shower, and a living room with a cast-iron woodstove, the only heat in the house. A windmill and propane ran the generator that provided electricity, which ran the lights and the well pump.

When Luke wanted to, he could stay way off the grid.

The good news was, Dirk had gotten out of his house without being hurt. He had crashed Ethan’s Jeep through the garage door to make his escape, so the vehicle hadn’t burned up. It ran, but the bad news was, it was going to take a lot of bodywork to repair the damned thing. Still, Ethan was grateful.

He held up the matchsticks he’d broken into lengths. Both Dirk and Luke pulled one and held it up.

“Looks like you stay, Dirk,” Ethan said.

Dirk said the f word beneath his breath.

“Hey, you already had your fun,” Luke said. “Now it’s my turn.”

But the truth was, Luke always did his best to avoid a firefight. He’d been Special Forces, a Delta operator. He’d still be there if he hadn’t taken a bullet in some foreign country on a mission he still couldn’t talk about. By the time he’d gotten back into fighting form, he’d moved on with his life. He’d given his all for God and country, would again if he was needed, but he’d discovered he wanted more.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t yet figured out exactly what that more was.

“You know, maybe you should take Val instead of me,” Luke teased. “I hear she shot the hell out of those bastards from the back of your dirt bike.”

“You should have seen her in Atlanta,” Dirk said proudly. “Knocked some perv loop-legged with a curling iron.”

Luke grinned. “My kind of woman.”

Ethan glanced over at Val, but she was no longer smiling. Fat tears rolled down her cheeks. Ethan threw a hard look at his friends. “All right, you two, now look what you’ve done.”