The Best Friend Zone

“I want you alive,” he growls. “You have my word. Putting you down instantly like the bastard you are ain’t in the cards.”

How comforting.

I hang up then, because right now, less is more.

Leave him full of questions, scrambling to send a few of his goons away to cover his ass.

Let him think I’m coming with surprises, and he’ll have to work to torture me.

I pull into the yard a minute later, steering past the broken-down fence out front.

Four burly, nasty-looking men, all armed, surround my truck instantly.

Good times. Everybody’s gonna get a workout tonight.

Hurling open the door, I pop off my seatbelt and leap out, marching forward like they’re nothing more than the annoying help.

Bat looks just like I remember. He’s the spitting image of Jake, slightly younger, a jagged scar forming a half crescent up one side of his head.

I wonder what otherworldly demon Mama Pickett slept with on at least two occasions to produce these soulless, dead-eyed, menacingly tall killers.

And he has a vicious hold on Tory’s arm, hard enough to bruise, her hands still tucked behind her back. Tied, I’m sure.

It rattles my brain like a bone-crunching blow to the face. A strange flood of relief that she’s okay and livid fury that she’s a prisoner.

Panic, hurt, shame, and fear for what I’m about to do to them whips through me like a current.

One of the armed minions steps in front of me.

Too pissed to be intimidated, I grab the barrel of his gun, yank it from his hand, and bash him across the head with the stock.

The satisfying crack! only lasts a second.

Then I’m surrounded by two, three, four more guns.

Bat looks at me, baring his teeth, a cowardly glint in his eye. “Enough! You make one more move, I’ll shoot your balls off.”

“Glad you know I’ve got ’em.” I toss down the gun as the fallen goon on the ground twitches. “Let her go and call off your boys. This bullshit’s between you and me and nobody else.”

He sighs, waving a hand at the men, but jerks Tory back with him, creeping along the side of the house. They’re heading for the lake I can smell in the distance.

“It is between us, Faulkner,” he says slowly. “But first, you’re gonna get an overdue taste of your own medicine.”

I don’t understand till the magnum he’s kept trained on me swings up.

The barrel bites the side of Tory’s neck as he swings it against her, and my fucking heart stops.

I can’t scream, can’t charge him, can’t make him shoot me instead.

Not when one simple pull of the trigger will annihilate the love of my life.

So, I just ball my hands into fists.

“The hell do you want from me? I’m here, I’m talking, I’ll give myself up the second you let her go!” I surge forward, I can’t control it, but he shoves the gun harder into her neck, forcing a whimper from her throat.

“Not so fast, Romeo, or she gets a bullet just like her mutt.”

Fuck, Owl? I wondered where he’d gone.

And now I have one more reason to murder this sun-blocking bastard.

I dig my heels into the ground, all I can do to keep from lunging forward, damn the consequences.

It’s too risky. There’re too many chances that gun will go off before I ever reach him.

Then a new gun pokes me in the back, urging me forward as Bat pulls Tory along, closer and closer to what looks like a worn down dock on the lake.

Tory’s eyes flutter and her gaze meets mine.

Shit, think. Think!

I have a gun tucked in my waistband and a knife in my boot, but going for either one is also too risky right now.

So I walk forward, staring at Tory, trying to assure her I won’t let anything happen.

Without being able to pull a weapon, I use the only Ace I’ve got.

Words.

“Guess you had to swap wits for an extra foot of height, huh?” I mutter.

“What?” Pickett snaps, those pale-grey eyes opening a little wider.

“Ted Goode’s playing you like a fiddle, Bat,” I say as calmly as I can muster. “Are you that goddamn stupid? He’s the guy who got your brother killed. He’s the one who helped Jake snuff out his girlfriend, too. And now he’s using you to do his dirty work, setting you up the same way he’s planning to do to me. You’ll die in a shootout as soon as you’re done with me.”

Bat stumbles slightly. A rock, maybe, but I’m sure it was my statement.

“Shut the fuck up, you—”

“I ain’t finished. He wants you believing the prison hit was all my fault for putting Jake away, sharing the burden with the boys who held him down in a grimy sink,” I say. “All so you’ll try to take me out, when what he really wants is for it to look like we took each other out. We’re the only two men alive who know what Ted Goode really is, and how he loves making money.”