Explosive Alliance (Wingmen Warriors 9)

Paige's arms went around Kirstie, tucking her close and behind.

Kirstie? They needed Kirstie to talk?

He would wager money Vic had been lured away on a bogus call tonight so Paige would have to come. Given the recent scare, she was certain to bring Kirstie along.

Anderson circled Paige, Kirstie scurrying in a circle around her mother's legs to escape.

"You could have made this so easy if only you'd let Rusty here fly for you. Or even if you'd spent a little time with me, leaned, trusted. I would have taken care of you and your kid. I've been patient for damn near a year now."

Logic shuffled the jarring pieces into place. Hadn't Seth's accident even occurred at the Anderson place when he'd fallen through rotten boards in a nearly new barn? Rusty must have been sent as a plant inside Paige's home for whatever hell this bastard had in mind.

Until Bo had ruined that plan by offering to fly instead. Could problems with the plane also have been a frustrated effort to run them out of business so she would need to "lean on him" as the bastard had put it?

Bo stepped between Rusty's AR-15 and Paige. "I don't know what the hell's going on here, but how about we let Kirstie climb into your Suburban—" which would offer more shelter from flying bullets "—and then we can talk."

Anderson's 9 mm never wavered from Kirstie, threatening the person guaranteed to keep them both in line. "I'm afraid we can't do that since apparently she has information good ol' Kurt failed to supply before he died."

What did Anderson and the two goons flanking him have to do with Kurt Haugen's dealings? "That's why you've been speaking to her?"

"Not at first. We just wanted to track her mother's movements in case anything new came to light about Kurt's finances." Angling closer to Paige, Anderson tsk, tsk, tsked. "That damn screwup died without telling us where he'd hidden the money he planned to use when he moved his family out of the country. Stupid fool. There's no getting out of this business once you're in."

Anderson glided his knuckles down Paige's cheek. A hazy red rage threatened to fog Bo's brain as he watched her struggle not to wince. The fighter inside him longed to lash out and end it now, but he wouldn't let impulsive arrogance dictate his actions now as he'd done in Rubistan.

Keep cool. Logical. Be patient and wait.

Paige inched farther in front of her daughter. "You're a part of what he was mixed up in?

Drug trafficking?"

"I travel enough to trade shows that no one questions the movements of my shipments, some of them from Kurt." Anderson shifted his 9 mm to the middle of Paige's chest, stalling any of Bo's plans to jockey into a better position. "Except he held on to the final payment. All the selfish bastard ever said was that he'd hidden the lockbox with the information and we'd never find it."

Watch. Wait. Paige was buying them time with her questions, answers hopefully floating right through the cell phone inside the open plane. He kept his hands loose, ready to act.

"But you had him killed so he wouldn't finger you."

"Not me. Higher-ups who didn't care about his money, small pickings for them. If they'd been a little more patient, we could have had it all. I was almost ready to give up on you and then your lawyer found that safe deposit box."

"How did you—"

"That little break-in put us onto your lawyer. Nice touch with stealing the drugs, don't you think? Anyhow, your lawyer had impeccable credentials—but his paralegal? Not so much. She rolled for a pittance."

"You set up the purse snatcher?"

"I couldn't take the chance you would turn the contents of the box over to the police."

Anderson stepped back, nodding to Eddie. "Enough already, for Pete's sake. There's no more time for finesse. Get to it."

The big blond guy with his bushy eyebrows knelt and peered around Paige's leg at the cowering kid. "Miss Kirstie Adella, let's talk some more about the poems and fairy tales your daddy mentioned in his letter. Did any of those include a buried treasure?"

The man tipped a knuckle under her quivering chin. Kirstie scuttled farther behind her mother.

Bo watched—still logical, still planning, even as he realized rage wasn't red after all. It was a deep purple, darkening his vision into a tunnel.

His world narrowed to the two females beside him. He would die before he let even one of these bastards hurt either Paige or Kirstie.

They were all going to die.

Paige couldn't ignore the obvious reality as clear as the determination in Bo's eyes. They were going to have to fight three armed men while somehow protecting Kirstie if the cops didn't show up very soon. These were heartless criminals who held guns on a child and sacrificed a helpless animal for their own greed. They were beyond reason.