Page 123 of Tenderfoot

We’d just got to the shade at the side of the garage when it went down.

Gabe’s Jeep raced down the road, a shiny BMW in hot pursuit.

We all hugged the side of the garage and watched, because, at the last minute, on a screech of tires, Gabe braked, then swung into Titus’s driveway and came to an abrupt halt.

After the BMW passed them, the two cars pulled out of the driveways down the street, boxing the BMW in from behind.

Both Gabe and Cap were out of the Jeep faster than you could blink, each with guns in their hands.

But Titus was on the sidewalk.

And he had a gun too.

He took aim.

BLAM!

We jumped.

The back tire of BMW exploded.

BLAM! BLAM!

We jumped again.

Cap and Gabe were also on the sidewalk, guns up, eyes to the sights, and the front tire was out.

The car careened, hit the bumper of one of the cars blocking the street, jumped the curb, smashed into a tree and stopped.

Cap, Gabe, Titus, and Titus’s four guys who’d exited their vehicles sprinted toward the car.

“Oh God,” Raye whispered.

I still had hold of her hand, and I kept hold.

But the two guys in the car didn’t have time to do anything tragic.

First, their airbags had deployed, so they were fighting those.

Second, Cap went to one side, and at an angle that would cause no bodily harm, he shot out the window at the same time his shot deflated the airbag. Gabe went to the other side, and he did the same thing.

Then they reached in the windows and one-armed dragged the men out of the car and onto their bellies. And in such a blur I didn’t know where they even got the zip ties, both of the men were hogtied on their stomachs on Titus’s neighbor-two-doors-down’s lawn.

More men showed out of what seemed like thin air while the first wave jogged back to the cars in the street.

Those cars drove away.

A huge Ram truck appeared and backed up to the BMW. A guy waiting there made short work of hooking the BMW to the back jack on the Ram.

The Ram drove off, towing the BMW.

And Cap and Gabe, with Titus’s men helping, picked up the dudes they’d just nabbed and carried them to Titus’s man cave, walking right by us, and I wasn’t the only one who watched with my mouth hanging open.

Oh, and by the way, Titus winked at us as he passed.

The door closed behind them when they got the men into Titus’s garage.

And Titus’s street looked like a perfectly executed takedown didn’t just happen.

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